{"id":3479,"date":"2018-02-28T20:04:13","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T09:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.airtasker.com\/?p=3402"},"modified":"2021-09-23T11:18:18","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T00:18:18","slug":"service-fees-providing-context-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/","title":{"rendered":"Service fees: providing context and transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quite often at Airtasker we get asked why there\u2019s a need to charge a service fee (or what the service fee actually covers).<\/p>\n<p>So in the interest of transparency, we\u2019d like to provide a little more context on what\u2019s provided within the service fee and how these funds are re-invested back into the Airtasker Community and the creation of more Australian earning opportunities.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230; our long-term priority at Airtasker is to maximise the total amount of earnings for Taskers&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Before we jump in, it\u2019s worth noting that our long-term priority at Airtasker is to maximise the total amount of earnings for Taskers, not the amount of fees that we charge. In the long run, we believe that Airtasker\u2019s revenue will be maximised if we relentlessly focus on \u201cgrowing the pie\u201d (maximising Tasker earnings) rather than \u201ccutting a bigger slice\u201d (charging lots of fees). So everything that we do is aligned to this goal: increasing earning opportunities for our community.<\/p>\n<p>That said, in order to be able to achieve this long-term goal, we believe that service fees have a role to play &#8211; both in creating a positive user experience and building a sustainable company in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>First up, let\u2019s start with by taking a look at the \u201cback office essentials\u201d which need to be paid on every task transaction before even considering what arrives at Airtasker. Below is a high-level breakdown of these approximate costs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Goods and services tax (GST)<\/strong> &#8211; Airtasker is required to pay to the Australian government GST of 10% of the service fee charged. As a result, about 9.1% of the total amount paid is not received by Airtasker.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Payment processing charges<\/strong> &#8211; up to 20% of the service fee is required to be paid to a payments processing technology provider to cover merchant fees, credit card chargebacks and fraud protection costs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Insurance costs<\/strong> &#8211; up to 7% of the service fee paid is passed on to an insurance provider in the form of premiums, administrative costs and contributions to help cover a Tasker\u2019s third party liability for property damage or personal injury to another person whilst completing common tasks &#8211; subject to insurance terms and conditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3403\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064910\/image-3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1148\" height=\"1192\" \/><br \/>\nBased on this approximation: for every $100 in earning opportunities created for Taskers, about $7-8 arrives at Airtasker.<\/p>\n<h2>So, where do these funds actually go?<\/h2>\n<h3>1. Marketing and Promotion<\/h3>\n<p>To bring more tasks onto the Airtasker platform, we reinvest service fees into a range of marketing activities to ensure more earning opportunities are being created for the community. For example, last year we invested more than $7 million into the \u201cLike A Boss\u201d television and outdoor advertising campaign which saw a 100% increase in tasks posted.<\/p>\n<p>We also continue to invest into a range of other marketing channels including Google and Facebook advertising, coupons for Posters to trial Airtasker for the first time and Search Engine Optimisation.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3404\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3404\" style=\"width: 1092px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3404\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064909\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-28-at-6.13.54-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1092\" height=\"724\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3404\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Our \u201cLike a Boss\u201d campaign driven by Alexandra and Simon at Airtasker and created by Mark, Colin, Andrew and Kon at UDKU helped to double earnings for Taskers in 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3405\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3405\" style=\"width: 1282px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3405\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064909\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-28-at-6.46.58-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1282\" height=\"1006\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3405\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cErnie\u201d is a Search Engine Optimisation platform created by Sarah, Sam, Hari, Lorenzo and Alex at Airtasker which helps guide customers searching in Google towards relevant services on Airtasker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3411\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3411\" style=\"width: 3024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3411\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064907\/ukteam-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"3024\" height=\"2324\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3411\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the people working hard to take Airtasker to the world &#8211; Lucas, Tom, Damien and Kirstine are based in Shoreditch, London.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>\u00a02. Software and Technology<\/h3>\n<p>In order to maintain, improve and build new features for our website, iPhone app and Android app we employ more than 90 full time staff in software engineering, design and product management roles. This headcount is approximately doubling each year so that we can ensure that Airtasker is a safe and reliable platform and we can deliver a constantly improving customer experience &#8211; which drives greater earning opportunities and an improved experience for our community. For example, in 2017 this team built the \u201cincrease price\u201d feature to allow either Posters to pay or for Taskers to request an amount in addition to an initially agreed price. This feature allowed for additional earnings to be paid to Taskers on about 15% of all tasks on Airtasker.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3406\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3406\" style=\"width: 4032px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3406\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064909\/Image-uploaded-from-iOS-43.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4032\" height=\"3024\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3406\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the people who are designing, engineering and growing the Airtasker platform &#8211; 90 people led by Paul, Jen, Fra, Simon, Anne, CJ, Alfred and Mahesh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3407\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3407\" style=\"width: 1152px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3407\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064908\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-28-at-6.58.17-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1152\" height=\"992\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3407\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Our product, design and engineering teams work hard on iterative improvements to the everyday experience as well as maintenance and building new features into our iPhone app, Android app and website.