To think gumtree are really taking the piss

[EvaM]

I have been using gumtree for 5 years now to promote private German lessons and most of my clients find me through gumtree.
I get that they are not a charity and need to make money so after some grumbling when they introduced a 6GBP fee for adds from service providers, I sucked it up.
Now (well a while ago) gumtree introduced another fee: 5GBP to link to my website (no option to just put the url into the advert). So, I'm left with three options here: 1) suck it up and pay almost 50% on advertising 2) publish the add without link (far fewer responses) 3) leave gumtree (much fewer responses).

AIBU to think this is just one step too far and many small service providers (including me) can't afford the price hike.

I think you need to think about how many customers you need to get to make your add viable. I don't know what you charge but where I live private tuition is £30p/h so just getting 1 new client would more than pay for your £11 outlay.

Do you mean you spent half of your tutoring income on advertising? If so, that's no good.

At face value, it doesn't seems a totally unreasonable insertion fee if I'm being honest.

when you say "50% on advertising" surely thats only 50% of one client? So if you get lots more clients, its still worth your while? Is that per month? week?

or try the parish magazine/free ads in paper/supermarket noticeboard approach instead?

I mean an almost 50% increase in my advertising cost (from 6 to 11pounds) per advert, as it happens it's just over 50% of my hourly fee.

The problem is that tuition is quite unstable which booms around september and january (hardly any advertising necessary) and a big low over the summer (ideally need to advertise every day to stay on top of the to of listing or at least every week). I have explored many options of free advertising, but very often there is no return.

Yabu, if you're not happy with the service then go somewhere else.

Not sure it's that excessive a charge to be honest. Maybe increase your fees a little to take it into account?

But it maybe that I don't understand the figures that well.. Is the £11 a one off or every week/month??

Cherries, it's 11GBP per advert which stays online for 30 days but moves done the listing, so if I was to put out an ad every week I'd pay 11GBP per week.

Don't really know if iabu, I just think 5gbp just
to be allowed to link to my website is excessive...

Use FirstTutors, tha'ts free and I've had clients through there.

Gumtree is owned by eBay so it's hardly surprising they have turned what used to be a free website into a pay to advertise site.

Try childcare.co.uk they have a section for private tutors and you don't have to pay unless you upgrade your account

Have you considered not using Gumtree but instead having your own website on a blogging site, like Wordpress? It's not at all complicated to set up, free to use*, and you can advertise as much as you like!

The main downside to using a blog to promote your business (and there are lots and lots of websites out there with advice on this) is that you will need to update it a lot, perhaps with short articles in German, or links to German language resources? It will take more time, but will also save you money. I've used Wordpress for my web tv site (a couple of years ago) and it's great. The * is because although it's free you can spend a small amount and make it super-ace. There are lots of other sites as well. I would bet that most people who find you on Gumtree find you through a Google search, so if you can put in a little bit of time to keep it relevant/updated, you'll likely be on the same Google list as Gumtree.

Another great resource is "Book Yourself Solid" by Michael Port, a guide for service providers. It's got a very American tone, but is packed full of helpful information.

Hope that helps!

That is excessive then, definitely time to go elsewhere.