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c2faaceb
Community Member

Long Term Client Ready to Quit Upwork due to Frustration with Placeholder Bids

It used to be that if we posted a request for bids for a fixed price contract that we would actually get fixed-price bids.  Now, virtually every vendor bids the exact amount as the fixed price that was offered as a placeholder bid and then asks to have a discussion to "finalize" the requirements.  In other words, they want to sell higher priced services on an hourly rate.   They demand to have a skype call.   Seems like Upwork is now a referral service - not a job bid board.   

 

These fake bids are a waste of time and we won't be inviting anyone with a placeholder bid to our projects in the future.   I don't like the requirement to insert a bid amount- it basically means that vendors don't actually have to think about their actual bid.   

 

Are there other websites besides Upwork that are more client-friendly?   

 

Any thoughts on how to limit the number of fake bids?

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Your problem with getting true fixed price bids may have nothing at all to do with your trackrecord. And the type of projects you have may be more suitably paid via fixed price rather than hourly.

 

If what you are seeing is a real trend in freelancers in general not wanting to submit set prices in their fixed price proposals, Upwork could make changes to the fixed price structure that encourages freelancers to use it more, such as:

 

1) Not allowing single milestone fixed price projects

2) More clearly recommending to clients and freelancers that work not begin on a milestone until it is fully funded by the client and all previous milestones have been fully funded and escrowed released for payment to the freelancer

3) Not allowing clients to contest escrowed payments they releated to payment to a freelancer

 

This would take a lot of leverage away from clients and eliminate the games some clients play, which Upwork may not want to do. But under the current fixed priced system Upwork may be seeing the same trend you are - freelancers are increasingly wary of agreeing to fixed price projects.

 

This may be especially true on projects that provide net income of less than $291 to the freelancer. 

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19 REPLIES 19
VladimirG
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi there,

 

We're sorry to hear you're unhappy with the proposals you're receiving on your job posts. Our team will contact you soon to take a look at the proposals you mentioned, your job posts and assist you directly. We appreciate your feedback.

~ Vladimir
Upwork
wlyonsatl
Community Member

There are a few things that might be making freelancers you're hearing from not post simple fixed price bids on your new projects, including:

 

1) Other than paying $291 and going to arbritration, there is no certain payment protection available on fixed price bids when a client doesn't want to pay for work done. (Low-priced projects make it uneconomic to use arbitration at all for many freelancers.) Tracking time on hourly projects using Upwork's TimeTracker software is more reliable in terms of payment protection for freelancers.

 

2) Many clients don't understand their own projects, so the fixed price budgets they post with their projects are unreasonably low compared to the amount of work and skill level required.

 

3) Some clients rely on "mission creep" to get their projects completed to the level they require - they keep adding new tasks to fixed price projects and threaten freelancers with non-payment or poor feedback if the freelancers don't agree to do what is essentially free work not agreed to in the original conversations with the client. 

 

None of the above may apply to you, so maybe what you're seeing in recent bids is just a random, short-term phenomenon and you will soon see fixed price responses more in line with what you used to see in proposals by freelancers you haven't worked with before.

prestonhunter
Community Member

You have correctly deduced the fact that Upwork's user interface and the overall design of the fixed-price contract model lead to this happening.

 

You may find it more efficient and effective to switch to hourly contracts.

The point of having a fixed price is that the bidder takes the burden of a proper bid- not us.   Fully understand that there may be questions on the scope- but the practice of bidding a low placeholder bid intentionally rather than asking questions to flush out the scope of the bid seems deceptive.  

 

These aren't difficult scope projects- take a chosen Wordpress theme template of the vendors choice and format it so we can add our content based upon the posted scope.   Why a vendor needs to talk about it on Skype instead of asking direct questions in a bid or qualifying the bid is beyond me.

 

We have an excellent client rating- we have paid every fixed price contract.   But if the end result of Upwork changes is that we can't get reliable fixed price bids- we will find another platform where we can.  Don't mean this as a threat- our $100K or so in past projects isn't material enough to be a threat.   But we can't be the only one who shares this concern on the erosion of actual bidding.

