Joe is an AI engineer who bills $95 an hour on Upwork. He started with Earlybird in May. AI work on Upwork comes as both fixed-price and hourly jobs, across a wide range of specific tools and skills, so finding the right postings takes as much effort as winning them.
Winning on Upwork rewards showing up early and consistently across a high volume of relevant postings. In AI, new jobs post constantly and the strongest early proposals get the replies.
Keeping up by hand means watching the feed and writing proposals between client deliveries. Every hour of that is unbilled, and it limits how many of the right jobs one engineer can reach.
Earlybird split Joe's prospecting across three bidders: fixed-price AI jobs, hourly AI jobs, and jobs that ask for specific tech and skills. It detected 1,030 relevant gigs and sent tailored proposals from his own profile an average of 8.9 minutes after each posting. After the first reply it kept the conversation moving, across 32 conversations and 8 meetings scheduled.
Earlybird sent 344 proposals for Joe, which returned 46 replies at a 13.5% reply rate, against about $899.85 in Upwork connects. That pipeline converted into 5 projects and $9,160.83+ earned, or $8,260.98 net of connects, with 4 gigs still ongoing. By mid-July his replies were climbing fast enough that he had to pause bidding because he was at capacity.
I have to hand it to you guys, this really is working great. After the portfolio upgrading I did last week and earlier this week my replies are exploding. Another two contracts are likely closing this week. I'm at the point already where I have to pause bidding because I'm at capacity and need to figure out how to scale 😂
A $150.75 proposal spend returned $57,275 in closed work. Here's exactly what changed when Earlybird took over the top of his funnel.
A $150.75 proposal spend returned $57,275 in closed work. Here's exactly what changed when Earlybird took over the top of his funnel.
5 WordPress projects and $13,338+ earned from 217 AI-sent proposals in a single month with Earlybird.
5 WordPress projects and $13,338+ earned from 217 AI-sent proposals in a single month with Earlybird.
5 AI engineering projects and $9,160+ earned from 344 AI-sent Upwork proposals, with 4 gigs still ongoing.
5 AI engineering projects and $9,160+ earned from 344 AI-sent Upwork proposals, with 4 gigs still ongoing.