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>3. Moderation and Support<\/h3>\n<p>Service fees are also reinvested into initiatives that protect the integrity of the Airtasker Community and help both Taskers and Job Posters if things don\u2019t go to plan. Examples of these initiatives include the development of a new machine learning program called \u201cAlan\u201d which detects and deletes undesirable content and the doubling of our people-powered product and support team to more than 140 full-time staff.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3408\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3408\" style=\"width: 956px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3408\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064908\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-28-at-7.05.20-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"956\" height=\"850\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3408\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We built a robot named \u201cAlan\u201d who works hard to protect the community from bad actors and dodgy behaviour by identifying and automatically deleting undesirable content. The Airtasker community helps teach Alan by flagging suspicious content &#8211; so Alan gets smarter everyday!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3409\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3409\" style=\"width: 996px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3409\" src=\"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064907\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-28-at-7.06.21-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"996\" height=\"744\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3409\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the people working hard to take support our community &#8211; 65 people led by Mark Ong and based in Bonifacio Global City, Manila.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3410\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3410\" style=\"width: 1222px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3410\" src=\"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-28-at-7.07.10-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1222\" height=\"638\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3410\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Our team is now working around the clock to help reduce response time. Over the past year, our team has tripled in size and received extensive training which has reduced our average first response time down to less than 2 hours.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Overall, our service fee is purposefully designed to align Airtasker with the community &#8211; the more that Taskers earn, the more we earn. We\u2019re also committed to re-investing earnings into building the Airtasker community and creating a sustainable, positive environment for Taskers. As always, we\u2019re looking for ways to improve &#8211; so if you have feedback or questions, please feel free to drop us a note here: stayopen@airtasker.com<\/p>\n<p>Cheers, Tim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re sharing &#8211; what it is and what it covers&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"language":["en-AU"],"class_list":["post-3479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Service fees: providing context and transparency - Airtasker Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Service fees: providing context and transparency - Airtasker Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We&#039;re sharing - what it is and what it covers...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Airtasker Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-28T09:04:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-23T00:18:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/image-3.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tim Fung\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tim Fung\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Service fees: providing context and transparency - Airtasker Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Service fees: providing context and transparency - Airtasker Blog","og_description":"We're sharing - what it is and what it covers...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/","og_site_name":"Airtasker Blog","article_published_time":"2018-02-28T09:04:13+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-09-23T00:18:18+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/image-3.png","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Tim Fung","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tim Fung","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/"},"author":{"name":"Tim Fung","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c960df375c773cf99d9d91b096affef4"},"headline":"Service fees: providing context and transparency","datePublished":"2018-02-28T09:04:13+00:00","dateModified":"2021-09-23T00:18:18+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/"},"wordCount":1051,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/image-3.png","articleSection":["Other AU"],"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/","url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/","name":"Service fees: providing context and transparency - Airtasker Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/image-3.png","datePublished":"2018-02-28T09:04:13+00:00","dateModified":"2021-09-23T00:18:18+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064910\/image-3.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/airtasker-seo-wordpress-blog-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/24064910\/image-3.png","width":1148,"height":1192},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/service-fees-providing-context-transparency\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Service fees: providing context and transparency"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/","name":"Airtasker","description":"The skills you need to help get more done in your home, garden, office and life.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Airtasker","url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/airtasker-logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/airtasker-logo.svg","width":148,"height":40,"caption":"Airtasker"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c960df375c773cf99d9d91b096affef4","name":"Tim Fung","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d938d97e96270e453467a19efe0836c5bb1ad9eef096c17d83fcf9e7a14a2204?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d938d97e96270e453467a19efe0836c5bb1ad9eef096c17d83fcf9e7a14a2204?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Tim Fung"},"description":"Co-Founder and CEO, Airtasker","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.airtasker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/author\/tim\/"}]}},"lang":"au","translations":{"au":3479},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3479"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airtasker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=3479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}