Home App Reviews Fiverr Review: Is Fiverr Worth It for Freelancers in 2024?
July 16, 2024
Editorial GuidelinesSuzanne is a freelance writer and web designer with 10 years of experience. She previously helped to rebuild a failed digital...
There are so many ways to make money with a digital or creative side hustle. However, it can take time to get things moving if you do it on your own. That’s why freelancers turn to online marketplaces like Fiverr to find new clients, grow their portfolios, and collect testimonials.
But is Fiverr the right place for your skills? In this Fiverr review, you’ll learn more about how the marketplace works, what kinds of services you can sell, and some of the common drawbacks.
Fiverr.com has been around since 2010. Back then, sellers (what Fiverr calls freelancers) charged $5 for any task. That’s where the name Fiverr comes from. Today, however, Fiverr freelancers can charge however much they want.
Using Fiverr to sell your services is a lot like other freelance marketplaces. After you’ve built a profile, there are two ways to get work:
When you do get hired, you’ll complete the specified services as a work-for-hire. When the buyer approves and closes the job, you’ll get paid, and the client will get ownership of and copyright to whatever you created.
Fiverr is for freelancers who provide digital services. You can perform creative tasks like logo design, copywriting, and photography. You can also do tasks that are more technical in nature, such as web development, data analysis, and video editing.
These are the main categories of services you can offer on Fiverr:
When creating your profile, you need to choose your Fiverr gigs. Gigs are the specific services you offer. The number of gigs or services you can advertise depends on what Fiverr seller level you are.
| Tier | Number of Allowed Services | Payment Time |
|---|---|---|
| New Seller | 7 | 14 days |
| Level 1 | 10 | 14 days |
| Level 2 | 20 | 14 days |
| Top-Rated Seller | 30 | 7 days |
There are no fees to join Fiverr as a freelancer. However, Fiverr will take a 20% cut of what you earn on the marketplace. Fiverr will even take a cut of your tips.
There is another type of fee you might encounter, but it’s associated with an invite-only program for top freelancers called Seller Plus. Currently, it’s $20 per month to maintain membership in the program.
There are a number of reasons why Fiverr sellers take the upgrade. In addition to gaining access to advanced analytics and coupons, Seller Plus members can get paid in 7 days as opposed to 14.
Currently, the average Fiverr freelancer’s salary on Indeed is $22.23 per hour, 6% below the national average. 1 However, this figure doesn’t say much. The vast range of service offerings makes it impossible to give an accurate estimate of how much you’ll realistically earn on Fiverr.
Because Fiverr is such a popular freelancing marketplace, there’s a lot of competition. And because it markets itself as the place to get cheap work done by professionals, many buyers go there looking for just that.
With Gig Packages, you can set your prices anywhere in the range of $5–$995, offering three versions of your service at three different prices. However, even though it’s been more than a decade since Fiverr freelancers charged a flat $5 per gig, it’s not uncommon to find some sellers still following that pricing model.
Because of the generally low rates and high commission fee, you may struggle to establish a Fiverr side hustle that can eventually replace your full-time job. That is, unless you level up and join the elite category of professionals known as Fiverr Pros.
There is a way to charge more on Fiverr and land higher quality clients who appreciate the value of the work you do. That’s by becoming a Fiverr Pro freelancer.
You’ll need to go through a rigorous vetting process and submit to a background check in order to apply. If you get approved, the minimum price you charge per gig goes up to $100 (compared to $5 for everyone else). Your profile will also appear in the spotlight showcase and be shown to top clients.
Fiverr freelancers seem to unanimously agree that the Pro program is the best option for earning money on Fiverr. For example, one anonymous user claims joining Fiverr Pro is what got them their current success: “I started on Fiverr as a regular seller and had 1 bite in a year. Then I applied for the Pro program and almost immediately began making a nice part-time-ish income,” they said.
Another anonymous Fiverr Pro freelancer claims that if you’re in the Pro program, user support will address customer inquiries for you in just 2–4 hours and resolve issues without harming your stats or freelancer ranking. All in all, Fiverr Pro is your best shot at making a full-time income from freelancing on Fiverr.
When a client approves your work and marks it as complete, their funds will be released for payment. You’ll get paid in either 7 or 14 days, depending on what Fiverr level you’re on.
For freelancers on lower tiers, payment processing takes 14 days. If you’re a Top-Rated Seller, you’ll get paid in 7 days. Seller Plus members have the option to get paid in just 7 days, but they have to pay a 1% fee.
Fiverr offers four payment methods you can choose from:
You’ll need at least $25 in your account in order to withdraw your earnings.
Just about anyone of any skill type or level from anywhere in the world can create an account to try their hand at digital freelancing on Fiverr. All you need to do is create an account and pass a verification process.
If you’ve decided to become a seller on Fiverr, here’s what you need to do:
If you’re under 18 years old, you’ll need to have an adult follow these steps to create an account for you. You’ll then be using their account to sell your services.
Once your profile is good to go, you can start browsing open jobs. It’s also a good idea to install one of the Fiverr for Freelancers apps so you can view and manage your account from your phone.
