Every category where a model named Upwork for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Contingent workforce management	Workforce planning and analytics	2%	10 of 97	24%	21	accepted challenger
Internal talent marketplace	Performance and talent management	0%	100 of 128	45%	20	criticized challenger
Job advertising and distribution	Talent acquisition	0%	73 of 109	25%	4	under 10 labels · led by JobTarget at 21%
Skills intelligence	Performance and talent management	0%	158 of 161	100%	3	under 10 labels · led by TalentGuard at 19%
Coaching platforms	Learning and development	0%	92 of 116	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by Growthspace at 26%
Compensation management	Compensation and total rewards	0%	129 of 186	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by Pave at 18%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Upwork yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Upwork across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

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Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	1	1	2
GPT-5.4 mini	0	1	2	0	3
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	1	1	4	6
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	2	0	2
Grok 4.1 Fast	2	0	1	2	5
Mistral Small	0	1	2	1	4
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	2	3	2	7
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	1	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	1	2	3	2	8
Kimi K2	0	0	3	2	5
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	0	1	2	4
MiniMax M2.5	0	1	1	3	5

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase27 labels7

Comparative47 labels9not counted in share

Budget-constrained1 labelNone

Scale-constrained3 labelsNone

Negative60 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative138 labels in all, every segment counted; 7 of the 17 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Upwork = broad talent, flexible pricing, moderate vetting → best for ongoing projects.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Internal talent marketpl · comparative prompt · first choice

“I'd recommend Upwork Enterprise (also known as Lifted in some contexts) as the top choice.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Contingent workforce man · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“Choose based on needs: Upwork for versatility, Fiverr for speed, Toptal for excellence.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Internal talent marketpl · comparative prompt · first choice

“Widely used with robust payment protection (Escrow).” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Marketplaces Without Vetting (Fiverr, Upwork, Craigslist) ... using them for high-stakes life or business coaching is risky.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Coaching platforms · negative prompt · hard negative

“Some sites charge for every proposal or application (e.g., Upwork's Connect system). Monthly memberships can add up quickly.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · soft negative

“Rather than standard hiring marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr, you need a dedicated Freelancer Management System (FMS)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Contingent workforce man · paraphrase prompt · soft negative

“talent marketplaces that one should be cautious about or avoid. Some of the marketplaces mentioned include Upwork” Llama 4 Maverick · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Upwork, over the 137 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Upwork was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Fiverr105 of 1373Not among the top eight

Toptal63 of 13712Not among the top eight

Freelancer.com53 of 1370Not among the top eight

Deel35 of 13710Not among the top eight

Worksuite28 of 1375Not among the top eight

SAP Fieldglass28 of 1374Not among the top eight

Beeline28 of 1372Not among the top eight

Worksome24 of 1373Not among the top eight

PeoplePerHour24 of 1371Not among the top eight

Remote21 of 1371Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Upwork. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 113 of the 137 answers that named Upwork and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

g2.com45

upwork.comYour site35

talentdesk.io33

worldmetrics.org31

peoplemanagingpeople.com30

awesomic.com25

gartner.com25

learn.g2.com22

linkedin.com22

reddit.com22

255 of the 290 domain citations in answers naming Upwork came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

learn.g2.com/best-freelancer-management-systems21

gartner.com/reviews/market/internal-talent-marketplaces19

cotocus.com/blog/top-10-workforce-marketplace-platforms-features-pros-cons-comparison18

guideflow.com/blog/freelancer-management-system18

cbr.exchange/blogs/how-to-choose-a-talent-marketplace-key-criteria-for-202617

selectsoftwarereviews.com/buyer-guide/freelance-management-system16

talentdesk.io/blog/best-contingent-workforce-management-software16

awesomic.com/blog/ultimate-list-talent-marketplaces-for-businesses-in-202515

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Upwork

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Upwork; a claim can dispute any of them.

Upwork Enterprise 12Upwork Business Plus 1Upwork Enterprise / Fiverr Enterprise 1

Follow Upwork

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Upwork's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Upwork, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

With a new claim: the vendor brief

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Upwork by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Upwork is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Upwork, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at upwork.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.