Upwork should remove the ability for clients to set a budget

[laitash]

I know it's controversial but hear me out. The budgets tend to be extremely low, and they set the psychological upper limit for proposals, which isn't helped by the fact that we need to pay to send them. So if i see a job budgeted at $100 and i know it's worth *at least* $500, i wouldn't bother sending a $500 proposal because it would most likely be dismissed, since there will be plenty of desperate freelancers applying for $100 or less just to get a feedback. I mean sure they will always be people willing to work for less than you, but without that upper limit they'd probably rate themselves higher.

So why would a skilled freelancer bother staying here? I'm in a tough life situation and need to extend my budget as long as posible, but once it's resolved i'll be gone. Because the prices here are just insultingly low. You're draining talent, which means you're also draining clients seeking talent and not just somebody who'd be willing to work for peanuts, which means prices go even lower, which means you're draining even more talent etc. And then some new client comes to the platform seeking for, idk, a data scientist, they check the job feed an see that a data scientist is $5-15/hour (ridiculous) and set their own budget accordingly, or even lower than that. 

Removing budgets will probably not fix the issue, but it would remove at least one factor that drives prices down. And i get it. It would piss off some clients. Mostly the ones looking for cheap labor. But i checked your commercials and it doesn't strike to me that you advertise the platform as a place to look for cheap labor, but rather as a place to look for professionals. 

[UPD]

BTW i've found an interesting statistic https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ive-learned-hiring-freelancers-upwork-martin-ceisel/

The guy was looking for freelancer designers, and here's the distribution:

• Only 18% of freelancers bid above my stated budget
• 68% bid at my stated budget
• 12% of freelancers bid below my stated budget

There's 2% missing but anyway, i read it as 68% would likely bid higher if the budget was not stated. I also don't think the author really tried to low ball and his stated budget was probably at least somewhat reasonable, so most jobs probably have  even less than 12% bidding below stated budget. And i'd say this is pretty telling. Freelancers don't try to compete against others by offering lower prices because the ceiling is already too **bleep** low. Budgets need to go.

[wlyonsatl]

Natalia B.,

According to Upwork, over the past 30 days I've sent 27 proposals, of which 5 were viewed and 2 of which resulted in me being hire. (I don't think this includes proposals I've sent to clients in response to invitations.)

If I paid the 16 connects maximum for each proposal at $0.15, those 27 proposals cost me $65. In my own little corner of Upwork heaven the money I make on the 2 successful proposals is well above $65, so I'll keep sending proposals as long as the ratio of cost vs. income is strongly in my favor.

Every freelancer should do this math for themselves.

Yes, Upwork is costlier for freelancers to use now than it has ever been.

But if Upwork doesn't start reporting real profits to its shareholders it eventually won't be here for anyone to use.  Inevitably and unavoidably, raising its pricing means Upwork is going to be unaffordable for some freelancers. I sincerely hope they can find the other sources of income they need, but no amount of complaining will lead Upwork to stop finding ways to make itself sustainably profitable..

[laitash]

Well i didn't mean Upwork should make connects more expensive or anything. Rather, it should take measures to stop or at least slow down the lowballing. Which would, in the end, benefit everyone - freelancers who will be able to earn more, clients who will have a much better chance of finding a skilled freelancer, and of course Upwork who will be earning more money from fees. Which by the way would make it less reliant on selling connects, and more reliant on successfully connecting clients and freelancers.

[48f850a0]

Was having an interview with a client recently and asking crucial questions so i can then have everything set up and give him a price so we begin...

After a set of back and forth questions and answers, guess what, the client said he no longer wants to proceed until he knows if i can meet his " cost and time expectation" this is a job that i was helping him set up his facts right and co and he is so eager to hear my price so he can go compare with others and pick the cheapest... Ofcus I immediately skipped the dude.. it's very annoying these days the type of clients here and they make it so obvious that they want the cheapest not even the best anymore.