Want to know what it’s really like to sell on Fiverr? Reviews from Fiverr freelancers are a mixed bag.
Bad Fiverr reviews tend to concern the platform’s favoritism of buyers over sellers or the impossible competition in certain industries. Good reviews praise the platform’s flexibility and low fees.
To help you make up your own mind about whether Fiverr is worth it for you, we’ve summarized what it’s really like freelancing on Fiverr (both the good and the bad) according to Fiverr reviews from across the web.
Fiverr is a global freelancing platform that’s accessible to people all around the world from all walks of life. This makes it a huge advantage for some and less valuable for others.
If you’re trying to earn a full-time US income, you’ll likely feel frustrated competing with teens and professionals from countries with lower costs of living, who can afford to do the same job for much less.
Unfortunately, this is a problem with all global freelancing platforms, not just Fiverr. Depending on your industry, you may need to accept very low rates to compete, unless you can make it into the higher-earning Fiverr Pro program.
User reviews:
“It’s a very competitive platform that most people undersell themselves in order to get clients.” (Reddit, October 2022)
“If you live in the US, Canada or Europe Fivver is not worth it. You can’t compete with designers that can afford to live with 10-20 dollars a day.” (Reddit, October 2022)
“Someone will under rate you. Like I did server admin work, going rate in my area is $95/hr. Online it’s $10.” (Reddit, July 2022)
If you’ve never freelanced before and you want to dip your toes in the water, Fiverr is a great place to start, especially since you don’t need to pay any money until after you start earning.
While it’s not wise to bank on making a full-time income from Fiverr right away, the platform offers every resource you need to suss out your earning potential from a new skill or take a stab at bringing in a few bucks here and there from a casual side hustle.
User reviews:
“It’s turned mine and my husbands life around. I don’t make as much as I would with a full time job, but I’m able to do this at home while caring for the kids and house.” (Reddit, May 2024)
“Fiverr changed my life honestly because I sell a really niche service and there’s few places on the internet you can google to find somebody to do what I do (niche video production). Without them and the power of their SEO I’d have like few clients.” (Reddit, May 2024)
“Fiverr is only worth it if you really need the extra money or are looking for a temporary platform as a training ground to improve your skills.” (Reddit, January 2024)
“I have had good experiences with fiverr. Even when I was just a no ody starting out and my gig was to write fanfics/erotica, out of the gate it only took like a day or two to get a job. […] Obviously it is different for everyone, but I know it can be good and lucrative.” (Reddit, July 2022)
Although income from freelance work is often unstable or sporadic, some users feel the issue is exacerbated on Fiverr because of the frequent changes to their algorithm.
Each time they adjust which freelancers are appearing at the top of the search results, you could see a spike or drop in the number of job requests you get.
User reviews:
“My first order came 3 days after I created my account (first month I only got 3 works from the same buyer and nobody texted me other than him). The next month I didn’t even get a single message. In third month, I started to get some works. Nowadays, I get roughly 10 orders per month.” (Reddit, January 2024)
“Fiverr used to be about 50% of my income. Today, it’s like 15% and shrinking. The traffic just isn’t there anymore, IMO. They’ve instituted a number of inane policies that are punishing and difficult to recover from. And this is coming from someone who was recruited into the Pro program 6 years ago.” (Reddit, July 2023)
“Its so weird! Ive been with fiverr since 2018 and never had a problem even if i go away for months i would still get messages and orders but for 2 months now I didnt get anything! Not even inquiry. This is ridiculous. They changed the algorithm way too much and I am a highly rated seller.” (Reddit, May 2023)
“Fiverr gig position changes every minute and you don’t know when your Fiverr gig will get ranked on page one.” (Reddit, August 2022)
“The algorithm is fickle and constantly being tinkered with.” (Reddit, August 2022)
“Ultimately, a lot of things on the site you cannot control. They play around with algorithm, and you can go from having thousands of views to a couple hundred because you’ve been cycled out and pushed down in the rankings.” (Reddit, July 2022)
The general consensus seems to be that it’s tough to build momentum on Fiverr. But once you get past the initial barriers and get a few jobs under your belt, there’s plenty of potential to raise your rates and start making a decent income.
User reviews:
“I make a 6 figure income with Fiverr. I’ve been on there for 8 years now. I had the weird messages in the beginning too, but once you start getting clients and repeat business you’re good to go.” (Reddit, January 2024)
“Having been on the platform for almost 3 years now, is it puts me directly in front of customers who (to a degree) understand what I do, how much it will cost and what they will get from it. The reviews act as form of trust for potential buyers – all these things help reduce the barrier to purchase, and I see the 20% fee as the cost of doing business.
