What is Fiverr? Fiverr is a popular global online marketplace founded in 2010 where you offer your skills and services and get paid beginning at a cost of $5. Currently, it is one of the largest marketplaces for digital services and has a database of over 3 million gigs or services.
Originally, every gig on Fiverr cost $5 and so no matter the service you sell on Fiverr as a freelancer, you earn $5 and that’s how the name “Fiverr” was coined. In 2014, Fiverr removed the $5 price cap and now as a freelancer, you can earn any amount, hundreds and thousands of dollars depending on the services you are offering.
As the freelance marketplace continues to grow, the quality and quantity of gigs have increased drastically, and now you can find almost any digital services there. The Fiverr platform serves businesses with freelance talents in over 400 categories and subcategories across 8 verticals, which includes art and design, digital marketing, coding, video, graphic design, animation, writing, voice overs among many others.
If you are talented and possess certain unique skills that others might find useful, Fiverr allows you to list them as a gig or service. Whether it is copywriting, web design, social media marketing, video editing, or writing, whatever your skills are, Fiverr has room for you.
Perhaps you are good at logo designing, wedding invitation card designing, or you can help businesses with their social media. Fiverr gives you the opportunity to share your skill as a service with businesses and individuals and get paid while doing what you love.
Most Fiverr freelancers join Fiverr as their side hustle to earn extra income in addition to their job or whatever they are doing full time until their earnings from Fiverr surpasses that of their main source of income then they make Fiverr their main stream of income.
HOW FIVERR WORKS
Before delving into how Fiverr actually works, it is very important to understand certain terminologies used on the platform;
On Fiverr, the skills and services you sell are called “Gigs”. Most of the gigs on Fiverr have their charge rate beginning from $5. However, there are other gigs that are high paying gigs that charge $100s and $1000s and even more depending on the skill and services you offer.
Since you are selling your skills and services, there should be a buyer for every transaction. This makes Fiverr a two party’s platform, a seller and a buyer. If you are someone who has a skill or service and joins Fiverr with the aim of making money, Fiverr identifies you as a Seller.
As a seller, you can list as many different types of skills and services you want to sell and charge the rate you would want to take starting from $5. Your chances of being hired will depend on your experience in the services you are offering, and your reviews.
A buyer on the other hand is someone who is looking to purchase a service on the website. The buyer wants a task, job or project to be done for them. So they also create a buyer’s account on the website and hire sellers who they think are best fit to do the job.
As long as a buyer sends a message to a seller about ordering their service, through the chats they agree on goals, time frames, and charge rate and everything is confirmed, then it’s up to freelancers to do what they do best: start work and deliver.
Creating an account on Fiverr is free and very easy. There is no way any individual or business can buy or sell on Fiverr without creating an account first. When you create an account on Fiverr, your account is a buyer account by default. But if you want to be a seller you only click on your profile image which you will find at the top right corner of your account and you will see a drop down box. You will then click on the “Become a seller” on the drop down box.
Fiverr operates like every other online marketplace. Sellers list their services (gigs) and interested buyers do their enquiries by asking the sellers questions, and if the buyer is satisfied with the answers of the seller, the buyer goes ahead to order for the service of the seller and make payment for the service in advance to Fiverr.
Fiverr acts as an intermediary, ensuring that both parties are satisfied with the end result. Fiverr keeps 20% of each transaction as a service fee. Once the seller completes and delivers the work, the buyer must confirm the delivery and Fiverr will pay the seller 80% of the payment made by the buyer within 2 weeks after clearing the funds but within 7days if the seller is a Top rated seller.
FOR BUYERS
As a buyer on Fiverr, you first have to create an account as a buyer. If you are ready to purchase for a service, you browse the category pages or use the search tool to find the service you want to buy. For example, once you search for something like translation, you’ll see a list of translation gigs show up.
The Fiverr system is such that, before any buyer orders for any service on Fiverr, the buyer makes payment for the service first. Fiverr then holds the funds until the seller completes the tasks and delivers it to the buyer.
The buyer will then accept the completed job after being satisfied. Then Fiverr releases the payment to the seller. Before Fiverr releases the payment to the seller, the buyer has an option to go through the work and request changes depending on the nature of the gig.
Fiverr serves as the intermediary between buyers and sellers. When Fiverr first launched, every gig charged at $5 regardless of the kind of service, but now Fiverr freelancers can decide to charge more based on the kind of service they offer or the packages of their services.
Once you’re ready to buy, there are multiple payment options. Fiverr recommends that you visit their website to ensure payment is secured. All purchases by buyers have processing fees. For purchases of $20 and under, there is a $1 processing fee for all purchases and a 5% processing fee for gigs over $20.
