This article covers:
- How to price your competition
- Alternative ways of creating revenue from submissions
- Understanding your pricing strategy
- Maximizing your chances of getting paid submissions
- Ensuring you don’t price out certain communities
To Charge, or Not to Charge
Choosing to charge candidates to submit is a big decision. It is a delicate balance of future-proofing your organization and making your opportunity accessible to those who can’t afford the fee.
The larger the price to submit, the fewer submissions you will get. But allowing free applications may swamp you, and with the wrong process in place, lead to heavy administrative overheads.
Luckily, the decision need not be black and white. Other options exist to allow you to embrace alternative ways of requiring payment and lowering the barrier to entry.
- Donations (optional payments)
- Early Bird Fees (making fees cheaper if candidates submit earlier)
- Bulk discounts (submit to multiple submissions)
These are looked at individually later on in this article.
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Making fees optional will allow more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to get involved with your program.
Pricing it right
Your first step will be to understand who you wish will submit and understand their circumstances.
Should a majority struggle to pay you anything, you will need to think about alternative ways of funding your program and keep your submissions free, or you might also consider donations instead.
If you choose to charge candidates, knowing “how much” is tricky. What will candidates need to sacrifice to pay for your submission? Is it a couple of coffees (£5)? Is it grocery shopping for a week (avg. £40 in the UK)? Or more?
- Work backwards – work out how much the program will cost (or how much you need to raise with submissions), then divide that by the number of applications you expect to get. Always add contingency (30% is good).
- Follow Competitors – check the prices of other programs that resemble your own and price yours accordingly.
- Ask your community – tell your community what you are organizing and ask a select few if they would pay £x to submit. Start with a high number, to create shock then ask them what they would pay for it. This will give you a more honest answer.
Using a mixture of the above should give you an idea of the average price you can charge. This average price will become your point of reference when working out special deals, donations, etc.
Before moving to the next step, sanity check your price with two more critical questions:
- Will the communities I am reaching out to be able to afford this fee?
- How many submissions do I need at this price to break even / make the profit I expect?
Edit your price accordingly.
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Seemingly small changes to a price can reduce access to those with fewer resources ($1 can make or break a decision). If you can reduce your average price as much as possible – or embrace early bird pricing you may open up to a richer set of entries.
Get buy-in
When candidates consider whether they should apply to your opportunity, they will be asking themselves the following:
- Do I trust this opportunity?
- Is this value for money?
- Can I afford it?
Convincing candidates to spend their hard-earned money is anchored heavily on clear and concise communications of your brand and the benefits to candidates should they be selected.
Higher fees require a better offering (bigger prizes, higher-profile judges, a bigger chance of winning, etc.). Be sure to publish as much information about what candidates get, and don’t spare the details.
Needs Improvement
“Be published in our magazine”
Good
“Be published in our physical magazine (readership of 15,000) and have your story shared across our social media networks (following 152,000 – Instagram / 87,000 Facebook…)” with links to the appropriate networks as means of proof.
Needs Improvement
“Have your work seen by the Industry”
Good
“Have your work seen by the arts Editors of Vice, Creative Boooom and the FT”. Link back to tweets from these individuals acknowledging their excitement to take part.
Remove friction
Adding a payment step to your submission process may lead to confusing candidates with a patchwork of services to need to visit to apply.
e.g.
- View competition page
- Go to payment site (e.g. PayPal)
- Create account / Login
- Make payment
- Copy Transaction ID
- Go to the Application Form (e.g. JotForm)
- Fill out form
- Paste Transaction ID…
For each additional step in your process, you will lose candidates wishing to submit. You will also waste time on bloated administration (e.g. matching payments to submissions, dealing with refunds, etc.) or money patching these services together.
Grow your submissions, raise more funds and simplify admin by choosing a service that seamlessly integrates payments within the application process.
e.g. Streamlined Process
- View competition page
- Register / Login
- Fill out Form
- Make Payment
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Complex processes will alienate communities who struggle with technology, have little time to apply and have specific accessibility needs.
Get the Timing Right
Although the creative industries is a gig economy, most of the industry still depends on having stable work on the side. Most of your candidates will be dependent on a repetitive cash flow cycle.
When you close your submissions will impact whether candidates have the money in the bank to submit. Make sure to:
- Close your submissions just after payday (usually the last Friday of the month).
- Watch out for periods that are capital intensive for your communities (e.g. religious festivals). Close your submissions at a payday, or two, later. You don’t want to make candidates think about whether they can submit or afford Christmas, Eid, Hannukah, Diwali etc.
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Understanding when your communities expenses are due across the year allows you to remove the additional stress of thinking of paying for your program at the wrong time.
Rewarding Early Birds
Giving candidates better prices when they submit earlier solves a few problems:
- Get cash in the bank earlier by inspiring candidates to submit before the deadline. (70-80% apply in the last couple of days before the deadline).
- Give candidates with fewer resources the ability to afford your opportunity if they submit earlier.
- Keep the higher fees that will allow you to afford to run your program effectively.
e.g.
- £5 before the 3rd of May ’21 (Monday right after payday)
- £10 before the 15th of May ’21
- £25 after the 31st of May ’21 (Monday right after payday)
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Offering free/heavily discounted prices for early submissions ensures you don’t price communities out.
Donations / Tips
Likely, taking a mandatory fee won’t be an option if you get public funding. But this doesn’t mean you can’t use your initiatives to allow your communities to sustain your efforts.
Allowing candidates to donate fixed amounts whilst submitting will generate additional revenue to support your program.
e.g. Pricing Package
- Free Submission
- £3 Donation
- £5 Donation
- £10 Donation
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Removing mandatory submission fees guarantees no one is priced out and helps make a positive case for publicly funded organizations.
Bulk Discounts
Creating incentives to submit multiple times could allow you to raise more fund and increase the candidates’ chances of being selected for cheaper.
The steeper the discount, the more likely you are to upsell more submissions to candidates. Getting more applications will come in handy when making a case to sponsors/supporters for future call-outs.
e.g.
- One submission – £8
- Three for Two – £16
Fostering diversity & inclusion
Special deals still favor those with more resources and won’t make submitting more accessible to lower-income individuals.
Conclusion
As the gap in society widens, pricing will become increasingly contentious.
Price yourself too high, and you are removing your opportunity from those that may need it the most. Price yourself too low, and you could be putting your organization at risk.
Serving both is a delicate balance that will require you to think beyond a regular “pay to play” business model. A balance of alternatives models (donations, early-bird offers, special deals, etc.) will allow those with resources to continue to generate revenue for you and guarantee those without still have access to opportunities that could enrich their future.
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