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Douglas's avatar
Douglas J Community Member

Client lowers contract price while writing proposal.

Hi, I am wondering if this happens to anyone before. I applied to a published job which I thought was worth it with the published price. So, I took my time around 15-20 minutes to write a proposal that fit what the client was looking for. After submitting the proposal, the price suddenly changed! It was lowered and even if the client were interested in hiring my service, I would not take it up with the new price. Does this happen to other freelancers before? As in the changing contract price within minutes? It is quite frustrating because with the new connect system, it feels like I am wasting those connects (which we paid for).

 

Secondly, how do I flag this project and let Upwork know, but do Upwork even know that the price changes are made the second I click on "Submit A Proposal" at the beginning to "Submit A Proposal" after finishing with the proposal?

 

This is quite frustrating, really. I hope to hear something from the community.

 

Cheers.

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Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Douglas J wrote:

I am wondering if this happens to anyone before. I applied a published job which I thought was worth it with the published price. So, I took my time around 15-20 minutes to write a proposal that fit what the client is looking for. After submitting the proposal, the price changed!


The price on a job post is NOT the "contract price", it is merely the budget, and you are free to ignore it. I usually do. Your bid will show as your bid, not the new budget.

 


Douglas J wrote:

 

Secondly, how do I flag this project and let Upwork know,


What in the world would you like to flag it for or "let Upwork know?" Clients are free to edit their job posts and freelancers are free tobid what they feel the job is worth. I rarely bid the stated budget.

There is nothing to flag and nothing to "let Upwork know."

 

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Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Douglas J wrote:

I am wondering if this happens to anyone before. I applied a published job which I thought was worth it with the published price. So, I took my time around 15-20 minutes to write a proposal that fit what the client is looking for. After submitting the proposal, the price changed!


The price on a job post is NOT the "contract price", it is merely the budget, and you are free to ignore it. I usually do. Your bid will show as your bid, not the new budget.

 


Douglas J wrote:

 

Secondly, how do I flag this project and let Upwork know,


What in the world would you like to flag it for or "let Upwork know?" Clients are free to edit their job posts and freelancers are free tobid what they feel the job is worth. I rarely bid the stated budget.

There is nothing to flag and nothing to "let Upwork know."

 

Douglas's avatar
Douglas J Community Member

Hi Petra, thank you for the reply. I take that into mind the next time before submitting the proposal. I did not know this ability for the client to change the contract budget according to their specs, and they can change whenever even after the project is published.

 

My main frustration here is the Connects that I used up. I made a point to only apply a job which I think is really worth it. When I saw this particular published project, for me, it was worth '4 connects', then after the price was lowered, it was worth '2 connects' in my opinion.

 

Anyway, thank you for your reply. Yes, it is not right to flag a project which I am not even working on, I apologize for the spur of the moment frustration.

 

Cheers,

Douglas

Ambrož's avatar
Ambrož B Community Member

Hi, I have not seen a job change with budget. I agree with Petra, that budget is just "an idea", although the proposal successful is decreased when you try to increase budget.

 

But I want to mention one another - similar but much bigger problem.

 

Sometimes a client post a job, and then you submit a proposal for the job. Then the client change job post like: "Before apply, solve this test and send the result in proposal". And the system does not notify freelancers that the job is changed, and even then if you see the change, because the client have not open a message room with you, you do not have any option to change the proposal or include "test results" in any way ....
Petra, I think that this is something, which should be changed someway.

Douglas's avatar
Douglas J Community Member

Hi Ambroz, 

 

My issue here is specific. Let me give you the idea of what had happened.


So, I saw a posted job worth USD200 with 4 connects. I thought that was worth it and I did not intend to change the pricing because based on the description, I thought it was worth that much in term of workload and time to spend to finish the task.

 

Then, I spent a good 15-20 minutes to compose my proposal and I was satisfied and I hit the "Send a Proposal" button. I saw the ads again, and the exact same ads budget was reduced to USD80 - for me, a USD80 with 4 connects is not worth it. But, I already submitted my proposal and there was no way I can get my 4 connects back.

 

So, this was what happened, just to be clear, Ambroz.

 

Douglas

Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Douglas J wrote:


So, I saw a posted job worth USD200 with 4 connects. I thought that was worth it and I did not intend to change the pricing because based on the description, I thought it was worth that much in term of workload and time to spend to finish the task.

 

Then, I spent a good 15-20 minutes to compose my proposal and I was satisfied and I hit the "Send a Proposal" button. I saw the ads again, and the exact same ads budget was reduced to USD80 - for me, a USD80 with 4 connects is not worth it. But, I already submitted my proposal and there was no way I can get my 4 connects back.

 


You still don't quite get what I was trying to say, do you?

Do you always believe or just bid the budget?

 

Freelancers win contracts with bids well in excess of the budget. all the time. If a job looks like the right fit for me and I like the client's history I apply with my price, even if that price is twice, three times or more the budget.

 

I decide on my price, then I check if the client has a history of paying that.

Say the number in my head is $ 200 - I check if the client's previous jobs were awarded at good rates and how those rates differed to the budget.

 

I also never, ever spend 20 minutes writing a proposal. I spend more time looking at past history than writing proposals, as that helps me avoid sending out proposals for jobs I will never win in a month of Sundays.

 

 

Douglas's avatar
Douglas J Community Member

Hi Petra,

 

Yes, I understand what you are trying to say. I do understand the proposed budget is just a placeholder. I started this thread for this one particular job post from one particular client in which I did not change the budget because I felt the budget was just right for the kind of work in the project description. Normally, I do propose my own budget if I see that the budget proposed by clients is not the right figure.

 

It just happened for this one particular job post from this one particular client, the budget was lowered within minutes after he/she posted the job meanwhile writing the proposal and I did not notice the budget change until I already submitted the proposal. This has never happened to me before. The thing is, from my experience, in my past proposal submissions, the proposed budget of the client's projects in the job posts remain the same all the time it is up on the job feed.

 

You are right about going through the client's project history to understand his hiring patterns. This particular client has only one work history which the freelancer was paid well and I should not take action just base on one work history.

 

Cheers