Cad Crowd offers a milestone function for fixed-rate jobs to assist with work coordination. These milestones help you break your contract into tasks and deadlines that fit your project goals. Each milestone is paid separately, allowing you to start large projects with partial funding.
🚀 In this article
Plan your milestones
To start your work smoothly, we recommend you talk with your expert and plan all your milestone costs ($5 USD minimum), tasks, and deadlines before starting the job. You can discuss milestones when interviewing candidates and add new milestones as you continue working with the expert.
Unpaid milestones can be added, edited, deleted, and reorganized with the Manage milestones button on your job’s Workspace page. You can also re-order your tasks with the drag-and-drop icon to the left of each milestone.
Approve a milestone
- Approval: Your expert sends a work approval request for each milestone task during your fixed-rate job contract. You will have 14 days to ask for revisions or approve the task. When you approve a milestone, the funds you placed in escrow will be released. If you do not reply to the work submission, the funds will be released after a 14-day hold.
- Changes: If you need your expert to make changes to a submitted task, selecting “Ask for edits” on the job’s Workspace is necessary. You also can release a different payment (higher or lower) for a funded milestone. The option to increase/decrease a milestone payment allows you to modify the scope and size of a task (when needed).
- Refunds: If you and the expert agree to end a fixed-rate job without releasing the payment held in escrow, you can request an escrow refund for the milestone.
🚀 Remember: You have 14 days to reply to a milestone approval request from your expert. If you don’t reply to the payment request, the system automatically sends payment for the expert.
Tips for milestone communication
When you fund a new milestone payment, ensure that you and the expert discuss the precise tasks agreed upon in exchange for your escrow deposit. Your communication will clarify the expected tasks, timelines, and payment amount. To prevent miscommunication, be as specific as possible in outlining the terms of your agreement with the expert.
Questions and answers
âš¡ Can I pay several milestones ahead of time?
Milestone funding is limited to one payment at a time ($5 USD minimum). Your current milestone payment must be released before you can pay the next milestone. You have the option to give the expert a partial milestone payment and use the remaining funds on your next milestone. Alternatively, you can ask the expert for a milestone refund for the remaining balance in the escrow milestone.
âš¡ Can I re-arrange the milestones for a job?
You can only change the order of upcoming milestones and not a any of your milestone in progress. You can also edit an escrow payment ($5 USD minimum) for the milestone in progress and edit new milestones.
âš¡ Can I ask the for a refund if expert’s didn’t meet my expectations?
You have the option to request work edits if the expert need to make changes to a task to meet your job requirements. If can ask for a refund if you haven’t released the escrow payment and the work delivery didn’t meet the criteria in your initial milestone description.
If you request a refund, the expert has 7-day deadline to reply. If the expert approves a refund or doesn’t reply in 7-days, the escrow deposit will be returned to your balance. If the expert disputes a milestone refund, the Cad Crowd team will coordinate a resolution.
âš¡ What happens to my escrow payment if I send a job offer and the expert declines the work?
If an expert declines your fixed-rate job offer, the escrow payment is returned to your account balance. The updated balance can be viewed on your payment transactions page. You can use the balance to hire another expert or request a payout to send funds back to your bank.
âš¡ How can I edit the deadlines for my job’s milestones?
You can edit the deadlines for your upcoming milestones by clicking the Manage Milestone button on your job’s Workspace. A deadline can’t be modified when a milestone is currently funded and in-progress.
We don’t typically have penalties for missed deadlines, since a majority of delays are unavoidable. You have an opportunity to share an expert’s ability to meet deadlines when the job is finished and leave a review.
