Do you have a certain set of skills that you want to monetize from? Graphic designing, learn cooking, jewelry making – these are some of the popular topics that people are searching for online. If want an easy way to start, then you’ve probably heard of Fiverr. But, can you make money on Fiverr for the long term? Let’s find out more in this review.
What Is Fiverr?
Launched in 2009, Fiverr is an online marketplace where buyers search for creative talents/skills and pay a minimum of $5 in exchange for a digital service or product – also known as gigs. The platform currently hosts more than 1 million gigs online and is a popular choice for freelancers to generate some extra income.
How Can You Make Money on Fiverr?
To create a gig, you need to set up an account with Fiverr first. Under your profile tab, go to My Sales > Create a Gig and then follow through these 5 steps.
(1) Create a New Gig – Describe your gig with captivating titles and images to support your work portfolios.
(2) Configure Extra – Offer additional services such as faster delivery or extra creation for a fee. By doing extra gig, you can earn up to $300 per order.
(3) Upload a Video – make a video (about 60 seconds will do) to showcase your work for better conversion.
(4) Add Shipping Charges – If the end result is a physical product that needs to be delivered, you need to list the shipping charges for different destinations.
(5) Publish and Promote – After publishing, you’ll be able to find your gig listed on the marketplace. Here’s how published gigs look like within a subcategory.
Looks pretty easy, right?
The Advantages of Selling on Fiverr
If you are new to freelancing, these features in Fiverr will appeal to you;
- Listing your gigs is fairly easy.
- You don’t need to pay any fees up-front in order to publish your gigs.
- You don’t need to pay for maintaining any websites.
- For a small amount of fee, you get to do what you like at your own flexibility.
The Disadvantage of Selling on Fiverr
However, there is a caveat behind all the simplicity that you see.
- You don’t get to keep all the $5 to yourself. In actual fact, Fiverr takes 20% in commission and PayPal charge 2.9% + 0.3 cents for each transaction. So after doing the math, you are only earning $3.58 from your sale. On top of that, you have to wait for 2 weeks before you can actually do a cash-out.
- Since listing is free, Fiverr becomes a very competitive marketplace. If your gigs belong to a popular category, you may see your listing get pushed down (and out of sight) by tomorrow to give way to new sellers.
- It’s tough to get noticed for your gigs as a new seller unless you actively promote your links on websites, social networks or forums.
- You have no control over the seller rating and level system. If a buyer isn’t satisfied with your service and gave you a negative review, it automatically gets shown on your profile unless you report them to the Fiverr team.
- If you do become a popular seller – getting 10’s of orders (or more) a day – you need to make sure that you can deliver your service as promised. At the very least, you need to have a backup team.
- Even as a top level seller, your skills will always be overshadowed by the fact that you are just another Fiverr seller. You can’t truly create an online presence through your own branding.
So, Is Fiverr Worthy of Your Time?
After weighing the pros and cons, I would personally encourage that you leverage your skills/talent independently through an online business. By creating your own business website, you can monetize from;
- Consultation services
- Selling physical or digital products
- Offer structured online courses
- Affiliate programs related to your expertise
At the very least, you get to fix your service rate and you’ll have better control in communicating with your customers online. Fiverr is okay for beginners as a stepping stone to try things out online, but if you are thinking of growing long term income, you are not going to make a lot of money there.
# Note – If you are thinking of rendering automated, plagiarized or low quality service on Fiverr, save yourself from the trouble. It will only harm your own reputation.
Starting an online business isn’t really that difficult and search engines like Google are more than happy to send you targeted audience for your service if you know how to implement keyword research on your site.
For example, if you are good at designing T-shirts, you can use the following keyphrases to attract more visitors.
If you are good at cooking, here are some interesting keyphrases to consider;
If you are good in jewelry, take these keyphrases and run with it.
Can you see the potential of just one single keyphrase? As your website grows, you’ll be adding more of them and thus generating constant stream of visitors for months and years to come. That’s how you make sustainable income online.
