Fiverr Review: Best place to start freelancing (or worst)?

When it comes to freelancing websites, you might have heard so many mixed Fiverr reviews. Some say, Fiverr is the best place to start freelancing whereas some say it is the worst place for freelancers. So, we are going to see a complete honest Fiverr review where we will see why there are so many biased reviews.

Also, I am going to share my experience working with Fiverr. We are going to see Fiverr review for freelancers. So, in this way, you can decide whether Fiverr is the worst place for freelancers or the best place to start freelancing.

What is Fiverr and how does it work?

Fiverr is a popular freelance marketplace where seller can display all their services as a gig. The buyer can search through the services and buy them as per their requirements. The seller (freelancer) will get the order and can start working on it.

Once they complete the project, they need to submit it. Thereafter, the buyer can either accept the delivery or also can reject it. If the seller allows the buyer to request a revision, the buyer can also ask for modification.

Further speaking, if anyone (buyer or seller) has a problem with the order, they can request to cancel the order. If one of them doesn’t agree to it, they can move the matter to the Fiverr resolution center.

So, this is how Fiverr works. Let’s jump into Fiverr review now.

About the Freelancers on Fiverr

Now, when it comes to freelancers Fiverr, there are many types of services you can sell. Fiverr freelancing allows you to sell almost any kind of service you want.

Therefore, if you’re planning to do Fiverr freelancing, you can do it for any service.

They have a few main categories.

It includes

  • Graphics
  • Writing
  • Digital Marketing
  • Programming
  • Music and audio
  • Video and animation
  • Business
  • Fun and Lifestyle

Of course, the names can be different. Each of them has more than 10 categories. So, we can say that there are all types of freelancers on Fiverr.

It even includes some of the less popular services such as psychic reading, baby names, entertainment gigs, etc. Not to mention, they even have some skilled freelancers on Fiverr such as web developers, AI/ML experts, businesses, etc.

Account Approval and creating a gig

Let’s first see how easy it is to create an account at Fiverr and creating a gig over there. There is no approval process as of now. So, you can quickly create your account by going to the signup page.

Later, you can go to the gigs section to create your first ever gig. The gig is basically a description of your service.

Fiverr allows you to create a gig in various categories. You need to set at least $5 as gig pricing. Further, Fiverr allows you to create 3 plans for each of the gigs. You can set different pricing and different delivery date for each of the plans.

Lastly, you need to set a featured image or video. That’s pretty much it, you are not set to make your first sale.

Want to rank it? Check this > Create and Rank Fiverr gig with these proven tips

Pricing and Fiverr Commission Fee

Fiverr is free to use. You can register as a freelancer without any charge. However, you will have to give Fiverr a service fee for each of the sales you deliver. The service fee is 20%.

In other words, if you make a sale of $5, you will only $4 from it. $1 (20%) will be the Fiverr commission.

There are many people who don’t like this but personally speaking, it is fine. I mean Fiverr does provide an amazing platform or service. It is okay to give a bit of a service fee to them.

Unlike most freelancing websites, there is no premium plan as of now. So, all the Fiverr sellers have to pay a flat 20% as a service fee. There is no exception from this.

Fiverr Seller Levels (bad part)

Probably this is the thing why most of the people give bad Fiverr reviews.  Seller level is a good thing and at the same time, it is the worst. Let me explain to you in detail.

Basically, Fiverr has 3 levels for every seller. One is level one, the second one is level 2, and the last one is the top-level seller.

You will get different benefits as you complete the orders. For instance, if you are level 1 seller, you will get 10 active gigs, 10 gig multiples, you can send custom orders of up to $5000, and you will also get 4 gig extras. It is pretty cool. In the same way, if you are promoted to the next level, you will get more freedom in these things.

The clearance time (clearance time is the number of days until you will get the payment from Fiverr) is the same in level 1 and level 2.  However, as you move on to the top-level seller, your payment will be cleared in just 7 days. (It is 14 days in level 1 and 2).

What are the Fiverr seller requirements?

Let’s jump into the Fiverr seller requirements. These are the criteria that you will need to complete if you want to be promoted. We said we are doing the complete Fiverr review for freelancers, right? So, here are the requirements for the seller level. (In the next section of Fiverr review for freelancers, we will see why Fiverr is bad when it comes to seller level.)

