New York, Feb 10, 2026, 07:03 EST — Premarket
- Upwork stock tumbled about 26% in premarket trading after the company issued a cautious outlook for the first quarter.
- Fourth-quarter numbers topped estimates, though the company flagged a weaker kickoff for 2026.
- Client trends are on traders’ radar, along with the ongoing enterprise move related to its Lifted platform.
Upwork shares tumbled roughly 26% in premarket action Tuesday, changing hands at $13.92, after the freelancer platform posted a first-quarter outlook that fell short of forecasts. The stock had ended Monday off 0.7% at $18.79.
This decline hits especially hard: lately, traders have hammered software and internet stocks at the slightest sign of cooling demand, even if recent results hold up. In Upwork’s case, the guidance gives the market its first real sense of how much hiring and project activity companies will actually commit to via online platforms heading into early 2026.
Upwork posted adjusted earnings of $0.36 per share in the fourth quarter, with revenue landing at $198.4 million—both numbers just above what analysts had forecast, Investing.com noted. The company is guiding for first-quarter revenue between $192 million and $197 million, and adjusted EPS in the $0.26 to $0.28 range, missing the consensus. “We expect 2026 to be a year of accelerating growth,” CFO Erica Gessert said. Investing.com
Upwork reported that revenue for 2025 edged up 2% to a record $787.8 million, while the number of active clients closed out the year at 785,000—a drop. “2025 marked the year we rebuilt Upwork for the age of human-plus-AI collaboration,” CEO Hayden Brown said in the earnings release. GlobeNewswire
Attention has zeroed in on the company’s “gross services volume” (GSV), essentially the total value of work running through the platform. The question on desks: can AI-linked projects make up for softness in other parts of the business? Upwork’s been touting AI as a tailwind, but Tuesday’s selloff signals the market isn’t buying the long game just yet—traders are fixated on when revenue and profits actually show up.
During the call, executives linked their Q1 profitability forecast to enterprise spend and marketing outlays. Upwork expects adjusted EBITDA to land between $45 million and $47 million for the first quarter. Gessert pointed to the slimmer margin forecast, citing both the Lifted integration and extra dollars headed for marketing. (Adjusted EBITDA strips out specific expenses from operating profit.)
It’s been a rough stretch for the broader tape. U.S. stock index futures hovered near flat as markets looked ahead to this week’s economic releases, and the S&P 500 software index has shed around 16% so far this year, Reuters said.
Upwork faces competition not just from other online talent platforms like Fiverr, but also from staffing firms moving more of their services online. Pricing pressure, take rates, and churn all end up reflected in GSV and active client numbers — metrics that can swing a guidance quarter into a stock gap.
There’s a risk the enterprise reset drags out longer than Upwork’s management anticipates. On Tuesday, Citizens lowered its price target for Upwork to $22, down from $27, pointing to unclear timing for when enterprise revenue might start to pick up as the company shifts its strategy.
Right now, the market’s keeping it simple: it wants to see if client numbers level off, if enterprise can scale up without eating into margins, and if AI-linked segments actually deliver sustained revenue gains instead of just a flurry of one-time projects.
Regular trading kicks off at 9:30 a.m. ET. After such a steep premarket slide, the focus turns to Upwork—will shares hold those early lows as the opening bell brings real volume and investors size up management’s first-quarter targets?
