I recommend many platforms for freelancers for finding work.
But, Fiverr is not one of them. Want to know why?
Fiverr is a platform that demeans freelancers by forcing them to put cheap price tags on their skills and services.
If you’re a freelancer who’s just starting out or planning to become one, avoid using Fiverr to offer your freelance services. Here’s why.
Quick Note: This article was originally published in 2016. But the points I discuss here are still relevant today. Last updated in February 2022.
Make It $5, $25, $50, Or $100, Or Else!
Fiverr’s cheap pricing model targets cheap employers (or clients) who browse the site looking for the cheapest freelancers to get their job done at the lowest possible cost. Most of them don’t even care about the quality, they just want the job done for cheap.
But, ask yourself: Would you rather be known as the guy who designs logos for $5 or the guy who designs logos for million-dollar startups?
Even if you managed to catch the attention of a good client, Fiverr limits your pricing to either $5, $25, $50, or $100. Sure you can also add extras or ask for multiple order placements to charge higher for your services, but each time a buyer places an order Fiverr takes 20% off of each order (plus PayPal processing fee). Is it really worth it?
This type of fixed pricing model makes Fiverr a cheap marketplace for freelancers to not only sell their skills at cheap but also to bid adieu to their freelancing career. Because chances are, if you’re lucky, you’ll probably end up selling 50 or 100 gigs per month earning you around $250 to $500.
Why limit yourself when you have the potential to make $5000 a month, or maybe even more?
Fiverr Puts Quantity Over Quality
Do you know how much it costs to design a logo by a professional designer? It’s about $250 at minimum for a basic design or £500 in the UK.
Makes you wonder why graphic designers on Fiverr offer to design logos for just $5. And you won’t believe how many logo designs some freelancers on Fiverr deliver in one day. Some deliver 50 to 100 gigs per day.
How the hell do they design that many logos in one day when other designers take weeks and sometimes months to design a single logo? There’s a secret behind that too. I’ll get to it in a moment.
But, even after working all day to deliver 50 gigs what do they get? Only $250. It’s what other designers make by designing one logo.
The difference is those professional designers can actually point out their work and say “I designed that logo”.
Sites like Fiverr are designed to put an emphasis on quantity: The more gigs you deliver, the more you get paid. They don’t care how you deliver it, as long as the money keeps coming in.
There’s Too Much Competition And Scam
It’s the highest-rated gigs on Fiverr that gets the most jobs. And there’s a neat trick that most service providers on the platform used to get more reviews and 5-star ratings for their new gigs: They buy reviews.
That’s right. They pay their friends to leave fake reviews for their gigs. After all, they can get their money back after placing those fake orders. It’s the secret that Fiverr service providers will never tell you.
And service providers, like logo designers and article writers, are mostly scammers as well.
Designers on Fiverr are obviously using templates and stock graphics for designing logos, which you can easily buy from a site like GraphicRiver or steal from Shutterstock for cheap. Writers on Fiverr have been caught more than once copy-pasting entire paragraphs from other articles on the web.
How else can you explain these individuals delivering 50 gigs per day?
Reading most of the posts on Fiverr forums and Warrior Forum is more than enough to get an idea of what’s really going on inside this platform.
Hello, Depression And Anxiety
A quick Google search will show you hundreds, maybe thousands, of Fiverr success stories about how some freelancers make 6-figure income by providing services through the platform.
For instance, there’s one story that describes a “kid” from Greece who makes a full-time income (around $2600 a month) using Fiverr. He gets over 200 orders that need to be delivered within just two days.
Can you imagine the amount of pressure all that work would put on you when you have to deliver over 200 logo designs in 2 days?
If it were me I would lose my mind. I ask for 2 days to deliver just one blog article. I’d probably die halfway if I have to deliver 200 articles in 2 days.
Don’t Take My Word For It
I can go on and on explaining to you why Fiverr is bad, but it’s better to share what others have experienced in this marketplace.
