If you do business online, you’ve probably heard of Fiverr, home of the $5 gig. Things you can have done on Fiverr range from graphic design, marketing and advertising, programming, and whole bunch of other (sometimes strange) things. The lure of Fiverr is that each “gig” is only $5. When a gig has reached a minimum number of sales, the gig provider can add “gig extras” to increase their offerings within that same gig and generate additional revenue. However, the base of the gig remains $5.
With the luster of receiving such awesome services for only $5, it’s easy to see why Fiverr has a large customer base. As a result, it’s understandable that many freelancers would at least give it a shot. They come up with a small gig and sell it for $5 while putting their names and services in front of thousands of potential clients. In theory, yes, it’s a decent idea. However, in reality, Fiverr is great for buyers but sucks for freelancers offering real services. Here’s why:
Undervaluing Services
$5 per gig is cheap. If the service provider is located in a country where the cost of living is much cheaper, then $3.58 (see next section) will be worth more but it’s still not great. If you live in the U.S., $3.58 isn’t worth the time it takes to answer any pre-sale questions you get. For example, if you have a potential buyer email you 10 times asking all sorts of questions about your gig and you spend an hour in all responding to the person, congratulations, you’ve just worked for exactly half the minimum wage in the United States before you’ve even started. By the time you’re done with the gig (if they buy your gig), you’ve worked for pennies.
I will admit that if your gig involves very little time commitment to deliver, then $3.58 may not be something to complain about. For example, if you sell a digital file that is ready to go and just needs to be uploaded, then you’re basically sending an email and making $3.58. With some volume, that can be some easy money. However, if you offer a technical or creative service and you’re talented at what you do, you’re undervaluing your service to the point of practically working for free. Personally, I’ve spent far too much time learning what I do to sell my time for less than minimum wage. I would much rather spend that time doing some meaningful charity work.
Commissions
When your gig sells, Fiverr takes $1 for every $5 you make, or 20%. This means that as soon as a sale comes through, you have made $4. If someone buys a gig extra for $5, you make $8, and so on. If you have a few gig extras priced at the max and are selling all of them with each order, then you’ll be making decent money. However, most orders will be a single, basic gig for $5.
Once Fiverr takes their cut, you will have to wait 2 weeks from the gig completion date to be able to withdraw your balance. When you do that, you have to pay PayPal’s fee of 2.9% plus $0.30. Let’s do the math for a $5 gig:
$5 initial gig price – $1 Fiverr commission – $0.42 PayPal fees = $3.58.
Enough said…
Customer Quality
I don’t want to be overly general with this because I received a few orders from people that eventually spent real money on my services. However, most of my potential customers wanted full, custom service at a price that would barely buy me a shitty lunch off the dollar menu at McDonald’s. In no way am I putting anyone down personally for wanting a deal but, frankly, fuck that.
In my experience, very few Fiverr customers become actual clients so if you are using or considering using Fiverr to “market” your service(s), don’t. The effort would be much better spent on other methods of marketing.
Your Perceived Value
For me, this was probably the thing that pissed me off the most. By offering a service for $5, I was typically perceived as “cheap” and I can’t help but think that many people viewed me as not being worth more than the $5 gig I offered. When a person would message me asking about services well outside the scope of my gig, I would reply to let them know this and how much it would cost for me to provide the service outside of Fiverr. With 3 or 4 exceptions, I would quote someone a price as little as $50 and never hear back. Apparently $50 was way too much for a knowledgeable developer.
Results
After a few gigs, I started to get annoyed with the combination of the four things I just mentioned. Ultimately, I took down my gigs with a smile on my face. My advice to any talented freelancer who values his or her time and expertise, don’t degrade yourself and your talents by using Fiverr.
FIVERR and the likes of … are awful. I own my own full marketing / graphic design / distribution studio for over 20 years and when you go to FIVERR you’re whoring yourself out for a cheap buck. The worst part is now you’ve added to the problem … clearly you don’t value your work so why would anyone else? You’re never going to get a client from these ‘mills’ the only people making money are FIVERR themselves. These places disgust me and I could write chapter and verse on why. Spend your time on building a worthy business and a reputation that will sustain you! Who the hell wants to spend hours working for absolutely nothing… zero!
Fiverr sucks. They just removed my account after grinding to almost top level seller for no reason.
I just had a similar issue with my account, and NOW that mention that you have 90 days for money to clear, when I have over 200 dollars waiting to clear. It’s crookery.
Absolute nonsense, pisses me off downright too.
Thankfully I put it on my website, but still… how awful.
Hi,
I totally agree with you in 2021, Fiverr banned my account without any warning and i was a level 1 seller. I worked hard. The customer support didn’t helped me even after i showed them the video proof. They stand with buyers. Now i have left using fiverr cause it literally sucks. It was the only freelance platform i was using to generate some revenue but sadly, i have to switch now. I won’t recommend Fiverr to anyone who is reading this comment. Thanks.
My boyfriend keeps pushing “Fiverr” at me (I am already a copyediting freelancer) because he sees the business advertising itself on TV now. After researching it today just to placate him, and satisfying myself they are a legitimate site at least, I probed into it a bit more, and found I just can’t stomach the 20% they take and then a 3% fee to send my money to PayPal, plus $.30 (obviously, it’s not the 30 cents that’s bothering me). I am poor and I can’t afford to use such a service! Yet I need the work and I have the experience (20+) in my field. Wow. And I would have to take really cheap work to get any feedback at all, in order to get people looking at my “ads” or whatever they would call them. Sorry if this sounds whiny, but it doesn’t come close to sounding worth my time to put my info up on it. I will seek other sites with better deals for me! I’m older and my peers are retired or retiring; I’m not yet at that “wonderful” age, but not far off, either. I still need income! But what a take-total-advantage business model this “gig economy” thing is. A total mind-eff. (Sidebar: After finally retiring from a lifetime of professional bus and oil truck driving and being on his feet for hours at a big box store, my boyfriend kept wanting to drive for Uber and Lyft when he got a newer car—he loves driving, and is a very good driver, and wants to keep working if he can—but has since found out they are a bad deal nowadays for their drivers, and there are many many hours of work required to make not-much money. Pointless. So he’d rather not. He’s spent a working-class lifetime being ground down by work and deadlines, and won’t continue with such a poor return on his part. He wanted to keep being useful to himself and the world and add a little to his quality of life, but this isn’t worth it. So he does without anything more than the basics. A decently paying part-time job that doesn’t need him to stand up all day, or control when he is allowed to the bathroom, paying him for his lifetime of skills would offer him the ability to buy a new cheap air conditioner without pinching pennies for a year, or get better quality food for his cats.)
Thanks for reviewing your experience!
I need to reconsider about this platform too! There is one client that want me to create her logo for 10 euro($12 and my selling price is $20). Everything seem to be alright until she didn’t give me her feedback after I send her the work and the project is over due. The next day, she came up to me and rushing me with her feedback and say ‘ Hello can you do this asap since it over due the delivery time’. I mean it was over due yes but it depends on her not me. I can edit my work within 10 mins. (The time she didn’t responded me was noon at her local time and due is 10 hours later) After the work done and she was happy with the design. She asked me to change the color of her logo (not the one I created ). I did it for her (I’m dump I know). Afterward, she has problems with the resolutions. So, I apologise to her and told her I’m going to fix it for her. She was really mad about the resolution problem and scared if I’m going to get free money from her. I’m not sure if this happened only for graphic designer but I figured it was not. I learned to never lower the price even $20 is far beyond the mental break down during this project. Honestly, I love being freelance but I can go crazy if I continue working with these type of person.
I want to add more why people should run away from Fiverr:
The seller is defend-less. When it comes to business, customers are always right for Fiverr. I see plenty of sellers who complains about this. Again, sellers could never fight back or defend with clients regardless of how abusive or cruel client can be. Otherwise, those people will leave you bad review and ofc it reflects your profile.
I only do this job for during my free-time in University but I wouldn’t recommend you to work through it as your main income. If you’re talented, Please find other platforms or long contact job with clients where-else.
Goodluck!
I’ve been with fiverr for many years. If someone is verbally abusive or threatening low ratings you absolutely can fight back through fiverr. Just contact them and they will read the chat logs and take care of it.
Also, when you finish an order for a client, click deliver the gig. You do not have to wait to hear from them for approval of your order before hand. There is an option after the sale for customers to ask for a revision of said order which you can then fix, or deny based on what they are wanting. I hope this helps anyone reading this review in a similar situation.
Somethings here are old and Outdated. I would Choose fiverr anytime anyday Against Upwork. Upwork charges you to apply for jobs that you wont get, and at the same time takes 20% of your earnings.. I am a new seller on fiverr, my average hiring rate is 291$. I have never gone below 150$ for a gig.
Fiverr and it’s kind absolutely suck. It might be fine if you’re an absolute novice and working to establish yourself and build a portfolio but for anyone beyond this level it’s a fucking JOKE. I would. It use this site in a million years because I value my time and skills too damn much to whore myself out for pennies on the dollar. It makes Craigslist look like a fucking money printing press by comparison. Fiverr debases designers and sells them out for chicken feed with the implication that you should be “excited” that a client chose to pay you the $5 or $50 or whatever ridiculously low fee for your valued time. It’s all a part of this whole “be happy with what you got” nonsense that’s being perpetuated by western society: be grateful we’re only charging you 22% APR on your credit cards, be grateful we have to pay you a minimum wage (because we would surely pay you less if we could), be grateful that you have “a choice” when it comes to voting and that we have a democratic process that works (when we really don’t). It’s the idea that we should be grateful for the table scraps we’re being thrown to us by our government, by the corporations they cater to, by the well-heeled and entitled. It’s bullshit, and Fiverr is drowning in it.
YESSS Rob, you nailed it!!! A very sophisticated analysis and it was a pleasure to stumble upon it. I have scratched my head at this ridiculousness also. Calvinist holdover meets empire bourgeoisie! Do you blog about this? Or this was just a comment? Would love to read more.
To all reading this, I earn over $00k per annum on Fiverr. I have only been on since the end of 2018. I never offered $5 gigs and the average order value now is $1500.
There are so many top earners on Fiverr; it’s not even particularly difficult and I have only had one nightmare client. I still got paid, even then, and a 5-star review.
So I say to all those who are struggling on Fiverr–stick it out and develop a niche product.
Ha, that should have read, I earn over $100k per annum. Not zero!
I agree to most part of the article, 1)Fiverr customer service sucks. 2) the stupid algorithm.
You can not rely on fiverr if youre a fulltime freelancer (A professional). You never know when they drop off your services (Gigs) from their search and stop getting sufficient work to make your ends meet. Happened to me, They took down my gig from their search with no apparent reason. its been 4 months im not getting any work. Tried contacting customer service and guess what? they never got back to me. This has caused a lot of frustration and depression. I am definitely going to switch to upwork or guru.
Fiverr has the worst customer service of any company I’ve ever dealt with in my life.
They cannot be honestly relied upon to protect your earnings. Please beware and do not use them if you value your business.
I have been selling service on fiverr almost 2 years, I tell buyer to contact me first before ordering, fiverr is good for beginner, that way mostly the service here is beginner and still student, thats fair for cheap price, now I only take a few order on fiverr, when I have a time, easy works, nice clients and rate and for my portofolio
Hey, I am a social media manager and I start getting annoyed by fiverr, too. Is there any other platform I could offer my services on? Anything you guys can recommend?
Upwork is the best!
Upwork is good until they hold your money because your client is a fraud and it’s got nothing to do with you at all. It’s like a punishment for a crime you didn’t commit. When you think your career is going well, then boom! You get slapped in the face with the account hold.
Have you tried Hourspent?
Upwork
As its extreme is it may seem, I don’t believe it’s out of the realm of possibility that that was in fact their business strategy, all dressed up has some “feel-good” liberating platform allowing people to work for themselves or get a great deal on quality services. .
