Even before the pandemic, side gigs were becoming much more popular than working in an office for a company. You could type in “work from home jobs online” in your favorite search engine and have pages and pages of results to sift through, including sites like Fiverr. You might wonder about that site, but can you even make any money with Fiverr?
It is hard to make money on Fiverr because of how the site and terms of service are designed. You lose 20% of your earnings immediately, and you cannot directly contact clients for clarification. And, if you have even one or two negative reviews, you can go down a level.
Fiverr is a gig site that brings customers and sellers together in a general marketplace of sorts. Most gigs only earn the seller $5 per gig, so earning a living wage is tough. However, some people do make a living wage.
Fiverr is a great site that allows you to make money and gain skills. You can make money if you have a skill, so why not make the most out of this amazing website?
How Much Can You Make On Fiverr Per Month?
You can make up to $500 or more per month on Fiverr, but this is the exception, not the rule. Most active sellers on Fiverr might be lucky if they make $100 per month. If you want to get the gigs and not work so hard, you need to sell things that are already produced.
Fiverr got its name from the original concept of sellers charging only $5 per job.
No seller could charge over $5 at the beginning, but that has since changed. People can charge what they want, but they won’t make as many sales for something that someone else is doing for less money.
For example, if you offer writing services at $25 per 500 words, and someone else offers the same service for $10 per 500 words, the chances are that the customer will go with the other person.
So you will need to specialize or lower your price.
Let’s say that you are a health coach who wants to use Fiverr as part of your marketing strategy. You research is writing a book a good way to make money and decide it is. Therefore, you choose to develop a short ebook that gives just the basic information about testing food allergies and ways to deal with them.
You might sell a few copies of your book, but not very many.
But then, you decide to add an additional service of nutrition writing. Because you are still a new seller and don’t have very many reviews, your service will not be featured on the first or second page of the listings.
Eventually, someone might find your service and decide to hire you for $5 for a 1,000-word blog post. You do it because you heard that you need to accept many $5 gigs to move up a level and start getting noticed.
After about 2-3 years of this, and after hopefully being promoted to the top tier, you might be able to make money on Fiverr and charge $100 for a 2,500-word post.
As you can see, trying to make a living off of Fiverr can be very difficult if you use it as your only income source. One of the benefits of telecommuting is you can have multiple income sources, however.
With so many people trying to make a go of Fiverr and the many restrictions, rules, and other issues, many people give up long before they see any real money.
Why Are People So Enthusiastic About Fiverr?
With that dismal outlook of Fiverr, why is it that so many people are so enthusiastic about Fiverr? Why would anyone want to stick with it for so long if they don’t even make a living wage?
People are so enthusiastic about Fiverr because it is a huge marketplace that gets a lot of organic traffic. Many people use it for marketing purposes and as a way to get established in their chosen niches. They also look at the success stories of those who do make a living wage with Fiverr.
In fact, a few people are making 6-figure incomes with Fiverr and bring in between $10,000 and $48,000 every month. But, they didn’t start seeing that kind of money for several years, and they had to specialize in their niche.
People use this platform to upsell their products and services, and they don’t stick to just one service or product. They have several irons in the fire at one time with Fiverr.
However, of the many people who use Fiverr consistently to earn money, only 1% make enough to live on. So can you actually survive as a freelancer on Fiverr is questionable. Most people earn a median monthly income of $60 and must find another means to support themselves. But why is this?
Let’s take a look at some of the disadvantages of Fiverr.
Disadvantages Of Fiverr
While many people paint the picture of a rosy future with Fiverr, including Fiverr itself, there is an entirely different picture for many other people. Since it’s a bidding site, it might not surprise you that they exploit the sellers to earn more money for the company. This makes it particularly difficult to to make money on Fiverr.
Here’s how they exploit people and why Fiverr might not be a place where you want to hang out your shingle:
- They take 20% of each sale. So if you earn $5 per job, they take $1, which means you only get $4 for the job.
- You only get promoted if someone else on the admin team wants to promote you.
- You’re unable to contact a buyer for clarification directly or to fix a bad review.
- There’s too much competition. You can’t make money when several hundred sellers sell the same product or service you are selling.
- Fiverr always sides with the buyer whenever there’s a conflict, no matter how well or poorly the end product turned out.
