Out of connects. Upwork needs connects to submit proposals, so bidding stops once your balance can't cover the apply cost. Turn on Auto-Connects to top up automatically, or add connects on Upwork. Running low on boost connects specifically doesn't stop the bid — Lancer still sends the proposal, just without the boost (or skips the job), based on your campaign's boosting settings.

Is the campaign active? A paused campaign won't bid — make sure it's started.

Cover letter too long. Upwork rejects proposals over 5,000 characters — trim the template (see "Cover letter troubleshooting").

Account connection dropped. If your Upwork session ended (e.g. you changed your password), reconnect — see "Reconnecting your account".

Bidder account was busy with another bid. Bids on one connected Upwork account run strictly one at a time, so if that account is already mid-bid on another job, Lancer waits for it to free up rather than dropping the job — normally just seconds. The lead shows as Processing while it waits. As a safety net against a bid that gets truly stuck, Lancer also caps how long any single bid can run: a hung bid is automatically stopped and cleared within roughly 15–20 minutes so the account doesn't stay tied up. If the account is still busy after all of that — up to a few hours in the worst case — the bid is marked Bid failed instead of waiting indefinitely. This shows up more on setups where several campaigns share one connected Upwork account — connecting an additional account, or spreading campaign schedules across accounts, reduces how often it happens.