Luckily, I did manage to escape the Fiverr lifestyle, and now work for clients who actually pay me what I’m worth again.
Not all platforms are terrible, I do get science off of upwork and Guru.
ALSO, there is another platform in particular that has been getting me a lot of clients as of late, it’s pretty much everything that Fiverr should have been but never was – the benefits such as high traffic and visibility and clients who have money and are ready to spend it, allow you to set your own prices, the trend is not bargain-basement there, it’s actually quality and they treat their Cellars with a lot more dignity as well not to mention the fact that they don’t gouge the buyer’s or the sellers, 10% flat fee that’s it, no additional fees above and beyond that. No waiting 14 days to get paid, they pay once a week.
For my fellow Fiverr refugees, I highly recommend [Affiliate Link Removed]
Another huge benefits of this platform, considering the amount of traffic is getting versus the relatively low number of sellers on this platform, way more exposure way more likely to be seen more frequent orders, anymore tight-knit community. They also offer a lot of free training for new Freelancers as well and for Freelancers who want to learn additional skills.
It’s definitely helped me stay out of the clutches of Fiverr, if this response can help even one freelancer get away from Fiverr and be treated with dignity, then this admittedly excessive comment was well worth it
Thank you for an amazing article, I will have to read your others now but I promise I not to leave any more lengthy comments LOL just a bit extra passionate about this particular subject.
Sorry ronnie, but could you tell me what website?
the link was removed, what name it is?
1)”Find an of talented professionals who are capable of offering great services,
2) completely disassemble their egos with a business model that forces first world educated and skilled talent to price compete with unskilled third world Freelancers as if their skill sets were no different
3) once they are locked in, create a very demanding visibility and performance ranking algorithm that forces them to positioned themselves to be immediately aware of and able to respond to any and every notification and query sent to them through the platform within a very short time frame or be penalized.
4) in addition to charging the buyers additional money is beyond the gig price as a processing see, take an additional 20% of the good price out of the sellers earnings also as a service fee – keep their earnings low enough to wear they absolutely need that next $5 gig and are actually willing to trip over themselves to get to that $5 gig that not long ago they would have found it to be an insult of an offer.
5) Create additional fear and anxiety within the sellers by imposing an Incredibly lopsided feedback algorithm that actually punishes anything below a 5-star rating with the threat of anything less than a 5-star rating resulting in fewer gigs, which the seller is dependent upon.
6) cater to the fire is grandiosity by heavily emphasizing the platforms dedication to maintaining only the highest quality of standards of performance from sellers, and encouraging them to report “bad sellers” and to make use of the rating system. Common as well as encouraging them to ask plenty of presale questions and to report any negative customer service experience from the sellers.
7) keep sellers so preoccupied and distracted by the platforms to man such as constantly checking for any new Communications, Fielding questions from people who may or may not decide to purchase a $5 service, stressing over money, terrified of negative reviews, and trying to appease increasingly demanding low paying clients. So distracted, that they become too busy to notice what is happening to them
8) sit back, collect money, watch the degraded former professionals go to embarrassing length to win over a 5 or $10 client, then anybody who gives us too much trouble and do whatever we can to not pay that person, including a six-month payment hold placing the onus on them to remember to email Fiverr in six months within a short time in order to be eligible for their earned wages to be released to them (yes they actually pull this crap)
If your first world education is so grand and worth so much more than us “third world peasants” then why aren’t you working for the fortune 500s of the world? You see people like you really need to piss off and understand like the rest of us that the world is a competitive and unforgiving place that chews up the weak regardless of where you come from and stop whining like a little byatch and put in the work like the rest of us without complaining of how much privilege you should be entitled to. Guess what, Fiverr was built for the benefit of clients who pay and us “third world” peasants understand what grit means, bite the bullet, work dirt cheap and the clients actually come to us so honestly shut the f up.
I’m sorry, I don’t agree with him on some things, but in my experience he is correct about some buyers from all over the world undervaluing work while maintaining ridiculous demands. And you don’t have to be from a “third world” country to be a person who works hard and bites the bullet. This kind of personal attack is unnecessary and very indicative of your own professional behavior.
Here here! Couldn’t agree more with you Cliff, when I read the ‘Third world freelancers as though their skills are worth the same’ comment. Excuse me? No one should deserve more value for their time simply because they were born in a wealthier country. If their skills are really better, they should speak for themselves. Being from the ‘third world’ or ‘first world’ shouldn’t have anything to do with it.
I could not agree more with your article. TBH, having also degraded myself by briefly offering my services in that platform that was designed from its Inception to be a Perpetual race to the bottom of the barrel pricing.
By allowing a skill that I had put Untold hundreds of hours over the years into honing and perfecting to be sold so cheaply is the epitome of exploitation. Furthermore, this can also have long-term traumatic and rather devastating impacts on the self esteem and self confidence of the exploited seller.
A seemingly constant barrage of Cheapskates attempting to manipulate you into providing them services well beyond the scope of what they ordered, at a price which is already about 1/20th of fair market value for what they DID order can definitely Foster the infamous “imposter syndrome” once you leave that platform and work with a client who pays real money. If you do enough projects that, historically, would have charged about $200 for for only $5 or $10, in the back of your mind you start to second-guess whether or not you were ever really worth more than $5 or $10 to begin with.
Part of me can’t help but think that this is by Design, perhaps a more sinister business strategy lurking just under the surface:
What an eye-opener your article and all the comments are! After reading so many examples of frustrating experiences, it struck me that working for Fiverr must be like working in a sweatshop! I’ve given some thought to setting up an account with them, but think another path may be better. I’m curious if anyone can recommend another service similar to Fiverr, but with a more realistic earning structure?
Literally just use Fiverr, you don’t have to set gigs at $5. My gigs start at $10-20 and my average selling price is about $100/gig
This article is a joke
Nancy (and everyone), this article isn’t accurate.
It sounds more like a pouting session.
Look, I’ve been freelancing for 34 years now, and I use Fiverr as one of my income streams. Over the last 3+ years, I’ve personally made over $100K through Fiverr, and even though I’m a Top Rated Seller (all 5 Star reviews) and I’m not always happy with the platform. But let’s be honest here:
#1) The people who complain the most are those who can’t seem to sell their wares or services. Period. So just because you can’t hack it on Fiverr, or can’t stand toe-to-toe with your peers, doesn’t make a platform bad, it means you should step up your game.
#2) I DO think Fiverr takes too much money–but hey, I chose to work there, so the 20% is what it is. I just wish they would leave my tips alone because taking 20% of someone’s tips on TOP of your profits just makes you a greedy ass. So on the FEE issue, I agree that it sucks–and Fiverr does seem to be constantly looking for more ways to get their claws into your funds.
#3) No, gigs are not $5. Again no, your gig does NOT stay at $5 when you get extras. The foundation of Fiverr is “STARTING at $5”. My average sale is about $140, but after that, my second largest average is about $6,000 a gig–illustrating full children’s books.
To verify I’m not a fake here (and just throwing around figures expecting you to believe me), this is one of my gigs–which charges $315 PER PAGE of artwork, the average job being 24 pages. $315 x 24 = $7560.
(Just a little over $5 a gig, if my math is correct…)
https://www.fiverr.com/wantedhero/create-art-for-your-childrens-book?funnel=0176916b-8285-4c3b-a78c-b516068faee7
#4) There are no Paypal fees anymore. Fiverr made a deal with Paypal and pays those out of the funds they take from you. So….wrong again.
#5) There is a great advantage to Fiverr that I rarely see people bring up: Exposure.
I have clients who use my main website, who knew someone who bought my gigs on Fiverr. These people contact me OUTside Fiver because they refused to use the platform. Usually because of previous bad experiences.
These are by far my highest paying clients, which would never have found me, or chosen me if I hadn’t been on Fiverr.
My point is, you never know what can happen. I only tried Fiverr in the beginning, because I wanted to earn a little extra cash for a new computer. Go figure.
Set your price.
Do good work.
Be fair.
Be kind, yet firm.
Know that it’s okay to say “no”.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Hope this helps someone.
Thanks Jaime! I am just getting started as a Freelancer for doing work in MS Excel and Access.
I will try Fiverr and see how I do.
I’m getting dev projects on Hourspent. They were taking 5% commission. I was emailed they’ll be taking 10% commission from the 26th of June. I earn between $1000 to $2,000 per week. Waited for weeks before they got my application approved. One more thing, they’ll charge you extra $25 withdrawal fee if you’re outside the US. A friend in Estonia insists its not exactly $25. Not really sure about that because, mine is free. I’m based in the US.
I actually really like articles like this. As a 6 figure Fiverr earner and PRO/Top Rate Seller, I can tell you, the less competition I have on Fiverr, the better. Discouraging other sellers from joining the platform creates a nice solid niche for those of us already established.
That’s not to say your points are not valid, because (no shock) the are valid! Because in fact, 99% of the sellers on fiverr are complete trash and are all scrapping the bottom of the barrel. This puts most freelancers at a disadvantage from the get go. If you’re not making at least $500 to $1000 per order or have MASSIVE volume sales per month, then Fiverr isn’t going to get you anywhere. Even high volume sellers who have been there since WAYYYY back in 2012 have barely broke the $25,000 mark in 2019 lol I make that in several months and am on track to do it in one month this year.
So anyone reading this, Fiverr is probably not going to make you rich if you’re another wannabe gig hawker.
Have you got any advice for leveraging some (very) small initial success on Fiverr into a viable self-sustaining career?
I have made some pocket change $100-$200 a week on fiverr writing blog posts. It can be a good starting point, but I have moved off the platform.
Here is another ”artist” who probably rips people off with exaggerated prices that won’t even make up for what is dreamt by the customers.
I have spent over AUD$2000 on two jobs from the same seller – the first was delivered and the second file was corrupt (both fiverr and myself have been unable to decompress)
I have tried on several occasions to reach the seller but have not had a response. When I reached out to fiverr they told me the case was more than 14 days old and closed.
Fiverr’s business model is to complete the transaction as quickly as possible so they get paid but with no protection for the buyer. The fact that the seller is allowed to continue being active despite this suggests that they are not interested in protecting their buyers
Today, Monday December 23rd, 2019, Fiverr just made this announcement to all Sellers: “Heads up! We extended the time buyers can review deliveries to 7 days during the holidays.”
What this really means, as one Seller posted in the Fiverr Forum:
“Fiverr is holding your money 4 extra days so the bottom line for the year has more revenue to show, and can earn that extra interest on your revenues.”
I feel sorry for Sellers who are counting on their revenues being delivered per the normal waiting period. No advance warning, and a day and a half before Christmas. Fiverr shows its true colors yet again.
Ren, I totally agree with this entire article and the reply above from “Fiverr Seller” about the Christmas posting Fiverr put out in regards to giving buyers more time before a delivered order is closed automatically. I was just reading an article by Tech Crunch about Fiverr going public and according to their SEC filing to go public the report says ” We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future and may never achieve or maintain profitability. ”
Why anyone would buy a stock that never gains profitability? I have no idea. My issue is how the heck is Fiverr losing money when they do absolutely zero work? They have contracts who are not paid and they get 20% commission off them. Basically Fiverr is like eBay, where sellers sell goods and eBay is just a platform for sellers to use. Yes, there are big costs running these websites, but if management does a good job there is no reason why Fiverr is not profitable.
I totally agree that as a Fiverr seller we are devaluing our services and our valuable skillset. However, something is better than nothing and if someone is an experience in their life where they are not bring in much income the extra 30-50 dollars a week can come in handy. The big issue we face as Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and Australians is that we compete with sellers offering services for $5. As you say, $4 in the USA doesn’t buy crap. However, $4 in China will buy you a 3-course dinner in Shanghai, China because that $4 USD is ¥28 RMB.
