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prolinda
Community Member

Re: Urgent question re: rates

I submitted a proposal yesterday. Today, I received a noreply email saying it was rejected because the rate was too high.  Why can't I resubmit a lower rate and/or ask what they want to pay and possibly negotiate a fee that is mutually acceptable? 

I really need to determine what the ranges for $$ and $$$ at Upwork generally are so I know how to bid accordingly.  Please help so I don't keep losing out because I have no idea what the rate ranges are.  

9 REPLIES 9
wlyonsatl
Community Member

Yeah, Upwork's $, $$ and $$$ notations are used in different ways by different clients, making them pretty much useless for figuring out what price the client is actually looking to pay. Just keep in mind that clients don't usually come to Upwork thinking it's a good place to find freelancers who charge more than the clients kind find in their local market.

 

Your best bet is to try different rates on different proposals and see what range is successful for you in winning projects.

 

If you have done the sort of work you want to do on Upwork in other venues, you'll have some idea what you should bid on Upwork. If you want to win some proposals quickly, set your bids at the low end of the range you think is acceptable.

 

If you are new to both this work and Upwork, you have some work ahead of you to try to figure out what prices are being paid for work in your niche. You'll be starting blind, but there may be online resources that provide some information and give you a general idea of what your pricing will need to be to win projects you think are worth doing.

 

Upwork's predecessor Elance used to show winning and other bids on projects you submitted proposals on, but Upwork has never provided anything so useful in this respect.

Excellent advice! Your suggestions are very much appreciated. I could not
make any sense from what I found on the site and really needed to hear from
a human, especially one who has been where I am. Thank you!!


Linda L wrote:
Excellent advice! Your suggestions are very much appreciated. I could not
make any sense from what I found on the site and really needed to hear from
a human, especially one who has been where I am. Thank you!!

You can always withdraw a proposal and submit another one, but that will cost 2 connects again and you don't get refunded for a withdrawn proposal.

Don't worry about ranges, they mean nothing. You have to determine what you want/need to charge for your services, and stick to that. 

Smart companies with superior products and services are responsive to their customers wants and  needs, including finding out what price they are willing to pay through regular test marketing and focus groups. (Even Coca Cola spends millions of dollars a year on market intelligence, including testing different prices in different markets at different times of the years.)

 

You can't do any focus groups on Upwork, but if you think you will always know all you need to know about your potential customers and never want to find out whether all your assumptions about their pricing expectations are correct, don't ever bother testing a range of prices to see where the market is from time to time.

 

On the other hand, companies in commodity businesses know they have no pricing power, so they don't test pricing - they just charge customers what all their competitors charge. So, if you are in one of Upwork's commodity sectors, like data entry or simple translations, you're pretty much stuck with trying to match the pricing of your cheapest competitors. Even that will take some testing for any freelancer who is brand new to Upwork.

 

Either way, would you rather work 20 hours a week for $40 / hour or 40 hours a week for $20 / hour? You'll never know what your options are in this respect if you are offering services you can differentiate from your competitors and you never test what client response rates are at different price points.

colettelewis
Community Member

Linda,

 

You can't change your actual proposal but you can, in fact , change the amount on your proposal. Have a look here (at the bottom of the page): https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063018-Interview-and-Negotiate 

 

My advice though, is not to do it. Your rates are very reasonable and you have a good track record. Check the client's feedback and what his or her average hourly payments have been. I think you have probably dodged a bullet on this one. 


Nichola L wrote:

Linda,

 

You can't change your actual proposal but you can, in fact , change the amount on your proposal. Have a look here (at the bottom of the page): https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063018-Interview-and-Negotiate 


I doubt you can do that if your proposal was declined (which is probably what happened to Linda).


Richard W wrote:

Nichola L wrote:

Linda,

 

You can't change your actual proposal but you can, in fact , change the amount on your proposal. Have a look here (at the bottom of the page): https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063018-Interview-and-Negotiate 


I doubt you can do that if your proposal was declined (which is probably what happened to Linda).


____________________

 

You are quite right - sorry about that. You can only change the amount before your bid is declined or if you are invited to interview. However, it is possible to waste two connects by bidding again with a lower price - not advisable IMO. 

Thanks. Good advice!
richard_wein
Community Member


Linda L wrote:

I submitted a proposal yesterday. Today, I received a noreply email saying it was rejected because the rate was too high.  Why can't I resubmit a lower rate and/or ask what they want to pay and possibly negotiate a fee that is mutually acceptable? 

I really need to determine what the ranges for $$ and $$$ at Upwork generally are so I know how to bid accordingly.  Please help so I don't keep losing out because I have no idea what the rate ranges are.  


Hi Linda. Consider yourself (very slightly) lucky that the client even bothered to tell you that your rate was too high. (I assume this was a "Declined" message.) In the vast majority of cases, clients who don't want to interview you don't reply to your proposal at all.

 

Yes, it's frustrating that it's so hard to tell what a client is willing to pay. It can help to look at the client's average paid rate, but I usually go further and look at what they've paid on individual jobs in their job history. Of course, you can't do that if this is the first time the client has hired on Upwork.

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