Understanding Freelance Job Site Fees

Although they may operate differently, the one thing most freelance job sites have in common is their fees. Depending on the site, fees range from a flat rate of a few dollars on up to a percentage of the amount you bid. As you start completing more work, you may start wondering why you're paying so much of your hard-earned money to someone else. If you think these fees are unfair, think again.

Call it a finder's fee

Finding new work isn't cheap and that's something freelancers don't understand until they've tried. Take an appearance at a trade show for example. After paying a deposit to secure booth space and spending money to create and print brochures and literature so you have something to give away to prospective customers, you've easily spent $500 or more. And you've not even talked to any prospects yet!

Nearby trade shows don't involve much in the way of travel expenses, but attend one of those annual industry-specific ones - the ones where all the big shots mingle - and you'll have additional travel, lodging, food, and entertainment costs to factor into your overall costs. And even after paying all this money to make an appearance, you might still go home with a fishbowl full of business cards but no new work.

Even if attending trade shows isn't part of your marketing plan, you still have to be aggressive about drumming up new business. Direct mail campaigns, internet campaigns, print campaigns - they're all costly, especially if you don't know how to put these campaigns into motion. You could easily end up spending thousands of dollars on ineffective campaigns that won't bring you any new customers.

Is that a chance you're willing to take? When you partner with freelance job sites, you don't have to. That's because the people behind these job sites take care of attracting qualified buyers. And you can bet the buyers who appear on these sites are ready to take action otherwise, they wouldn't be posting their projects!

Call it a bookkeeper

After you've chased and completed your work, you'll be tired, but guess what? You won't be finished. You still have to send invoices, follow up on invoices and from time to time, you'll have to chase your clients for payment. You don't have time to do all this because you need to be out soliciting more new work!

And what if the client doesn't pay you - ever? Or what if you do get paid but the check bounces. Now what?

Call it convenient

When you stop and think of all the services that freelance job sites handle for you, you realize the fee you pay is justifiable and it's fair. And it's probably less than what you'd end up paying for all your marketing, advertising, customer service and bill collecting efforts.

There's real value in getting your profile in front of the hundreds of qualified buyers that frequent these freelance job sites. But you've got to win them over first. How? With a killer profile page!

In the next article, I'll show you how to create great profile page.