Vote - Original 15%-3,5% service fee VS new 20% Fee structure.
Hello Everyone.
PPH wants to know whether the new fee structure suits the majority of sellers or not? please vote and comment (Comment is important)
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CS Response :
If you want your buyers to vote go here :
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So I'm a bit confused about the whole HIGH VALUE job listings that cost us 2 credits to bid on. I have just been asked to bid on a project that is listed as HIGH VALUE - the fixed price is £136, after fees that would leave me £103, for a full market research report - how on earth can that be classed as HIGH VALUE?? PPH what are you doing to us??
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Hi Elaine. Probably not the best to dilute this thread with a different topic, albeit as equally frustrating to buyers,
High Value was 'introduced' (though no buyers requesed it) to show that the seller is good and the job has the 'value' with the potential for further work,
That's all a scam. The algorithm PPH use is a sham, with a vast majority of jobs not adhering to the case. Esssentially virtually all jobs with a fixed budget are set as 'High Value'. Thes cost 3, not 2, credits for a proposal which eats into the measly 15 allocation.
Lots of threads in the forum on this. PPH of course don't give a shit.
In the context of this thread its essentially another money grab by PPH on buyers ( to get them to buy more wasted credits ). All complaints of course fall on deaf ears.
I for one will NOT purchase additional credits until High Value is scrapped and the fees are reverted to as before, or at least less punitive.
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i used to earn in 1000s each month regularly with original fee scheme, been a top cert for years consistently nearly £50000 just on here. i've noticed a steep decline in sales overall on here ever since the new scheme was introduced, i'm in design category, pph need to realise we're not going to work for peanuts on here and keep cost down for buyers when service rates are stupidly high, most design jobs are one offs so this new scheme is completely ineffective.
i think if pph could revert back to the original 15% and 3.5% scheme that would be great.
pretty much every buyer and sellers christmas wish this year.
i'm quite saddened how bad pph has gotten over the last year, i used to promote this site to everyone and was proud to.
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"At this point, as you have been already informed, the new Service Fee scheme has not shown its true potential, as a small period of time has passed since its implementation. It is only logical that the data gathered through this small period of time, cannot be indicative"
gathering data, sorry I mean filling pockets.
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I don't think they are worried about losing their top sellers. They seem to have changed their strategy to low quality jobs, low quality freelancers and high fees. They have the added bonus that any freelancers that give up after earning a small amount of money will quite likely leave their money in the account because it is too difficult and time consuming to withdraw it.
I have not even submitted a bid for over two months. I get paid so little for a completed project now it is not worth my time, especially when I add the bidding time for the projects I don't get. Despite this, I've only dropped about 100 places in the ranking, so presumably the people around me in the rankings are not doing any work either.
At the 15% and 3.5% fees there was an incentive to do low value projects, because it helped to reach that £170 threshold to get the lower fee. Now one project doesn't help to reduce the fees of another. -
Reduced overall freelancer revenue, does not mean reduced revenue for PPH, remember. They have effectively quadrupled (or better) many of the fees on most of their transactions. Meaning they can take a massive reduction in overall freelancer turnover and still actually increase profit.
3.5% of 100,000 is £3500
20% of a just a quarter of that (£25,000) is £5000
Also, it's not 'top sellers' that are the people wielding power here - it's specifically sellers that tend to have a high turnover of new clients and who don't bill more than £5k to any of them.
That demographic is so wide it's impossible to mobilise them effectively for any sort of boycott.
I think PPH have done their research and realised they're still offering fees in line with every other direct competitor, and, so long as they still turn a profit, less work coming through here is actually easier on what few staff and systems they have to manage.
It saddens me they went to such an extreme, they could have staggered this increase, or gone halfway and still increased profit, reduced traffic and been better on commission. But as a business decision, I get why they did it. -
i guess there's no hope then for this platform anymore then?
there is some platforms which work out cheaper i've come across which still do 3.5% fee.
i realise it may be better for them at the moment but if quality sellers aren't getting decent work through here or a decent turnover each month and they leave, what's going to happen effectively is people with low quality skills are going to be the only ones sticking around. which would result in bad products for buyers and poor feedback which reflects poorly on the site.
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specifically it was a 3d one i came across called cgtrader. not bad as i do 3d aswell.
i'm looking about at other platforms myself at the moment, as most of buyers on here seem to be cancelling projects when offered a fair price or just become unresponsive, i don't know i'm just really losing faith in freelancing at all.
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It's definitely becoming harder to make a decent living out of freelancing on here at least. The prices that many customers place on things are miles away from reality.
500 quid for a eCommerce site that does everything ? I don't think so. If the developer was changing £10 p/h that would only be just over a week of development time. It's ridiculous.
Maybe its just the Web Development side of things but it's just not workable.
If you want quality then it needs paying for.
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The pricing structure new or old is not really the issue. It's the expectation of what is going to be delivered for the price.
I'm happy to take 20% commission up to £500.00 for a new client and then 10% after but only if they are happy to pay £35.00 + p/h for my time. Which is still decent for an experienced developer.
But that's hardly ever what they expect.
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In response to a) using other platforms, and b) the perception its becoming harder to make a decent living....
The action I took was:
1) leveraged my position on other platforms, mainly Upwork. which doesn't charge buyers 10%.
2) self promotion and networking and a little activity on the likes of Linkedin.
3) I increased all my prices.
I landed a new client quickly on Upwork, which has surpassed their $10k threshold and is now at a 5% fee. That same client is soon launching project two, all of which will also be 5%.
Ad hoc work has continued to come through PPH, though not in the same quantity and the increase in hourly rate covers the increase greed of PPH, though I stress this is a small proportion of my monthly billing.
I secured 3 other ongoing projects, and several coaching clients directly, and have another pending project, likely to be the biggest I've ever worked on, for a major brand who have specifically stated they have become disenchanted with bricks and mortar marketing agencies spewing the same generic strategies.
Whether fate, the accumulation of hard work over the years, or a different attitude, I don't know, but I am now billing several times more monthly than ever before and turning work away as well as referring to others for a finders fee.
I even had one client tell me that the reason they chose me is because I was the most expensive.
I still think that what PPH did was immoral and unethical as they went against their word in relation to those on the old rate. My personal situation aside, my perspective is of those others significantly affected and less able to absorb PPH's money grab which regardless of motive or justification, was insensitive and burned all bridges when it comes to any loyalty there once might have been.
To anyone else yet to bounce back, see above, find alternative sources of work, move on, and develop your own, fee free clientele.
I wish anyone reading this, all the best in their business.
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I have to say since the increase I have slightly raised my prices and also about to start my own ventures on other sites and my own. I have had a lot more interest on here and turned a lot of work away and I assume less people are perhaps bidding or wanting to work on this platform. I just refuse clients who try to negotiate down for little money, but sometimes I believe they don't realise the commission we pay.
Whilst a TV campaign is all well and good, a decent support network is desperately needed on this platform and the limit of freelancer with poor or no English skills need to be stopped. I only brought up to PPH a youtube video on how to get full marks on the PPH tests but Sofia from support was not interested.
Surely to attract good clients, only good freelancer are needed on the platform and if the support and maybe promotions or incentives were provided it would be profitable for everyone.
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As of last week I've stopped doing business through PPH because of this and the 10% buyer fee; PPH's fee structure is utterly broken, and entirely unjustified.
It's a digital platform; overhead is minimal, yet they're gouging both buyers and sellers, and also penalising sellers for having short-term buyers (despite that being the cornerstone of the "hourlies")!
Unless the fees are drastically restructured in favour of actually encouraging people to want to use the platform, I will be doing no further business through PPH.
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