This is the latest in a series of posts explaining the decisions we make that affect our users, as well as the results of those decisions (positive or negative).
Dribbble’s mission is to help professional designers earn a living doing work they take pride in.
We generate revenue by facilitating successful transactions between our users. The primary objective of everything we do – every new feature, policy, and campaign – is to maximize the number of users searching, interacting, and, ultimately, transacting through our platform.
In September, we introduced Projects, allowing clients to request design services and pay, and designers to deliver work and get paid. These features give clients peace of mind – secure payments, fraud protection, copyright ownership, and more – which helps designers generate and convert more leads (without the risk of non-payment or late payment).
Last week, we released Services, allowing designers to sell freelance services that can be purchased instantly. Designers outline the work offered and set the price, completion time, number of revisions, and any other specifications they want to include. This functionality, like Projects, is integral to the future of our platform.
Once clients find a designer to hire, they can send a Project Request or purchase a Service using the “Get In Touch” feature (accessible from profile pages, Shot pages, and Designer Search results). Services are also showcased on the designer’s profile:
Services will increase designers’ earnings by improving their lead conversion and throughput.
- Some clients can find the Project Request daunting. Services provide clients with options to easily browse and purchase (when Quick Hire is enabled) or serve as a jumping-off point for a Project Request.
- Some clients lack the frame of reference to suggest an appropriate budget in their Project Request. Services allow designers to set expectations in advance and tee up more constructive interactions with their leads.
- Depending on a project’s scope and complexity, there may be lengthy back-and-forth between designer and lead before reaching an agreement. This can be highly repetitive and time-consuming for the designer, who may be having similar exchanges with multiple leads at once. Services allow high-intent leads to skip straight to payment (when Quick Hire is enabled) or, at the very least, find much of the information they need in the description.
- Quick Hire eliminates the opportunity cost of working leads that don’t convert.
- Quick Hire allows designers to convert leads all day, every day.
Some early observations based on the first 1,000 Services created:
- Landing page design (18.4%) is the most common work offered.
- 72.3% of Services have Quick Hire enabled.
- Average completion time for work of 17.0 days (14.1 for Quick Hire enabled, 23.0 for Quick Hire disabled).
- Average price of $2.2K ($1.6K for Quick Hire enabled, $3.3K for Quick Hire disabled). There’s significant price dispersion within categories of work (which isn’t surprising given the differences in experience, ability, and reputation among our designers).
- Distribution of Services by price:
- While Services is intended for freelance design work, some designers are using the functionality to offer digital products like Wordpress themes, Webflow templates, and Figma UI kits. Others are offering email marketing, social media marketing, and other types of non-design work. We’re open to these use cases but won’t prioritize them.
To maximize their earnings, we advise designers to do the following:
- Be specific about the design work being offered (there are no restrictions as long as it complies with our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
- Enable Quick Hire (for more information, designers can refer to this Help Center article).
- For more information on Services in general, designer can refer to this Help Center article).
Be responsive to Project Requests and transact through the platform.
- Designers with high response rates and low response times rank higher in Designer Search.
- Designer Search users can see designers’ average response times (which may influence their decision to get in touch).
- Designers who complete client work on Dribbble and receive positive reviews/ratings rank higher in Designer Search than those who don’t.
- Set up payouts (Stripe or Payoneer).
Complete their work preferences.
- Add relevant specialties and skills. The more thorough and accurate designers are, the more likely they are to generate leads that they can convert.
- For help setting a minimum project rate budget and/or hourly rate, designers can refer to this Help Center article.
- Regularly share compelling, original design work.
- Add thoughtful and accurate metadata (titles, descriptions, and tags).
- The user engagement – Clicks, Likes, Saves, and so forth – that a designer’s Shots receive will impact their Designer Search rankings.
Complete their profile.
- Add a profile picture and complete the biography, work history, and education sections.
- Pro subscribers are encouraged to use the additional features they have access to (including Pitch Video, masthead image, and headline) to make their profiles more visually appealing.
The past few months have been transformative for Dribbble.
Besides introducing Projects and Services, we radically improved our Designer Search UX/UI (which produced a step function increase in user activity) and Shot Search ranking algorithm, released a new primary navigation (allowing users to easily search for design work or designers to hire), integrated new payment methods, and much more. We also have multiple features in development now that will further improve the user experience for both designers and their clients.
We still have a long road ahead but the future of this platform is beginning to take shape.