Agree whole heartedly with your comment except for the fact that 4 dollars these days in Shanghai will most definitely not get you a three course meal…
I couldn’t agree more with this article! You should send this to Fiverr with all the comments as well. Anyway, I’m in the US and I have found that it is pretty much impossible for a US citizen to make any money on this platform. I have a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and I do plenty of work outside of Fiverr but when I tried adding a gig to Fiverr and monetized it for 6 months at prices that were “on-point” for someone in the US, I didn’t get one single inquiry. It’s pretty sad in all honesty. Fiverr shouldn’t be in the US market. With so many other designers offering the same gig as mine for $5, of course they’re going to get the jobs over me. $5 in Inida is a lot of money compared to $5 in the US, so there’s no way in hell I would charge $5 for my services. There’s simply no balance to Fiverr for sellers in different countries at all.
Oh, look who it is! Garrett!!! Hey buddy!
Exactly. There is no way in heck Americans can compete with these sellers from Asia. For them, if they $300 USD a month off Fiverr gigs they can live a good middle-class lifestyle in their home countries, whereas here in the United States that will buy a week’s worth of groceries for a family of 4.
For example, when I lived in China for several months I was completely blown away how cheap everything was. $300 USD is ¥2,075.91 and one can live extremely good on that in China.
For example, if you make $50 USD in China, you are considered high class, where $30 USD daily is upper middle class.
In closing, simply Fiverr is great for Western buyers wanting to get services for dirt cheap, but a total scam and below minimum wage for American workers.
Jonny & Garret,
I think the biggest problem I see with comments like yours is that you’re “competing”.
Why the hell would you want to compete?
I realize that we are in different fields. but I’ve found that there is a never-ending flow of clients who don’t want ‘second-best’ and prefer US talent.
Translations are a pain in the butt, which in the end can cost far more than just hiring a US talent.
Granted the advantage I have as an artist is–I just wait until my samples his an emotional chord with a potential client. My high prices filter out the tire-kickers and the rest I have an honest conversation with and I close 9 out of 10 inquiries.
I made a full time living from Fiverr after I’d been on the platform for 45 days, I had nine children still at home–and I’m the sole wage earner.
Yeah, I may be the exception, not the rule–but don’t tell me it can’t be done, cause….uh, hello. It’s me.
Fiverr rules have changed since this post was created, making some of the comments and problems outdated and obsolete.
There are two sides to this story. Many of the gigs for even $50 are sub par. I view the first gig as a test. If the small project is executed correctly and timely, I award more work – and sometimes the freelancer tells me that they are too busy or on 2nd gig for a larger piece of work, they don’t answer at all.
I got my first order yesterday and i’m working on it. It’s my first job as a freelancer and totally new to this kind of platform and I totally forgot about the fee and I feel very disappointed about it.. 🙁 Which platform is better and good for freelancers? Do you have any suggestions?
As an occasional user of fiverr and a reader of these comments i agree that they are pretty much robbing talented people as most big companies do unfortunately. But i have of course found it very useful to oursource various things there, and although i do feel for fiverr sellers without doubt, it serves a purpose for me.
I think that the trouble starts when you call a business fiverr. And at $5 it was always going to devalue many hard working peoples skills and talents so, its been very educational for me reading this and thinking on behalf of sellers. I always tip as i believe its good manners when I have received a quality production but i can see why many sellers get annoyed with them. Wishing you the best. Greg
I forgot to add that as a seller I have those dread moments, scared of opening Fiverr because I’m afraid to see I if I got low rating, it’s not because I have done a poor quality but because a little careless can earn low rating from a mean buyer.
and a bit low rating can mean less order for business.
I don’t think that’s good for anyone who have anxiety problem or people who can’t handle the pressure
Yes, it sucks, and they will diss/ignore you if you complain about it or doing so in the Fiverr Forum.
it’s like indirectly saying you’re the to blame for your own money management when they are being greedy.
When I mentioned about holding payment for 2 weeks is terrible, someone instead applause it because it’s for security.
and yeah, not only they took service fee from buyer, they also take tips from seller too, it’s like taking 20% from sellers revenue are not enough.
I have sold around 37 gigs and I feel I have oversell and starting to be a drag, because if I increase my gig rate to cover that 20% cut, buyers run away thinking it’s too expensive, so I have no choice but to accept my service with lower payment. it’s almost like i’m doing charity most of the time.
once i got someone who don’t haggle my price when I charge more to cover the 20% cut. So I initially thought they were fine with it. But then after deliver they gave feedback not full 5 stars and saying that my price is a little bit expensive.
It hurts my five stars streaks, not because of my service but just because a price, which was still under the average market for it.
And you can’t charge other than multiply 5 too,
Many cheapskates are now roaming, expecting great quality for very little amount, hurting not only sellers but also buyers, Fiverr is a sad place.
I would like if Fiverr change to take only 3-5% after you made your first $500, like hello, you’re already rich by taking from everyone by now, have some mercy to the freelancers. But it’s likely it will never change
┐(´-｀)┌
If you’re still new in your work field and don’t have any qualification/certification, Fiverr was a good place to start your business to get some clients, compiling some good feedbacks and opportunity to get experience. Since Fiverr has a high visitors.
But after you become intermediary, you may feel it’s start to not worth your time. Because of the problems I mentioned before.
Just finished my first order with Fiverr and don’t think I’ll be using their service again.
While my copy editor was great, there are a couple of things I really don’t like:
1) Fiverr keeps 20% of the bill?……for just bringing us together? And I thought eBay’s fees were steep.
2) After the order is complete and you rate your freelancer, Fiverr then asks if you want to tip the freelancer (is this to replenish the 20% that Fiverr kept?….Fiverr’s payroll responsibilities should not be thrust upon the buyer because of the excessive amount that Fiverr decides to keep).
3) If you do decide to tip, then Fiverr adds a $2.00 “Service Fee” (which they claim allows them to help keep the site going….seriously?….what about that 20% you already took from the freelancer?!….where is that money going? This $2.00 “Service Fee” feels a lot like ATM fees when you use a different bank; it’s not a fee they actually incur, but rather a revenue generation scheme that goes straight to the bottom line).
While I liked my freelancer, I don’t like the how much money Fiverr takes from them, then wants me to shore up the difference in the form of a tip, then wants to charge me a “Service Fee” on top of it.
What I don’t like is that they take money from your tips also. I get taking a percentage of sellers’ earnings because the owners of the platform have to make money as well. But recently I received a notification that one of my buyers tipped me (I didn’t even know that this was a feature they offered) and when I looked at my earnings tab they were taking money from that too. Where does an employer take money from its employees’ tips?!
What I don’tike is that so nbn eone stole our credit card info and used it to buy a gig off this thing. I had never heard of it before that. Now someone isnt going to get paid and some scumbag is getting services for free.
Companies with first mover advantage often become complacent with their service. This may have happened with Fiverr, the best thing anyone can do is create a better alternative and do great marketing so people know about it.
i want know if you not sell any gag a longtime you paid the fees to fiverr or no
thanks you
No fees are paid if you do not sell anything.
You are charged only on the work done.
I look at fiverr like a lead generation for sh*tty clients platform. Theres nothing quite like a client being petty over a $10 gig. At the same time atleast you get clients… this is good if you’re just starting off.
It’s not for sellers, heck it’s hardly for buyers, it’s really for Fiverr. But its their website, they can do whatever they want. Even if it means stifling all good sellers.
I actually like Fiverr as a way to help people and make a bit of extra money. I’ve been selling for 3 months and I’ve made $200+. I like that I can set my gigs to being more than $5 because I probably wouldn’t really a Fiverr user if I could only set my pay to $5. My lowest gig is $20 right now.
I think the thing that I don’t care for the most about Fiverr is the 2 week wait for a payment to clear. I also don’t like that Fiverr takes 20%, but I get it since it is a platform filled with potential buyers that I probably would not have found myself on my own. I just have to remember to charge a bit more so that the 20% won’t affect the amount I receive for the work I do too much.
I don’t get it. Everything in this article is very different from my experience. Im a game developer and my fiverr gig starts at 190$. I still get people contacting me everyday and my quotes goes from 190 to 800 but that is never for a full project. Only the first step which usualy takes 1-4 work days to complete. Once i get trust from the client with the first few orders i move away from fiverr to avoid the 20% fees.
I don’t get why the article talks as if 5$ gig is the only option on fiverr. I’ve been very successful with it at a higher price range. Just don’t put “starting at 5” if you dont want people to expect that price.
My fiver user: marc477
Marc
When this article was written there were only 5$ gig option on Fiverr. It was called “FIVE”rr for a reason.
Hi! Can I ask how you exchange email or other contact info with your clients without fiverr noticing? I want to do that too but I don’t want them to ban my account.
It’s Very Simple. Create a word document and add necessary details including your contact number, email, and skype and send through an attachment.
Great article. But the worst thing about Fiverr is 2 weeks of waiting and too much verification for everytime I change my payment method. They use old currency rate for bank withdrawl from payoneer. I am looking for another alternative..
Let me preface this by saying I didn’t read all these comments. I have spent a decent amount on fiverr given my income, but the times I’ve listed gig’s I’ve never gotten so much as a single inquiry, even though I’ve literally only charged a set price of $5, on the assumption I’ll get orders and once I have good reviews, I’ll raise my prices. The gig’s I listed were songwriting and basic beat making. I do like working with the sellers, they can be very helpful and honestly very talented. I do think the commission is too high on the sellers end, it seems, and 2 weeks is a long time to wait for payment. I do want to mention a lot of the sellers take *forever* to respond and the orders take literal days and days. I can’t say fiverr seems very friendly overall. But, the other thing is in the music industry, royalty payments are a bit hard to come by. I’ve literally made a total of .00005 cents from the streaming services, and not sold a single record. So for me, the idea of making $3.50 or so total per gig maybe doesn’t seem so bad. And fiverr to me seems a bit more decent than uber. Uber is just as much a rip off I feel like as fiverr., probably more. The reality is workers need protections in place and jobs, especially in this “gig economy,” to me anyway.
Hi Guys,
I am presently building a freelancer site, and I am so glad I fell on this information, it will be very helpful for me to get insight as to how to create a site where BOTH the Freelancers and the clients can be satisfied in the end, thus keeping them longer on my site. I had no idea fiverr is so bad with their freelancers, or how their customers can scam you. I only thought clients had risks of being scammed.
I would really like to have your input as experienced Freelancers as to:
1. What would be the best way to market your gigs if not like on fiverr for 5$, that would still be Attention Getting to attract customers and get you sales.
2. What are your suggestions that would make it a Win Win situation for ALL:
The Web site owner – Freelancers – Clients
3. How can I make it fair for all freelancers, to get paid equally for their Expertise, and get paid according to the value of their service in their country, because it is true the cost of living is different in every country.
Can anyone create a plugin or know of an application I can find that can find this information for me so I can auto-set the premiums at the best price possible based on where the Freelancer lives? Also, I believe to do so, The Freelancer must indicate the time required to do the micro job, above his price and delay time for delivery.
Example: I am a Freelance teacher in Canada, the average going rate for corporate training is 60$h, If I offer a package for classes the application will not allow me to go higher than this amount in Canada, it will only allow me to go higher than the average rate based on Revenue for services in Canada. I can only choose any amount inferior to the going rate for my services if I want to attract more customers.
Please provide me any help to make my new site a Winner! I want my services to be appreciated and I don’t want to cheat my freelancers, I want US all to GROW! So your help will be greatly appreciated. Feel free to give me any Great suggestions that emphasize and focus on…
A profitable WIN! WIN! WIN! Solution for ALL !
The Web site owner – Freelancers – Clients
Thank you in advance
Alice
I don’t think limiting max prices is reasonable, and even less fair. It is like limiting the maximum price of cars in a country where an arbitrary max price is set by self appointed people (or statistical average).