But Fiverr isn’t all gloom and doom, as there are some ways that you can make a living wage as some people do. There is a large segregted divide between those who can’t stand Fiverr and those who think it’s better than sliced bread.
Let’s take a look at why people like this gig platform.
Advantages Of Fiverr
Many people love Fiverr because they can build their external businesses through the platform. Using Fiverr is a great way how to transition to working for yourself eventually.
They do this through writing short how-to ebooks, shooting how-to videos, and other things that allow the customers to become future clients. But, as you will soon see, they do it in a way so as not to breach Fiverr’s terms of service.
Here are other reasons why people use and enjoy Fiverr:
- Payments from the customer are secured before the sale is completed. Once you complete your work, you are paid within 14 days.
- Many eyes will see your product or service, which could potentially give you a lot of business.
- You have the potential to raise your prices once you are established and have a large following.
- You can set up to 10 different gigs or “profiles” at once. This means that you can earn 10 times as much money, providing all 10 of your gigs are profitable.
These side gigs could turn into a lucrative business or career, but most of the time, they don’t. Side gigs are usually not the lucrative and profitable thing that people hope them to be. Not everyone can stick with this type of job and turn it into a 6-figure income.
That’s why they’re “side gigs” and why people use them in addition to their regular jobs.
Side Gigs Aren’t Often Lucrative
Many people try doing side gigs to either stumble upon a new career or make a little spending money here and there. Most side gigs don’t bring in a lot of money, so they are named as such.
Fiverr is a side gig site, and because of this, you probably won’t make a lot of money with this platform. The amount of time to the amount of money you can earn with a side gig on Fiverr might not be worth it to you.
Whether you’re taking on a side gig to supplement your regular income or you’re taking on a side gig to learn a new skill or get into a new career, you might want to know what’s available to you.
Let’s take a look at some of the side gigs you could encounter and why you might want to try Fiverr anyway.
Writing
While everyone knows how to do writing, writing is a skill that not many people understand the nuances that make someone a great writer. Most writing today is online in the form of blog posts, educational articles, journal articles, and fan fiction. Check out what is freelance writing for a brief industry overview.
It is an activity that most people think they can do, and Fiverr is filled with them. Many people from the US and other countries compete to do the most words for the lowest price. However, if you are at least somewhat decent at writing, you might have a chance to get noticed.
The best thing you can do on Fiverr is to write a short ebook on something you’re an expert in that you can sell for $5 and put your contact information in the book for future contacts.
Editing/Proofreading
If you find yourself proofreading everyone’s Facebook posts, or you count the errors you see on every news site’s news stories, then you might be an editor. Many buyers on Fiverr are looking for proofreaders or editors that can polish their work.
You might try billing yourself out as a resume or essay proofreader. If you can edit a 2,000-word essay in 15-20 minutes, you could potentially earn $15-$20 per hour.
Virtual Assisting
Many people are too busy for their lives and could use an assistant to help them with mundane tasks such as scheduling appointments or writing letters or emails to others. Some people even hire Pinterest managers to help with social media marketing campaigns. Many of these tasks can be done online, and Fiverr is the perfect platform for you to advertise your virtual assisting services.
Graphic Design
While many professional graphic designers say they can instantly spot a logo designed by a Fiverr designer, others can’t tell the difference. That being said, Fiverr does attract a lot of graphic designers who aren’t very talented or have minimal experience advertising their services. Graphic design is one of the highest-paying freelance jobs to make money on Fiverr with if you have the right skills.
If you are good at graphic design, you might want to go elsewhere to find a market for your services. The reason for this is that, like writers, you’ll end up selling yourself short and put way too much time into your work for not a lot of money or accolades.
Social Media Management and Marketing
If they haven’t already, most businesses today want to start a social media marketing campaign. Still, they don’t know where to start, nor do they have the budget to hire a more experienced social media manager.
That’s where you might come in. Mastering social media is one of the skills you need to be a freelancer. If you want to get on Fiverr and know your way around social media, you could potentially make a little money by promoting others’ businesses. some people even make money on UpVoice by doing market research for social media companies.
Hang out your shingle and start promoting yourself and your services on Fiverr.
What To Know Before Joining Fiverr
If you still want to join Fiverr, there are certain things you should know ahead of time, especially if you’re going to succeed. These are something I wish I had been told before joining, as I got banned for life from the site for doing one minor infraction.
What was it? I directly replied to a customer and gave them my email address. That was highly against the rules, and I didn’t know it.
