Bidding Low on Elance

Elance keeps its bidding wars a secret, so you never know where you stand money wise. Maybe someone better qualified than you submitted a lower bid, and you're afraid that you won't get the job. Or since you don't have any readily available samples of your work, you're afraid to bid too high (or bid a justifiable amount).

On Elance, it sometimes is necessary to bid lower than you normally would, or what the site allows. Elance says the minimum bid should be $50 for jobs of $500 or less. Does that mean you have to bid that much for a really small job that you would normally charge $20 for? No, you can bid lower. However, in the ranking system that Elance has created, your rank goes down for such actions.

Another reason to bid lower is your experience. You may have a great portfolio, but that doesn't mean that you will get the job. Along with the samples, many customers there want someone with experience and reviews, and if you just have the samples that won't be enough for them. Bidding lower will make the risk easier to swallow for them. Do I suggest doing this all the time? Not at all. But sometimes you have to bid low to gain a reputation. Once gained though, bid what you think you deserve.

Fierce competition exists on Elance, and though seldom, sometimes a customer will post that price is what they are looking at for consideration of your proposal. This is the biggest stigma on Elance is that, while the community of freelancers is good and the resource is amazing, the competition gets in the way and makes you have to bid low and scrape for any job you can get there, especially as a new provider.

Good reasons exist to bid lower than you normally would, or what the site says you should. Sometimes, it's a necessary evil to gaining a job you are looking for because you know others are probably thinking the same thing. While you also want to avoid the other stigma, that bidding low means you are unsure of yourself and your quality of writing, you have to consider all the angles before making your final bid for a job at Elance.

Bid your normal amount when you finally have enough reviews and samples, but until then I would suggest you go a little lower to help your chances.