If someone wants to sell a gold-plated diamond-studded WV Beetle for a million bucks and someone wants to buy it, why would a third party standing between them reserve the right to prevent the deal (or in oppose it any form)? The supply-demand balance shall take care that unreasonably high prices will not be accepted, and disappear automatically.
Your intent to discriminate against sellers in different countries based on local living costs by limiting the max. price they can ask for their services is again unjust, and pointless.
The real value of a work is justly measured in working hours that an average expert would use to complete that task (not in fiat money). The reason for global economic injustice is the deliberate boosting of investments, R&D, and production in specific countries, while suppressing the same in other countries by global banking elite. Then they devalue certain currencies in undeveloped countries because they don’t produce modern technology with sufficient efficiency (that is the excuse). Which is caused by the deliberate withholding of investments.
But the cooking of the same dinner still takes the same amount of time and work in all countries. Forcing a cook to work 10 times more hours in the third world to make the same money as a cook in the US is injustice. Everybody has got only 24 hours per day and only few decades to live, that is the real potential value and capital that can be turned into tangible value. Cont.d below…
…Cont.d from above
It does not matter if the living costs are less in a country than in another or not. They still want or even need to buy the same modern technology, cars, computers, mobile phones, nice houses made of modern building materials, build modern factories to catch up with the production efficiency to compete on the global market, etc., which cost either the same in all countries, or even more expensive in the 3rd world.
You can’t solve global economic injustice without leveling the global field of investments, education, work ethics (which can be programmed into the minds of kids) etc. You can only decide whose interests you want to protect on your platform.
There is a conflict of interest between the western and eastern sellers, because the easterners are forced to offer work for less in order to get any work at all, and they can survive on that meager salary. It does not mean that they are happy to earn less than their western competitors. If they could, they would want to get as much money for their work as possible.
You have to decide whose interest you want to protect. The western seller’s or the ones from undeveloped countries. If you prefer westerners, then offer your platform only to them, or alternatively offer two platforms. One for westerners, and another for the undeveloped countries. Then the buyers can decide themselves where they want to purchase the service they need. As long as the sellers country is shown to the potential buyer, they can make their own preferential choice even if all global sellers are mixed together.
Cont.d below….
Very true, finally someone realizes that even in 3rd world countries, it’s still expensive.
like my developing country, since it’s not advanced enough, it imports cars, smartphones, TV, PC, and any other techs, and yeah the house is very expensive.
even foods in restaurant is expensive.
And also people are taking lightly that they don’t speak English in their daily life when they don’t learn English in just a week for their business. That they kinda deserves higher price than they asked.
that too many people are looking at their service cheaply just because the country they are from 🙁
…Cont.d from above
If you really want justice, then that should be focused on the platform and payment service providers in the first place. The deducted fees should not be fixed percentages, but should be determined by the real cost of offering the platform services. At the outset while there are few transactions the cost is high, but as the number of clients increases the cost of service does not increases as much as the volume of money. Therefore, the fees should decrease as the site gets more popular.
You calculate the expenses for the hardware, bandwidth, and salaries of workers, add to it a realistic salary for the owner (which should not be measured in millions of dollars…), plus taxes, then distribute the total to the total cash flow, and you get the fees that users should pay. Create a decent payment service provider as well, that uses the same just system of fees.
Offer first class user friendly customer service that protects the victims from the bullies and injustice. It does not matter whether the victim is the seller or buyer, justice is all that should matter.
I don’t think you could do much more than this to eliminate or at least diminish the evil inherent in today’s corporate online platforms (driven by to limitless greed).
You should also create a very strong legal team and strategy to protect yourself and your company from the probable attacks and take-over operations that the globalist corporate hyenas will launch against you. Don’ t take loans from banks, because that is the hook that forces new startups to sell their successful companies to the corporate monopolies and greedy parasites. The banks can force you to sell the company. Ultimately, if your just business model would succeed and take root, they would be out of business and out of unlimited profits in no time…
Were you able to get the site up? I’m still looking for other platforms to make more extra income. I’m currently on three platforms.
Yes I agree!!! Fiverr sucks!!!! Taking two weeks to get paid off a gig I’ve done two weeks before that doesn’t make any sense!!! can’t stand it!!! I’ve made other alternatives though. Is there any other website like Fiverr but where you don’t have to wait a lifetime to get your payment from the gig you do? Please let me know…
If you are a graphic designer – 99designs is excellent!
Otherwise you can try Upwork
Fiverr’s service fee is now $2, does that mean that sellers still just get $4 for every $5 gig? If so: a customer pays $7, Fiverr then gets $3 and the one performing the gig $4. That would be like a 42% tax.
Fiverr not only takes a huge cut, they also hold your funds for two weeks. I have provided services on Fiverr for a couple years now and in many cases dread when I have to do a Fiverr gig. It’s still a great marketplace and I do get business from Fiverr, but they take a large percentage of my earnings and I hate the fact that after the gig has been approved by my buyers I have to wait the two weeks before I get paid for the work I have done.
I now primarily focus on generating business elsewhere, so I can actually get paid for services provided same day.
If you are a beginner, intermediate or even seasoned voice actor, the online freelancers’ world of Gigs may be appealing for part of your income. Fiverr is one such online Gig platform. The appeal is real: no auditions for jobs, no annual membership fees to be a VO actor, loads of wonderful creative contacts made, setting your own fees for services (even upwards of non-union rates), great place to warm up and practice as a newbie, plenty of good additions to your portfolio, runs on a timer so you can keep your clients happy with their deadlines easily. The cons? Well, bear with me, as the list is just as long if not longer. Poor customer service that is untimely (24-48 hr wait) and not thorough at all (robotic responses) until you press them to carefully look at your requests, awfully sensitive algorithm that flags and bans words for violation of Trust and Safety rules such as Pay even if it is a word in a script you are voicing for the financial industry, too controlling and regulation Trust and Safety disallowing one to list outside sites even though they are your portfolios (they do allow Vimeo, but not business websites), they do not allow Buyers and Sellers to connect directly on email or Skype or phone even if you are voicing an IVR system and have to call it in or need to connect to discuss more efficiently how to proceed with the projects, their uploading system for files and Gig videos is glitchy often, they take a 20% commission on all work when it should ideally be 10-15% especially since they offer little support and are not active in finding you jobs, and many Sellers are cheap and try to undercut your worth and when you decline their work they get rude, so you have to report them to Fiverr for bad behavior.
So if you are like me, an 18-year veteran of the VO industry from a major market and now charge non-union (higher) rates on Fiverr for your work in order to not lower the standards in your industry, you book 1200 jobs in two years, get 100% 5-star reviews from 830 clients, are favorited by 970 clients, you are consistently on the first page of searches/recommendations for leading VO talent on the site, you’ve made an extra $25,000 income from working only 1-2 hrs/day and charging respectable prices (not $5), you have make Fiverr a $5000 commission, and you have followed and respected the Terms of Service in refusing to connect with clients outside of the platform, you can still have your account closed permanently by Trust and Safety for the *3 times* you have listed your professional website for your clients’ clients to peruse (likely clients who don’t want their clients to know they are hiring a Fiverr talent…). Yes, I did broach their ToS a few times siting my website in messages, but it was merely for my Sellers’ clients. Sad, because they should weigh that against the dozens of times in 2 yrs that I have declined Sellers’ requests to connect via email or phone or Skype, etc. I have defended them and their idiotic rules more times than I can count. What a foolish company who would cancel an acct of a seasoned and popular talent who brings them a modicum of respect in an otherwise detested site who gets a Better Business Bureau rating of “F”! Not a company with which I want to be associated! Once I get my $700 they are holding for 90 days (??!!), I will start to post my story on their forum for folks to read. I may write an opinion piece for the NY Times or Forbes too. Meantime, I have to make up my income lost not having them as part of my job market opportunities. They are a fraction, but an important one. $13K year one, $17K year two, and growing.
It’s all good. It served its purpose for two years as an extra income and practice in new genres. But I really have always been embarrassed at working on Fiverr at all, as it’s so detested in the VO industry, and, although I was charging my clients non-union rates that are more respectable, and although I made a ton of truly great work of which I am proud, and although I have made great connections with clients in genres I had not experienced prior (like E-Learning, IVR/Telephony, Podcast Intros & Outros), I am done. Fiverr truly is beneath my stature and undeserving of my talent and experience. I really am a big believer in Darwin’s survival of the fittest as well as karma, and surely this mediocre company cannot survive long the way they treat their clients, both Sellers and Buyers, at least not as anything else but an “F” rated company.
so why not set up a pseudo account – via someone else and give them a cut of the revenue?
I mean it won’t be 25k anymore, but it’d still be a lot.
The thing with the big companies is that fairness does not apply. They will screw you – so you gotta screw them too. #nomercy
Hi John,
Believe me, it had crossed my mind briefly, but I am not a rule breaker by nature. I am a very honest person, and I feel that would be truly dishonest. But I will tell you that so many clients have found me independently due to my using my real name on Fiverr, and have contacted me directly since leaving Fiverr by a simple Google search. Genevieve Hannon alone works, and if you remember only my first name and add in voice over, that works too. So many clients (upwards of 20) have missed me on Fiverr and have gone looking for me. So much for Fiverr’s strict rules about not citing one’s website. My clients can find me anyhow if they wish! So, touché, Fiverr.
One more quick point: I have loved being able to serve start-ups, entrepreneurs, non-profits, even college and high school kids, all with lower budgets, obtain my top shelf voice overs that they otherwise could not afford to. So often, it felt really good to help these clients on Fiverr. But occasionally, I did work for multi-nationals, Fortune 500 companies and other wealthy individuals and corporations who full-well could have afforded one of my Union or Non-Union voice over clients through a talent agency or casting director process, or could have afforded to pay me more. I found that shameful.
I have only been a client on Fiverr. I think the service itself is garbage. The mobile app constantly fails, the website is very unfriendly to use, etc. I’d like an alternative to Fiverr. I like to pay well and tip well, and have received work that is above and beyond my expectations each time. I think Fiverr is taking far more commission per ‘gig’ than they deserve- considering the poor quality they engineer into their own site and app. They should hire someone to build it all for them, their quality is awful.
Most recently, I wanted to leave a sizable tip, and fiverr limited that tip to a fixed maximum amount. Excuse me? You’re already stealing 20% from my developer, I should get to tip whatever I want to.
Fix your website and stop robbing everyone, fiverr. (Yes, lowercase ‘f,’ because you don’t deserve anything better)
I’m looking for recommendations if any of you has any. Most of the work I need done is for Android App development.
Yes, fiverr sucks, I’ve been selling a $105 gig for quite some time, I receive $84 from each gig sold – paypal fees. At first I thought 20% = Cost of Acquisition, Marketing, ecommerce Software , well maybe it is worth it.
But recently I’ve found that their customer support sucks as well, they don’t care about the sellers, just about the buyers ( Making money ), and they will never, ever lose a dime. I’ve been charged back from gigs I delivered 6 months ago, the buyer decided to do a claim on their paypal account so paypal took the money from fiverr and fiverr took the money from my account, The gig was delivered, the buyer gave me 5 stars and it was 6 months ago, and still they took the money, because they don’t lose.
Recently this has been happening a lot, I’ve been charged back on 3 occasions, neither of them had an explanation from the buyer, and or fiverr.
I’m pulling the cord, had enough.
“I’ve been charged back from gigs I delivered 6 months ago, the buyer decided to do a claim on their paypal account so paypal took the money from fiverr and fiverr took the money from my account, The gig was delivered, the buyer gave me 5 stars and it was 6 months ago, and still they took the money, because they don’t lose.”
I don’t see a legal right here to do that without a good reason. This for sure is an example for work slavery.
Hey there I totally agree. I’m an audio engineer and I do mastering and mixing from home sometimes and I would never even start Pro Tools up for $5. I actually spent some time on the idea of a tech and tech arts service site that actually works fairly for everyone. It’s a pretty big idea. Something that would hopefully walk all over Fiverr and the like. Hopefully it will snowball into a household name and I recruit talent like yours!