That being said, let’s talk about what you should know before signing up with Fiverr:
- Pay attention to the terms of service. The biggest mistake I made when signing up with this site was that I glossed over the terms of service (TOS) rather than read them thoroughly.
- You lose 20% of your earnings immediately. While Fiverr says this is how they make money, this isn’t a great way for you to make money. For every $10 of products or services you sell, you earn $8. That might not seem like much, but if you made $100 in sales, you would only get $80. That’s not very good when you make a lot of sales.
- You’re competing with thousands of other people. While you have a lot of traffic to take advantage of with Fiverr, you compete with thousands of other people who sell what you sell. If they have a better rating than you or sell the same thing for less money, you’ll lose out on several sales.
- The buyer is always right. Fiverr usually sides with the buyer whenever there is a dispute, even when the facts of the case favor the seller. The buyer can even cancel a sale after the work is complete.
- They promote levels if they want to. Top-rated sellers are only promoted at the staff’s discretion, and if they don’t like you for some reason, you will either stay where you are in rank or go down in rank.
Tips For Making More Money On Fiverr
Many people have had successful careers through Fiverr, even making six figures a year. If you don’t make six figures on this platform, it isn’t something wrong with the system, but because you aren’t taking advantage of all it has to offer.
Here are some tips for earning more money on Fiverr:
- Do more than one transaction at a time: One of the best ways to make more money is to get several transactions done at once. From what I understand, most buyers will only make three requests before moving on, so if you can fulfill their requests quickly and accurately, they will come back to you for other tasks in the future. Even if you have to manage a team remotely, it might be worthwhile if you can have several projects going simultaneously.
- Build good relationships with your customers: If you make a customer happy, they will tell everyone they know how awesome you are. This can make your career soar because word of mouth spreads fast on the Internet.
- Be professional in everything you do: You make a good impression on your customers when you make sure that everything is precise, spelled correctly, and the information in the listing is accurate. This tip will win over more customers than anything else.
Fiverr Alternatives To Check Out
What if you don’t want to use Fiverr, and you want to set your sights higher? Several alternatives list jobs for several types of gigs. And many of the work-at-home job sites list legitimate jobs that can give you better opportunities than Fiverr.
Be sure to watch out for scams, and stick to secure sites. Also, if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
Alternatives For Writers and Editors
There are several marketing sites for writers and editors, but this article will not be covering those. Instead, we will focus on job sites that you can use to find a writing or editing job as a side gig.
The one site that I always send writers and editors to for work opportunities is Problogger. This site does not charge job seekers to look for jobs, and they allow you to apply directly to the employer. I found my best and current job through this site.
Another place you can look for writing jobs is through Indeed. While there are more application requirements in place, you can still find something decent to change your career if that’s what you want to do. You can search for a contract-to-hire job which is the best of both worlds.
Other Work From Home Niches
If writing or editing is not your thing, you might try other job boards such as FlexJobs or MomCorps. Thousands of job listings on other sites cover just about everything you can do online to make money.
There are listings for the following niches:
- Medical or general transcription
- Work from home phone jobs
- Online tutoring
- Medical jobs aside from transcription
- Data entry
- Chat jobs
- Virtual assisting
- Running errands
- Accounting
- Short tasks
However, if you want to find marketing alternatives to Fiverr, good luck. You can try to make money on Upwork, but Fiverr pretty much dominates this niche. Many alternatives tried and failed over the years to the point where Fiverr is the only legitimate gig-sharing platform online today.
So Is It Hard To Make Money On Fiverr?
To make money on Fiverr can be challenging, and it takes a lot of patience and perseverance to realize any significant income.
If you go into it thinking of it as a tool in your marketing toolkit, then you won’t be disappointed with your income. But if you think that you’re going to use it to earn a living exclusively, you may want to look elsewhere.
The bottom line is that making money on Fiverr is a lot like starting a business. There are even tax deductinos for independent contractors putting more money in your pocket. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication at first, but if you make it past the initial learning curve, you should make some good money with this site.
Fiverr is an excellent way to make some quick cash or even make your full-time living. You just have to be committed to doing what it takes to make as much as possible because thousands of other people want the same thing you do: more money for their time.
If you spend hours promoting yourself on social media sites, writing blog posts, and all those other things I mentioned earlier in the article, then Fiverr can be a great source of income for you.
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