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Milestones

Break down big projects and stay on track with milestones. Milestones are like checkpoints, helping you and your freelancer clearly define project stages. This ensures everyone's aligned, progress is easily tracked, and complex tasks become manageable.

In this guide, you'll discover the key benefits of using milestones, learn how to effectively implement them, and find answers to frequently asked questions.

Milestone benefits

  • Gain clear visibility into your freelancer's progress with structured milestones. This ensures on-time deliveries, aligns payments with completed work, and simplifies project management with pre-defined deadlines and deliverables.
  • By splitting your project into six sections (and payments), your freelancer will know your expectations and deadlines, with structured updates throughout the process.
    Any potential confusion or delays can be prevented using milestones—milestone deliveries are always approved by you before the freelancer moves onto the next milestone.

    Suggestion: Define your revisions per milestone for an even more organized project.

  • Milestones eliminate the need for frequent clarification, ensuring your freelancer understands project details from the start. This minimizes unnecessary communication and streamlines your collaboration.

Using milestones 

  • Use this option for complex projects—and approve each project step. Get custom offers from freelancers that include milestones. You’ll be notified with an inbox message when you receive a custom offer. Alternatively, you can contact a particular freelancer and request a custom offer including milestones. You can have up to 6 milestones in a custom offer.
     
    Note: Only orders over $100 are eligible for milestones.
  • Find freelancers with Gigs that incorporate milestones. You'll be able to review a freelancer's workflow and milestone pricing before placing an order. Understand their work process and know precisely what deliverables to expect, and when. You can have up to 5 milestones with Gig milestones.
     
    Note: Only freelancers (with a basic package over $100) in the following subcategories can add Milestones to their Gigs: 3D Product Animation; Business Plans; Producers & Composers; Desktop Applications; and Social Media Marketing.

    You'll see the option to use milestones on a freelancer's Gig:

    packages_w_milestone_payments.png

Note: You have 8 days from the delivery of each milestone to request a revision or accept it. If no action is taken, the order will be stopped and marked as completed. After accepting a delivery and completing a milestone, you have ten days to initiate the next milestone.

 

FAQs

  • We recommend using milestones for bigger projects to allow for more flexibility in the smaller steps. Milestones offer you a reduced risk, and these per-task payments also give freelancers the incentive to keep up the good work.
  • Get an idea of how it is to work with your potential freelancer:

    Example 1: Logo design
    eg_1.png

    Example 2: Whiteboard & explainers 
    eg_2.png

  • You’ll be charged for the first milestone when you place an order. Once you approve a milestone and initiate the next one, the associated payment will be made.
  • A milestone within an order, or the whole order, can be canceled through the Resolution Center or through Customer Support, for valid reasons.
  • You can contact the freelancer and ask them to send you a custom offer—using milestones.
  • You’ll have 8 days from the delivery of each milestone to request a revision/accept it, and continue to the next one. If you don’t, the order will stop, and be marked as completed.
  • You can add a maximum of 5 milestones per Gig order, and 6 milestones per custom offer. If this is an ongoing service, it may be more suitable for you to use Subscriptions.
  • No, you can choose either subscription or milestones but they can’t be combined and used in the same order.

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