Average Budget Rounds to the nearest Dollar. BAD!! BAD BAD!!

Sounds good.. but that actually doesn't work.

 Why? Follow this example.

 Say I pay you $0.5 for doing X and I really need you to do X 20 times.

 In Odesk, I'll place a task with 1 X, and if you do it right I'll ask you to do 20 X. In this way, I'll pay you what we had agreed (1 X), and then pay you as a BONUS, 19 X more.

In other words, if put in the job post, per dozen, for example, that means I would be forced to keep working with that provider even if he is real bad. Or pay him less than we had agreed and have a dispute.

I prefer to avoid that. So I hire a provider, if he is bad, I just hire him for that article/data entry/ etc, and pay him for his work. If he is good, he stays, and I pay him for all his work but using Odesk Bonus feature.

 Hope you understand "pay per dozen" does not solve the problem.

Thanks
 

In theory sounds wonderful.

 In reality, in does not work like that.

 If you offer a provider $1 for an article, you cannot offer him $0.5 for the next article. You cannot lower the price. It's demotivating.

Can't you just round  up to the nearest 2 decimals?!

 Also, why would Odesk want a budget look like $0? (when it's actually for example 0.5)

 Even if you don't believe it, providers won't dare look at a job post with 0 price, but they will surely look at one that says $0.5.

Remember some providers work for $1 / hour, which is a fair price in so weak currencies, so $0.5 is a considerable amount.

 Also take note that in India it takes $100 to mantain a family of 4 members for a month, so $0.5 is a significant amount of money. This is not only in India, but also in other under-development countries.

 I think it would be fair for Odesk to consider this so that companies and providers  in under-development countries can still use your services, and so leave out the 2 decimals, in this way.

 Thanks

No offense meant to anyone but i think people here have no idea of where India's economy is and where the pay scale lies? For those who think that $100 a month can sustain 4 people in India, they are still living in the 20th century for sure. Just for a few facts . most of the IT guys here get a salary in excess of $500 + a month ( starters) and with 2-3 years experience u are looking at 1-1.5k a month at least. So guys, if u are paying lesser to anyone , u aint doing a favour by giving someone a job . Thats what we call " Exploitation" and those are the same people who will cry about work not being done as per expectation. The Logic there being " You get what u pay for "

 Just my 2 cent ( ah ! that is my dinner cost... make it 1 cent ! ) worth... Lol

That is not the point.

Forget about economies or whatever.

 The point is, even with 0.5$, when the price is per entry/ per whatever task, small amounts get very significant at larger number of repetitions. Therefore, it's important that 0.5$ doesn't get rounded to $1.

Thus, I was asking not to round to the neareast dollar, and keep the decimals. Yes, I could set a price quote per group of tasks, as another mentioned, but no, that's not a good idea, since I prefer to quote my tasks per individual repetition so as to test the provider before giving him further work.

That was the point of the discussion and sorry if I offended you in any way.

 Best regards,

Sorry for the outbreak ,mate but the implication just got me off on the wrong end. As for the rounding off, i believe that should be allowed, but as " ssukhotinsky" above pointed out, odesk might be losing for carrying out such transactions given the server time and all costs associated which need to be incurred due to a transaction.

Thanks for understanding and agreeing with me that the rounding off should be allowed.

No, actually Odesk doesn't loose money.

Two reasons:

1) IAfter hiring the provider, the buyer can use pay Bonus feature to assign him more tasks of the same type (more repetitions). Thus, the same transaction is used.

2) If for some reason the providers fails in the task, and the buyer closes the task, actually numbers get rounded up. In this way the 10% of Odesk is more expensive (in cents) than the 10% of a big number, if you want to get technical.

 It's not really a talk about money for Odesk. I think that rounding off or not, really implies a symbolical statement of what prices should be charged. In this way, I think Odesk should eliminate constrains or bias.

Anyways, as for now, I am following the original advice and putting tasks per X number of repetitions.

However, I think it would be wise to round up to 2 decimals.

 
My two cents!