No, I Won’t Do a Free Test For You
The one pitfall you should avoid like hell as a new freelancer
I received yet another — shameless — request for free work the other week. By now, I can easily spot them from a mile away. As soon as the words “test” or “sample” or, God forbid, “competition,” creep into a prospective buyer’s vocabulary, I know it’s effectively over.
This is the conversation I had this morning:
And, alas, only a few minutes later, the following words were exchanged:
I politely —albeit seething internally — explained to the buyer that I could not provide free work, and they said “okay” and disappeared, never to return again.
I had to learn to say “no” to buyers who want free samples. However, starting off as a freelancer, especially if you don’t have a lot of clients yet, can make saying “no” feel foreign, even like a waste of potential opportunities.
It isn’t, I promise.
Let me explain why.
One: Those “buyers” will never come back
At the very beginning, I was willing to offer free “test runs” to any buyer who was promising me a large order and just wanted to “test my skills” or “assess the quality of my work.”
I learnt very quickly that these supposed future orders never materialised.
They were scams.
Buyers on Fiverr do that quite a lot. They will split up their order — let’s say someone needs 1000 words proofread, so they contact 5 buyers and ask them to proofread 200 words each as a “test” — never intending to send anyone the full work, thereby getting all of it for free.
The easiest way to spot this is if something gives you an unnatural starting point for a test — chapter 3 of their book (someone likely already proofread chapters 1 and 2 for them for free), a paragraph in the middle of a longer text (again, someone already proofread the beginning for them), etc.
The most brazen attempt of this I have encountered so far was this guy openly admitting he was running a competition between freelancers to “see who’s best.” He paid me $5 to edit over 2000 words — within only a couple of hours (which is way below market rate). Naively, I fell for it. I thought, $5 is $5, even if I don’t win the “competition” to get all the work. And perhaps the buyer will leave a good review. But literally the minute I delivered the finished order, he disputed it and requested a refund because my work wasn’t “good” (problem was: he never could have assessed my work because he cancelled the minute I delivered). He got my work for free, and ran.
In hindsight, that was incredibly dumb. Don’t fall into this trap, please.
Two: Legitimate buyers will pay for your work
I totally understand that most people don’t want to shovel tens, hundreds, or even thousands of dollars into the lap of a stranger online, without first having seen some proof of the freelancer’s skill and output. I full-heartedly support small test orders, and offer them frequently to all of my clients, especially to anyone looking to spend more than $50.
But test runs should ALWAYS be paid. Your time as a freelancer is worth something, and any buyer who respects you will also respect the time and effort it takes for you to complete an order, even a small one.
If a client is convinced you have the skills they are looking for, they should pay you accordingly. And, in contrast, if they’re not willing to pay you, chances are, they don’t value your skills very highly, and it’s probably best to move on and work with someone else.
Three: They have the money
I’m not sorry — if someone is looking to spend a large chunk of money on your services, they can easily afford a $5 test. This position is not something I yield.
The first buyer described above was claiming to have a massive order coming my way — $12 for each product. 500 products. $6,000 total. Yet he couldn’t afford a $5 sample? Really?
This is how they entice you — with the promise of large amounts of money coming your way, after the free test, obviously. Typical scam tactics. Of course, they may not always promise you $6,000, but they don’t need to. For most newbie freelancers, even $50 or $100 is a solidly sized order. The promise of that kind of cash down the line can easily rope someone into a one-sided situation, where you most likely expend your skills for nothing in return.
I wouldn’t recommend it.
