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Part 5 of 12 ·Grow ·6 min read
✦ Freelancers guide · Chapter 5

Set up your avatars

Avatars are the identities your desk acts as across platforms. Add them, track each one's stats and level, and price the work with the built-in earnings calculator.

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The 90-second walkthrough for this chapter — the steps below mirror it.

Everything else in Gigdesk is about the work. Avatars are about who does the work. An avatar is one platform identity — your Instagram, your LinkedIn, your Substack — that your desk can act as. This chapter shows you how to add avatars, keep their statlines honest, climb the level ladder, and price the work with the Earnings Calculator.

What an avatar actually is

Open Avatars from the top of the sidebar in gig mode. It's the roster of identities your desk fronts — you pick which avatar represents each workspace, portfolio, and chat. Each card is one platform persona: Instagram, LinkedIn, Substack, X (Twitter), Reddit, Medium, Dev.to, YouTube, ProductHunt. Not email — email lives on the Email gateways page. An avatar is the public face; a gateway is the private inbox.

Avatars page with a level/earnings bar, Earnings Calculator and New avatar buttons, and a grid of platform avatar cards Your level & earnings Price the work One platform identity
Avatars — the identities your desk fronts. The bar tracks your level and earnings; each card is one platform persona.

Read the bar, climb the ladder

Across the top runs a level/earnings bar. It shows your current level (starting at Level 1.0 BEGINNER), how much you've $ EARNED, how many AVATARS you hold, whether GMAIL is CONNECTED, and your TOP AVATAR FOLLOWERS. A Connect Gmail to climb the ladder CTA sits right there — connecting a Gmail gateway is the fastest way to level up, because a real inbox behind the persona is what turns a claim into proof.

Note The level isn't decoration. It's how clients read trust before they package work to you — a verified, Gmail-backed avatar with honest statlines simply gets picked first.

Putting on a uniform

Your avatars are a personal roster. But when an avatar joins a workspace, it puts on a uniform — a workspace-scoped copy of the persona, customized just for that desk. It's the Avatars panel inside a workspace (Chapter 3): hit Import Avatar to bring one in. Editing a uniform never changes the underlying avatar, and editing the avatar never changes a uniform — the two are decoupled, so a client-specific tweak stays local.

Wearing the uniform usually means dressing the persona for the client's job. Clients often expect you to make the account look on-brand for the engagement, which can mean:

Workspace Avatars panel explaining uniforms, with an Import Avatar button Import an avatar into the desk Wears this desk's uniform
Inside a workspace, Avatars wear a uniform — a per-desk copy you dress for the client. Import Avatar brings one in; edits here never touch the source avatar.
Keep the master clean Do the client-specific dressing on the uniform, not the master avatar. That way one gig's bio, banner, or statlines never bleed into how the persona shows up on every other desk.

Step by step

  1. 1

    Open Avatars & add one

    From the sidebar top (gig mode), open Avatars and hit + New avatar. Pick the platform this persona lives on — Instagram, LinkedIn, Substack, X, Reddit, Medium, Dev.to, YouTube, or ProductHunt.

  2. 2

    Fill in honest statlines

    Enter the numbers that matter for that platform — followers, "4.8k karma", "480 connections". Keep them real; the whole point of the ladder is that verified stats outrank inflated ones.

  3. 3

    Set the card color, then Edit anytime

    Give the avatar a card color so your roster stays scannable. Every card has an Edit button — come back to update stats or recolor whenever the persona grows.

  4. 4

    Connect Gmail to climb

    Use the Connect Gmail to climb the ladder CTA in the bar. Backing the persona with a real inbox raises its level and unlocks the trust clients look for.

  5. 5

    Price the work

    Open the Earnings Calculator to estimate what an account like yours earns per month across platforms and niches — so you quote task-queue prices with a number, not a guess.

The earnings estimator grid across platforms and niches
The Earnings Calculator, opened from Avatars — estimate what an account earns per month across platforms and niches.
Which avatar fronts what You pick which avatar represents each workspace, portfolio, and chat — so a client sees the LinkedIn persona on the B2B package and the Substack persona on the newsletter one. Keep a small roster of strong, verified avatars over a long list of thin ones.

Key takeaways

  • An avatar is one platform identity (Instagram, LinkedIn, Substack, X, Reddit, Medium, Dev.to, YouTube, ProductHunt) that your desk fronts — you pick which one represents each workspace, portfolio, and chat.
  • Add avatars with + New avatar, give each honest statlines and a card color, and Edit them as the persona grows; the level/earnings bar tracks your level, earnings, avatar count, Gmail, and top followers.
  • Verify real stats and connect a Gmail gateway to climb the level ladder, and use the Earnings Calculator to price the work.

Personas set. Now, what are they worth?

You've built a roster of avatars. The next chapter puts a dollar figure on them — why a high-quality aged account is a money-producing asset, what clients pay a premium for you to join, and how to price your talent separately from your assets.

How much can avatars earn? See it from the client side