In order to be Level 1 seller, you should have

  • Complete at least 60 days as an active Seller on Fiverr
  • Complete at least 10 individual orders (all time)
  • Earn at least $400
  • Maintain a 4.7-star rating over the course of 60 days
  • 90% Response rate over the course of 60 days
  • 90% Order completion over the course of 60 days
  • 90% On-time Delivery over the course of 60 days
  • Avoiding receiving warnings over the course of 30 days

In the same way, you will need to earn at least $2000 in order to be a level 2 seller, complete at least 50 orders, and be active on Fiverr for at least 120 days. The rest of the requirements are the same.

The top-level seller is a bit hard as you will have to make $20,000 and complete at least 100 orders. Further, you should be active for at least 6 months (180 days) as a Fiverr seller. The rest of the requirements are the same. In this way, buyers can decide whether they want to go with your gig or not.

Sounds good, right? but here is the catch.

Fiverr level demotion (Reason why Fiverr is bad)

Your analytics are evaluated every month on the 15th date to check if you should be promoted to the next level seller or DEMOTED to the previous level.

Everything is alright except for one thing. Fiverr also checks completed orders in the last 60 days. You should have completed at least 90% of your orders.

This can be a big problem for a couple of freelancers out there. Before going more into the details, let me explain what Fiverr means by competed orders.

  • If the order is canceled from buyer’s side or seller’s side or canceled mutually, it will be counted as incomplete order
  • If a buyer asks for a refund or the seller asks the buyer to cancel the order, this will be counted as incomplete order.
why fiverr is bad | reason why Fiverr is worst

So, why Fiverr is bad in this?

Well, some of the services do not have a 100% completion ratio. The next reason is there is a lot of spam on Fiverr. Some of them will ask you for a refund even if you complete the work in the best way possible. Let’s take an example.

Please note that this doesn’t happen with everyone. This is just a senior which can happen. A similar situation has happened with many sellers. (You can find relatable posts on Fiverr forum).

Let’s say, you are providing a complete website development service. It surely takes a lot of time to complete one project. So, let us assume that you only took 9 orders in the last 60 days.

Now, if the one you fail to deliver one order or let’s say buyer made a mistake in ordering (he wanted a Java-based website and you only develop PHP websites), then in such cases, you will only have 8 completed orders and 1 canceled order.

Do you know what it means?

Your order completion rate will be 89%. Do you know what it means? If you are a level 2 seller, you will be demoted to level 1 seller.

There are many similar cases that you will find on Fiverr Forums. We are not going to discuss all of them in this Fiverr review for freelancers but we can surely see one of the Fiverr reviews (taken from Fiverr forums).

is fiverr good for freelancers

However, Fiverr has got a little better at the seller level but it still needs a lot of changes in this particular section. There are many sellers who were once top level seller and now they have slipped down to level 0 (no level) seller.

Competition and Fiverr Ranking Algorithm

If you are a total newbie, it is necessary to find low competition freelancing websites. So, now, in this Fiverr review for sellers, we will talk about the competition.

Fiverr has a huge amount of sellers who are offering various kinds of services. If you are planning to jump on the high competition niches such as website development, marketing, content writing, etc then it will be a bit hard to get your first sale.

So, what you can do here is find some microservices that you can sell on Fiverr. They have more chances or ranking on Fiverr.

Further, you can research your competition and offer more services at a lower price. For instance, if someone is offering logo design at $10, you can offer logo design at $5 and you can decrease the delivery time. This will drive more orders.

Fiverr Customer Support review

The next section in our Fiverr review for freelancers is the support. If this is not the first Fiverr review you are reading, you might already know what I am going to say here. Most people say Fiverr is bad or even worst is only because of Fiverr customer support.

I am going to be completely honest here. The Fiverr customer support executive will take the buyer’s side most of the time.

But, this should not be the reason why Fiverr is bad.

Why? Because most of the freelancing websites out there will always take Buyer’s side. So, this is the ultimate nightmare for all the buyers out there. Fiverr has more scams compared to other websites and hence freelancers need more Fiverr support. (More on it in the next section)

Further, sometimes Fiverr support will not answer your query. Personally, I don’t have any bad experience with Fiverr customer support but one of my friends had a problem with it.

Fiverr scam (Is Fiverr a big scam? or some of the buyers are?)

Fiverr scam is one of the biggest issues you will face here. There are some buyers out there who only want their work done. No matter how good quality work you provide, they will always ask you for a refund. If you are unable to give them a refund, they will move the issue to Fiverr customer support. The rest is history.

