You can use the milestone feature to separate a job into several tasks if you have a large project.
Milestones help you and the expert coordinate tasks, timelines, and payments for your work. You can add/edit upcoming milestones (if needed) when the scope of your job grows or changes.
🚀 In this article
How milestones work
Milestones allow you to:
- Plan: Achieve your goals by breaking a job into well-defined tasks
- Quality control: Helps you to add tasks and review quality at every stage of a job-in-progress
- Plan your budget: Plan your expenses by breaking a job into small and affordable payments
📡 Tip: Each milestone task must be approved and paid to the expert before you can fund your job’s next milestone.
Add a new milestone
You can add new milestones to your fixed-rate job contract at any time. Remember to talk with the expert about your new milestone’s goals, work tasks, and deadlines.
Steps to add a milestone:
- Visit your Contracts list and click on the contract
- Click the Add milestone button or the Manage milestones button
- Add milestone details (i.e., name, amount, etc.) and click the Save button
Fund a new milestone
You can only make one escrow payment for your job’s milestones at any time ($5 USD minimum). You must approve and release the current milestone payment before you can fund the next escrow payment.
Also, you can send a partial milestone payment for an unfinished milestone and use the balance to fund the next milestone. Also, if you and your expert choose to close the job contract, you can ask for a partial/full refund of the escrow balance.
Once you release the final milestone payment, you can close the job contract or add a new milestone.
Change, modify, and remove milestones
You can update the title, deadline, and cost for any upcoming milestones. You cannot update or delete a milestone after it is funded with an escrow deposit.
Steps to modify or remove milestones:
- View a milestone: Visit Job contracts > select a contract > click Manage milestones button
- Edit: Click the edit (🖍) icon to update a milestone (i.e., name, deadline, amount, etc.)
- Delete: Click remove (🗑) icon to delete milestones
- Reorder: Click and hold the re-order icon to drag-and-arrange milestones
- Show updates: Click Show/hide changes to preview your edits before saving the changes
- Save changes: Click Save button to save changes (sends the milestone updates to the expert)
Milestone update requests by experts
The expert can suggest new milestones and request changes to upcoming milestones for your review and approval. You’ll get an email notification if the expert makes an update request for your job milestones. You have the option to accept or reject the changes. You must approve or decline the updates before making more changes to the job milestones.
It’s a two-step process:
- View request: Visit Job contracts > select a contract > click Review updates button
- Approve/decline: Read the expert’s proposed update and accept/decline the changes
Questions and answers
⚡ How can I make an escrow payment for several milestones at once?
Clients can only make an escrow payment for a single milestone at a time ($5 USD minimum). You need to approve and pay the current milestone before you can fund your job’s next milestone.
⚡ How can I change or modify a milestone?
You can edit milestones for your contract by visiting the job Workspace and clicking the Manage milestones button.
⚡ How can I rearrange the milestones for my job?
You can re-order the upcoming milestones by visiting the job’s Workspace page, clicking the Manage milestones button, and selecting the rearrange icon to the left of a milestone (uses the click-and-drag function).
Note: A funded milestone-in-progress cannot be rearranged. If needed, you can release a partial payment for a milestone in progress and move to the new milestone.
⚡ How does the expert know if the job milestones are changed?
The expert will get a notification email if you change the milestones on your fixed-rate job contract. You may want to send a message about the updates to keep everyone on the same page.
⚡ Can the expert edit my job milestones?
The expert can suggest updates to your job milestones. You can approve, decline, or modify the expert’s changes.
⚡ Can I edit the deadline for the job milestones?
You cannot make changes to the deadlines for milestones in progress. Missed deadlines do not negatively impact an expert’s account and leave a review adherence to timelines when the job closes.
You can update the deadlines for upcoming milestones by visiting the job Workspace, selecting the Manage Milestones button, and clicking the edit (🖍) icon.