Your problem with getting true fixed price bids may have nothing at all to do with your trackrecord. And the type of projects you have may be more suitably paid via fixed price rather than hourly.

 

If what you are seeing is a real trend in freelancers in general not wanting to submit set prices in their fixed price proposals, Upwork could make changes to the fixed price structure that encourages freelancers to use it more, such as:

 

1) Not allowing single milestone fixed price projects

2) More clearly recommending to clients and freelancers that work not begin on a milestone until it is fully funded by the client and all previous milestones have been fully funded and escrowed released for payment to the freelancer

3) Not allowing clients to contest escrowed payments they releated to payment to a freelancer

 

This would take a lot of leverage away from clients and eliminate the games some clients play, which Upwork may not want to do. But under the current fixed priced system Upwork may be seeing the same trend you are - freelancers are increasingly wary of agreeing to fixed price projects.

 

This may be especially true on projects that provide net income of less than $291 to the freelancer. 

3) Not allowing clients to contest escrowed payments they released for payment to a freelancer

Thank you for this response.  This has been helpful in seeing why vendors would have concerns with small dollar fixed price projects even from established clients.  We don't do single milestone fixed price contracts even on small projects- perhaps we should be mentioning this in our request.   We also haven't contested a milestone payment in the past- surprised to hear that clients do that but I could see the potential for misuse on both sides.

mthornton-cpc
Community Member

Another way to see it is prudence (aside from the obviously spammy bidders). I rarely submit a proposal for a job without needing to ask clarifying questions about requirements and scope. I’ve never “demanded” a Skype call, but I regularly ask questions and indicate that my bid could be updated based on scope.

For what it's worth, this is certainly a valid concern.


This has been discussed in many other threads.

 

There are many clients as well as freelancers who would like it if clients did not need to specify a dollar amount for fixed-price job postings. We think this would help the situation.

 

We often discuss "work-arounds" to the current system, such as explicit messages in the job posting stating that the stated dollar amount is a placeholder only. But there are limitations in how effective this can be.

 

I think most job applicants are seeing a dollar amount and assume that is how much you intend to pay for a given task, or see the job posting as a starting point - an opportunity to begin a conversation about the project - and not an actual request for a bid.

Hi, Preston.

 

You mentioned, "We think this would help the situation."

 

Do you work for Upwork? Or do you just like to use the papal "We"?

 

At any rate, your insights are usually very helpful.

Will:

The "we" in that post refers to my reading of many threads and posts in which Upwork users have made the suggestion, or supported the suggestion.

I see.


Preston H wrote:

Will:

The "we" in that post refers to my reading of many threads and posts in which Upwork users have made the suggestion, or supported the suggestion.


It would be great if a client could just indicate whether they want a beginner, intermediate or expert freelancer, and let us decide on what the rate should be. Or even just tick a box that says "Not sure" under the bid amount,  like Elance used to do. So you're welcome to speak for me - "we" agree with you. (And Will, I use "we" in the same sense that the Queen does - I'm British, so I'm allowed.)


Christine A wrote:

Preston H wrote:

Will:

The "we" in that post refers to my reading of many threads and posts in which Upwork users have made the suggestion, or supported the suggestion.


It would be great if a client could just indicate whether they want a beginner, intermediate or expert freelancer, and let us decide on what the rate should be. Or even just tick a box that says "Not sure" under the bid amount,  like Elance used to do. So you're welcome to speak for me - "we" agree with you. (And Will, I use "we" in the same sense that the Queen does - I'm British, so I'm allowed.)


________________________

It's the Royal We (;)) - and as Preston wears a tie, he's allowed!  And I agree with you about the request, except that I see too many clients wishing for "experts" and not wishing to pay "expert " rates. In the same way far too many freelancers do not understand the concept of a $5 placeholder. 