Some of the people at Fiverr forums are even complaining that the buyer asked them to provide extra service or else they will give them a 1-star rating. This can be really annoying. However, now Fiverr is working on it to make the system better but it still needs improvement.

How much can you earn on Fiverr?

Now, let us jump into the earning section in our Fiverr review.

You can sell MICROSERVICES on Fiverr starting from $5. Fiverr takes 20% from you, so you get $4.

If you are looking for huge projects, Fiverr is not for you. People often get confused here. No doubt, you can make $1000 from a single project in Upwork but Fiverr is not for big projects.

Fiverr is a marketplace where you can sell microservice. Even a $100 service will be hard to sell on Fiverr. So, if you have a microservice that you can do for $4, 8, 12, 16, 20, or maybe 24, you can start Fiverr. Fiverr even allows you to upsell your service. In other words, if you are providing logo design service, you can add extras where you will even give the PSD file. Yes, you can charge extra for that. Also, you can give extra fast delivery for a couple of extra bucks.

No doubt, you can increase your price after getting a couple of reviews but it will be too hard to get the order of $100 when you are just starting out.

We recommend you should go with a $5 service if you have no reviews.

So, if you have a service in your mind which you can sell for a low price, you can surely go with Fiverr.

Pros and Cons of Fiverr

Now, we are going to see the pros and cons of Fiverr. Fiverr review is incomplete without directly giving out the advantages and disadvantages.

Pros 

  • You don’t need to bid on any projects. You can just create a gig and wait for the gig to sell.
  • There is no limit on a number of orders. Most of the freelancing websites have a proposal/bid limit. However, at Fiverr, you can take as many orders as you want.
  • The platform is too easy to use.
  • The Fiverr ranking algorithm is just amazing. Even though Fiverr is competitive nowadays, your gig can still get ranked.

Cons

  • Fiverr’s customer support is not too supportive
  • There are many scams going on
  • Fiverr seller level can be a big issue if you are selling more diverse services (see the example in seller level section)
  • You can only sell microservice. (It surely allows you to sell big services but it is hard to get orders).

These are the pros and cons of the Fiverr marketplace.

Is Fiverr really worth it?

YES and NO.

The last question that you probably had in your mind would be “Is Fiverr worth it?” or “Is Fiverr that bad?”. So, here is the final answer.

If you have a microservice in your mind that you want to offer, there is nothing wrong with trying out Fiverr. You need to make sure that you follow all of their terms carefully. When it comes to customer support, I suggest you not expect it too much.

Fiverr doesn’t ask you to bid on any projects and hence you can create a gig and keep it on. It doesn’t waste your more time.

On the other hand, if you want to make huge money from a single project or want to get a big project, Fiverr is not for you.

Most asked questions

Is Fiverr worth a try?

Fiverr is bad when it comes to seller levels and customer support. Also, there are more scams nowadays. However, you should still give it a try as it doesn’t happen with everyone.

Is Fiverr legit?

Yes, Fiverr is a legit website that will pay you the money

Why is Fiverr bad or Worst?

Fiverr is bad when it comes to seller levels and customer support. Also, there are more scams nowadays. However, you should still give it a try as it doesn’t happen with everyone.

Is Fiverr good for freelancers?

Yes, there are a couple of disadvantages but you can surely give it a try.

Final words

To conclude, this was the complete Fiverr review. You can surely give Fiverr a try as you don’t need to bid on any projects. The buyer will automatically come to you. Further, you also need to keep in mind the cons of Fiverr. We have tried to cover all the reasons why Fiverr is bad (or at least why people think it is bad). It is up to you whether you want to take the good part of Fiverr review and give it a try or you want to take the bad part. You shouldn’t completely depend on Fiverr but it is surely a great thing to try for some side income.

Next read for you: Easiest Fiverr Gig ideas 

1 thought on “Fiverr Review: Best place to start freelancing (or worst)?”

  1. My experience with them?
    Let them alone, they are a waste of the most important asset you have: your time.
    I did a lot of research (called due diligence) about them and all seems nice and dandy, until you start creating your offers, and nothing happens.
    I put a lot of effort in making my offers appealing and better than others considering pricing, delivery time, etc. Not a single purchase.
    Then there’s the joke that if you want to pay to get traffic to your offers, they block with all kinds of stupid requirements.
    So I gave up.
    My advice: don’t waste your time with them.

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