Hello
I am new to fiverr. I made my gigs and give them the prices they worth. I know I won´t get any customer soon, but when I get one I will be fair paid for my work.
Best regards
Elen
I’m an Advertising student from/in California. A friend of mine suggested Fiverr a while back. I put up a gig or two early 2017 and when I noticed the same few designers popping up after a search, I asked, how am I or any new account supposed to get noticed? Does the site even want new freelancers or can they just survive off a few veterans? What’s funny is that I spent way too much time describing each gig so I was a little grr. I seriously think they have their favorites and don’t need any new members; terrible business model in my opinion, but I’ve never been good at math so I could be wrong. I guess it’s a good temporary strategy…and I guess I missed the train! Some folks are killing it and making a living so I can’t hate. Most buyers on that site aren’t very picky, it seems, so it all works out in the end!
I know some of you are ragging on fiverr, however, you are only using one example, stop selling those low quality $5 gigs, and sell some of actual value to your clients, and I doubt fiverr ever guaranteed anyone work at home full time income, treat it as such, get a job, or do a better job promoting your own service, and treat fiverr for what it is, and sometimes, less then part time income for selling cheap services you automate anyways.
my last gig purchase was $500
fiverr is not at fault, sellers are… fiverr only gets $1 per transaction, and charges 2.9% fee plus $0.30 because they
are passing what is charged to them to the buyer.
(you expect fiverr to pay your fees why?)
This comment is misleading.
First, you tell people to sell “actual” value and charge more. I don’t think you can so broadly, and single-handedly, define what is “actually” valuable and what is not. If those $5 gigs were to vanish because everyone does as you say and charges more, Fiverr’s entire business model would disappear. They market themselves on that $5 gig. Fiverr relies on this $5 gig that you so readily dismiss as valueless.
Then you say your last gig sale was $500. Great. But in the very next sentence, you say that Fiverr “only gets $1 per transaction…” That is incorrect. Fiverr takes 20% of a transaction, which equals $1 when the gig is $5. You should know that, because they would’ve taken $100 out of your $500 sale. If you want to argue against the $5 gig, fine, but acknowledge that Fiverr doesn’t get “only” $1 when the sale is more.
Lastly, you’re saying that Fiverr is justified in passing on fees to sellers. As someone who’s sold online, I’ve come to accept fees as part of doing business. Years ago, when Fiverr money arrived in my PayPal account, I’d also be charged PayPal fees on that amount, meaning I’m paying fees twice. Why would anyone be okay with getting gouged by Fiverr, paying Fiverr’s own gateway fees, and paying PayPal fees on whatever’s left? That’s a personal call. But that’s one reason why I don’t use Fiverr, and recommend to anyone that they offer their services from their own platform.
Here’s the problem with using your own platform:
That makes YOU responsible for driving traffic to your website. Now the customer has to trust an unknown person to handle their transaction correctly. What Fiverr provides is:
A) Traffic to your gig
B) Consumer confidence
Fiverr is providing a service to you as a buyer, in facilitating the opportunity to make sales. They charge a fee for this service, as any agency will. I work in voice acting. Any of the other agencies I work with do the same thing. They provide me with clients and projects to work on, and in return they take a cut of my earnings. It’s why actors have agents rather than just “their own platform” such as a personal website.
That being said, I do have a personal website which I use to host my portfolio and as a contact portal. But the vast majority of traffic comes from in-person interaction with potential clients, not random people online. That’s why there is a place for freelancing platforms.
Seth, I have been a professional VO actor for 18 years now and was represented by on of the leading talent agencies in the country, in NYC and L.A., CESD. They never charged more than 10% commission from my paychecks, and they were actively getting me auditions and clients. Fiverr displays Gigs, but does nothing actively to get anyone work. Fiverr’s 20% commission is excessive IMO. I have done the work on Fiverr to earn 1200 jobs in two years, and 830 5-star reviews, and 970 happy clients. I have done my own pricing, bidding, negotiating, and problem solving with little help from Customer Service, accept for the few times I reported abusive language from Buyers and Fiverr banned them. VO, as you must know, is a very fast moving business with turn around times being mere hours sometimes, yet CS generally doesn’t reply to or resolve technical issues that often occur until 24 hrs later, which could result in late order, cancellation and demotion of your standing. When they do reply, typically at first its a robotic one as if they have not been really reading your description of the issue or perhaps they really are automated responses. For 20% commission, I expect more ‘service’ as a customer. I know Fiverr is not a talent agency, but you have compared them to agencies with regard to fees. If they actually earned their commissions by proving more than just a listing on their site, which CESD does too, btw, then I’d say it were justified.
I agree…they get WAY too much. I was suprised to see how much they removed from my last transaction. I charged 80 and only received 64 dollars. That is bull#$#$. There is no way that Fiverr should get that much. Why do they deserve this?!
Yeah, I agree and I have been thinking of whether or not I want to close my gig on fiverr. I feel they don’t care about the Sellers, just making more money off their backs. It takes forever to get the money you earn, you have no rights, the customer service is a joke, and they’re just out right greedy. Even as a buyer it’s incredible difficult to find quality gigs. Most of the people on fiverr now are scammers from foreign countries. I just don’t care anymore. They reduced my level with their update. I can’t with them. Just complete nonsense. So I’m thinking about leaving fiverr too. But I don’t know. right now i’m really disheartened.
Yes, I agree with this article. I use Fiverr as a place where I can gain some additional practice of my skills (Psychic readings). If I had to make a living on Fiverr, I would be living under a bridge. Fiverr takes away way too much from my earnings. Plus, paypal takes its cut too…earnings on Fiverr are pitiful and I am treating my presence there as temporary.
Not to be rude, but Monika if your skills are “Psychic readings” wouldn’t you be living under a bridge anyways, sorry for being a “non-believer” but I don’t think that’s real, along with a lot of other people, and wouldn’t buy your product either way
That was rude, Tyler, and nobody asked for your opinion on the subject.
I have to disagree on this. A Fiverr income is something you have to build. It’s built from the ground up. You start with the $5 rates, then slowly add more services while raising your rates. I began on Fiverr 2 years ago and now I make over $1200 a month consistently. Not bad for an online side job. Hourly I end up at between $20-$200/hr. And I’m not one of Fiverr’s hand picked “top rated sellers.” You just have to
A) Be willing to bite the bullet and endure lower income for a time so that you can grow a customer base and brand for yourself,
B) Be patient, and
C) Be very good at what you do. If you’re mediocre at the service you offer, your Fiverr business will not grow. A lot of people on Fiverr are not successful and they wonder why. Many of those people are not offering professional quality services. The buyers will gravitate towards those who do.
I am media producer and I work as well on Fiverr. As a new seller, I do sometimes gigs for 20-40 USD but it depends on what the client needs. To make a unique and original promotional video you will need a cast, crew, models, great background music, motion graphic, titles, logo etc. All of this stuff costs money and as a media producer, I am responsible for my crew, camera operators, models etc and I am not going to do a promotional video for 5 USD. In my case, I would definitely agree with the writer of this article, but … I know that many people can earn really good money and Fiverr is a great place for them. For me is a tool to build a portfolio, advertise my services etc.
I have read through much of this thread and have concluded that these are not complaints about an website, but are complaints about LIFE ITSELF. All the complains listed here can also be leveled at life in general. If Fiverr does not work for you, that doesn’t mean it cannot work for someone else.
I just wanted to drop my two cents in here. I started using Fiverr a few months ago as a freelance translator, and I’ve not had a single problem on the website so far. Sure, some people back away the moment they find out that proper translation isn’t cheap, but I have gotten a few clients so far who have paid on time, left me good reviews and were polite and reasonable all the way through.
While I understand that the experience differs per field, I just wanted to mention that it isn’t all nightmare scenarios on there. The one thing that irks me is the ridiculous commission fee of 20%. I mean, considering how much money changes hands on their platform, Fiverr could stand to take less off the top. I mean, really now…
Also, I definitely agree that there’s a lot to be said for building your own website on platforms like Squarespace or Wix, and going it alone. That does mean you’ll have to learn a lot about how to market yourself, but hey! that’s what we have learning curves for.
I wish my fellow freelancers the best of luck, and don’t let the cheapo’s get you down. Stick to your guns, produce quality work and show the world that investing into your work gets them the amazing results they are looking for.
ANY artist who is stupid enough to whore themselves out on fivver is watering down the market and fucking over every other artist who is charging what they are worth .Either charge what you’re worth or get out of this industry.
I’m a freelance musician and I joined this site about 1 yr ago. I didn’t realize that this company holds your money for two weeks after the order is complete. I have a HUGE HUGE problem with that!. They are basically making money of my earnings during that duration. before they release funds. Then you have to pay the PP fees and transfer fees!!… WTF???… so a 50.00 by the time it is said and done… I get $39.00 transferred to my bank account for that effort??… NO THANK YOU!…
I have originally lowered my rate for session studio work to generate more business and it has worked, but after this last client a picky SOB, saying one thing and means another, and I find myself spending time critically listening to an artist recording trying to analyze what needs to be added or not. that all takes time. As a result of this, my rates will be at normal studio rates for freelance players from $75.00 to $100.00 a song. And after all the damn fees and withholding of funds, I’m not impressed and the overall attitude seems to favor the buyers!…. But they want you(the seller) to be accountable to deliver for the buyer, but they don’t have the same philosophy when it comes to a completed order to release funds. the buyers should be paying the fees not the hired talent and for the $5.00 sellers the buyers will get exactly what they pay for.
There are bunch of hacks on there that can’t play, or create they are the guys these buyers need, because they are cheap and probably just a weekend warrior themselves; not the professional experienced musicians that make their living turning out quality production in a short amount of time. Time is money!..Nothing to cheap or free in this world, surely not REAL EXPERIENCED TALENT!…
This site is geared to the aspiring musician, hobbyist(with nothing better to do) or a starving desperate musician.
NO THANK YOU FIVERR!…..
Amen!
I know some people complain that their “pay” is held for 2 weeks, and that they make interest on your money, maybe they do, but it is not about making interest, it is about protecting themselves against chargebacks. my company pays me every 2 weeks, am I going to ball around, and complain that they are earning interest on my money? I think a 2 week hold is fairly generious, personal, I would do a 30 day hold, and I think amazon has something like 60…
so far, you have raised no valid complaints. If you want to get paid instantly, then setup your own website, selling your own products and services. If you accept paypal, then you would get instant pay, and if you accept credit cards, then you will get a money drop in 1-3 days.
Miriam, I hate to break it to you… Not everyone cares about how much money they make, they care that they can do something that they enjoy, not everyone can have that opportunity, so I say you get out of the industry
Hi there! Maybe too late to comment but I want to share my experience here for another one landing here like I did 🙂
Im from Mexico and Im a 10 years experienced web developer with 2 years selling on fiverr. I just lost 2 hours (its Friday night here) answering a potential client all of his questions as analyzing his website for the changes he wanted, and when I said I would charge $15 for fixing a small set of errors (guaranteed fully working-complete solutions is what I offer) he just said “thanks, I will look around and maybe I come back with you later”. We all know there’s someone willing to do this fast for $5 (even its a bad work, as sometimes customers come back to me saying the last developer messed up the code more than it was already haha). So I lost 2 hours and this is a daily stuff I must deal with. Even in Mexico, working 8 hours to sell $30 is not enough (I really get $24 minus paypal comission). I could earn more at an office work. So this aint worth for my experience. Actually I need the money because I live by my own so Im planning to sell services as packages (something wont need me to invest in a lot of time), but for what I’ve read in this post comments, Im starting to offer my custom services out of fiverr. Thanks to all for sharing your experience 🙂
(My response is a mix mash up of other users opinion here but in my own words)
I gotta say Fiverr itself is the good, the bad, the ugly. I will only say this ONLY good thing: I’m glad I stuck out with fiverr long enough to get good tools for myself. The problem I have is not there support service but clients, the site they built, and scammers and thieves. I was doing pretty good starting off doing little gigs to big gigs clients who were reliable and repeat customers which is pretty cool. But soon after the 1st month I was getting scammers and repeated clients who either: never reply and made fiverr take more money off for forcing them to get off there asses and complete it and clients who were so stupid and new you had to hold there hand only to find out it’s other professional artists or some trolls trying to force you off fiverr because you are rising up and they are not and there outsourcing business or scam gigs aren’t bringing in the dough for them.
