Prepaid contests (General)

605 votes

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Contests where the contest holder has paid ahead of time

Official response

This feature is well under way, once we finish the trial of the guaranteed contest feature this will become a standard option for contest holders.

- lachlan

3 fabian

Totally onboard with this idea,as it will get rid of the timewasters.
0 stardiver

All contests should be prepaid - that would make CH's more serious about their projects and designers less concerned if they will pick a winner at the end.
That would also eliminate non paying CH's because they will need to pay upfront.
0 Rodney

Should the contest holder receive the files *before* the designer is paid in a prepaid contest?
3 lachlan Admin

Rodney: In a prepaid contest there will be an interface that facilitates the exchange, so it will be effectively at the same time.
2 sandman6665

In a prepaid contest, should contest withdrawal be allowed? I had experience a contest holder withdraw the contest an hour before it reaches the contest end time.
3 snugbrimm

PREPAID CONTESTS SHOULDN'T be standard OPTION! IT SHOULD BE THE ONLY way to hold a contest at all. It makes no sense to have it any other way
3 lachlan Admin

snugbrimm, I deleted your 8 other comments, I figured that last one pretty succinctly summarized what you were saying in a way that didn't involve any potentially defamatory remarks ;)
3 snugbrimm

ok that's cool i got a little crazy with it but it was in hopes that i would etch it firmly in your guys' minds that this needs to be taken care of yesterday
3 snugbrimm

i don't want to vote for prepaid contests being an option, i want to vote for prepaid contests being the only kinds of contests on 99designs and nothing less. so my three votes on this post are for that.
2 romasuave

I am 100% behind this idea. This will certainly streamline and weed out the flaky CHs that either abandon, don't pay or just steal our ideas. This should be the top priority....Thanks!
1 justSOHO

I want to strongly endorse snugbrimm and romasuave's comments. it absolutely should be MANDATORY to pre-pay. I have only been here a month, but can see a decline even in the last 2 weeks - CH's not leaving feedback, never selecting a winner, never paying, ignoring messages etc.

there is CURRENTLY no comeback on them at all in this situ - this should be absolute priority for 99designs.
0 TMA

This is a great idea. Even being a CH I appreciate that the designers will know they are going to get paid.

My only objection is that, currently the cost of this to the CH effectively doubles the basic cost of submitting the contest. Will the pricing structure for this come down once the feature is fully implemented?
1 tini1

totally, totally for this, it'll only make 99designs better!
0 Rodney

As a Contest Holder, I highly support this. The fees shouldn't even be an issue. Even with the prepaid fee and the contest fee, you are still getting a GREAT value based on the quality of designs that are delivered. I just finished up a guaranteed contest for a web design site and I got more (and higher quality) entries than a NON prepaid contest for more money.
0 digitalink

YAAAAY!
3 TomStopa

Yes this is a must.... I really think that if all of these designers are pouring hours of time in to these contests then they should not have to worry about possibly getting shafted in the end!
3 Jon B

Speaking as a hoster of a contest, prepaying makes sense as it makes me commit to the process instead of using it as a way to just gather ideas w/out paying for them. I'm all for it.
2 ATAK Interactive

You could lose a lot of business
0 Nadia

@ ATAK - why would they lose business? If the Contest Holder is committed to holding a genunine -sure to find a winner-contest, why would they be afraid to pay the money up front? From seeing the responses to the guaranteed contests so far, they are more highly valued with a lot more participation that seen in other contests.
2 ATAK Interactive

For those who feel they may not get anything good...if they do not, they should not have to award a prize. We are in a contest now and untoll day 5 we didnt see anything we liked and were worried. FOR SURE we will award a prize (we got some really good ones in the end) but if we didnt, we wouldnt want to pay x amount for bad service...
2 ATAK Interactive

I would like the ability to be able to gurantee a prize in the middle of contest once we know we will be for sure giving to someone.
0 LKirk

What if a CH doesn't like any of the designs that were submitted and the contest ends? I do not think the CH should be forced to accept a design they do not like.

The only way around this would be to allow the CH to extend the contest "free of charge".

If you pre-pay for something, you better get what you paid for. That's all I'm saying.
0 Rodney

As a contest holder, I know that if I do my job in explaining what I want and I know what I want, there's almost ZERO chance that I won't get that delivered if I start a contest on 99designs. I've done 2 guaranteed contests so far and I received over 100+ entries on each. If you can define "good", then the designers can deliver it. As I CH, I would rather all contests be prepaid
0 TMA

I have held several contests too and would happily prepay but do think allowing extensions as part of the perks of prepaying would ease some of the concern. Regardless of the time, effort and thorough detail I've put into my briefs inevitably I get tons of entries that seem to just ignore the brief entirely or in important areas. I'd rather get 10 entries with 5 that are on-target than 100 with 10
3 jhewit22

I'm behind this idea also...sounds like it will be a good one!
0 dazzclub

I like the idea of this, it adds stability to the actual contest. However I've seen many contests where the submissions have been well below par. Im still amazed that some designers actually submit such work. So I can understand CH not paying out, they shouldn't be forced to pay. Possibly give an indepth comment to why this contest has no winner and to have an extension.
0 johnsmi82

Even as a contestholder I think it makes sense to do this. However it is extremely important that some sort of option be made available in the event the entries are not up to par. eg... what if only 1 contestant enters the competition? One site I used in the past I had to pay upfront but they guaranteed a minimum of 10 designers or you had the option of canceling the competition. Worth considering
0 MIV

I would love to see this happen. Makes it easier for everyone involved.
0 LogoRush

:D
0 aliaslopot

...It would be great!
3 Danilux

This is really good idea.

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