Fiverr is arguably one of the most popular, trustworthy and established freelancer’s platforms on the Internet, but there’s a lot of blur regarding quite a few of its aspects, and that’s what we aim to throw some light on throughout this Fiverr review.
Here’s what we aim to cover throughout this Fiverr Review:
- What is Fiverr?
- How does Fiverr work?
- What are Fiverr levels?
- Fiverr refund policy.
- Is Fiverr a scam?
Fiverr Review: What is Fiverr?
In Fiverr’s own words, it’s a marketplace for Digital Services.
In other simpler and more explanatory words, it can be defined as a freelancing platform, where one can both buy as well as sell digital services according to their expertise, to and fro any corner of the world.
It was found on February 1st of 2010, and initially had the concept of only $5 USD gigs. Meaning people from across the globe could sell their services at a minimum price of $5, which also is the reason why it’s named as “Five-rr”.
Although they waived this $5 limit and started letting users set their own prices for their gigs after their Series D round of funding in 2015. (Source: Wikipedia).
Apart from that, Sellers are now also allowed to offer “packages”, for a more advanced, better version of their work for different prices.
It’s easy to setup, takes seconds literally, and is pretty user-friendly, so anyone can setup a gig, promote it, and start making money right away.
Or, if you’re a buyer, you can find a freelancer to get your job done in seconds or minutes at best, for nearly anything and everything that can be delivered digitally, the most popular services on Fiverr are:
- Digital Marketing
- Graphic Designing
- Video and Animations.
- Business
- Advertisements
- Writing
Note that these are only a fraction of what’s available on Fiverr, a seller is allowed to create a gig for nearly anything, as long as it’s not obscene or offensive.
Let’s take a stroll around other aspects of this Fiverr review.
How does Fiverr Work?
The working structure of Fiverr differs for a buyer and a seller. So, we will take each category separately and proceed towards dissecting it throughout this section of this Fiverr review.
How Fiverr Works for a Seller:
Here’s an outline before we get into the nitty-gritty details of how Fiverr functions for a seller:
Sign up > Provide additional details > Set Pricing > Specify requirements > Spice up the gig with images/Videos > Publish > This gig is found by buyers > they buy your services.
If you’re a seller, you first have to Signup on Fiverr, which generally takes seconds. After that, you’re required to fill out your profile with additional details (optional), which helps you market yourselves.
You can fill out your:
- Description
- Skills
- Education
- Certifications etc.
Once you’ve filled out the optional profile details, you can move on to creating your first gig!
Now when a buyer searches for services which match the keywords and categories of what you’re offering, he/she is presented with your gig, and they can then proceed and make the payment if they like your pitch and profile.
What Happens After an Order has been Placed?
Once a buyer makes the payment, it goes to Fiverr Escrow (and not to the seller), after which the seller has to deliver the promised service within the promised time.
Once it’s delivered, the seller marks the services delivered. After this, the buyer gets a time-period of 3 days to request changes to the services rendered, ask for modifications, edits or anything else.
*Note that the review time the buyer gets for orders which involve some kind of “shipping” is 14 days.
If the buyer does nothing, it automatically means they have accepted the services provided to them, and the seller gets his money.
But if the buyer asks for any kind of edits or modifications, the order status is considered “not complete” and again the seller has to make the requested changes, and mark the order “delivered” once again.
Once this cycle is complete, and/or the buyer doesn’t ask for any modifications for 72 hours after the service has been marked as “delivered”, the order is marked complete, and the seller can withdraw the money after14 days of the order being “completed”.
The whole process from Signup to gig creation takes not more than 5 minutes at best, which bags Fiverr a 5-star from us considering this is a Fiverr review.
How Fiverr Works for a Buyer?
The buyer simply has to head over to Fiverr homepage and search for the services he’s looking for using the provided search box.
Fiverr then shows all the available gigs which match the buyer’s search criteria.
Once the buyer chooses a gig, he/she has to make the payment for it in advance. Once the payment is done, the money is stored in Fiverr Escrow, and the seller is notified of the purchase.
The seller does his part and delivers the services to the buyer. If the buyer needs any changes, he has to notify the seller within 3 days from the date of delivery, once the changes have been made and the buyer is happy with the order, the order is complete.