I stuck it out long enough to be bigger then them and to my suprise..it was much worst I had to deal with more scammers and trolls who re much worst then the small ones it was like some shitty tier of scammers on that site. The irony of all this that I am myself am the idiot for being baited and doing work for these people who pretend to be stupid and not know how to fiverr or complete an order or anything but wanna say (with slightly off grammar and English) “HOW DARE YOU! I’VE BEST GOOD RATES AND GOOD CLIENT WORK WITH!” ” I have been inside for five years blah blah blah…” I don’t have the heart to give up cause I get scared I won’t get more clients to work with but now I get the pattern now. then I go back and forth and back and forth and when the orders done they’re not around to complete or order or even better…active but won’t complete it.
Fiverr needs to change up there site and protect the new sellers and just getting their barrings sellers because I am done with this tired of dealing with these scammers. I guess fiverr is not for anyone who’s living in america. Or near by cause I live near by USA. I’ll either find a new site or change up and start over on fiverr again and screen shady accounts.
At least I bought better tools with the revenue.
I don’t know what you guys are talking about, but every gig I got from Fiverr it never cost me $5! They do say $5, but they keep adding extras. Firstly, this website is not necessarily for Americans, unless you have an expensive add-on gig. Therefor, you cannot compare the $5 gig being half of minimum wage. There are countries where you can feed a family for 3 days with $5. And if they are poor, doesn’t mean they’re dumb. So Fiverr is a very good alternative for them. If you don’t like it, make room for some others who will appreciate those $5. Stop complaining and go for other freelancers websites. there are plenty of them. And post your job for how much you feel you deserve and pray you get any clients.
Hello friends
Can you Please kindly recommend any new freelancing site better than fiverr to work at.
Thanks.
I’ve only used Fiverr as a buyer, for outsourcing illustration. My view of them is that they offer a simple way to outsource work to countries with a lower cost of living, where $3.58 per gig might be enough for a freelancer to get by. I can’t see why anyone based in North America or Western Europe would sell their services at that rate, but hopefully it is a mutually beneficial for tool for creatives living in, say, Malaysia or Venezuela to connect with some US customers.
Great article, seems nothing has changed since it was first published, here is my experience of fiverr.
I offer music production tutoring and track creation on fiverr (or did, I’ve given up using it).
I had completed a few gigs to get the ball rolling, just a few simple personalised tracks. I say simple because I didn’t want to spend too much time on each one, considering I was only getting $5 per track (I’m in the UK so after commisions and currency conversion, I’d probably find more money under my couch, in less time). I accepted this as I wanted to get a few good reviews under my belt, and I did, my buyers where happy. Then I thought I’d finally seen the light, a buyer wanted tutoring on certain production techniques and was offering a fair ammount more than a fiverr (pun intended). We spoke in-depth about what he/she wanted to learn, they seemed happy to give me the job. “Great!”, I thought, finally something decent to sink my teeth into! As it was a decent commission I put alot of effort into a step by step, indepth guide for what the buyer wanted to achieve/learn. I sank a fair ammount of time into it and actually submitted the job well within the deadline. The day after I submitted the tutorial, I heard nothing back from the buyer. I thought maybe he/she was away or busy, Ok, patience is a virtue… The following day I get a big fat red rejection. The tutorial was totally in-line with what the buyer had asked for, I was angry to say the least. I politely asked again, exactly what he/she wanted to learn or if I could simplyfy parts of the tutorial (maybe it was too in-depth). No luck though, all I got was a 1 star review, no pay and time completely wasted, and the buyer 100% recieved what he/she asked for (if not more!).
I wish I had read about the horrors of fiverr before I took the plunge. It’s a waste of time, effort and it totally demeans your skills/profession. Beyond the tutorial I had wasted time on, I couldn’t help thinking the whole time that the buyers expectations where vastly unreasonable, especially for music production where you could spend weeks on a track! We live in a ‘the customer is always right’ society and it takes a big shit on everyone who puts in the hard work. It seems fiverr have embraced this, using it as a scape goat to avoid sellers woes.
TL;DR?
Don’t use fiverr unless you are willing to sell your soul to ignorant buyers for less than a cup of coffee, you’d be better off pan-handling if you really need the money. It’s a platform that allows buyers to exploit struggling creatives. Stick to your day job.
I’ve completely given up on Fiverr. I’ve been doing freelance work for a little over a year on the site & have found both the site and “customer service” revolting to deal with.
The way they handle feedback is awful. Buyers can change positive feedback to negative feedback, but cannot change negative feedback to positive without opening a ticket & having to deal with Fiverr’s deplorable customer service.
Any time I’ve contacted them, I’ve gotten canned responses that never address my actual need. They’re abusive to sellers in their policies. They have a 1.2 rating with BBB, rarely respond to complaints, have no phone number to speak of (the BBB phone number is a VM that is not set up). I’ve deleted my account today and don’t plan on going back. There are better places to work that is more transparent in policies and less abusive to their buyers.
Oh, and whoever worked in their IT department building their site should be fired. Perhaps they can find someone on their own site who could do a better job for $5 than this person.
I am going to agree with Alex.
I have been using Fiverr for around 6 years, as seller for around 5 years now, since 2012. In that time Fiverr went from chaotic Wild West mess you could kinda compete and navigate in, to a mess where few favorites get constantly promoted on page one, and get their negative reviews removed near instantly, while everyone else is made to jump through hoops.
I found their Customer Support extremely abusive, ignorant, uneducated and even lacking very basic communication skills in English. Their responses are always copy/pasted, biased towards buyers, no matter how ridiculous and unreasonable “buyer” might be.
Fiverr also went from flat 20% fee billed on seller only, which was already fairly extreme to new, more ripoff system, where buyer now pays 5% fee upfront, seller still pays 20% fee, but then they have new “feature ad” system where they want additional 15% from sellers to get chance to have their gigs shows as “ads” where previously random gigs would be shown freely.
I used to have 20 gigs, I reduced that down to 5 as of today, and what I have left are literally 2 minute type jobs which give decent return on time invested, however at the same time I redirected my links which used to send my traffic to my Fiverr gigs elsewhere as I no longer see point in helping Fiverr in any way.
I have not seen this site until now. SHOCKED.
As a professional Graphic Designer and a Professor teaching Graphic Design to young college students, this business model makes me sick. And angry…. I just do not understand why people put such little value on their work. It is detrimental to everyone!!!! it is such a rip-off.
I do not see how anyone can make any money on this site except for possibly selling regurgitated informational content as a PDF.
Really sad.
Exactly how I feel about this site.
I completely understand how you feel. I am getting a diploma in graphic designing and will be starting selling my services on Fiverr. Right now I am living in a house with not heater in freezing winters, no AC in blistering summers.
No we don’t have windows in our rooms thus army of mosquitoes. Toilets without doors. Freezing water in cold winter.
You see, I can earn 50$ and put a proper window in my room. With 50$ I can put window in my parent’s room. I can get house tiled. I would be able to take my parents to doctor and take care of myself.
I understand how you feel but I just wanted to share that there are poor people like me who despite all problems, makes an effort and are able to smile. My day is surely near!
It will change my life.
LOL guys that’s how the pure competition market works. Firms in fiverr are price takers.
My gift is optimizing. I think I have optimal strategy to use the Fiverr, so I am going to give it a try. Nothing custom, excerpt in the beginner phase.
I knew Fiver was ridiculous as soon as I saw the ‘get a logo for five dollars’ ad. Where does that make any sense!? Even for a person who dabbles in art on the side, 5 bucks is insane! And for a freelance pro, unless you can build the logo in 60 seconds it’s not even close to being profitable. Hell, at the end of it all your paying Fiverr and the client to work for them haha. So I have to build 20 logos just to make 100 bucks! GTFOH!
Just got screwed by @fiverr Their so called artist changed my icon and they refuse to fix it. Their TOS protects this kind of bad service!
Stay away from these yahoos!
Also, Fiverr will just accept contacts even if they’re insane, and not tell you about them at all.
I’ve just been informed I “Failed to complete” a contract that I was in no way informed about. I offered to take pre-existing banners and make them 3d, that’s all. This guy wanted me to design all of the banners for his website to produce about 5 images made by me featuring families together. Not even similar to what I’d offered. Apparently Fiverr accepted the contract without my consent, gave me two days to do it, then informed me once I’d been given a 1 star rating I’d “failed to complete” the contract.
So in point form:
– Unreasonable contract sent my way, far beyond the scope of what I’d offered.
– Automatically accepted.
– Not informed of this in any way. No emails.
– 1 star review.
Me as well! I have been playing with Fiverr trying to get a single customer for months and then the month that I give up I come back and apparently someone had tried to buy art from me a whole week ago! Here is another dumb thing about Fiverr. If you have 1 bad review and that is your first and only review, there is no way you can make new offers to get more customers! This is a BIG problem! I am suprised no one (at least no one I have read yet) spoke about this yet.
Fiverr is a big waste of time and efforts for graphic designers. This is really a mean selfish world. I have 15 years of experience in Graphic Designing and was new to fiverr. A selfish and ruthless buyer from Singapore approached me to design his calendar of the year 2017. I accepted it in 5 USD as this was my first project on fiverr. This buyer made me work for 1 month having the calendar changed again and again day by day. When the calendar was completed, I submitted it and in return I got only 4 USD. This selfish and ruthless buyer did not give me any rating at all. Ok, that was acceptable by me. Now the same buyer approached me and wanted me to design an interactive 14 pages PDF file with text fields at 15 USD only. As this required more time he didn’t even consider it and marked me as 1 star. When I asked him to rate me 5 star on the calendar that I designed, he just ignored me. After being marked as 1 star, it’s been nearly 5 months and I have not received any new orders on fiverr. I would advise fiverr members like me to spend the same time and efforts on some other productive activities.
Fiverr is THIEF! Customer service sucks, comissions sucks, many fake orders. COMPLETELY WASTE OF TIME. AND did i mention they have stolen my money?! Suckers
Oh, I also wanted to share a fun fact about Fiverr Customer Support:
The guy in charge, Ryan (Ravi) Bajnath, just graduated from an unknown college (anyone heard of Broward?) with an unrelated degree in computer science 2.5 years ago. His only work experience has been at Fiverr where he started off as an intern 4 years ago.
‘Nuff said.
well, I was curious and it does exist
Broward College
111 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Phone: 954.201.7350
but that doesn’t change the fact that fiverr is the perfect example of a place people get overcharged for undervaluing their services.
This is a great post and I loved reading all of the comments. My partner and I just spent a year on Fiverr killing ourselves to build a business that ended up making $4k / month (after the 20% Fiverr commission). Keep in mind it was 2 people working on it roughly part-time. We were feeling so good about it that we even created a Udemy course about how to become a Fiverr PRO, sharing all of our tips and insights etc. However we had started to become disenchanted for all of the reasons that have been stated in this comment string — shitty buyer scammers, too much back & forth, too many cancellations of large orders to avoid negative reviews, too much haggling, crap Customer Suppor from Fiverr… Basically we had started to feel degraded and had started looking into shifting the business into other areas.
