A listing does half the job. It brings someone to your profile and persuades them to write. Everything after that is decided in your reply, and it is usually decided quickly.
This is the part freelancers neglect. People spend an evening on photographs and a careful description, then answer the first enquiry with four words. The client has your reply and, quite often, replies from other people. Yours is being read next to theirs.
Your first reply is your introduction
The client is not only reading what you say. They are reading how you say it, because they have no other evidence of what working with you will be like. A reply that is prompt, specific and calm suggests the job will go the same way. A reply that is late, vague or slightly irritated suggests the opposite.
You do not need to be first, and you do not need to answer in a minute. You need to answer before the client has already decided, and while they still remember writing to you. If you cannot give a proper answer now, a short message saying when you will is far better than silence.
What a good reply contains
Four things, in this order. It takes five minutes.
- A sign that you read it. One sentence that repeats something specific from their message. Not “Hello, I can help”, but “Hello, about replacing the kitchen cabinet doors”.
- One or two questions. Only the ones you genuinely need in order to price the job.
- A price or a range. With one line about what would move it.
- What happens next. When you can start, or when you will send a full quote.
That is a complete reply. It is short, it is concrete, and it does not read like it was pasted.
Weak: “Hello, what is your budget?”
Better: “Hello, about replacing the kitchen cabinet doors. Roughly how many doors are there, and are the measurements already known? Work like this usually costs between X and Y, depending on the hardware. I could come and take a look this week.”
The questions that are actually needed
Most enquiries are missing the same three things, and you can usually ask for all of them in two sentences.
- Size. How much of it there is. Square metres, number of items, length of text, number of pages.
- Deadline. When they need it finished, and whether that date is fixed or approximate.
- Place or format. Where the work happens, or in what form the result is needed.
Ask for what you need and stop. An enquiry answered with a list of eight questions feels like a form, and forms get abandoned.
About price in a message
The most common mistake is refusing to name any number until everything is known.
The client understands that a precise price needs details. What they cannot do is compare you against someone who did give a range. If you say nothing about price, you are asking them to invest more time before they know whether you are even in the right bracket, and some of them will simply not bother.
A range with a reason is honest and useful: “from X to Y, depending on how much preparation the surface needs”. So is a rate with a unit: per square metre, per page, per hour, with an estimate of how many.
Two habits that prevent arguments later:
- Say plainly what the price does and does not include. Materials, delivery, revisions, travel.
- Say what happens if the job turns out bigger than described. Agreeing that in advance is a normal, professional thing to do, and it is much easier before the work starts than halfway through.
Put it in writing, even if you spoke by phone
A phone call is often the fastest way to sort out a job, and there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is that nobody remembers a call the same way a week later.
After the call, send a short message with what you agreed: the work, the price, what is included, the deadline. Not a contract, four lines. It protects both of you, and it turns a vague conversation into something either side can check.
There is a second reason to keep the conversation on the site. A client can only leave you a review if they have written to you through Freelancinu. If everything happened by phone, a delighted client has no way to say so on your profile.
When it is worth saying no
Not every enquiry is worth taking, and a fast, polite refusal costs you nothing.
Say no when the work is outside what you actually do, when the deadline is impossible, or when the budget is far below what the job takes. Say it briefly and without apology: you cannot take this one, and if you can, suggest roughly what the job would realistically cost or how long it would need.
This is not lost work. It is an hour you did not spend on a job that would have gone badly, and clients remember a straight answer.
Suspicious messages
Most enquiries are ordinary. A few are not, and they tend to share the same signs:
- Pressure to move the conversation somewhere else immediately, before anything about the job has been discussed.
- An offer to pay in advance through an unusual method, especially with an overpayment you are asked to return.
- A large, vague job with an urgent deadline and no interest in the details.
- A request for personal documents or bank details before anything has been agreed.
Nothing here requires bravery. Slow the conversation down, ask an ordinary question about the work, and see whether the answer sounds like someone who has an actual job. If a message looks like a scam, do not argue with it, just stop replying. If it involves a listing on the site, report it, and we will look.
Where to find your messages
Messages arrive in Messages under My account, and the tab shows a count of unread ones.
You will get an email when someone writes to you. You will not get a fresh email for every message in a conversation you have not opened yet, which keeps the inbox usable during a long exchange.
The Contact button on your listing shows your phone number to logged in users, so some clients will call rather than write. That is fine, but see the note above about sending a short summary message afterwards.
A short checklist
Before you send a reply:
- Does the first sentence show you read their message?
- Did you ask only the questions you actually need?
- Is there a price or a range, and a note on what would change it?
- Did you say what happens next and when?
- Would you be happy for this reply to be read next to a competitor’s?
The freelancers who get consistent work are rarely the cheapest. They are usually the ones who answer properly, quickly, and in a way that makes the next step obvious.