Orders are usually processed and completed within a day or two or even more depending on the kind of service or the workload. The seller determines the delivery time for an order. Thus, how long it will take to complete and deliver the order.
Sometimes, a seller has orders in queue and may take longer for them to complete a new order. If the seller is late in delivering the completed work, it affects the seller’s profile and rating.
A buyer leaves a review about the seller after their order is completed and delivered. The review is in three aspects. The seller’s communication, service as described and whether the buyer will recommend the seller.
With Fiverr, buyers and businesses have the opportunity to save up to 30% of the revenue they spend to manage their human resources and pay full-time employees. Fiverr also offers you the opportunity to work with a wide variety of people so you can find the best fit for you without having to burden yourself with the challenges of Hiring and firing employees along the way.
FOR SELLERS
As a Seller, the first step is to set up your Fiverr seller profile and create your gig in order to be able to sell on the Fiverr website. You then set the price and can optionally provide gig extras to your gigs to increase your earning potentials.
As a seller who wants to make the best out of Fiverr, you must ensure that your seller profile is 100% complete, your gigs are well created and written and describe the services you provide in detail. You also must make sure that you select the right category and subcategory for your gig.
Once a buyer decides to purchase an order, Fiverr withdraws the payment for the order from their account and withholds the payment until the seller completes and delivers the order. Fiverr then pays 80% of the payment to the seller on every gig they successfully complete and deliver.
The seller receives 80% of the total order value upon completion, delivery and acceptance by the buyer. The 20% goes to Fiverr as Fiverr fee for the services rendered as the intermediary to both the buyer and the seller.
For example, a $5 gig means the seller will receive a full $4 for a completed and delivered work. If it is an order of $10, the seller receives $8 and $2 goes to Fiverr as intermediary service fee.
The more gigs you sell as a seller, the easier it is to build your seller rating on the site and this increases your value and credibility on the platform and hence, more orders and more earning potentials.
If a buyer is satisfied with a seller’s completed and delivered work, the buyer marks the order complete and leaves a review. The review is shown on the seller’s profile and everyone who visits the seller’s profile will see it. Reviews cannot be edited or removed.
If the review is a positive one, other buyers who visit your profile and see it will want to work with you and hence you are getting more orders.
As a seller, once you complete an order, deliver it and the buyer is satisfied with the work and marks it as accepted, Fiverr credits your account with 80% of the payment like mentioned earlier. But the funds will have to be cleared by Fiverr first before you can withdraw into your local bank account or PayPal account.
The period for clearance is 14days for all sellers but 7days for Top rated sellers. So you would have to wait for a 14days period if you are not a Top rated seller to be able to withdraw the funds. But 7days if you are a Top rated seller.
As a seller, there are 4 different methods for withdrawing your Fiverr earnings and these methods are through PayPal, bank transfer, Fiverr revenue card (Payoneer) and direct deposit which only works for sellers in the U.S.
In the case where a seller completes and delivers a work and the client didn’t like the work, the buyer has the right to request for revisions and corrections until the buyer is satisfied with the work.
If the buyer requests for revision and correction on the work and the seller refuses or doesn’t do it, the buyer can contact Fiverr customer support and they will check the conversations between the two parties and will act accordingly.
Fiverr customer support is always available to attend to and remedy any seller-buyer problems.
If a seller delivers any completed work and the buyer does not respond as to whether they accept or need a revision and correction, automatically the work will be marked in 3days as completed and the seller will be paid
As a seller, you have to promote your gigs. Even though you can sit back and wait for buyers to browse your profile and send you messages requesting for your services, you’ll get orders more quickly if you’re proactive.
There are millions of sellers on the website and there are millions of other sellers who are also selling the same skills and services you are offering which makes getting orders quite competitive.
So you would have to be intentional about making sure your profile or Gig gets the visibility it needs for you to get someone to order from you so you can start earning as soon as possible.
The more visibility your profile or Gig gains, the more your chances of getting an order. There are strategies with which you can generate traffic or visibility to your profile and Gig.
There is a section on the website where you will see buyers leaving requests of what services they need, when they need it and how much their budget is for those services so that interested sellers can get back to them. As a seller, you can review these requests and reply by sending offers directly to these buyers.
You can also generate visibility to your profile through social channels. You can promote your Gigs on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn etc. You can also join social media groups or forums related to Fiverr on other platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube among others.
As a seller, you can’t always be on your laptop or desktop monitoring and working on your Fiverr business. Fiverr has a mobile App which you should download and install on your mobile phone which will help you still monitor and run your Fiverr business even on the go.