If all these keyword research talk is confusing for you, don’t worry. Wealthy Affiliate has some awesome training to help you start your own online business from scratch. Here are some of the tools that you can benefit from WA in comparison to Fiverr.
I hope this review has shed some light as to whether you can truly make money on Fiverr or not. Perhaps you are now more inspired to use your skills for what it’s worth. Start your training here for free and see what you can achieve instead as an online entrepreneur. I’ll be there to help you out so hope to talk to you soon.
Do you have any thoughts or questions about this topic? Let us know in the comment area below and I’ll get back to you.
I am absolutely amazed with the way everything was broken down when discussing the Fiverr website. Outlining the advantages and the disadvantages was excellent, where it was obvious that the disadvantages out weighed the advantages.
That was such a great way of leading the readers into exploring Wealthy Affiliate for themselves and from there they could decide. This site allows the reader to see that there is even greater potential out there and Wealthy Affiliate in my mind is the greatest. But as anything else in life, experiencing it for yourself is what adds the value.
Nice review.
I honestly didn’t see the WA alternative coming, so kudos on that. I had written down Fiverr as something to consider for extra income, but your review turned me off of it. Thanks for shedding light on the situation. Doesn’t seem worth it especially considering they take commission out of your sale. I scoffed pretty loud when I read that, lol.
Some interesting details on Fiverr, I have been looking at it recently in order to offer report writing skills. However, I think my time is worth much more than I would be able to earn through it, particularly if they’re charging 20% for listing you services after each job you complete.
I know we all need to put the effort in to grow, but I think I’ll be sticking with creating my own content and learning all I need with Wealthy Affiliate in order to grow my own business. You never know some other skills may come out of that that I can capitalise on another way.
Yeah, you never know.
By researching your niche market, you could come up with a variety of ways to promote and sell things. And you can place more value on those services/items because running them on your own website gives you more control over the fees that you charge.
Hi,
Thanks for the article. I had always wondered what the experience was like using Fiverr. Having considered joining it a few times before finding Wealthy Affiliate and starting my own business, it was never enticing enough for me to join. Plus I had previous negative experiences with similar money making websites.
What ultimately made up my mind was that I could never compete with people there because my skills weren’t really anything special. Thanks for the comparison. I’m glad I joined Wealthy Affiliate instead. I’ve reaped a lot more benefits than if I’d done something else.
Sarraa
Hi Sarraa,
Although you may think that you don’t have any special skills, I believe that you have some valuable knowledge in a certain niche that people can learn from. Having an online business and creating a blog will allow you to share this knowledge and monetize from it. That’s what the training at Wealthy Affiliate is all about, helping you to discover your potential online.
Thanks for this great information on Fiverr. I was thinking a while back of loading up some Fiverr gigs, but I came to the conclusion that there really is a massive amount of competition there. It will take time away from me doing my main business which is working on my own websites.
Like you said, if you can do some simple keyword research and you have a website, you can still do the gigs bit on your own without relying on their website or having to compete with everyone there.
I do think Fiverr is a nice marketplace. As a buyer I like it, but I don’t think I would enjoy being a seller there.
That’s a good point Lynne.
In fact, one of the ways that Fiverr recommends for you to get traffic to your gigs is to promote them through your website. Come to think of it, if you know how to do that, wouldn’t it be better to liaise directly with the readers? If you are selling something globally, adding a PayPal button to your website is easy-peasy. You do have to pay for hosting and such up-front, but the outcome can be far more rewarding than selling in a competitive and overcrowded marketplace.
With so many scams on the internet today, this seems like something that is totally legit. I have been searching for a credible source to make money online. This could be what I’ve been looking for. I appreciate your article and will definitely consider using Fiverr as a source of income.
Cathy, thanks for providing this useful information about the possibility of earning with Fiverr gigs. From a user perspective, I’ve used Fiverr in the past and would not hesitate to do so again. Two tips to help the process:
(1) Review the customer feedback and ratings to select the most suitable provider for your purpose
(2) Be specific about what you want. If there is something similar on the web, give the link so they can see an example of what you have in mind.
