To get more initial clients, should I take lower paying jobs or submit low proposal bids?

[pudingstudio]

General idea is to have clients come back to YOU. Same people to ask YOU for new projects.
When that happens, do you want them to move away from you because of your new "high quote"?

Do you want your clients to ask you for work which is not payed enough for your efforts?
They will. You'll become sooo afraid of the JSS entity, you'd go against yourself just to please a client (most of the community topics are about that issue).

Don't have a correct answer for your question.
Do NOT advice to lower your price.

Keep sending proposals to the jobs YOU ARE POSITIVE you can do BETTER than me/Steve/Jean... whomever.
Better than.

[robin_hyman]

When I started my hourly rate was about half as much as I earn now. Over time as I started getting work I included higher hourly rates. It worked for me but depends on your field and the amount of competition on the platform.

Just don’t go too low.

[baltistanstudio]

Hi! It seems impossible to get hired on heavily paying projects for beginners and It may be foolishness if beginners bid on heavily paying projects because 99% of upwork old clients hire the freelancer, whom with the client previously did work.  

[raina5]

It's one of the hardest things, I think, knowing what to charge. There are so many factors. You can take a look around Upwork and see what others in your field and at roughly your level charge.  And it depends on the client. I have one client who I get work from every single week. I can count on her consistently funneling work at me, and I do it at a rate for her that is lower than I may charge a new client, or a one-off client.  Part of this is because I can do the work she needs more efficiently, becasue I know what she's looking for, we have a shorthand in our communications so edits are very minimal.  Different clients will have different budgets. You can try to determine the value of the work you are doing for them. Will it pull in sales? How many? How much? Are they a small mom and pop business? a non-profit? How much experience do you have? It's endless all the factors and I think many freelancers struggle with pricing. One thing though: I have learned to never ever ever take a job where the client has used the words "simple, quick, easy..." If that were true, they would not be looking for a professional to do it for them. Don't sell yourself short.

[jaybopp82]

To land my first 3-4 jobs, I worked at a very low rate.  It is now about 3 times what it was for those jobs.  While most people here I think will say no, it worked for me.  Having some good feedback on your profile is very important to getting jobs.

I say yes, work for less, but not on tasks that will take days.  Just do a few 1-2 hour low paying tasks and make sure you get great feedback.  Jobs will come easier when that happens.