Airtasker is proud to announce our new fee structure. For the vast majority of Taskers, this new fee structure represents a decrease in fees and an increase in their take-home pay.
We changed our fee structure after speaking with a huge number of Taskers, listening to their feedback, and examining different fee structures. Some Taskers felt they were contributing a lot to the platform by doing a lot of tasks, but it wasn’t reflected in their fees. New Taskers said they wanted to test the platform without an upfront commitment. Overall, Taskers wanted it to be simple and fair.
We weighed a huge range of options, looking at many different ways to fund the business (from subscriptions to surge pricing and beyond). Ultimately we landed on a structure that we termed ‘tiered pricing’. Put simply, this means that the more work you complete through Airtasker, the less you will pay in fees.
Read on below to learn more about how tiered pricing works.
What is tiered pricing?
In a nutshell, the more you earn through Airtasker, the less you pay in fees. We figure it’s a fair way to reward people doing the bulk of their work through Airtasker.
“Tiered” pricing means that the service fee is no longer a set percentage – instead, it has 4 levels (or “tiers”) that lower the service fee amount as you reach it.
And we’re talking about a substantial decrease in fees here – the highest rate remains the same at 20%, but the lowest rate will decrease to 10% – that’s a whopping 50% reduction in fees.
How many tiers are there?
There are 4 tiers. You’ll start at Bronze, advance to Silver, then to Gold, and ultimately could reach Platinum. You can see the rates and levels below.
How does the calculation work?
The tier you belong to is based on how much you’ve earned over the previous 30 days.
Every time a Poster releases payment to you, the amount is added to your total earnings and will count towards your tier for the next 30 days.
When you make an offer, we’ll also add that offer amount to your tier to see if you’d move up (and therefore get the lower fee) by completing this task. If you win this task, the new tier you reached (and the lowered service fee) will apply to the rest of that task, including any price increases and bonuses.
When is Airtasker launching tiered pricing?
Tiered pricing will launch in early March. On launch day a Taskers earnings from the prior 30 days prior will apply on Day 1 so that you may start on a higher tier (with lower fees).
What does tiered pricing mean for me?
For most people, this will mean a significant decrease in your service fee and an increase in your take-home pay.
Why is Airtasker changing the fee structure?
Although the recent discounts for high-value tasks were well received by Taskers completing high-value tasks, it didn’t help those Taskers who were doing a large number of smaller value tasks. To try and make sure it’s fair for both groups, we’re applying discounted fees on total earnings instead of earnings for a single task.
More broadly, one of the biggest challenges we face running a growing technology platform is to understand how best to invest our resources. All fees get reinvested straight into the business so that there are more and more jobs to be won and so that we can continue to improve the customer experience for Taskers and Posters.
We have big ambitions for this in 2019, which requires significant investment in our engineering, marketing, design and support teams. We have actually spent much, much more in building and growing the marketplace to provide more jobs for Taskers than we have received in fees, with the difference coming from external investors.
How does this affect Airtasker’s financials?
This tiered pricing will actually decrease Airtasker’s total revenue (even after accounting for the recent decreases in pricing for high-value tasks). We’ve deliberately made the decision to lower our fee rate because we want to invest in you, our Tasker community, to make sure that Airtasker is the best platform for you to find work.
What does the service fee cover?
The service fee covers the costs of keeping the platform running and bringing more and more jobs onto the platform. It also covers the cost of insurance, support, and payments.
Will I be disadvantaged as a part-time Tasker?
Our research shows that by far the most important factor to win a task is how fast you make an offer and the quality of your reputation. Reputation quality is influenced by your star ratings, completion rate and the professionalism of the offer made. Because all of these things are within your control as a part-time Tasker, the changes to the pricing shouldn’t affect the way you use Airtasker.
Is this the end of the story?
We’re constantly evaluating how our fees are structured to make sure that they’re fair to everyone – Taskers and Posters alike. Please feel free to reach out to fees@airtasker.com if you have any feedback or suggestions.
