Case study
How Rodrigo Nask took his reply rate from 3% to 19.2%
Growth consultant Rodrigo Nask sent about 800 proposals before Vollna and about 800 after. The first batch got replies on 3.0% of proposals; the second on 19.2%, with 11 contracts won.
Overview
Rodrigo runs growth for founders: paid ads, funnels, and retention. Upwork was a real channel for him long before Vollna, with nearly 800 proposals sent by hand between 2024 and mid-2025. It barely paid for itself.
The challenge
In his busiest stretch, late 2024, he sent 150–178 proposals a month at a reply rate around 1%. Only a quarter of his proposals were opened. More volume meant more connects spent on crowded, poorly matched jobs, with no record of what was working.
What changed
In June 2025 he moved to Vollna: ten job filters for the briefs he actually wins, instant notifications so he applies in the first hours instead of the next day, and proposal templates so a strong pitch takes minutes. Volume stayed roughly the same, around 60 proposals a month. A few months in, he set up a one-person agency on Upwork and started routing part of his bidding through Vollna auto-bidding — the next step once the manual system maxes out his time.
How he runs it
- Ten filters covering his winnable briefs — budget floors and client-history conditions keep $100-budget jobs out of the feed entirely.
- Bid boosting on most proposals — boosted bids reply at 22.2% against 17.1% organic, both visible in the dashboard below.
- Proposal analytics to see which filters and pitches earn replies, and cut the ones that don't.
Results
| Metric | Before Vollna | With Vollna |
|---|---|---|
| Proposals sent | 795 | 818 |
| View rate | 25.8% | 50.2% |
| Reply rate | 3.0% | 19.2% |
| Client conversations | 24 | 157 |
About 800 proposals before Vollna produced 24 conversations. About 800 after produced 157, and 11 contracts. Half of his proposals now get opened, up from a quarter, and each win no longer takes a hundred misses to buy.
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