Finding work, and what a bid costs
How to search and filter jobs, what a bid is and why applying costs one, how many each job type consumes, the free bids you start with, and how to stop wasting them on jobs you were never going to win.
Work reaches you two ways: you find it, or it finds you. Both matter, and the second gets better as your profile does.
Finding it yourself
Find work is the job board. Filter by category, type, budget and whatever else narrows it to work you would actually take.
Two habits separate freelancers who win work from those who spend bids:
Filter hard. The temptation is to look at everything. Everything includes a great deal of work you are not right for, and every one of those you apply to costs a bid and returns nothing.
Check recency. A job posted three weeks ago with forty proposals is a worse bet than one posted this morning with two, almost regardless of fit.
Save jobs you are considering and come back. A saved job is not applied to; saving costs nothing.
Work that finds you
Invitations are clients asking you specifically to apply. They convert far better than anything you find yourself, because someone has already looked at your profile and decided they want you.
You get invitations when your profile is complete, your category is right, and you have some history. This is the strongest argument for finishing your profile properly: it is the difference between hunting and being found.
Saved searches notify you when matching work appears, which puts you early in the queue on jobs you are genuinely suited to.
What a bid is
Applying to a job costs bids. It is a small charge, flat, regardless of the size of the job.
This is deliberate. On platforms where applying is free, popular jobs attract hundreds of applications, clients cannot read them, and everyone's effort is wasted. Costing something means a proposal is a real signal of interest. The volume here is lower and the quality is higher — which is worth more to you than free applications to jobs nobody will read.
You never pay more to win a bigger job, and you cannot outbid anyone for visibility. The cost is flat and there is no pay-to-win. Your profile and your proposal decide it.
How many a job costs
Most job types cost a small, equal number of bids. Dedicated Hire jobs cost more, because a monthly engagement is a much larger prize and pricing it the same as a small fixed-price job would flood those listings.
The cost is shown before you confirm. You will never spend bids without seeing the number first.
Where bids come from
Free bids when you start. New freelancers receive a one-time grant on first sign-in after verifying their email, so you can apply immediately without buying anything. It arrives with a notification.
Bid packs, bought whenever you want them.
An Ultra subscription, which includes bids each cycle along with its other benefits.
Referrals, which grant free bids for bringing people to the platform.
Free bids are spent before paid ones, so a grant is used first rather than sitting unused while you burn through a pack.
You are warned when your balance runs low. Your balance and full history are under Billing.
See Bid packs and Open Lance Ultra for what to buy and when.
Not wasting them
This is the part that actually matters to your income.
Do not apply to a job you have not read to the end. Obvious, routinely ignored, and the largest single source of wasted bids.
Check the client. Are they verified? Do they have a payment method? Have they hired before? A client with no history and no verified payment may never fund anything, and a bid spent there is gone regardless of how good your proposal was.
Check the competition indicator. A job already carrying many proposals is a long shot unless you are unusually well suited.
Read the budget honestly. If it is far below what you would accept, applying at your real price rarely converts. Occasionally worth it if you can make a genuine case; usually not.
Do not mass-apply. Ten considered proposals beat forty templated ones, and cost a quarter as much. Clients can tell instantly, and a templated proposal is a bid spent on being ignored.
A useful discipline: before spending a bid, ask whether you would bet the cost of the bid on winning this job. If not, skip it.
If you run out
Buy a pack, or wait for your subscription cycle. There is no way to apply without bids, and that is the mechanism that keeps proposal volume sane.
If you are running out constantly, the problem is usually targeting rather than supply. A freelancer applying to everything runs out weekly; one applying to twelve well-chosen jobs a month rarely does and wins more.
What happens after you apply
Your proposal is submitted and the client sees it. They may shortlist you, message you, or archive it.
Bids are not refunded if you are not selected. You are paying to be considered, not to win. If a client never responds to anyone, that is unfortunate, and it is why checking whether a client looks real is worth the ten seconds.
If a job is closed or expires, remaining proposals are archived and their authors notified, so you are not left waiting indefinitely.
Reading a job post properly
Thirty seconds spent reading properly saves a bid.
What do they actually need? Not the title, the description.
Is the scope defined? A vague post from a client who has not thought it through usually becomes a difficult contract.
Is the budget consistent with the scope? A mismatch means either they do not know what it costs, or they do and are hoping.
Who is the client? Verification, payment method, hiring history, reviews from other freelancers. This is the check that saves the most bids.
How much competition? The indicator on the job tells you.
How old is it? A fresh post with two proposals is a better bet than a three-week-old one with forty.
Building a routine
Freelancers who win consistently tend to work in a routine rather than checking the board reactively.
Set up two or three tight saved searches so good matches come to you. Check once or twice a day rather than continuously. Apply to a small number of well-chosen jobs, properly. Keep your profile current so invitations arrive without you doing anything.
The aim is fewer, better proposals. Ten considered ones a week beat forty templated ones, cost a quarter as much in bids, and win more work.
When there seems to be nothing
Quiet periods happen in every category. Some things that help more than refreshing the board:
Widen slightly, not enormously. Adjacent categories where your skills genuinely apply.
Publish a Drop-In. A packaged service earns while you are not applying, and it is a different route to the same clients. See Creating and selling a Drop-In.
Improve your profile. Quiet weeks are when invitations matter most, and invitations depend on the profile.
Go back to past clients. A message to somebody you worked with six months ago costs nothing and converts far better than a cold proposal.
Saved searches, used properly
Saved searches are the mechanism that turns finding work from a daily chore into something that happens in the background, and most freelancers set them too broadly.
A good saved search is narrow enough that every match is worth looking at. If yours produces ten notifications a day and you open one, it is not a saved search, it is noise, and you will start ignoring it.
Have two or three narrow ones rather than one broad one. Being early on a job matters — a proposal sent within the first few hours competes against three others rather than thirty.
Working out your conversion
The single most useful number about your own approach is bids spent per contract won.
Count it over a month. If it is high, the problem is targeting rather than writing: you are applying to jobs you were never going to get. If it is low but your income is low, the problem is which jobs you are targeting rather than whether you win them.
Most freelancers have never calculated this and are surprised by the answer. It is the fastest route to spending less and earning more.
Invitations, and how to get more
Invitations are the highest-converting source of work and they require no bids at all.
They arrive when your profile is complete, your category is right, your rate is plausible and you have some history. That is the whole list, and it is why finishing your profile properly is worth more than any amount of applying.
If you are getting none, the cause is almost always the category or an incomplete profile. See Your freelancer profile.
Common questions
Are bids refunded if I am not hired? No. You are paying to be considered.
Do bids expire? No.
Can I withdraw a proposal? You can withdraw before a client acts on it, but the bid is spent.
Why do some jobs cost more bids? Dedicated Hire jobs cost more, because a monthly engagement is a much larger prize.
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