Love the new look of your website. ~Jude
Totally agree with you, Jude. I did the same thing too when I chose my freelancer. In fact, I took the time to look through their portfolio just to see if their work fits my expectation before contacting them. The person I hired was very specific so it was a smooth transaction throughout.
My header banner is created by a designer from Fiverr – just so you know. Glad you like the overall look 🙂
Hi Cathy.
This was a highly insightful post for me. I’ve never thought about personally offering “gigs” on Fiverr, but I have considered using it in regards to having a logo created for my website. Graphic designers tend to be expensive and one simple image can run into the hundred dollar range.
I ended up going with a service that produced a nice logo for me for only $27 – I’ll take it. It would’ve been nice to get one for only $5, but my thought was that the quality would be lacking at that price. What good graphic designer would really put their time & skills into a nice piece of work for only $5?
I also didn’t know about the 20% commission right off the top – that’s quite a bit. And the PayPal fee on top of that is rough as well. I can’t imagine anyone making a decent, full-time income from Fiverr, but I’m sure there are some people making it work for some pocket money. Starting your own online business is the way to go in my opinion. Profit potential is much higher and the flexibility is unmatched.
Hi Matt,
I know of a few new designers looking to get recognized who would invest time and skills for $5, but the whole idea is so that they could move up to become top sellers and be qualified to charge more for their gigs.
A professional can’t (and I won’t encourage either) live on such small commission. They deserve to be paid more. Probably a good platform to check out different types of clients – that aspect is also very important for a freelancer – but quite a saturated marketplace if you are looking to build your brand online.
Very good review of Fiverr. It is a very competitive market as you have said, good for earning some side income, but not for creating good lifestyle. I have used their services a few times and what can I say. You get what you pay for so people should not expect high quality work for 5$. Eventually, it really is just a place to showcase your skills and maybe somebody would recognize you and hire to do some work for real money.
Keep up the good work with your reviews.
Hi Ante,
The competition on Fiverr is really tough. I see new listings everyday and wonder how many newbies actually have success making their first $5 with this platform. I am pretty sure they are a talented bunch that simply need an audience to discover their work. If they put the same amount of effort selling their skills through their own websites, I think they can earn far more than trying to aim to be the top seller on Fiverr.
This tutorial is really helpful, but as a Wealthy Affiliate and ex-Fiverrer, I can say that, with Wealthy Affiliate, you can learn how to make a steady passive income, with the help of others. I can not say the same for Fiverrer, except that you can learn to be better at your skill, which is nothing compared to Wealthy Affiliate in the long period of time.
Thank you for your feedback, Lyubomir. I see Fiverr as a task-completing site, probably has some networking potential but certainly not an ideal place to create a successful freelance career. Better off at creating a freelance online business with the training at Wealthy Affiliate.
This is a very detailed review on Fiverr, Cathy. I wanted to have a go at Fiverr a while back, but a lot of people told me not to as its better if you work with friends to cover more ground. Some customers will take forever to settle as they tend to have very troublesome demands.
That’s so true about trouble-makers, Riaz. I could see how some people would take advantage of the cheap rate to manipulate freelancers in order to get what they want. And if they are still not happy with the results, they could easily fire you back with a negative review and there goes all your effort to earning $5 or $10 extra.
Hi Cathy,
From your review, I agree with you that my skills would be worth more than a Fiverr. It sounds as though you finish up losing part of that 5$ in commission and it takes a long time to get paid. It doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. I think I prefer your suggestion of setting up a business with Wealthy Affiliate where you get plenty of help and support and also the potential to earn good money is very real.
Thank you for your review.
Hi Annie,
It’s really a measly figure when you come to think about how the $5 is split between different parties. I am pretty sure that the freelancers would like to see their time worth much more than just dollars. Creating their own business website with SiteRubix is surely a more effective way to branding their skills online.
Hi Cathy,
I do agree with you that creating our own business website is better than working for $3.85. We can attract a lot more audience and potentially earn much more revenue. I would highly recommend folks out there to check out Wealthy Affiliate as it cost $0 to get started.