It’s not just the clients, but the freelancers on the platforms are also starting to realize the true side effects of Fiverr.
Go do a quick search on YouTube and you’ll see how many freelancers have had terrible experiences on the platform.
Every category on Fiverr is filled with scams and low-quality services and gigs. After all, we can’t really blame those service providers. It’s what you can expect to get when you go there looking to buy services for $5.
I’m not trying to diss Fiverr as a horrible platform or humiliate the freelancers who are already using the platform.
I’m simply trying to show you that there are better ways to offer your services as a freelancer where you don’t have to limit your pricing to a fixed model, or work 20 hours a day as a slave, or give in to scam strategies, or pay the price with your health.
You can work 20 hours a day delivering 50 jobs on Fiverr and call it freelancing. But, can you call it a career?
Work smarter not harder and always choose quality over quantity. Follow those two simple rules and you’ll be well on your way to building a profitable career as a freelancer that will last a lifetime.
Where was this gold-mine of a website before? The excellent flow of words makes each of your article deliciously informative. Just one thing that is annoying me so much that I can’t help but say – as an editor, I found certain proofreading errors to be quite distracting. Then again, I loved the articles and can’t stop reading.
Thanks, Paulomee. I’ll keep an eye out for any errors in the future. 🙂
Very helpful article, I recently completed my graduation and thinking to start my career as a freelancer. I already created my profile at Fiverr, Freelance & Upwork but still not getting any work offer.
Thanks for guiding new freelancers like me.
It’s best to avoid major freelancing sites until you develop a portfolio of work.
Good luck! 🙂
Fiverr is really the worst Freelancing site ever.
Their policies are only made to facilitate Buyers.
Buyers will blackmail you, ask for additional work, and whatever. But you cant refuse to help, if you refused, they will ask Fiverr Customer Support and there you go under the heavy load of Punishments.
Degraded Gigs, degraded accountl, sudden disappearance of new orders and eventually suspended account.
People are now avoiding Fiverr, as its a Stress.
Where should I begin then? Can you please suggest better platforms where one can try finding one’s luck in creative writing?
101% Correct. Fiverr has been hell for me. I had to design 40 T-shirts for $100 in 3 days. This Account was eventually suspended for assisting a buy to buy bitcoins, which is not listed in their Terms of Service. Horrible site
It’s actually very easy saying that fiverr favours quantity over quality but ask your own self how many business or people are in this world really ready to spend $300 on a logo. Truth is that only big enterprises cares about quality work other SMEs are only there to get work done in cheapest way possible.
Aside from that there is hell of competion in the world. Many of the people on fiverr are ready to develop website for just $5.
If buyer ask for extra work and call it revision then
Fiverr’s Policy Goes Like:
Customer is always right.
Seller can go to hell
I’ve worked in radio and TV for years: 1975-1993 as news film editor, radio announcer, producer and talk show host. I set up a recording studio in my apartment and put together some demos. I just signed up with Fiver and the only response is from a prospective client who wants me to set up a Skype account so he can talk to me about a potential gig. I thought everything is supposed to go through Fiver. Is this a scam?
Any suggestions where one can work on projects to build a portfolio and still make a few dollars?
Well, anything that works for anyone, is best and awesome for that person. But my experience with them wasn’t so great. End up being lose all ranking. If you ask me which marketplace to choose from, i would recommend ZvMarket
Beautiful observation to say and well directed article pointed on the flaws of fiverr..but still learning a skills like writing or graphics designing alone will be difficult to grasp without guides from a professional..l have been trying to learn from YouTube but most of the graphics tutors, ain’t straight forward. Shortcut maneuver confused me alot..l struggle to understand their trainings on PSD and Corel draw.. I love graphics designing.. Any help on way forward @roshan perera
Hi Ben, thanks for your kind compliment. I agree, learning from YouTube videos is tough. Mostly because they give directionless advice. You need to take a course that takes you through the process step by step. Drop me an email and I’ll give you a few suggestions.
