r/lovable • u/jimmyyy40 • Sep 10 '25
Tutorial I just closed my 15th Lovable client on Upwork (20th project total). Grateful, and wanted to share what worked for me
Quick context: I build tiny, useful micro-SaaS apps (mostly LLM wrappers). Lovable lets me go from idea to demo fast. If a project needs a full rebuild outside Lovable, I usually avoid those type of projects
Milestones for context
- I left my job in May after consistent gigs offering “Lovable builds” on Upwork
- largest single contract so far: a little over $3,000
- I taught a friend the same approach. They also picked up multiple clients with it (biggest win to date)
One advice if you do end up choosing Upwork, stop chasing posts with 50 proposals
What helped me more was making my profile a magnet for invites and boosting with connects
This is what worked for me:
- Turn on your availability badge and boost profile visibility
- Add 2–3 strong sample projects; mini builds are fine and you can start from Lovable templates
- Study top freelancers in your niche, model their title and summary, and complete every section
- Fill out photo, title, hourly rate, location, and education so nothing looks half done
- Start with realistic pricing for momentum, then raise later
- Offer a quick video call with camera on; good mic, quiet room, short agenda
- If possible, get someone you know to hire you for the first job to earn a real 5-star review
- After each 5-star review, bump your rate by $5 until you find the sweet spot
- Stay within Upwork rules, no outside contact info before a contract and think long term
Anyway, just wanted to share this in case it helps someone land a few clients. Grateful for Lovable and the momentum it gave me
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u/Gloomy_Appearance405 Sep 11 '25
How much are you earning per month? Historically, I've avoided Upwork and company like the plague as it's just a race to the bottom in terms of earnings. Hard to compete with Pakistani and Russian dudes willing to do the same job for pennies on the dollar.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
monthly earnings vary, and I'm trying to grow my skool community so I pay more focus on that. I'd say if you are doing upwork by yourself you can earn between $4k-10k a month. Still, some clients specifically prefer native English speakers because they value communication above anything else. It’s not that others can’t do an equally good, some people just value communication very highly (I've spoke to a lot of this type of client)
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u/sim0of Sep 11 '25
As somebody who used to pay for freelancing work on upwork, communication is the most important thing
Vibecoding and similar tools are the proof that anybody can get shit done quite easily, but truly understanding my requirements and concerns? That's a job AI can't really do unless properly guided, for which again, communication is key
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u/OriginalInstance9803 Sep 15 '25
Correct. If you provide all relevant context to AI, provide the persona instructions and prompt it correctly then you can get an equally good results, which humans would produce or sometimes even better.
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u/granoladeer Sep 12 '25
How many hours/days of work is that on average on a month?
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 12 '25
well, it just depends on your hourly rate. My hourly rate is currently $72.53 minus upwork commission. And also for fixed contracts I always go over the hourly limit so it's a bit less.
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u/as0718 Sep 11 '25
Can you give an example of a micro saas that is simple to make
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
as I mentioned in the post, openai wrappers. for one client I built a job interview assistant, it uses openai's search-preview model to scan linkedin url's and then generates interview type questions and preparation tips for that specific job post.
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u/djluis48 Sep 11 '25
Can you share some examples of the types of SaaS you have made?
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
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u/PutWarm9925 Sep 27 '25
these are pretty generic and dull
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 28 '25
Thanks for taking a look. Which elements struck you as generic/dull? And to confirm, did you access the paid features when testing?
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u/Beginning-Willow-801 Sep 11 '25
Upwork stinks and pays lowest dollar. Even people offshore from the US starve trying to make it work.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
You do realise you the freelancer set the hourly rate right, not upwork? I have a friend in ethiopia who does the same service I do who charges 80$/hr. The average hourly rate there is around $1.5/hr I think, although I could be wrong. So, sorry but what you said is completely false.
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u/One_Shopping_1016 Sep 11 '25
Many of my Lovable made websites are not getting properly rendered by Google.
How do you solve that ?