 

It is all down to language and how Upwork deals with it. To native English speakers, a placeholder is obvious, to non- natives, not quite so much. Clients don't always understand it either.

The Upwork system does not allow freelancers to ask questions about a project without submitting a bid amount. That's why you see so many placeholder bid amounts.

 

But it seems to me there are two ways you can proceed within the current system: 

 

1. If you're convinced that your job description is sufficiently complete for freelancers to make final fixed bids without further discussion, then say in your job post that you will not entertain placeholder bids.

 

2. If you think that freelancers might need to ask questions before committing to a price, treat placeholder bids as enquiries by freelancers who need to know more about the job before bidding. If you want to answer questions in chat and not in Skype, then say so.

 

I wouldn't like Upwork to lose a good client, so I hope you'll give Upwork  another chance, with these points in mind.

 

I also hope Upwork will take your objections on board, and stop requiring fixed specific amounts to be given upfront, by clients and by freelancers. regardless of whether these are appropriate.

Thank you for this response. 

 

Perhaps Upwork should just insert Placeholder as an option for bidders or Subject To Answers.  I don't have an issue with Placeholder bids if they are clearly labeled as such- but at least half such bids on recent projects were not clearly identified.   That means that the client has to sort through to find which are real bids and which are placeholders.   It shouldn't be that difficult for a $250-$500 job.  

 

What prompted this post is that I had a vendor take a job recently at the fixed fee amount and then tell me it would be 3 times the quoted amount.   It was clear that he hadn't read the scope when he accepted, assuming that he would be able to negotiate his way into a larger contract.   This after multiple questions and answers back and forth before the award.    

 

 


-- - wrote:

Thank you for this response. 

 

Perhaps Upwork should just insert Placeholder as an option for bidders or Subject To Answers.  I don't have an issue with Placeholder bids if they are clearly labeled as such- but at least half such bids on recent projects were not clearly identified.   That means that the client has to sort through to find which are real bids and which are placeholders.   It shouldn't be that difficult for a $250-$500 job.  

 

What prompted this post is that I had a vendor take a job recently at the fixed fee amount and then tell me it would be 3 times the quoted amount.   It was clear that he hadn't read the scope when he accepted, assuming that he would be able to negotiate his way into a larger contract.   This after multiple questions and answers back and forth before the award.    

 

____________________

 

When you post a job state clearly that you are not open to higher bids than your budget states. 

 


 

If the FLer did not stipulate in his/her proposal that their bid was contingent on further info, which when received, he/she would place a confirmed and bidding bid you should never have hired them.

 

I'm being a bit hard-nosed about this but reputable FLers do use the addendum or wording similar and conversations go from there.  FLer must then update their proposal with all new terms, milestones, etc. and the client hires from that.  Not from the  original proposal.

 

Shame and blame lies on this FL's shoulders ...

Speaking from the other side of the fence,

In my fixed price contracts, I have seen feature scope turn an for e.g. estimated 1 day project into a 2 week one. So I take the extra pain to ask question and do a proper analysis and SOW before accepting the contract.
Quite a few clients have an idea of where they want to be, but no idea of how to get there, and it will take atleast a few days of discussion to even get a proper RFQ before I can submit a proposal.
I had a client with whom I discussed for a few man months to create an proper technical RFQ and a Plan of action which she than awarded to the L1 bidder. So if the discussion's are going to go beyond a few hours, I would insist on creating a separate hourly project just to get the specification, schedule and cost on the table.

e.g. for a job posting of I want to design self driving vehicle

I will have to decide on whether to bid or not and what amount to bid based on whether the client is

1. Uber wanting to deploy the vehicle in the busiest city.
2. NASA wanting to deploy the vehicle on Mars
3. A toy manufacturer wanting a product line for christmas sale.
4. A Student wanting to submit something for his assignment next week

For the first two, the project is going to be openended and I will insist on an hourly contract, For the third I will give a min-max range and try to get a proper specification before I finalize my bid.

For the last one, I will say good bye.

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