Thnaks for your help. I was confused about whether I should start freelancing on Fiverr or not and you helped me alot in making my decision
It’s so true, I got exploited so bad by doing cheap video editing in which one I was spending hours and days to hope to make a career growing up, and now my account is gonna maybe get banned cause I refunded a customer through paypal because he took the wrong order, and if we cancel an order we get bad statistics.
Fiverr takes money, doesn’t care of sellers, some pro sellers got back for nothing and still didn’t get money pending clearence.
It’s a pure scam, they just shit on their sellers, even pro sellers get 0 support from them… I feel so bad.
Do you know a legit freelancer website for a studient as me with medium video editing skills but able to make some quality editing ?
Excellent article. 100% my experience. I honestly would switch places with you if I could. I am a PhD in engineering woman out of Australia and am going to provide all documents re my experience freelancing on Fiverr so please, if you are a stake holder and interesting in investigating further, please feel free to contact me any time re this, would love to show all of my communications and emails and dealings to founders of Fiverr or investors. I have DOCUMENTED everything. So I opened a gig offering something I am very good. My gig was unique and I was getting attention from the get go. 5 star after 5 star, with NO ONE leaving me anything less than 5 star. After a month, I was promoted to level 1 seller, appearing at the very top. The quality of my gig, in terms of the image, the presentation was far superior to vast majority of people and I noticed that clients from western developed nations definitely were attracted to me compared to the 99% who were offering gigs out of developing economies. In 6 weeks, I was making money for myself and for Fiverr, UNTIL a psychotic client approached me. Everything about her was suspicious. Everything. She had multiple FAKE profiles with OBVIOUSLY fake reviews, I mean, so obvious a child could see them, like 6 consecutive 5 stars from someone with the same exact avatar and name and even description etc, have an image of that too. She was all sugar coating talk, all acting like she is my girlfriend & slowly doing her best coercing me into saying yes to everything she wanted. I wasn’t offering zoom meetings or video recordings, she told me she does it all the time and everyone does it, all acting upset and disappointed at me. I accepted at first and gave her a tentative date for a zoom. Then I realised, this is probably not allowed as I remember reading the terms and it was vague. So I contacted customer service like any decent ethical seller would. They were at first all helpful and cooperating, but they didn’t exactly make it easy for the zoom option and for $35 and the whole day I needed to work on her case, I realised it is not worth it. I tried to cancel her 3 times. Each time she refused. She also wasn’t around much, would only come on fiverr every 3 days. I ended up having MY FIRST LATE warning from the gig, went on panic mode, wasn’t sure what to do. So I made video recordings for her, took 3 hours and an ENTIRE SATURDAY trying to figure out how to upload and how to send to her due to size limit. She was NOT even responding. Fiverr staff tried to help me with the attachment issue. Anyhow, a whole Saturday went by, my family was so angry at me due to all sorts of mess that created, Fiverr staff, probably 4 or 5 were working non stop trying to help, was a TRUE CHOAS. From that day, the woman only returned 3 days later asking for her work. I was about to choke her, but I politely said, It has been delivered 2 days ago, please refer to your delivery page. She then returned 2 days after, and said something like a pure trap, trying to get me to admit that I didn’t give her the job with correct information. This time, she had a NEW fake profile. A NEW profile?!! How is that even possible?! Anyhow, I had to go through 100s of messages I had received in the 2 weeks prior when she was sugar coating me and priming me for a disaster and find her exact request. Sent those all in documents. She disappeared. Not a Thank you. NO rating. NOTHING. I told Fiverr one thing which I think alerted them to start punishing me as the ‘naughty seller who refused to be SLAVE”. I politely told Fiverr if this client gets to review me anything less than 5 star, including a 4 star review, given how much I went out of my way for my lowest price on my gigs and how much I accommodated her and how many days I lost to her for her $35 and extremely deva abusive behaviour, I will leave Fiverr for good. EXACTLY from that moment, Fiverr, without telling me, removed me from search pages. After a week of noticing this and not complaining, assuming it’s a mistake or glitch, I