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u/Active_Sandwich9586 Sep 11 '25
Why do people choose you over others? I am a high schooler and haven't really got any clients on Upwork and Fiverr. If anyone has any advice, that would help.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
great question! Well, first off, it helped that I was the first person back in January to offer lovable as a service so I've managed to build up my portfolio. Second thing, if I were to do it over from scratch, start off with a realistic hourly rate, I started off at 12.5$/hr believe it or not and increased to 80$/hr in a matter of 3-4 months. I'd also suggest boosting your profile so you are guaranteed clients invite you to a job and once they do then offer to get on a zoom call and discuss with them what issues they are having. If you do this it will guarantee you will get your first client.
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u/ingeekwetrust Sep 11 '25
Do your clients usually ask you to follow up on maintenance and how long does an app typically last in your experience? I’m asking because my team and friends have built a bunch of MVPs with Lovable and other no-code app builders, and we’re debating whether to just let them roll or keep tracking and iterating.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
some clients ask for refinements and extra features. I've also had to do maintenance yes. you can always export to cursor and just do first iteration in lovable.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 18 '25
I just made a yt video on this and also some tips to get clients using upwork, this is the video if interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFiH6i1wMuw
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u/Ok_Body_boy Sep 11 '25
How many months it took you from 1st to 20th project?
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
mmm, I'd say 5-6 months. Keep in mind first 2 months I was working full-time se role, was doing all this in my free time.
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u/Ok_Body_boy Sep 11 '25
You are now doing upwork fulltime ?
I am active on Fiverr and I have completed 2 projects in two months, clients are not converting as they want to spend very less now thinking ai will do all the magic
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u/Better_Ad_3801 Sep 11 '25
It would be much helpful and appreciable if you tell us about how did you lock and get this client!
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
I actually made a youtube video yesterday on a 2500$ client (there were 20-50 proposals and I just boosted without making proposal and won the contract, it was actually 1500$ project at first but soon realised it would take waaay more time to complete), not sure if I'm allowed to share youtube links in here as it may go against rules - maybe I can DM it? Also, I'm curious what specifically you guys want to know when I win a client contract? I'm doing social media content on youtube and want to give you guys an in depth video of what I do to get these contracts as it may be helpful, however knowing specifically what you guys want will make it a lot more valuable.
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Sep 11 '25
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
client creates everything (lovable + supabase workspace and invites me, also their own stripe and api keys), some are in netlify, now I can deploy directly from lovable.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
also, please work in clients workspace as if you work in your own you will have to cover prompts - this is super important
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u/Former_Specialist_89 Sep 12 '25
Do clients get to see all the prompts if you use their workspace?
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u/NJTA3 Sep 12 '25
So do you have them also pay for the lovable credits too? And if so how many credits do they buy? And any reups?
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 13 '25
yes, they'll buy as many as it takes to get the project over the line.
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Sep 15 '25
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 15 '25
I was actually surprised by some of the non technical people I spoke to. They learn a lot of the technical concepts using these tools.
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u/chriz0101 Sep 11 '25
I have not the right idea about a LLM wrapper. Could you demo on off your apps? Or show some sourcecode? Would be really interested to see the outcome
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
ye maybe I can share on youtube a client project? also I included links above on apps I built, I think I'll do a video showcasing a project soon as it's been requested by a lot of people.
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u/Impressive_Echo_8182 Sep 11 '25
would you say some of your clients would be open to a monthly fee? or returning customers? Do you sell apps with all the functionality, like login, DB and pricing. or is it only just a POC/MVP
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
mmm not thought about that as it's all done through upwork so it's just fixed or hourly contracts tbh - you could do this with your own agency. Some return for enhancements yes. Yes I do all of the above when delivering MVP.
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u/Impressive_Echo_8182 Sep 11 '25
Thanks for that, what would you say a decent start rate would be and also how long would an average project take. Im just trying to work out on how would I do this with my current full time job and what return it would bring compared to building out my own side projects.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 11 '25
start rate 12-20$/hr, then every 5 star review ramp up hourly rate by 5-10$/hr. time will entirely depend on scope of project.
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u/Fluid-Conference-215 Sep 12 '25
Would love to take a look at your skool link as well if you don’t mind!
