Problem setting a "fee" in advance to list a job.

[8f51dc45]

Hello. I have searched the community and not found an exact answer to my question. I may not know what to search under but could someone help me with this question please? I have stayed away from Upwork in the past because most of the work I would be interested in having done I have no idea what a fair fee would be. If I guess too much $$$, then someone accepts a job based on my naivety. If I make it too little $$$, then I drive people away. Is there a provision within upwork that would allow a freelancer to bid a fee for a project based on specific parameters that I provide? This would allow me to weigh the talent of the freelancer against the fee being proposed to make a quick decision. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

[prestonhunter]

Just use hourly contracts. Then you don't need to worry about all that.

If it is a big project and you want to save money, hire many freelancers to start out with, evaluate their work, and continue working only with the freelancer (or freelancers) who provide you with the best value.

re: "I have stayed away from Upwork in the past because most of the work I would be interested in having done I have no idea what a fair fee would be."

Why do you care about what a "fair fee" is? As a client, I don't care. It's all just opinion anyway.

What if I need 150 Declan-1044 files processed, at 75+ scoring?

And what if after I test a number of freelancers using hourly contracts, I see that Don can do this for me at $10/file. Frank can do it at $20/file. Sandra can going to do it at $30/file. I also test-hired Cynthia, Manchester, Eric and Zander. But none of them produced work good enough for me to use. So I am only considering Don, Frank and Sandra.

I am going to hire Don. Because that will save me a lot of money.

Is $10/file a fair rate? I don't know. I assume Don thinks it is fair because he is doing the work for me and consistently producing that for me at the hourly rate I hired him at.

[8f51dc45]

Hello. I totally see your point. I guess where I was coming from had less to do with an exact "need" that I needed "done" (e.g., produce a hundred widgets with known criteria) and more about what would it "potentially cost" to produce 'x'? If I do not know the parameters about what is required to create 'x' then it's tough to know whether I would even entertain the project or not. I would rather know before bidding on a "car" that there's a difference in price between a Prius and a Tesla. What I was hoping I could do was to create a specific outline of what I would like to see a price on and have the open market then provide me with the fee range. Is that possible?  Thank you!

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

Yes. That is possible.

Ultimately, you need to decide whether to post a job as an hourly or fixed-price job. But either of these will let you write an outline of what you want done and ask freelancers to estimate how much it would cost to cite that thing.

The important thing to keep in mind is th these are just estimates. Whether you hire using a fixed-price or hourly contract, the larger the project is, the more difficult it will be to obtain a precise estimate.

If you sit down at a restaurant and order the chicken enchiladas with a side order of of green beans, you can know exactly what it will cost. If you green light the production of a 2-hour feature film adaptation of Macbeth, set on 24th Century Mars, you can establish a BUDGET, but there is no way to know EXACTLY how much it will cost.

You CAN post jobs and ask freelancers to estimate how much time (hours) or money (fixed-price) it will cost to create something. You should be able to garner estimates if you do that.

But there are limits to this approach, as you are not actually paying people to work on these estimates. If the project description is particularly complicated or lengthy, you will be less likely to see people work on a detailed estimate for free.

[feed_my_eyes]

Instead of guessing what the price should be, you can post an hourly project and state whether you'd like an expert, intermediate or entry-level freelancer to work for you, and let the freelancers tell you how much they'd charge. You should be able to see from the quality of bids, profiles and feedback reviews who can best provide services at the level that meets your needs.

[8f51dc45]

I very much appreciate everyone's input. This is helped tremendously. I'm excited to give this new approach to try. Thank you UPWORK Community!