opened a new ticket, asking them to tell me why. Then they got back to me and said it’s all fixed. I pressed more and asked them why that had happened and also why my statistics and analytics is all gone and I only get error messages. They ignored me and ghosted me and then a day later, I found out that my gig was not there again among hundreds of inferior gigs with much less ratings. I opened another ticket. This time, they got back to me and said, sorry, your gig is under REVIEW due to some issues. Then a day after, they told me I must fix ‘misleading’ information. There was NO SUCH A THING, NONE whatsoever. My 5 star gig that had been so popular and so ‘perfect’ went under some BOGUS review all of a sudden, only because they couldn’t apologise to me or to tell me honestly that they f&&&ed up. I deleted 90% of my bio and made it quite robotic and impersonal just to satisfy them. It is still under review. I know they are doing their best for me to leave. I was investigating and found out that close to 90% of Fiverr’s employees are from 3 nations in South Asia. And my gig was in direct competition to people from the exact region, I’d say 90% of those offering what I was were from those exact nations. I am beginning to think Fiverr has turned into a Nigerian style SCAM which is rife with favouritism and discrimination against western high quality English speaking highly educated sellers and the founders/upper management of Fiverr are either incompetent or they are CLUELESS about what’s going on. That woman was probably a paid SET UP just to get me destroyed & Fiverr’s lower staff are either in it with their cousins or friends who were threatened by my presence or they just look the other way. What a sham!
Hi Sara, Thanks for sharing your story in such detail. Could you send me an email using the contact form. We could share this as a story to possibly help other freelancers from falling victim to such circumstances.
As an experienced freelance writer (30+ years as a newspaper journalist) I am horrified at sites such as Fiverr. Any job would pay better.
After completion of my 38 years of banking career, I have gone through many correspondences so I intent to write few articles or I would rather say content writing to test my writing skill as a writer.
For this purpose, I have been searching may websites to start my career as a freelancer and I was just peeping into creating my account on Fiverr than all of a sudden I have gone through your above sighted article named, “Why Fiverr is The Worst Place To Start A Freelancer Career” on your above website and postponed my wish as you have highlighted so may valuable flaws of Fiverr along with the others comments as well.
So being the senior one, I still have the request of seeking your skillful suggestions that where one can start his writing or adopt this writing career and earn few dollars as well with secured money and without free of mental pressure.
Thanks
Waiting for your valuable suggestions.
Shah
Hi Anwar, I’m glad to hear you’re interested in freelancing. You can start by reading my guide on how to start as a freelance writer – https://freelancinghacks.com/complete-guide-getting-started-freelance-writer/ or feel free to reach me via email
then what are the options, where i can get freelancing easier way?
Try reading this guide – https://freelancinghacks.com/how-to-start-freelancing/
Great job Roshan! It was a great article and interesting to read. I have seen many freelancers complaining about Fiverr.
Great article. Thanks for sharing it.
I’ve used Fiverr both as a freelancer and a buyer. I tried a Graphics gig on Fiverr and only received a few tire kickers. They now let you set your own prices, but at the time it was as you stated. There’s an elephant in the room you didn’t mention… $5 US here in the US won’t buy a Happy Meal, whereas $5 US in most of the countries the majority of Fiverrs freelancers are located will feed your family. That’s why it is virtually impossible to find an American based freelancer on the platform and why I’ve had more than one freelancer on Fiverr offer me free gigs for a 5 star rating after I was unhappy with the work that was done. As a buyer it’s tempting as hell to get a job done at Fiverrs rates for something you can’t do yourself and can’t really afford to get done here in the states. (Website/coding work in my case) And I still go to Fiverr occasionally for menial things I’m in no hurry to get done. But the pain/stress of waiting for responses from somebody on the other side of the globe, the lost in translation hiccups, the hit or (mostly) miss quality of the work and occasional scrapping of one job after another trying to find professional results keeps me hiring freelancers and pros in my own backyard. And I myself have gotten better paying gigs on Craigslist than I ever got on Fiverr, lol.