And them BOOM! Last week our account became frozen. We suddenly could not access our buyers… An after days of asking Customer Support (it was like pulling teeth), we were told that our account was deactivated because we had suggested to a customer *once* to go on Skype to discuss our $670 order and get it finished, because it had dragged on for 6 weeks. We tried to reason with them and explain that we were not aware that this was such a huge violation, that we are a 5-Star rated seller with rave reviews, and that we have invested a lot of our marketing and resourced into our Fiverr business. But it was like banging on a brick wall — the answer was still: Go Away.
Over the course of the year we dealt with approximately 3,000 buyers and came across some very abusive people — people who have told us ”Go f*ck yourself” and ”You f*cking c*nt” and ”I’m gonna track you down and beat the sh*t out of you”…. I just checked and as of today, these buyers are still active on Fiverr. But hey, I guess they never created such a heinous crime as asking someone to use Skype?
“they never created such a heinous crime as asking someone to use Skype?”
So basically Fiverr believed you were going outside their system, cutting them out of their slice of the pie (or full slice), and blacklisted you.
Using this system: I’d be interested to know your gross annual production hours logged against your gross revenue.
I know.. but i have no choice.. I have no idea how to marketing my self.. im trying this and that still I sell nothing outside fiverr. I thought I should bear a little more until i got level 2.. I have no design education background.. I need money and all i can do is only drawing.. I really dont know how to get any clients if it’s not on fiverr.. 20% is too much.. but what else i can do right now.. so desperate
You can Learn marketing and you can learn design. You don’t need an official education. You can educate yourself. You CAN do this. I believe in you. Go be free and value yourself and your services.
Hi i found that is so true too so what do you do for a job online now?
Thanks for bringing this up, I did make money on Fiverr and get up to level 1, but it seems once you get up there to that level, you are dropped in rank and have to find other means to bring in traffic. With all the effort you put into advertising your gigs, you could create your own marketing and promotions for your own creations. These days, its rather simple to set up a web shop, advertise, and get paid to do what you like. Fiverr is okay for small things as mentioned before, but there really is a limit you can get for $5, even if you get custom orders.
Yeah, I definitely would not offer any services on Fiverr, and I certainly don’t feel good buying from there either – I only consider Fiverr when I cannot find a service elsewhere. I feel much the same about Ebay too. It is common for me to spend an hour or more on a single customer answering their questions, even offering over-the-phone technical support because they can’t be bothered reading the manual. It really deflates that $40 profit margin, for which I have to make a $300-400 sale. I also have to often explain to customers that buying two items doesn’t qualify for a bulk discount or why I am unwilling to sell premium electronics at $5 margins, not just because I can’t run a business on those margins, but because it devalues the brands and is bad for the market. We have even had one of our premium brands threaten to have their products removed from Ebay because they feel Ebay cheapens their brand (and I completely agree). Customers have a severe sense of entitlement, even in the cheapest marketplaces: they threw a few bucks your way, and now they own your soul, and why shouldn’t they haggle away your margins, we shouldn’t be so greedy.
I agree with you.
I have multiple accounts there and in suspended.
Fiverr as a dog owner.
I help them with seo my site.
And suspend my account
Finally someone said it! I was really getting sick and tired from all those articles claiming that fiverr is a great place for a beginner and what not. Fiverr is a waste of time and talent in my opinion. I think the sole purpose of it used to be a simple outsourcing of smaller projects, but when it comes to freelancing in full, it’s just not worth the effort. But honestly, it’s a rip off even when it comes to simple tasks.
You are correct about this company. It now charges the buyer 10% on orders under 10.00 and 5% on orders over 10.00. This is on top of the commission that they receive from the seller, which is 20%.
Here’s the thing; all of the money that Fiverr receives is from the buyer . Without a buyer they get no money. Now they have the gall to attach a “processing fee” so that buyers are now charged, up front, at least, 5.50 per order. This provides 25 – 30% to Fiverr out of the buyers pocket, no longer is it just the 20%. The seller doesn’t benefit either, since they’re now complaining of losing orders or noticing a decline in orders.
The thing with Fiverr is that people just expect quality even at $5 which I think is unfair to the service providers.
My 2nd coming…
I am a prospective new buyer on Fiverr (registered, did nothing, account already restricted; good start); I am eyeing with a few services I would buy.
Do you think it’s possible to somehow ‘hijack’ sellers and do business directly with them? Would you do that? Is the platform allows for that? Yeah, I don’t like Airbnb either, which runs a similar business model.
Also, what alternatives would you recommend me to locate trustworthy providers, to add: in a specified geographic area?
Thanks!
You can search for groups or individuals over LinkedIn or some other platforms. May I know what kind of services you are looking to have ?
I am a graphic designer btw.
I sent a word document in a big order i made. I said please take a look at the docx for additional info. I gave my email and said we could skip fiverr for my next order.
The seller contacted me via email and we are good to go.
You are wrong about the pricing. You should collect $50, then PayPal takes $0.3 only once out of the $50, not $0.3 out of every $5. You can accept bitcoin as well, it has zero commissions.
Fiverr takes 20%, but isn’t it fair, in exchange they provide the platform and marketplace for you? I am seriously asking.
Frank are you sure about that? PayPal’s entire business model is based on getting that 30 cents per transaction and while they might have an incentive to negotiate a deal on it with Fiverr they have none to do so with the end-payer. So it sounds like you’re saying they only get the fee from a vendor one time; that just makes no sense!
Last time I checked it was like you can gather your payments. Or even you were not allowed to get out your money under around $50. If you get $50 out in 1 transaction, that is 1 time $0.30, not 10 times. But it’s all up to Fiverr, not PayPal to arrange things this way.
I might be wrong, however, I am more on the buyer side of things, and it was really a long time ago I checked. You can ask Fiverr as well, the PayPal fee is not in their interest, either.
Not to argue the point about revaluing and devaluing, whether it’s a developing country of the US, if a freelancer ought to receive $100 and then receives what is actually $3.58 for a gig, that is gross devaluation of the freelancers time and skill.
Ren, I agree with everything except the title.
Fiverr is incredibly problematic, even once you get to the point where you can add stuff and maybe jack your receipts to $15 or $20 per gig. But if you’re in a place (geographic or otherwise) where the small payments are useful/valuable to you, then they are what they are.
It’s kind of like saying micropayments (like, fractions of a cent micro) are useless. Well, no, not if you get enough of them and have small enough incremental expenses associated with each.
The problem with Fiverr and services like it are that it
devaluesrevalues things to so low a point that the quality and delivery mechanism get broken; ONLY price matters.That isn’t about Fiverr being bad for freelancers; it’s about it being bad for freelancers living in developed economies, who are actually good at what they do.
Hey, Jeff. I totally agree that with you about the quality and delivery. I started typing up a comment but it became longer than I expected so I’m putting it in a post. Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂
Oh my! 😉
100% agree.. but what can i do.. sigh
I can not agree more with everything you comment. Fiverr takes advantage of the lack of work of designers and takes a totally disproportionate commissions to do virtually nothing. It’s a lie that they promote you, you have to be yourself who have to promote your gigs on sites like Facebook or Twitter. The last thing fiverr is planing is to charge for putting your gig. Can you believe it?
Some things to add to this list: Even if you’re happy getting the $3.58, it won’t last. That’s because as more people join the site, your listing gets pushed down and eventually off the page. Buyers are going to have to press “load more gigs” five or six times to get to you, and they’re likely to find someone else they like before that.
Fiverr says the answer is to link to your Fiverr gig on message boards, your Facebook and Twitter, in e-mails, etc. That’s pointless, because then you’re advertising to people who already know you. It works for Fiverr, though, because when people hear that they can make $5 for a few minutes work, they sign up, too. Soon Fiverr is getting $1 off the work of a billion people, while the sellers are lucky to even get one $3.58 order.
Good point, Art. In the long run, you’re just as responsible for promoting your Fiverr gigs as you are you are your external services. Yes, Fiverr technically gets things in front of potential buyers but, like you said, the ocean is full of fish so what makes anyone stand out?
This article sums it all up beautifully. And if there’s a problem with a buyer, Fiverr does not even offer to mediate for their 20% cut – not the slightest bit. Example: A buyer ordered an article from me, then rejected it although it was completely inline with the gig description. All I could do was “mutually cancel” – leaving the person with my article and me without money.
Hey, Harald. Yeah, that really sucks, especially considering what you provided was probably worth much more than what you were set to receive. It sounds like you got ripped off by someone who knew how to take advantage of the system.
Unfortunately, Fiverr’s lack of protection for sellers seems to be a growing trend in the market of digital products and services. This sort of thing can even be seen with PayPal: someone purchases a digital product or service and then knows how to file a dispute that will guarantee PayPal issues a refund. On top of that, PayPal now gives buyers 6 months to file a claim! Then this person has what they wanted and their money back. This is a real shame because these companies are making money from the sellers yet offer them little to no protection from people who game the system. It’s 2015 and it seems that people who make their money through digital goods have even less protection than years ago.
Yeah, I call that the Fiverr Economy.
My husband experiences the same, a guy asks a refund after asked him to work less than 24 hours in the middle of the night. My husband refused because he never has any problem before with his work quality. The buyer contact customer support and the buyer won. As simple as that… Before the buyer contact customer support he managed to threat him. While Fiverr said they will protect sellers from harassment. That’s only a statement they make to make the seller feel protected, but in reality it’s the opposite. While my gigs are doing well, once I get a bad rating that’s when they stop promoting, in a sudden the order go down drastically. So, overall, the success key on Fiverr are, be obedient with your buyer and never contact customer support with your problem because they are totally on buyer side, they hate your complaint and problem (especially with your buyer).
I am not US citizen by the way, so the money is pretty good for me. But for a long run, Fiverr is not a good place to develop or make a stable income.
Agreed. The 20% Fiverr commission, and 15 days of clearance period is way too much. Should be 10%-7days. And their customer service people talk like 5yr old people. Also, the limitation of a $5 base price even after you level up is pure crap.
But, the thing is it is still a great platform. And I am still there. I think it is pretty good for people who can think of a gig that they can offer for $5 without having nightmares, and they can do it well enough, and are looking just for some extra cash or pocket money (students). Only in highly exceptional cases can it be called a major source of income.
Hello, Ren:
I agree with everything you’ve said and support your continuing to say it, because it’s reality for freelancers who don’t have the confidence to seek better work and quality clients. I am talking about real clients ready and willing to pay premium prices for expertise in whatever field the freelancers offers his/her services.
I earned an MS Degree with top grades in all coursework from a private university. I have taught college courses (English, writing, communications and computer courses with much success) and worked with professional writers (ghostwriting, editing and providing manuscript critiques.
I signed up for Fiverr and now realize that it totally devalues my skills. Buyers also devalue sellers on Fiverr. How could they not?
It is so frustrating to work with buyers on that site who ask for services that are outside of the scope of the gig that they bought. If they get angry, they are free to change or give a poor rating, depending on what they feel.
Many of these buyers have no idea what professionals do to provide the quality they receive.
What I’ve learned:
1. A great many buyers act as if they are an employer, your boss,
2. If you provide quality work for low rates, your work will be disrespected.
3. Fiverr makes money off the seller, who provides the service, but only the buyer receives preferential treatment.
4. The buyer is undervalued, because so many people are willing to work cheap.
At any rate, by February 2015, I’ll be gone from there. My skills are more and I’ve decided that this site can no longer afford them.
Thank you for providing this valuable insight for it is exactly what I was searching for.
Excellent comment, Janie. I couldn’t agree more that many buyers think they are indeed your boss. Having worked with clients for a few years now, I think this is just a common occurrence among people who want to pay as little as possible. They come in with the expectation of receiving quality service for rock-bottom prices. In my opinion, it takes a fair amount of arrogance to think that way so it becomes easy to see why that type of client thinks you work for him/her. The higher paying client has more respect for what you or I (or any other professional freelancer) do and that’s why they are also better to work with.
