Track A
What it costs to land the first contract
International platforms charge to submit a proposal. This page sets out exactly what that costs, what a realistic first contract is worth, and why the academy funds it rather than the family.
Proposals are not free
On Upwork, submitting a proposal spends "Connects" — prepaid credits. A student with no Connects cannot apply for work, no matter how good their profile is. This is the single unavoidable running cost of the Earning Track, and it is why a programme that teaches the skill but ignores the ammunition produces students who never start.
| Item | Cost | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| One Connect | $0.15 | Minimum purchase of ten. |
| Connects per proposal | 16 – 32 | Set by the platform according to the size and budget of the job. Bigger jobs cost more to apply for. |
| Cost of one proposal | $2.40 – $4.80 | Roughly PKR 670 – 1,340. Boosting a proposal adds 10 – 60 Connects on top; students are forbidden from boosting in the first six weeks. |
| Freelancer Basic | Free | Includes 10 free Connects a month — less than one proposal. Not viable for a student who is actively hunting. |
| Freelancer Plus | $19.99 / month | Includes 100 Connects (about four proposals) plus profile tools. This is the plan every Track A student uses. ≈ PKR 5,600 a month. |
| Agency Plus | $19.99 / month | Includes no free Connects at all. See the note below — this is why the programme does not use an agency account. |
Why we do not run one academy agency account
It is the obvious idea and it is the wrong one, for two reasons. First, every agency member still needs their own verified account, and that still requires being eighteen — so it solves nothing about age. Second, Agency Plus includes no free Connects. Twelve students on their own Freelancer Plus accounts receive 1,200 free Connects between them every month; the same twelve under one agency receive zero. The agency structure is both more expensive and less useful here.
It also runs against the programme's own principle: each student's profile, reputation and Job Success Score should belong to them, permanently, and follow them for the rest of their career.
What it costs, on average, to reach the first paid contract
A new freelancer does not win the first job they apply for. The honest way to budget is to work backwards from a realistic win rate. Below are three scenarios — a strong start, a typical one, and a slow one — each calculated from the verified prices above at an average of 24 Connects per proposal.
- Proposals sent
- 20
- Months subscribed
- 2
- Covered by free Connects
- 8
- Connects purchased
- 288
- Connects cost
- $43.20
- Subscription
- $39.98
- Proposals sent
- 33
- Months subscribed
- 3
- Covered by free Connects
- 12
- Connects purchased
- 504
- Connects cost
- $75.60
- Subscription
- $59.97
- Proposals sent
- 50
- Months subscribed
- 4
- Covered by free Connects
- 16
- Connects purchased
- 816
- Connects cost
- $122.40
- Subscription
- $79.96
Rupee figures converted at PKR 280 = $1 and rounded. Verify the prevailing rate before quoting these to a family. Win rates are modelled, not guaranteed — they are the planning assumption the programme budgets against.
The number that matters: the first contract pays it back several times over
A first contract for a new freelancer with a real portfolio typically falls between $100 and $500. Against a typical acquisition cost of $136, the first job clears the entire hunting budget and leaves a profit — and every job after it is won against a profile that now has a review on it, which raises the win rate and lowers the cost permanently.
The expensive part is only the first one. That is precisely why it must be funded properly rather than rationed.
What the academy is actually committing to
The programme funds Freelancer Plus and Connects for each Track A student across the four-week supervised phase and the month that follows it. With the proposal discipline taught in the course, the batch figure is modest.
| Approach | Per student | 12 students | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undisciplined — 10 proposals a week | $38 – 68 / mo | $912 – 1,632 PKR 255,000 – 457,000 | Spray-and-pray. Higher cost and a lower win rate. Not how this course is taught. |
| As taught — 4 to 5 reviewed proposals a week | $28 – 40 / mo | $672 – 960 PKR 188,000 – 269,000 | Fewer, researched, instructor-reviewed proposals. Lower cost and a materially higher win rate. |
The four controls that keep it there
- The review gate. No Connects are spent on a proposal the instructor has not read. This is the strongest cost control in the programme and it is also the core teaching value.
- Weekly release, never a lump sum. Connects are issued each week against reviewed work. No student is handed a balance to burn.
- A hard weekly quota, which deliberately falls as proposal quality rises.
- No boosting for the first six weeks. Boosting a young profile spends 10 – 60 extra Connects to lose faster.
Who pays, and why
Platform costs are built into the Track A fee and carried by the academy — they are not billed to the family separately and there is no surprise invoice in Week 9. The reason is simple: this is the cost of the programme's central claim being true. A student trained for eight weeks and then left unable to afford proposals has been taught to shoot and handed an empty rifle.
Against a fee of PKR 75,000 per student, a funded hunting phase of roughly PKR 16,000 – 22,000 per student is the part of the budget that actually produces the outcome everything else is built on.