Keep the Hustle and don’t ever sell yourself short!
Would you say someone is a scammer if they purchase simple pieces of art then put them together in various ways to make unique logos? Like bad at art, good at graphic design kind of thing?
If they purchase the art legitimately and have the license or approval for commercial use, it’s not scamming.
I am very new to Fiverr and I have just been given my first offer of an order to say 500 sentences in my native language by 2 separate businesses, they are offering me $40 and the other $25 dollars on completion of the order and if it’s satisfactory (I assume) I don’t know where to go from here ? Does that seem a low price they have offered me to say 500 sentences or is this a normal price ? I assume it’s for a learning a language platform that’s offering me a job , what should I do ? I really don’t know what to do or go from here , I am new so should I take it to get my profile going and get some positive feedback on the go ? Please help Anyone got any advice ?
That sounds like a decent price for your first order. Go for it and see how it goes from there. Despite the bad things many have experienced on Fiverr, lots of others have found success on Fiverr. So try it out and decide for yourself.
You are right. But I don’t think there are any other beginner-friendly alternatives for this. I used to work on 99designs, freekancer and upwork but the competition in that is really high. Even though I make an 8-hour design there is only 50% chance that my design will be chosen. But when it comes to Fiverr the buyer comes to you.(Only if you have good reviews and gig ranking) Not the other way around. I make 1.5k a month on Fiverr and yes it’s more stress full than working on a normal job. One downside for Fiverr is the shitty commission they take.
Yeah, I agree there are many freelancers who have found success on Fiverr. I just don’t see it as a platform for freelancers to create a career because you have to depend on the platform and abide by its terms.
“It’s the highest rated gigs on Fiverr that gets the most jobs.”
You have to be lying about being a “freelance writer.” There is no way people actually pay you for copy like this.
Oh no! You caught me! 😀 Anyway, thanks for pointing out the mistake. I’ve fixed it.
I saw someone selling 10,000 words in 2 days delivery time.
Wow. I don’t think even AI-powered software can do that.
Sellers aren’t the only ones looking to rip you off. I was scammed and Fiverr admin at first refused to answer. When I contacted them on facebook, they admitted they deleted my tickets. Then they sent me four messages saying ‘no refunds’. I called my banks and got refunds. Fiver locked my account for ‘opening a dispute’. What in the HELL did they think I was going to do? Say ‘sure, I won’t try, because that would make you look bad’? After a WEEK they remove one scammer, not both that scammed me. Then they lock my account because I swore at them for ghosting me in the first place and saying I was unprofessional. Yes, using curse words when someone a) tries to steal money, b) refuses to give you back money, and c) retaliates when you get your money back is the unprofessional one. Fiverr has NEVER apologized for any of this whatsoever.
After being “suspended” for simply telling someone I can’t perform academic support, I’m tired of fighting with Fiverr customer support. I went out of my way to ensure my writing never violates their ToS. When I simply asked if the gig was in support of an academic deliverable, and the potential client confirmed that it was… I told them I could not support their effort.
The next day I was told my account was suspended because I had violated the ToS two times! The first time was a horrible misunderstanding and unfair “warning”. As a result, I became ultra sensitive to being suspended and asked specifically if the work was related to academics. When it was confirmed I clearly removed myself from providing support. Instead of a pat on the back or recognition that I was truly concerned about violations, I am punished.
WTF fiverr? I spend just as much time fighting the system as I do trying to get work on their platform. I need to find alternative ways of finding writing gigs. This is just too much harassment.
Anyone have suggestions?
Very Nice! I am happy that at-least someone is providing authentic information that why Fiverr is worst platform. I had created accounts 2 time , each time when i started getting good orders and ratings my gigs got de ranked for no reason.
Please don`t go with Fiverr