With your education, I wouldn’t blame you one bit for feeling negative about offering services on Fiverr or other related sites. I often felt like: “I have a bachelor’s degree and I’m offering legitimate services for practically nothing. What the hell am I doing?” I think you’ll be much happier spending that time on things that will actually help you as a freelancer.
Best of luck to you!
Thank you:)
I completely agree with you. Fiverr is worthless! I can’t believe any writers waste time there. It may as well be a content mill. Here is another one I feel is worthless, dotwriter.com. You basically sell your work for a penny a word, and then the website takes 20%. Absolutely absurd!
Wow! So that’s a 500 word document for $4. That’s shameful.
Hi Ren, this is Peter from DotWriter.com
Just wanted to point out that our pricing is different than what I see it’s been mentioned here. There’s 3 different writer levels, Standard (1 cents/word), Premium (2 cents/word) and Gold (3 cents/word).
More, writers are able to list any article for sale and write without any specific requirements that would make them spend countless hours to write an article.
If you could write about anything you want and get paid 3 cents/word, wouldn’t you find this pretty good? A decent writer would have no problem writing a 500 words piece in 15-20 minutes. That’s a $60/hour rate.
While this may not be perfect for everyone, it does give small and medium writers a good chance to monetize their work.
Sincerely,
Peter
Hello, Peter. I see what you’re saying. While the DotWriter pricing model may be different from Fiverr’s, I don’t think it really differs all too much in terms of worth for the sellers, especially ones in countries like the U.S. where living is more expensive. The $60/hour rate you mention is deceiving. Yes, it would be a great hourly rate for an employee with a guaranteed number of hours and paid benefits but in the freelance world where workers have no guaranteed hours and must pay their own “benefits” (i.e. health insurance), $60 is not really that much.
Using a 500 word piece at $0.03 per word as an example, that’s a gross of $15 dollars. Subtract a 20% fee and any applicable PayPal fees and that’s less than $12 for a writing that may only be sold once, if at all. You mentioned that a “decent” writer can write 500 words in 15-20 minutes. Well, I like to think that I’m a good writer because I’m a college graduate who earned A’s in all of my English/writing classes, I blog on a regular basis and my primary method of professional communication is email. That all said, I write a lot and, as such, I type pretty fast. However, I don’t think I’ve ever written that many words in 20 minutes…at least not something that was worth publishing. Sure, I can do it if I want but what about research, outlining, drafting, revising, etc.? It takes more time to write a quality 500 word piece than it takes to write a piece of crap that is 500 words long. For example, it took me about 45 minutes to craft a clear, well-thought-out response to your comment and it’s 558 words (including this sentence). I don’t believe that time should be a sunk cost when selling a piece of writing.
Also, as someone who manages a blog and makes a living through my writing, I’d never sell it for $0.03 per word unless it offered me a non-financial benefit of greater value than the revenue from selling it, such as a lot of high-quality traffic to my site. Otherwise, I value my time more. That said, and while I can only speak about my experience with Fiverr, most “customers” really only care about the deal they’re getting, not the person providing the service/product. Also, since websites like these exist to make money from the freelancer’s services, they aren’t exactly doing anything to send people away from their website and to someone’s external website. After all, that would be like sending money away. Therefore, I don’t see how they provide a benefit outside of the initial sale.
I cannot argue the fact that there is a market of people looking for services at these prices; that’s just consumerism – as much as possible for as little as possible. Additionally, yes, there are also providers willing to sell what they do at the prices dictated. I think that sites like these are good for people who write as a hobby rather than professionally and I don’t think many true professionals (at least not ones in countries with relatively high living costs) will be offering their services on them. Personally, I’d prefer to spend that time writing something for my own blog that might yield me traffic from search engines rather than selling it for pennies.
These are just my views, though. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Hi Ren,
So we come to a conclusion: just because a writer cannot find online enough work, does it justifies to ask for an increased price to balance the overall earnings?
Based on United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly rate for writers, authors, journalists, editors is in the $20/hour range.
This is what real world businesses pay for a full time writer employee.
So, if a writer offline (on United States, first world country as you prefer to call it) is paid $20/hour, why everyone gets so upset and feel like they deserve hundreds/hour online?
Isn’t the problem offline and not online?
You go on and work online for 3 cents/word for the same 8 hours you would work on a real job and at the end of the day you may have more money on your pocket.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, but sometimes it may be better than waiting for days for that ideal client.
Peter
I looked up the median hourly rates for some various writing positions and, in 2012 (the most recent year for which data was reported), here’s what I found:
Editors – $25.90 http://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/editors.htm
General Writers – $26.89 http://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/writers-and-authors.htm
Technical Writers – $31.49 http://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/technical-writers.htm
These are good hourly rates for full-time employees with guaranteed hours and employee benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc.) because those benefits basically increase the value of working that job. What’s more is that there’s usually stability with those jobs. Therefore, there is no problem in the offline writing job market in terms of pay. Freelancers, though, do not have guaranteed hours or employee benefits, meaning they have to pay the costs of those things in their entirety and deal with a lot of uncertainty when it comes to their income. Also, there’s the issue of taxes for the self-employed, at least in the U.S. While an employee has half of their income taxes (Medicare, state, local, etc.) paid for by their employer, freelancers and anyone who is self employed must pay that other half themselves. For these reasons, yes, Peter, it’s justifiable for freelancers to charge a higher hourly rate. I don’t think most freelancers expect or even seek a rate in the hundreds/hour range but, depending on the field and experience/expertise, an average rate of $75-100 is not unreasonable. I’d find that rate very fair given that hiring a firm to do the same work is usually way more because of the higher overhead.
Going off of that, the sellers on DotWriter are not employees of DotWriter or its customers so it isn’t fair for you to compare them to “real-world employees” and argue that they should accept a similar pay rate. The circumstances, as I pointed out, are very different.
Also, you’re assuming that everything a writer makes available on DotWriter does indeed sell. Say I sign up for DotWriter and submit 25 pieces to reach the “Gold” status, each piece being 500 words in length. If my understanding is correct, 9 of those pieces would be at $0.01 per word for a gross total of $45 before fees and 16 of them would be at $0.02 (max) per word for a maximum total of $160 before fees. In all, this would be a maximum gross of $205 for 12,500 words. After a 20% fee from DotWriter and subsequent 2.9% fee from PayPal, that comes out to be less than $160, or $0.0127 per word. Again, this is if all of my pieces sell. I’m sure it’s very possible that many pieces submitted by writers do not sell. When this happens, the time per writing that a seller is actually compensated for greatly reduces in value. If I’m fortunate and sell 5 pieces for a sales rate of 25% (a good sales rate for any seller anywhere), I’ve made less than $40 for all that work. This type of thing is seen in the website design/development field in the form of design contests where designers create a design and submit it in hopes of winning the project. If the designer doesn’t win, the time is lost.
Sure, if a freelancer finds their current workload to be thin or non-existent, they might be willing to do this much work for potentially very little to no reward. However, I’d personally spend that time working on my own portfolio and looking for higher quality clients.
Thanks again for the comment, Peter. I appreciate the discussion.
Ren I fully understand your point and it is true that a little bit of work needs to be done until you reach that GOLD writer level so you can get some better pricing.
I’ve found however that many writers already have unsold articles to their disposal that just kept piling up, so they can take a faster road to the higher earnings.
I appreciate your comments as well. At the end of the day, it’s about each personal preference.
Regards
Peter
It does indeed boil down to preference. Thanks for all your comments, Peter.
Cheers!
Sure, it’s personal preference, and it’s the personal preference of every professional writer I’ve discussed it with not to use your site, Peter – and if I had any doubts, your responses here wiped them away. The way you’ve built your model shows little to no understanding of how the world of content writing works, and with only three “gold” writers on your roster (according to your own website), the majority of people who have signed up for dotwriter.com must either be desperate or just unaware that there are a plethora of better platforms out there with agreements that aren’t tantamount to serfdom.
Oh – and 3 cpw at 2000 words per hour x 8 hours per day? You think there are writers churning out good material non-stop for 8 hours a day? Further proof you have no idea what you’re talking about. This is what happens when people attempt to monetize a commodity they know nothing about.
I’d rail against you more, but I make up to a couple dimes per word, and I don’t want to waste any more dimes on this.
Ally, there would be no point in me arguing with someone hiding behind a nickname.
I never mentioned you have to write 2000 words per hour or 8 hours per day, so please if you do leave a negative comment, at least be honest.
Also our rates doubled, those 3 cents turned into 6 cents.
Good luck on the plethora of better platforms where you have to bid with 100 other people to win a client who not only wants to pay you pennies but who may or may not even pay you after all!
Excellent article! I figured (too late) that if one’s minimum hourly rate is $20/hr, then one has to work for around 11 minutes to earn that $3.58, and working any longer than that makes one a sucker.
I used to have a gig on Fiverr creating eBook covers, and sometimes I’d have to work for a couple hours to create one from scratch. But what really soured me on the whole thing was when one guy waited until after the delivery date had passed to request a change (it was like, moving the title text down a few pixels or something). I complied and redelivered, whereupon he pulled the same thing again and again. Eventually he stopped requesting, and the order was automatically marked complete (he didn’t bother to write a review). So I went through all that hassle just for little more than the price of a cheap lunch at McDonald’s. Fiverr sucks, indeed!!
Yep. Right off the bat, a gig is barely worth it and, on top of that, you’re expected to continue working until the person is happy (I don’t like calling them “clients” because they aren’t). If you don’t, they can leave a crap review and you basically worked for nothing and a negative review. I remember receiving bullshit email from Fiverr about people becoming rich selling on Fiverr, buying houses, etc. I can’t help but just laugh at that.
I cannot tell you how much this article resonates with my experience on Fiverr. As a creative developer, I invested so much time, money, and energy into developing my skillset that the moment that I created a seller account on Fiverr (and mind you, this was over a year ago), I had no idea that I was immediately devaluing my skillset. Less than minimum wage, indeed.
Although I would like add that a couple of points you didn’t list, I found out on my own.
They include the following:
– Fiverr is, essentially, a middle-man’s website built around a meritocracy.
– For a creative freelancer on Fiverr, competition is tight (and in a microcosm)
Initially, I felt bad that I was leaving Fiverr because I was losing my clients (if you could call two regular customers a client base) and had to start over with showcasing my work on my own and building a client base from scratch. But this article showed me that I was not alone in the reasons why I left. Thank you for writing this.
Hey, Mikhail. Thanks a lot for sharing. I’m so happy this article helped you out. Although it initially seemed to be a bad decision to ditch Fiverr, it really is in your best interests. The competition is extremely stiff and you’re working for less than minimum wage when you do get a gig. It’s at a point where people are practically degrading themselves in the sense that they’re desperate to work for disgraceful amounts. These people need to have some respect for their skills and time.
I think you’re much better off using your time to build your portfolio and professional presence to ultimately land better clients than wasting it on Fiverr and people who would likely drop you in the blink of an eye before paying you more. You made a good call. I hope everything works out for you. 🙂
I agree in all the points. I was once said that it was a great service and a bless for poor people since five dollars is a lot of money in some places, but, why charge 5$ for something when you could charge, let’s say, 50$ then you’d have way much more money for the same amount of time. Also many people using that argument fail to realize that many people living in such countries have no access to a computer.
As for undervaluing services, oh I can tell, in my country some 3D animators started charging really low fares, so nowadays customers want to pay too little, they want you to make 1 min of photo realistic renders for 100$ or less!!!
Please value your work, if you are good and they really like your work they will pay you well.
Thanks for sharing, Eric. I’d say a lot of people really liked Fiverr at first because it was new and had an interesting concept that at least gave freelancers reason to believe that it could increase their base of quality customers. Now, it’s just a website for cheap people looking to get knowledgeable, skilled freelancers for basically nothing. I’m sure by now many of the talented freelancers have left. It’ll be interesting to see where Fiverr goes in the future.