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 what a family must budget every month on top of the academy fee.
Track A
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.
How many credits a family funds changes the odds — a great deal
This is the single most useful thing a parent can understand before enrolling. Credits are ammunition. A student who can only fire twelve shots a month is not in the same contest as one who can fire thirty-seven — and the difference in outcome is not small.
| Connects funded | Cost / month | Over 12 weeks | Proposals / month | Chance of a first contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 300 — the bare minimum | $45 PKR 12,600 |
$135 PKR 37,800 |
about 12 roughly 1 every 2–3 days |
50 / 50 |
| 600 — recommended | $90 PKR 25,200 |
$270 PKR 75,600 |
about 25 nearly one a day |
70 / 30 |
| 900 — the strongest position | $135 PKR 37,800 |
$405 PKR 113,400 |
about 37 more than one a day |
85 / 15 |
same skill
How these figures should be read — and how they must never be quoted
These percentages are the academy's own estimate, drawn from the instructor's experience of the platform across 102 contracts. They are not measured statistics and they are not a guarantee. They exist to answer one honest question — "does spending more actually help?" — and the honest answer is yes, substantially.
Nobody at Burraq Academy may present the 85/15 figure, or any figure on this page, as a promise that a particular student will earn. A student at 900 Connects who does not do the work will not get a contract, and a disciplined student at 300 sometimes will.
The daily quota this course asks for
The four controls that stop credits being wasted
- The review gate. No credits are spent on a proposal the instructor has not read — the strongest cost control in the programme and the core teaching value at once.
- Weekly release, never a lump sum. Credits are used against reviewed work each week, so no student burns a month's balance in three days.
- Job selection first. Week 8 teaches judging a listing bid-or-skip in sixty seconds. Every bad bid steals from a good one.
- No boosting in the first six weeks. Boosting a young profile spends 10–60 extra Connects to lose faster.
The number that puts the whole cost in proportion
A first contract for a new freelancer with a real portfolio typically falls between $100 and $500. Even at the 900-Connect level, a single first job can clear most of a month's credit spend — and every job after it is won against a profile that now carries a review, which raises the win rate and lowers the cost permanently.
The expensive part is only the first one.
Two costs sit outside the academy fee
Both are paid by the family directly to the software companies, in the student's own name — never to Burraq Academy, and never in the academy's name.
| Cost | Per month | Over 12 weeks | Why it is compulsory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude subscription | $20 | $60 · PKR 16,800 | Claude Code is the one tool this course teaches. Without it the student cannot do the coursework, cannot build, and cannot deliver client work. |
| Upwork credits — 300 Connects minimum | $45 | $135 · PKR 37,800 | Without credits a student cannot submit a single proposal, however good their work is. |
| Total outside the fee | $65 | $195 · PKR 54,600 | Paid monthly, directly to Anthropic and Upwork. |
Why they are not bundled into the academy fee
Both accounts must be in the student's own name, because the profile, the reputation and the earnings belong to that student permanently. Bundling them would put them in the academy's name — and the entire programme is built on the opposite principle.
What the minimum does not buy
Upwork is the world's number one freelance marketplace and applicants compete for the same jobs, many of them spending far more than this. The minimum buys the right to compete — it does not buy success, and no figure on this page should be read as a guarantee of a contract.