| Tips for Setting a Realistic Maximum Project Price |
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These days, everyone wants the "best deal they can find" including the
buyers and sellers on GetAFreelancer (GAF). Buyers want to pay as
little as possible for the best quality work while sellers want to earn
a fair rate of return on their investment of skills and time. Somewhere
in the middle of those two needs lies a win-win situation if you are
willing to look for it.
Keep in mind as you read the
following project pricing tips that they’re only guidelines. Oftentimes
buyers are confused as to how to approach the task of setting a maximum
bid for their projects. Hopefully the following information can help.
Tip #1 - Don’t Set an Unrealistic Price
As a buyer, you should strive to set a realistic price for the amount
of work you are requesting. There are some buyers who set unreasonably
low prices for complex work and there are sellers who will accept those
prices. You should know however, that this type of "bottom fishing" is
not without its risks.
There will be times when you will get
the job done according to specification even after setting and
accepting a bid that you know was ridiculously low. Other times,
however, you may find yourself on the losing end of the deal and either
have the seller walk away without completing the project, or receiving
work which is well below your expectations. In either case you'll end
up seeking another seller to completely redo the assignment. If you’re
a gambler and you’ve got time to spend and money to waste on this type
of game, then play away.
But at some level you need to think
about the seller. After all, they’re probably relying on the money
earned from your project to pay one of their bills. If you don’t accept
the project after the seller put their time and effort into it, for
whatever reason, that seller doesn’t get paid. The seller loses money
and you will have lost valuable time. This is not a win-win situation.
Time is money. And time should never purposely be wasted - neither yours nor the person’s with whom you’ve contracted.
Tip #2 - Make You Needs Clear
As a buyer, you also need to create a request for proposal that clearly
describes what it is you need. Clear specifications almost always
result in more accurate bids and help reduce disappointment which
results from misunderstandings down the road.
Sellers on GAF
have many skills. But one skill no seller possesses is the ability to
read your mind. So don’t make them! If you need programming done, and
you forget to mention a major or even minor step that has to occur in
the process, the resulting program won’t have it. It won’t be the
seller’s fault; it will be yours. You can make the claim that you did
not get what you expected, but you cannot withhold payment because you
failed to accurately specify your expectations.
Likewise, if
you need the services of a copywriter, you need to specify the type of
copy you need. Is the copy supposed to drive traffic to your site or is
it supposed to generate sales? There is a difference. It’s also better
to specify the word count you need not a word range, and also your
preferred topics. Remember sellers are NOT mind readers. They’ll never
select a topic that even closely resembles anything you have in mind.
Working as a buyer on GAF is no different than any other work
environment. Good, solid specifications are crucial to the overall
success of the project. You’ll get back only what you ask for and
nothing more.
Tip #3 - Determine the Type of Project
After you have clearly identified your project specifications, it’ time
to begin work on setting the maximum bid. Try to determine whether the
work you have is the type that’s better priced on an hourly basis or a
per-project basis.
There aren’t really any guidelines for
making this type of determination, either at GAF or anywhere else, so
there is no right or wrong determination. The goal here is to help you
think more about how long the project will take to complete. If it’ll
take X number of hours and the average hourly rate of the people who
possess the type of skills you need is Y dollars, simply multiply out
the numbers and you’ve got your maximum bid.
The same
reasoning applies if you’re basing your decision on a per-project
basis. You probably have some idea as to what price a project such as
yours would fetch “out in the real world” so use this figure as a basis
for calculating your maximum bid.
Just don’t approach the
pricing with the belief that “someone who knows what they’re doing can
do this in an hour” because unless you know first hand what it takes to
do the project, you don’t know whether or not this statement is true.
The reality is, many projects aren’t as easy to complete as they appear
on the surface. |
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