I have been successful on ExpertHelp to a degree, but one thing I notice is the ever so increasing connection fees, and lack of answers concerning this. What determines a connection fee, and when will have some idea of a stable number?
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Hi @andy.barrows,
This is a great question. The connect fee is determined by a proprietary algorithm. Before submitting a quote, you will be able to clearly see the what the connect free is for that request should the customer choose to connect with you.
What I encourage all Pros to do is keep a record of your activity (requests sent, connects, connect fees, and dollars earned) and look at your ROI holistically over a longer period of time. We have WordPress Pros who have been quite successful on our platform. They most likely have determined that the total revenue they have earned from the customers they earned from ExpertHelp outweighs the costs of their quotes and connect fees.
Only you can make this determination. Here’s an article that might help you calculate your return on investment for the ExpertHelp service:
As always, thanks for the questions and feedback, and let us know if we can help you with anything else.
Regards,
Matthew Pomar
When a connection is $50 because the requester doesn’t get why their website disappeared when the thier webhost tried to charge their expired credit card, it’s absird. Who is going to want to pay that fee just to tell a person to update their payment method on file with their web host and their site will reappear. That was an actual request and the actual fee that came through. I’ve seena request come through chewing someone out, not really stating a problem and being assessed a connection fee. For what?
The connection fees are getting higher and higher. Requests aren’t well qualified. An algorithm may access it, by those prices are being programmed by humans.
The connection fees are actually becoming a deterrent lately. I used to bid on more projects but lately I 2nd guess it because of cost and no promise of ROI. I get there is no guarantees, just sharing where my head is at.
I agree 100%. I saw this request. How in good faith can you charge someone
to update credit card info? And more than $65???
Great conversation. I appreciate the candid feedback.
I realize not every WordPress lead who submits a request on the site is going to be a good prospect for everyone (or even anyone). While we do our best to qualify the leads before they land in your inbox, it’s not possible to block all low-quality leads.
I recommend simply skipping requests you don’t believe will provide you a return, and only bid on those requests you believe are a good fit for your business and will result in a profit. Also factor in on-going projects, and services into this calculation.
So, I definitely hear you about the connect fees. If a request comes in and the requestor is complaining about being locked out of their WordPress.com account, then I probably wouldn’t submit a bid for this, especially if the connect fee is $65. Our algorithm evaluates multiple signals to determine the connect fee, and while it has worked well for us, it’s not perfect and we are constantly looking at ways to improve it.
We have a number of WordPress Pros that are doing quite well with our service, and others that haven’t quite figured out how to make it work for them. We do what we can to make it appeal to as many Pros as possible. For the Pros it hasn’t worked well for, they have either:
- Determined that over a period of time (or number of requests), the money they spent on ExpertHelp connect fees and tokens did not result in a good ROI, or
- Gave up before they made that determination.
If you are only looking at a single request and connect fee and thinking it is too expensive, then I invite you to take a step back and look at the numbers at a higher level.
For example, I suggest you do the following:
- Selectively (this is absolute key) bid on 20 or more requests. Write this number down.
- Make a note of how many connects you received and their cost as well.
- After some time, record how any customers you received and your estimated total billings for all those customers (again, key… don’t just look at initial invoice).
- Compare the total amount spent, vs the total dollars earned (and will earn due to hosting fees, maintenance fees, new customer referrals, etc…).
- Decide if it was worth the investment. If yes, then keep going. If no, make changes.
Last thing to keep in mind is, customers are never guaranteed. If you know of a service that sells leads that are guaranteed to turn into paying customers that you can make profit on, let me know and I’ll be the first in line to sign-up! 
Thanks again for your feedback. Let us know how else we can better help you find more customers for your business.
Matt
Matthew,
Like myself I think most of these pros enjoy the service and find it useful. We just want to help make it great, instead of good. Like yourself, many of us have businesses under our belts and countless years of experience, and that could prove to help your own business. Why not take advice from business professionals on how to make your business more appealing? I know I would if in that position!
As far as ROI I have had 4/24 connects and have made over $2000 on just those connects in the last 2 weeks. Are sone of the request ridiculous? Yes, but they still pay. The best one that I have bid on yet is a gentleman looking to make a “bookie” website for an android poker app. I won the bid, and charged him my consultation fee as I normally do, and we were able to come up with a whole new plan of action and he became a $550 client. Another needed help with AdWords. As a certified professional, and knowing the system in and out, I was able to bid on this and knock it out pretty quickly. The next day the same requester called me to redo thier entire site. Create that relationship and business will come. Is the relationship worth $65? Not always, and I will be the first to say that $65 is too much, but you have to expand beyond the original request and look for more opportunity.
So point being sometimes the request on here is not the only thing they need!
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