Six figures as a freelancer? Fiverr makes it possible
Carrie French earns about $125,000 annually writing product descriptions. Beau Vallis earns a similar amount remixing music. The one thing both have in common? Fiverr, a side hustle platform that used to urge sellers to list their services for just $5, increasingly delivers sixfigure incomes to the freelancers doing the work.
“It’s been very lucrative,” says Vallis, who first posted a digital profile on Fiverr in 2015. “You don’t have to do any marketing. You wake up and there are your jobs.”
At a time when freelancers who work for other gig economy giants, such as Uber and Lyft, say that the legacy companies are becoming increasingly exploitative, Fiverr has gone in the opposite direction. The site boosted its customer service staff; cut its fees; and created special designations for “pros,” or freelancers with advanced expertise or skills. Although some sellers still list their services for less than $25 on Fiverr, “pros” are compelled to charge more.
Six-f igure incomes
It’s all part of a strategy to make Fiverr the go-to network for freelancers and customers in a rapidly evolving freelance marketplace, says Gali Arnon, the platform’s chief marketing officer.
“The platform has evolved tremendously and so has the marketplace,” Arnon says. “We started with $5 because it was a way of eliminating the risk [for customers] of buying digital services. Today, you can find services on our platform that cost thousands of dollars.”
Although not all freelancers earn six-figure incomes on Fiverr, an increasing number say they can easily earn a living wage. Some say that their biggest problem is turning off — or down — the work spigot when they need a break.
Broad scope, unique features
Freelancers who work with Fiverr say the platform has certain advantages that are hard to find elsewhere. It’s a broad-interest platform offering hundreds of services where you can post your availability to provide almost any lawful service, including offbeat ones such as reading tarot cards or casting spells.
You also are in complete control over your pricing and the limitations of your offer. For instance, you might create advertising jingles for $25 each. However, for that price, you can stipulate that the jingle will have 25 words or fewer. And, if the customer doesn’t like it, they get only one revision.
If the customer wants additional revisions — or more words — there’s an additional charge.
The site suggests that freelancers create three “packages”: basic, standard and premium.
You may want to charge a small amount for the basic package, to draw in new clients and develop a loyal clientele. But Fiverr encourages you to charge more for the more inclusive packages.
Transparent process
The idea is to make purchases so transparent that clients can buy without having to talk, much less negotiate, with the freelancer, Arnon says.
Also, the funds for every job are put in escrow when the gig is ordered.
As long as the freelancer delivers what was promised, they don’t have to worry about being paid. French says it’s rare for a client to find some sneaky way to avoid payment.
Fiverr pays for its service by charging freelancers a 20% commission on every booking.
No auditions or bidding
Freelancers on other sites say that a lot of their time is taken up by project bidding and providing work samples to potential clients. That doesn’t happen at Fiverr. Clients view your profile, the work samples that you’ve already posted, and reviews. There is no negotiation, auditioning or bidding before purchase. They either select you or they don’t.
Melissa Harlow, a voiceover artist, says this is the primary reason she stopped freelancing through other voice-over job apps.
Getting noticed
That said, with thousands of freelancers from 160 countries offering more than 500 services on Fiverr, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. Harlow says it took eight months before her Fiverr profile started drawing work. Now, she earns $40,000 to $50,000 annually, working part time.
Vallis says it took him roughly two years before he got regular work. Fiverr’s management understands the difficulty with getting noticed, Arnon says, so the site has a number of initiatives to help. These include tutorials that explain the
MONEY TALK Nagging concerns
The site has some nagging issues. Specifically, freelancers are rated on the number of jobs they’ve accepted; the number they’ve completed on time; and customer reviews, among other things. Failing to deliver, delivering late, canceling orders, or getting bad reviews can kill your business and even get you booted from the platform.
Some customers know this and pressure freelancers into doing more work for less money.
Consider Vallis, a Grammy-nominated mixer. He charges for mixing music by the “stem.” Each stem consists of a single sound: the drums, guitar or vocals, for example.
His basic package offers to mix four stems for $25. His premium packages mix 10 stems or more. He’s had buyers pay $25 for the basic package and expect him to mix as many 60 stems.