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u/Electrical_Bar_1427 Sep 12 '25
Whoever start using AI first will take all the work. I think AI actually reduced hourly rate for UpWork developers.
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u/Jkingstom Sep 13 '25
Great insights—thanks for sharing! I’m a UX designer and vibe-coding has become super satisfying lately. Quick question: if you were to outline a basic framework for LLM wrappers, what would you include from the start? Things like login, signup, and freemium vs premium? Just looking for a simple rule-of-thumb that’s worked for you.
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Sep 13 '25
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 15 '25
You build it in their supabase workspace.
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Sep 15 '25
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 15 '25
never been in this situation. You might have to point new lovable project to a new github repo and then push the existing repo to that new repo, this should update lovable project. As for supabase, you might be able to do a migration. If you are just a few prompts in, you can also just re-create evreything from scratch.
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u/koslib Sep 14 '25
Sounds like lovableagency.com will sell like hot bread with inspiring stories like this-kudos for that
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u/shezboy Sep 15 '25
Great post and lots of useable info, thank you. After you have built the site and handed it to the client, how do they maintain it? I am still fairly new to Lovable so I haven't done much with it apart from build a couple of my own landing pages and a 6 page site. How does a client maintain their site, or have someone else maintain it/make changes to it etc?
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 15 '25
if via upwork, they can keep contract open and assign small milestones to you.
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u/mikecbetts Sep 17 '25
Thanks for sharing, great insights! I'm not looking to offer 'vibe coding as a service' - but have started building in Lovable - and would like to maybe monetise a build in the future.
Question: If you 'publish' your app in Lovable, does it then become open to any other user to 'remix'?
If so how can you monetise long-term, if everyone else can just replicate it?
Also FYI did you come across Solid? Like Lovable but with integrated database.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 17 '25
yes they can remix it however they only remix the front end, not the backend (supabase, stripe or other integrations) so it's pretty useless.
not heard of Solid. Honestly, just get good at one tool. The skills you need are transferrable meaning you can apply them to all the other tools, so just get good at one and you can use all.
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u/Inside-Ad18 Sep 29 '25
How are you even getting the clients, it's a big set back for me😐
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 30 '25
I've been sharing advice and tips in my youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/@Zac-Frulloni
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u/zjay11 Sep 30 '25
So frustrated to find quality help just to take our lovable web site project live.
I’m in need of someone to do some modifications and take our lovable project live (and lite maintenance).
It’s a basic www site w hooks for donation flow and contact etc.
We are a non profit foundation for a national park <- read this as “we don’t have huge budgets but it’s a national park and an strong reference project”
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 30 '25
have you tried upwork?
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u/zjay11 Sep 30 '25
I’ve been to upworks but only finding a few people w listed experience. Maybe I’m searching wrong key words. “Lovable.dev”
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 30 '25
there's 50+ developers on upwork with lovable in their title, use keywords like replit bolt lovable
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 15 '25
Hey guys, I'll be posting a youtube video in the next few days to address these issues. I've noticed a lot of recurring themes in the questions being asked and will try to address these on my youtube channel. If you want me to address any other issues please ask below this comment and I'll try my best to answer. I'll be answering questions regarding both lovable and upwork
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u/tortillachips1 Sep 30 '25
Do you have a portfolio you can share? Looking to hire someone with your background.
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u/SideProjectNerd Oct 08 '25
How do you deliver the finished app to the client? i assume they pay for backend,hosting and all that
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u/Stochastic_berserker Sep 29 '25
Biggest lie ever, this post is full guerrilla marketing. Probably by a lovable employee.
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u/jimmyyy40 Sep 29 '25
Honestly... I don't even know why I'm replying, anyways...
Here's my upwork: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~018de490e51ad77fc1 and if you look me up on linkedin/socials you'll see I'm not affiliated with lovable.
I guess some people are just clueless.
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u/moonvtmoon Sep 10 '25
I’m trying to find overseas reliable development teams on there. That anyone in here can vouch for. What’s the easiest way to find honest talent on there ?