I’m honestly suprized every time I see you responding on a blog. Don’t you have companies to fund or something

Your numbers do look compelling, and yes S R is a smaller company without millions of dollars in our war chest. Slightly Higher transaction fees are needed to fund our marketing and staffing requirements.

With that being said we are paying out thousands of dollars each day to bloggers just like Tricia who I assume appreciate any work they can get.

Will S R ever be the size of Pt? Probably not anytime soon. But will we continue to convert advertisers into paying jobs for bloggers, absolutely.

Great response.

Yes, the biggest problem we have is with the $20 amount of the badge. It looks bad when your price listed in our system is 4 times the amount of the price showing on your site.

Are we going to do something about bloggers who show a lower price on their site from what they have listed in our system…. I honestly do not know. It hasn’t been a problem. Most bloggers I’ve seen so far are listing their Pd price the same or higher then their S R price.

You ask why I singled you out. That’s not the intention, You just happen to be very active in our system plus you are very vocal about review companies, and you were one of the first sites I noticed that was listing such a low price compared to the price in our system.

Keep up the good work.

I can understand that you have some concern over my offering P D for $20, but I did try to make it clear – directly under the badge – that I was offering this price for a limited time only.

You’re right. I have made quite a bit of money through S R and I’m very pleased that I’ve done well with your company. I would very much like to continue working with S R.

I hope you understand that P D is only a week old, and I, like many other bloggers who work with P, was eager to try out this new system.

My price was set much lower for P D than I list on S R or any other site that allows me to list my desired price simply because I wanted to test the system and get an offer or two. By no means was I attempting to game the system and lure advertisers from your site. I hope that you don’t think that.

I have absolutely no intention of keeping my price at $20 for much longer. In fact, I might change my price later today.

Each week that goes by I get more and more private offers to write reviews on my sites. It’s for that very reason that I embraced the idea of P d.

I like the idea of a middleman. It’s good for bloggers and advertisers in that there’s a system in place to ensure that both parties are happy and that the blogger does in fact get paid when the review is accepted.

When you do private deals there’s no guarantee that a blogger will be paid unless they demand payment in advance, and if they do, will the advertiser be happy with the final product? Who knows. At least with P d you can negotiate back and forth with P as a mediator if necessary.

I’ve been getting private offers for longer than S R has been around. In fact I’ve been getting private offers for well over a year. I get them for my websites too.

Where these advertisers come from I don’t know. In most cases I’ve never seen any of them advertise on any of the blogging sites that I work with, so by allowing them to deal with me through P d I don’t believe that I’m taking away potential business from a blogging company, I’m just giving them a way of offering me work in a way that I feel comfortable doing business.

You said: “At $20 a pop you would have to do a ton of reviews to make the same money you have made with SR.”

Actually, while I have a decent list price on S R of $80 I don’t actually get accepted at, or even bid my full price all that often.

I just spent some time adding up the price I was paid for all the reviews that I’ve completed so far and divided them by the number of reviews and my average payout per review is $30.87 if I did my math correctly. I think that means my average bid is about $45.

I don’t really expect that I’ll ever get as much work through P D as I do through S R, regular P or any of the other blogging companies where I’ve registered my sites. However, just like many other bloggers who earn money through blogging I don’t like to keep all my eggs in one basket, so I felt compelled to try out the P d system.

You said: “Any suggestions? am I crazy to think that we should not continue sending you advertisers?”

Well, I’ve already told you that I will be raising my price on P D. I don’t know what I’ll set my price at yet.

I do not think it would be very fair of S R to single me out and penalize me for using P D. You’ve voiced your concerns and I do understand your point of view. I do hope that you now understand why I set my price at $20 to begin with, and how I hope to use P D.

I don’t believe your problem is really with me, but P D and how not just I, but other bloggers as well, are promoting direct reviews?

You said: “I have no problem with P d. If you guys can create your own advertisers, then you should make a larger portion of the pie, but biting the hand the feeds you isn’t exactly kosher either.”

It was never my intention to “bite the hand that feeds me”.

The post you have commented on was actually a P d review from P itself. They took advantage of their own system and used their bloggers to advertise their new feature. As Lucia said in her own post about this issue P is pretty good at self advertising.

The review request asked that we compare the new P D with other blogging companies. I’m sorry if anything that I said in my review bothered you. I was trying to state the facts as I know them and not trying to be critical at all.

As I said earlier I get private review requests ALL the time. Some are for pay, others send me products and samples to review – regardless of how they come about I’ve never seen any of these companies or individuals advertising on S R, Rev1ew Me, P or any of the other companies so yes, I have been able to create my own advertisers and it is my hope that they will use the P d system.

Am I wrong in thinking that you were prompted to leave this comment mainly because of the price I set for my P D reviews?

If that is the case, have I reassured you that my price will be going up?

I plan on changing the price to an as yet undetermined amount later today. Right now it’s 5:20 a.m. and after being upset by this comment all day I don’t plan on doing any more today – I’m going to bed and I’ll be changing my price when it comes to me sometime later on today.

I must say that I do feel singled out. There are many other bloggers using the P D system and S R as well. I’m sure others set their P D prices a little on the low side for their blogs in order to try the system out as well.

I would very much like to continue working with you and your company. I will not stoop down to begging though.

You now know my side of the story, and I hope you know I didn’t mean to cause any ill will between S R or any other companies that I do work for by setting my price at $20. Perhaps instead of being upset I should be flattered that you think a review on my site should be worth more?

I hope that whatever decision you come to is based more on how your company should respond to P D as a whole, rather than to this single instance of blogger versus S R.

Do you have any comments or suggestions?

Would it be your preference that bloggers who use both S R and P D do not use the P D badge that lists their price? (there is another badge that doesn’t show a price). Perhaps that would level the playing field a bit?

Tricia

S R’s 53% ($28/$52) “markup” equates to a 35% ($28/$80) “cut”.
P Marketplace 35% markup equates to only a 26% cut.
P D is even lower, with a 10% markup equating to only a 9% cut.

Andy Beard’s latest review of P provides even further detail on what bloggers make and advertisers pay with various systems, including S R. You can see for yourself who puts the most in blogger pockets while charging advertisers the least:

As for Jarrod’s other comment above, I’ll bite my lip for now, but I think all the marketplaces need to remember that advertisers, bloggers and audiences are the hands that feed — providing value to them is the core to building this industry.

I honestly have mixed feelings about your $20 P D offering.

I agree that it is great for the blogger and advertiser, but then I look at your account in our system and see the huge amount of money you are making through us.

I then ask myself is it fair to us to list you in our directory, send you tons of advertisers, only to have them come to your site and see that they can purchase a review for $20.

At $20 a pop you would have to do a ton of reviews to make the same money you have made with S R.

I’m honestly at a loss at what to do here. We spend a lot of money promoting the blogs in our system and sending you guys work.

Any suggestions? am I crazy to think that we should not continue sending you advertisers?

I have no problem with P d. If you guys can create your own advertisers, then you should make a larger portion of the pie, but biting the hand the feeds you isn’t exactly kosher either.

-Jarrod