[069cc2a0]

That is not what she meant.

She meant Upwork should be a place where clients come to get the best freelancers, not the cheapest freelancers.

[wlyonsatl]

Hi, Natalia B.,

My main point, which I didn't make clear, is that I accept a small success rate on my proposals because I haven't lowered my pricing, despite the fact I also suspect, but can't know, that many clients (90%?) don't have big enough budgets to afford me.

I do fine with a 10% win rate on unsolicited proposals, but it's also a big help that many of my proposals cost me nothing to submit, and have a higher win rate, because those proposals are in response to requests for proposals from clients.

Paradoxically, some high talent freelancers should consider increasing, not lowering, their rates  of pay. At the very least, is it better to do 5 projects at $100 apiece or 2 projects at $250 apiece, all other things being equal?

[yoshuayasmin]

I guess one way to kind of overcome this is to "filter" your clients. For me I'm doing this by looking for clients who need an expert help - these people usually do not mind much paying at their upper limit or sometimes, even more than what they have budgeted. Good clients understand that they need experts and know that experts usually come at a cost, no matter if there are many others who bid low rates. Of course a lot of other factors, such as applying time, matter as well, but I guess what I'm saying is I don't see that budgets will be removed for this seems to be the norm in many freelancing sites. We can, however, try to position ourselves strategically when it comes to clients. Don't be afraid to be a bit more selective and save your precious connects. Although this comes at another cost: time. I check the job feed several times a day in order to find these clients.

[792ca737]

Natalia,

I've made a similar post.  I was initially shocked at some low fixed prices for work that, based on the ask, would take many, many hours to do properly and professionally.  I do chalk a lot of this up to clients who don't fully know what they want, who would perform that work for them and the hours involved in that effort.  Solution:  upwork needs to porovide consultation to clients so they are more educated and can post better descriptions with appropriate rates..

I also do not submit any proposals for low rate work.  I know my worth and I don't want to tie up my hours with low rate work when I might miss out on appropriate pay.  I don't use upwork for all my sourcing either.  I search, filter and am very selective with proposals.  I also withdraw them if they haven't been looked at after about 4-5 days.  I don't want to work for anyone who isn't that attentive.

To be honest, I haven't performed any work here so I'm certainly no upwork expert.  But I'm also not going to degrade my experience by taking on low rate work.

So far I've been very dissapointed with upwork.  There's no real support, and it doesn't seem to be a great source for those looking to provide high quality, experienced service.

[atlinguist]

If I really "like" a job (meaning that I think I would be a great fit), I have no qualms about bidding above the suggested budget. Simply because the client might be a first-timer unaware of market rates. What's more, quite a few clients (in my category) write "$5" and state in the text that the budget is "only a placeholder", meaning I would have to formulate a milestone anyway. 

The budget parameter also tells me something about what sort of client I am dealing with. So, I don't think removing it would help.

[laitash]

The problem is that you may bid higher, but based on the (anecdotal) stats i provided, there will be 80% of applicants who will either just accept the ceiling or bid even lower. I also wouldn't just conclude that they're inexperienced, unskilled, or anything. So by bidding higher than the budget you cripple your chances. Which creates a downward pressure on job prices.

Also unless the budget is clearly delusional (like 20% of what it should realistically be or something) it doesn't tell you much about them. Even a good client will low ball after seeing how cheap Upwork is, because why not grab the oppotunity?

And yeah, it would be nice at least if clients could *choose* not to state a budget but we don't even have that. 

[melaniekhenson]

Don't accept or bid on very low-paying jobs. The only low-payers I have are one-offs, so they look low, but they meet my hourly rate.

I have gotten quite a few repeat clients this way. In fact, 50% of my jobs are repeat clients, and a massive percentage of my total income.

Yes, it takes tons of tries. Yes, it means spending on connects. But I'm definitely not spending more money than I would on advertising, I don't spend as much as I do on keeping my website active, and it's a huge time-saver over the bootstraps method.