After this “completion” date, the buyer has a 14-day refund period, within which he can ask for a refund based on appropriate reasons.
So that’s how Fiverr works both for a buyer as well as a seller. Now let’s move on to other aspects of this Fiverr review!
Fiverr Fee
Fiverr charges its fair share of fee both to its Buyers as well as sellers.
Buyers are charged $1 for transactions less than $20, and for transactions >$20 a fee of 5% on the total amount is levied
As for sellers, Fiverr charges a flat 20% fee on your gig. So if you’re selling something for $5, you get paid only $4. This applies to a gig of any amount.
For a withdrawal to their Paypal accounts, Sellers again need to pay 2% of the withdrawal sum as processing fee. Although this fee never exceeds $1.
For bank transfers, a sum of $3/withdrawal is charged, along with some other optional fee which may or may not be charged depending on your country and bank.
What are Fiverr Levels?
A major feather in the cap of Fiverr is its “Levels”. They signify and convey to the buyers how active, efficient and overall a “good /bad” choice any certain seller is based on the seller’s previous records.
Also, they unlock new features and options for the sellers as they get promoted through the levels.
Fiverr levels are dictated by a number of factors, but in a nutshell the higher a seller’s level is, the more “professional” and “better” choice he or she is for the buyer. Also, the easier it is for them to get orders as compared to new sellers.
How are these levels calculated or assigned?
Here are the factors which dictate what a Fiverr account level will be:
- Customer satisfaction (measured through ratings).
- Cancellation Rate
- Number of orders.
- Days you’ve been active etc.
As a beginner, sellers start at the “New seller” level. This is the basic level, and doesn’t have any special requirements, hence no special features or privileges either.
New Seller Level:
- Allowed to have 2 gig extras.
- Extra fast delivery is allowed.
- Are allowed to have 4 orders in 1 transaction.
Level 1:
You need the following criteria to be fulfilled before you’re promoted to level 1:
- Minimum a month (30 days) old profile.
- Sell 10 gigs.
- Have a minimum 4-star ratings atleast.
- Low cancellation rates.
The perks you get with a level 1 account are:
- Allowed to have as many as 15 active gigs.
- Allowed to have 4 gig-extras- ($5 / $10 / $20/ $40).
- Allowed upto 8 orders in 1 transaction.
- Extra fast delivery with increased price.
- Create custom orders up to $1500.
Level 2:
Level 2 sellers need to fulfill the following requirements before promotion to this level:
- Complete minimum 50 orders, in 2 consecutive months.
- Total 4.5 star ratings.
- Low cancellation rate.
The perks a sellers gets with a level 2 account are:
- 20 Active gigs.
- 5 Gig extras: ($5 / $10 / $20 / $40 / $50).
- Allowed to have 15 gig multiples.
- Process as many as 12 orders in 1 transaction.
- Priority customer support.
Level 3:
This is the most advanced, and most profitable level on Fiverr. Naturally, it’s also the hardest to achieve but then again it offers quite a few premium perks.
This level is called a “Top rated seller” and even though there are some “minimum” requirements, fulfilling them doesn’t mean you will be promoted to this level for sure.
The promotion to this level is a manual process by the Fiverr team, and even after promotion, there’s a continuous evaluation of the TRS seller profiles to make sure they keep providing the kind of service the buyers want.
Some of the minimum requirements needed to hit this level are:
- 7-5 star ratings.
- Extremely low cancellation rates.
- High sale volume. (Fiverr hasn’t specified any exact number to this).
The perks a seller at this level enjoys are:
- 30 Active gigs.
- 6 Gig extras ($5/ $10/ $20/ $40/ $50/ $100).
- VIP customer support.
- 20 Gig multiples.
- VIP customer support.
Let’s wrap up the levels section on this Fiverr review considering how we’ve illuminated every single level’s requirements and perks.
Heading over to the next section of this Fiverr review- let’s address Fiverr’s Refund policy.
Fiverr Refund policy:
Fiverr’s refund policy is somewhat vague to be honest, a Google search on “Fiverr Refund policy” doesn’t yield any solid results directly addressing the question.