“I have my own website (web design) which I’ve had since before I started with Fiverr and it has taken longer to build that up than it did through Fiverr. With a website you have the associated costs with the design, development, copy, hosting, domain name. You also have to consider SEO – how are people going to find your site – will you use paid ads, cold outreach etc.” (Reddit, May 2023)
“Fiverr spends money on ads & facilitates a medium on which you can conduct your business, and gives a sense of credibility & trust to buyers, finds clients from all over the world gathering people around who needs such a service. These are worth %20. Besides you can adjust your price to get that %20 as well.” (Reddit, May 2023)
“If you manage to upgrade to higher seller levels, you can benefit in terms of more orders, visibility, promotion.” (Reddit, May 2023)
On any freelancing platform, there’s a risk that you’ll encounter unreasonable or ill-intentioned clients. However, many freelancers on the Fiverr platform feel that the company is so focused on keeping customers happy that they leave the door open to abusive practices.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of horror stories of Fiverr sellers who say that they provided a client with a service or product only for them to later request a refund, sometimes much later on or for no clear reason. It seems that Fiverr seems to default to accepting these refund requests, leaving freelancers with no compensation for their hard work.
User reviews:
“I’ve had only 2 buyers ever contact me. […] 1 of them never responded again. The other guy asked me to do a task. I did it for him, sent him the file. He said it was really good. Then I realized he never actually submitted a formal request and asked me via my Inbox. So he essential got my work for free.” (Reddit, November 2023)
“On the Fiverr platform, refunds are relatively easy to get and Fiverr almost always sides with the buyer.” (Reddit, May 2023)
“I’ve also had a few situations that were resolved in such unfair manner that I’ve told myself I’d never use this site again. Well, I’m still there, except with a fear I’m the back of my head saying, ‘let’s hope they won’t cancel the order after the delivery or request a refund just cause’, which happened to me and I’ve lost all of the money that I had earned. Fiverr will always side with the buyer and that’s a number one reason why I don’t like working through this website.” (Reddit, May 2023)
“Customer service at Fiverr will rarely if ever agree with you in a dispute with a client.” (Reddit, July 2022)
There are a fair few reports of freelancers getting suddenly suspended or banned from Fiverr, sometimes over simple misunderstandings or for no clear reason whatsoever. If you get unlucky or you break the rules, you could find yourself off the platform and back at square one without any warning.
User reviews:
“After working almost 3 years and totally depending on it suddenly they disabled my account with no reason and now don’t have any work.” (Reddit, May 2024)
“I was trying to offer article creation as a service like many others on fiverr. In my description, I put ‘Will include reviews’. They took this as that I was selling reviews, and just outright suspended my account. […] I get why this could be misconstrued, but my intention was to include reviews a business already has – not sell them. I clarified that to them through email, and they even said […] ‘We recognize this was not your intent, however, we are unable to reverse this decision.’” (Reddit, January 2024)
“Don’t get too comfortable. This is coming from someone whose account got suspended a few days back. […] They suspended my account temporarily, saying I have violated their policy, I don’t recall anything, and they have not given any reason behind this action. My only regret is I got too comfortable on fiverr and didn’t build my client outside of fiverr. Now I am at zero.” (Reddit, May 2023)
The answer you get on whether Fiverr is really worth it for freelancers depends on who you ask. Freelancers in notoriously saturated industries—like freelance writing and graphic design—tend to say the platform is no longer worth using. There’s just too much competition, the demand is too low, or you’ll get better luck with other types of apps/services.
Fiverr Pros and freelancers in highly specific niches find Fiverr to be a gold mine of opportunities. Most say that the 20% commission fee is well worth it for the built-in advertising and connections. And because of the low age requirement, Fiverr is a great freelancing platform for teens aged 13 years or older.
That said, a frequent piece of advice from Fiverr freelancers is to create your own website anyway and work on building it up simultaneously. That way, if Fiverr suddenly kicks you off the platform or changes their algorithm, you’ll have something to fall back on.
Ultimately, Fiverr freelancing isn’t going to be right for everyone. However, if you’ve never freelanced before, this could be a good place to test the waters and start building your professional portfolio.
Here’s a rundown of the key drawbacks and advantages to working through Fiverr.
Fiverr is far from the only online platform you can use to find digital freelancing gigs. Here are a few competitors you may want to consider:
Just be warned that these platforms largely share the same issues that crop up in Fiverr complaints.
Some user reviews comparing Fiverr with Upwork, arguably its lead competitor, suggest that Fiverr may be tougher work in the beginning but have more advantages for established freelancers.
This could make Fiverr a better option than Upwork if you plan on investing a lot of time and effort into your side hustle. Upwork, on the other hand, may yield you better and quicker results, but you’ll have more limited options to level up your freelancing business.
| Fiverr | Upwork |
|---|---|
| Lower overall cost | Higher overall cost |
| Free to apply for jobs | Pay to apply for jobs |
| Better support/resources for established freelancers | More level playing field between new and established freelancers |
| More demanding clients | More professional clients |
| Set rates per project | Option to set hourly rates |
| Harder work growing a business from scratch | Easier to get recurring clients |
You may find that some marketplaces offer more freedoms and protections to freelancers or better ways of combating abusive clients. However, one of the key features that will determine which one is best for you is which one has the client base that is most seeking what you have to offer.
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