Is Fiverr Good For Freelancers?

I still keenly remember watching TikTokers discover Fiverr for the first time.

In the height of lockdown 20-somethings were bored and looking for any sort of way they could earn some money whilst on Furlough. Some started their own small businesses selling Resin Pyramids and iced cookies, but others decided to take it a step further and start a Virtual assistant business.

There was one creator who had made $1 Million through selling her services on Fiverr, and was keen to show others how to do the exact same. Obviously, trends like this totally flood the market, leaving creators of value dilluted due to trend followers.

Before I go into depth about the pros and cons of Fiverr, it’s worth noting I do in fact list my services on the platform. I know my worth as a marketer, and It feels dirty to price my services at below my worth. But the exposure on the platform is clearly there, I’ve made plenty of professional contacts through the site. Despite the ridiculously high seller fees and and the incentive to charge pennies, it can be handy for those building out a freelance portfolio.

So before you spend hours crafting the perfect Gig description or countless more developing your samples, ask yourself “Is it really worth it?”

What is Fiverr? What do they offer?

Fiverr is essentially a bidding site where creators and customers can haggle for each others time. Fitting for the name, the site is known for providing affordable solutions to creative issues. With everything from social media management, web development, and graphic design included in their default web offering. But users do have an ability to write their own descriptions, set their own costs, and even create packages for varied quality of service.

Whilst reading around for this article, I found several blogs accusing Fiverr of inciting “an Uber-like workforce” - and whilst I think the phrasing is ridiculously dramatic, I do see the meaning behind it.

After a year and a half working in a social media agency, I know more than most that clients simply do not understand the value of creative roles. It’s almost like marketing and brand are the DofE of business, it’s good to have, but does it provide a benefit to your career?

The answer is yes, and the intricacies of that are better suited in another blog. But whilst business owners struggle with the fact marketing is essential to any business success, creators are struggling to keep their head above a sea of frauds looking for a quick buck.

On paper, the concept is an attractive one: a directory of professionals from which customers may choose a practitioner — be they designers, voice-over artists, or translators — at their leisure. Sellers can auction their services off to the highest bidder, maximising profit and exposure. The reality, however, is entirely different.

Why do some users think it’s problematic?

Fiverr is keen that its customers are aware that its services are more affordable and have a tighter turnaround than traditional design. Naturally, there is no mention in the site’s marketing as to what is sacrificed to this commitment to cheap and quick design. Rather, customers are encouraged to pursue the lowest price possible regardless of quality or professionalism.

There are professional designers on Fiverr. However, they are rare and their prices are at odds with Fiverr’s central ethos in being close to professional standards. The backbone of Fiverr’s workforce is made up of jobbing novices, technicians buoyed by the ready availability of design software, and untrained practitioners — often from developing economies where five dollars is a greater financial incentive. This over-saturation of cheap, unskilled workers masquerading as professional-level work represents a “race-to-the-bottom… an oversupply of workers” in which the client is granted a wealth of choice and yet every choice is exactly the same. Given the entitlement Fiverr appears to engender in its customers, it is interesting to note that most buyers on Fiverr are from wealthy countries such as the U.S. and U.K. while most sellers come from poorer economies like India and Nigeria.

Fiverr claims to be a platform replete with benefits for buyer and selleralike, but the disparity between them is alarming. While buyers are encouraged to seek out the cheapest services, this often comes at the expense of sellers from poorer cultures. Perhaps the most high-profile example of this was Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg’s use of Indian Fiverr sellers to portray an anti-semitic message in what was at best an ill-thought-out joke and at worst represents part of a long history of flirting with racism. The event resulted in the suspension of the Fiverr accounts involved and an apology, while Kjellberg continues to enjoy a major following. It highlights how easy Fiverr makes it for western users to exploit international sellers who either don’t understand the implications of the work for which they are commissioned or simply can’t afford to say no. And while most users don’t make racially-driven choices when pursuing cheap work, Fiverr does make them tangentially complicit in the continued exploitation of poorer economies by the west.

The conceit of digital markets may be that sellers are provided a platform from which to auction their services to the highest-bidder. However, Fiverr puts its sellers in a position where there is little choice but to price their services low or leave the platform. With the pressures of tight turnarounds and constant reminders from Fiverr to get on with it, “logo designers” have little choice but to create unoriginal work in order to make those low prices — and the 20% fees Fiverr levies from them — worth it. Template packs, clipart, and pre-made or stolen work make up the bulk of Fiverr logos; none of which is mentioned by Fiverr or its sellers. This is made possible by the fact that Fiverr actively neglects to moderate its users, which it admits in the site’s own terms and conditions: “Fiverr does not check user uploaded/created content for violations of copyright or other rights”

It is hard to fault sellers for this kind of practice given the pressure they are under to sell — and sell cheap. It’s hard to blame them for trying to maximise their cost-time ratio. When performance is monitored arbitrarily by a shallow algorithm as it is on Fiverr, and then only in service of completing work in the shortest time possible, it is inevitable that sellers would cut corners.

And while this had major implications for the quality of work on Fiverr, the effects on the sellers themselves is perhaps more important. As a professional designer, the most important clause in my contract is the kill fee. While this ensures a certain level of financial security should a project fall through, its also about making clear to the client that should they abuse the process or me that I have the right to cancel a job at any time. This clause is vital to professional practice and, perhaps more importantly, the maintenance of a freelancer’s wellbeing.

Is it worth it?

Honestly? No. But if you’re building up a freelance portfolio and you have experience/knowledge then absolutely set one up. For all you know, you’ll get a selection of use cases to add to your portfolio. But my advice is be careful, it’s easy to get sucked into the stream of orders and forget how much time it’s costing you to complete these tasks. Is it time effective? How much are you making per hour for this work? If it’s below what you expect then please cut your losses, the amount of money I’ve lost from underpricing my skills, services, and expertise is absolutely criminal.