Buyers who want a fixed price for long-term work

[katiekoschalk]

I offer writing gigs and I often get buyers who want to lock in a fixed price per article in exchange for the promise of a long-term partnership. This happened once before when I first started and I told the buyer I’d lock in $30 per article in exchange for guaranteed weekly work for a year. Over the next few months, my rate naturally increased to $45 per article due to my increasing demand, but I’m still stuck charging this buyer only $30 per article. This means my time is taken up writing an article for $30 when I could be writing another buyer’s article for $45. How do y’all handle it when buyers ask for a fixed price in exchange for long-term work?

[imagination7413]

Honor the contract. Stick it out, but warn the client that you’re raising your price, and any future work after the contract expires will be subject to new rates, and that you will not be doing more locked-price work.

Good lesson learned early, at least.

[moditha_damindu]

If I were you I am going to stick up to 30 $ price margin You know why because of the Fiverr algorithm your gig can show on Fiverr first page or Fiverr will give you traffic today tomorrow or next month but in one point they are going to forget you temporarily and move to a another seller when that happens you are not going get organic orders or you will not even caught up to the Fiverr search results but that buyer who were with you since day one still coming to you but if you increased the price margin buyer will lose the interest too.

My best advice stick up to the 30$ price it’s okay it will lose up your time and probably your effort need more demand or price but once you don’t have any consistent orders you are going to end up with that buyer. 🙏

[english_voice]

I’m going to offer a different point of view to what’s been suggested so far.

All this talk of ‘locking in a price for longterm work’ is nonsense on Fiverr. It’s not how the platform works. Such weasel words are used by cheap and bad buyers to groom new and inexperienced sellers - to psychologically trick them into doing work cheaply.

There is no contract. Your buyer has had several months’ worth of getting work from you at below market rates. You’ve probably benefitted from the initial momentum that their orders and feedback gave you. They’ve got something from the deal - you’ve got something from the deal. Great, but now it’s time to progress.

It’s probably worth having a polite conversation with your buyer about the need to raise your prices. If they are genuine and sincere they will understand. If they are a bit scammy they will probably fightback accusing you of going back on your word, etc. Ignore it if they do this.

But have some pride. If you continue to work at below your market rate, it will only eat away at you more - the very fact that you’ve come to the forum suggests you’re already feeling this way.

[imagination7413]

@english_voice has a very good point. I would only caution that, IF this is a bad buyer, they might try to get cancellations of your past orders, due to breach of ‘contract’.

I’m not sure how CS would fall in that case.

[katiekoschalk]

I’m going to offer a different point of view to what’s been suggested so far.

All this talk of ‘locking in a price for longterm work’ is nonsense on Fiverr. It’s not how the platform works. Such weasel words are used by cheap and bad buyers to groom new and inexperienced sellers - to psychologically trick them into doing work cheaply.

There is no contract. Your buyer has had several months’ worth of getting work from you at below market rates. You’ve probably benefitted from the initial momentum that their orders and feedback gave you. They’ve got something from the deal - you’ve got something from the deal. Great, but now it’s time to progress.

It’s probably worth having a polite conversation with your buyer about the need to raise your prices. If they are genuine and sincere they will understand. If they are a bit scammy they will probably fightback accusing you of going back on your word, etc. Ignore it if they do this.

But have some pride. If you continue to work at below your market rate, it will only eat away at you more - the very fact that you’ve come to the forum suggests you’re already feeling this way.

Good advice, thank you. I think I’ll stick out the original “contract” for another couple months, but after that I won’t be falling for this trick any more from buyers. Like you said, the very idea of a contract doesn’t make sense on Fiverr.

[vinnyrogers]

My take would be that you were okay with the arrangement when you agreed it initially. So you considered the price fair at the time as it gave you a guaranteed predictable income which suited your needs.

In reality you are down a max of 180, that’s assuming you are only at the start of the arrangement.
This client may want to extend and you can then charge 45 a month or more. They may have a different view of extending if you break the original agreement, so if you think of it in terms of losing the following years business it probably isn’t so bad.

But, you’ve got to do what feels right to you.

[katiekoschalk]

Honor the contract. Stick it out, but warn the client that you’re raising your price, and any future work after the contract expires will be subject to new rates, and that you will not be doing more locked-price work.

Good lesson learned early, at least.

Yes, definitely a lesson learned. I’ll be doing what you suggested. Thanks for your input!

[english_voice]

@english_voice has a very good point. I would only caution that, IF this is a bad buyer, they might try to get cancellations of your past orders, due to breach of ‘contract’.

I’m not sure how CS would fall in that case.

@english_voice has a very good point. I would only caution that, IF this is a bad buyer, they might try to get cancellations of your past orders, due to breach of ‘contract’.

I’m not sure how CS would fall in that case.

You’re wise to offer caution on my words!

However, each gig is a separate contract. There is nothing governing ongoing work as far as I know.

[lenasemenkova]

I tell buyers like this that I accept projects one by one.

Them just saying that you’ll have a steady stream of orders for a year isn’t binding. There is no contract. There is no penalty for breaching the contract. There can’t be and shouldn’t be any long-term commitments made under these conditions.

In this particular case, I’d inform the buyer that my circumstances have changed and I could no longer honor the agreement. Let them choose to either stick with me or move on. If they get upset in any way, then, again, there is no contract, there is no penalty.

PS I had to decline to continue working with regular buyers twice and they both came back to me with “What are we supposed to do now, we have a certain look you’ve developed”. I was a bit worried about the mass cancellation of previous orders to follow but nothing happened.

I didn’t specifically commit to “a year” or a certain price range with either of them but said that I wouldn’t mind working with them again in the future. They’ve made some unrealistic assumptions based on that and started to treat myself and my time like I was an in-house worker, for sure.

[imagination7413]

Exactly.

An agreement made in chat is a bit like a verbal contract. An order contract would supersede a chat agreement, but then there’s use of “as agreed in chat” and when there are multiple agreements, or what was agreed isn’t clear, there’s a problem. Worse is a tiny word, if instead used is “as discussed in chat” as that technically could include anything and everything discussed, if nothing was actually agreed on. When a Buyer does it for requirements, it’s annoying. (Ex: Venting about empty buyer requirements when discussed in messages) When a Seller does it, it’s lazy.

Plus there’s the loophole in the ToS: “if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page.” Not the chat/messaging system, not the order page, the gig page. About 85% of my orders are custom orders. I’ll fully admit this loophole makes me nervous.

(Loophole example. Thai article vs. article in Thai: Buyer expected completely different result from the gig (wrong language) )

en.wikipedia.org

Oral contract

An oral contract is a contract, the terms of which have been agreed by spoken communication. This is in contrast to a written contract, where the contract is a written document. There may be written, or other physical evidence, of an oral contract – for example where the parties write down what they have agreed – but the contract itself is not a written one. In general, oral contracts are just as valid as written ones, but some jurisdictions either require a contract to be in writing in certain ...