But considering our own experience and some articles on the Internet, here’s what we’ve gathered about Fiverr’s refund policy:
- Fiverr does have a refund policy to begin with.
- The buyer is provided with a 14-day refund period, within which they can claim for a refund.
- If a refund is approved, the amount isn’t credited back to the buyer’s bank or payment processor, instead, it’s stored as Fiverr credit which can then be used for further Fiverr purchase.
- In case of a canceled order, the buyer doesn’t get the “processing fee” they paid for the order included in the refund.
For a Buyer, these levels help them decide which sellers to go with. It not only provides for “better service” opportunities but also increases the “Trust” factor.
That’s so because a seller acquires those levels after delivering quite a few orders, and having happy clients in his portfolio, hence the chances of getting cheated or scammed by such a seller decrease.
Is Fiverr a Scam?
Okay, quite a few people on the Internet claim to have been cheated on Fiverr, either by the buyer, by the seller or the platform itself (in regards to customer support).
So even though it’s not a scam, there certainly are a few loopholes on the platform which we’ll be addressing in the immediate sections.
First, it’s based out of Tel Aviv, Israel! Well, that dumps any power of legal action you might have exercised against Fiverr from other countries.
Secondly, their support isn’t very cooperative, or forthcoming, and it has been a long-standing accusation against fiverr, by quite a few thousand buyers as well as sellers. (source: TrustPilot).
Loopholes For a Seller:
A buyer might show his discontent to your work after even a long period of time, and at times there doesn’t have to be an extremely logical reason for it either. Finally, the funds are deducted from your account.
Secondly, a buyer gets to vet a seller’s profile beforehand, but a seller doesn’t have that luxury, and has no idea to of the reputation, trust or authenticity of the person ordering the gig.
Also, in a majority of the cases, Fiverr tends to side with the Buyers (when they do side with a side, which is rare as the support isn’t overwhelming).
Loopholes For a Buyer:
Buyers pay in advance, and even when a refund is initiated you get that money not directly back to your bank account, but as Fiverr credits.
And even after a refund, at times buyers get refunded only the core-amount, and not the extra “processing fee” they paid on the order.
Why isn’t Fiverr a Scam?
The above points slightly suggest and make you lean towards Fiverr being a scam, but this Fiverr review would only be complete if we speak for both sides.
Here are the points which suggest why Fiverr isn’t and has no intentions of scamming people:
- Has a refund policy.
- Offers transparency to buyers regarding the seller’s reputation.
So finally, is Fiverr a scam?
Probably not. Fiverr is an established platform now so first of all, it won’t want to ruin its reputation.
Secondly, even when there is a dispute, it’s caused either by the seller, or the buyer, not by Fiverr itself.
So in a nutshell, it’s the people on Fiverr who at times give Fiverr a bad name, and not the platform itself.
Majority of the negative Fiverr review is not because someone gets scammed on the platform, (that happens everywhere), but because the support team fails to acknowledge the fact and help the victims in an acceptable manner.
Is Fiverr Worth It?
In our own personal experience, yes, it’s totally worth it. Why?
- You can sell “anything”, and hence whatever your digital expertise is, can be monetized.
- $5 gigs make it cheap and affordable.
- Makes it easy and fast for buyers to find someone willing to get their task done instantly without much research.
Fiverr, as a platform is totally worth it if you consider its infrastructure, working principles and other aspects. It’s quite brilliant to be honest.
But the only time it becomes not worth your time is when you run out of luck, and have to deal with someone who forces you into a dispute, in which case the ill-famous Fiverr support fails to cater to your needs.
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Final Verdict on Fiverr Review:
Let’s wrap this Fiverr review up, Fiverr is a great platform, and the majority of its population, both as buyers and sellers are quite happy with it.
Even our own personal experience as has been scribbled down in this Fiverr review is a positive one.
Although the negative experiences and Fiverr review of others can’t be ignored completely either, and that’s what might prevent us from singing its praise-songs out loud.
So as the last words on this Fiverr review, all we can say is, in a nutshell, Fiverr is truly one of the best platforms for Freelancers and sellers alike, as long as you’re dealing with the right person, period.
