There is no doubt that Fiverr is one of the most famous freelancing websites. It’s known by most freelancers and buyers all around the world. Probably, you also have an account on Fiverr or are thinking of creating one. Whatever the case, I would like to reveal some information and hidden secrets that I learned from my practical experience.
This post can be considered a “Fiverr Review” based on 5 years of real experience and not in a cookie-cutter style.
I had a chance to work on their platform for a couple of years (since 2017). However, I don’t work on Fiverr anymore, nor do I want to. But I still have my profile.
Not to mention, I worked both as a seller & buyer on Fiverr. So I had the chance to see both sides.
Please note: I did not write this review based on my anxiety or failure. I personally did great on Fiverr and earned a lot (see screenshot below). And I still have my profile as proof. However, I have a totally different reason for being successful. So, this “Review” will be honest and unbiased.
Why Fiverr is bad for freelancing?
Fiverr is one of the worst freelance websites, both for freelancers and buyers. During the last five years, I have had many shoddy experiences and seen the struggles of others.
Every day, many people join their platform with great hope and eventually quit because of frustration. Their forum itself is one of many proofs of this statement.
However, Fiverr is a million-dollar company, and I am not their competitor. It does not matter to me if they double their revenue in the next year or quit.
Sharing my experience has only one simple intention: to provide accurate data so you can build your freelance career in the right direction.
Let’s see why the platform is not good.
There is no guarantee that you’ll be getting paid for your work
Think of a situation where a scam buyer wants to get his job done and also wants to get a refund. What do you think? Is it possible?
Yes, this is absolutely possible on Fiverr. A scammer or anyone can use freelancers for free on their platform. All they have to do is ask customer support for a refund, and the support team will return their money immediately. There is no way to inspect or judge the circumstances.
See the screenshot below as proof of my statement.
About the above screenshot: I was hired to develop a WordPress plugin on Fiverr. Once I delivered the order, the buyer instantly asked for a refund. After I denied it, he asked customer support, and one of the support agents canceled the order and immediately refunded the money to the buyer—even without explaining any reasons to me. Then, I contacted customer support and asked them the question that you see in the screenshot. You can also see their answer in the same screenshot.
This happened to me at least five times. Once I delivered the order, those scammers downloaded my plugins/scripts/etc. And asked for refunds. Most importantly, every one of them got a refund.
Because their customer support never manually resolves conflicts or resolutions, you are not guaranteed to get paid for all your work until the buyer releases the funds.
I also worked on another platform (Upwork), where if there is a conflict between a freelancer and a client, Upwork manually reviews the conflict as a third party and makes the decision. So, there is accountability.
However, on Fiverr, there is no accountability when it comes to initiating refunds. It always goes to the buyer’s fever, even if the buyer is a scammer.
The lowest pricing model on Fiverr
Fiverr is one of the cheapest freelancing websites, and you can expect anything for just $5. If you don’t know, its name came from the “5” (five).
Also, the freelancers were bound to sell everything for five dollars until 2013. Though they lifted the starting price, freelancers can now increase their base price among three packages. But their marketplace still encourages & influences to have a 5-dollar price (indirectly).
It’s a totally different and awkward platform that does not honor the global market price or the actual price of a specific service.
As a result, most low-budget customers come to buy on their platform. Another big problem is that these low-budget buyers underestimate everyone.
No matter how experienced you are or the dignity you deserve, they will chase you for being cheap, and if you do not agree with their price, they will not hesitate to insult you. See the screenshot that shows one of many conversations with a low-budget client.
One single client does not represent overall buyers, but I have seen them a lot.
They generally become astonished after getting a quote and try to underestimate & insult the freelancers. They don’t even try to understand the difference between quantity & quality.
So, if you’re a freelancer and thinking about starting your career with full-time freelancing, I will not suggest Fiverr as a valid option.
Fiverr’s priority on quantity over quality
Fiverr shows gigs at the top of search results with many orders in the queue. That means if a gig has 7/30 existing orders, Fiverr will push those gigs to the top.
As a result, bad freelancers take fake orders from their friends and families to manipulate the algorithm. That means anyone who can invest money to manipulate the system will win the game.
Also, Fiverr will send you more prospects if you deliver many orders. To comply with this strategy, many writers write 20/30 articles every day; designers produce 50/70 logos per day, and so on and so forth.
Before starting to build my own team, I hired many writers on Fiverr. The above screenshot shows my conversation with an article writer with 90+ orders in the queue.
I hired the guy to write two articles, so I ordered twice. Do you see in his message that he already has 90+ orders?
That means he had to write 90 articles daily because his gig was set to 24-hour delivery.
Can you imagine how in the world it’s possible to write 90 articles within a day? If so, what would be the quality?
I don’t know about you, but in my personal experience, I think those are garbage.
But this is how Fiverr works, and this is how they make money. The more garbage you can deliver, the more orders you will receive.
So, if you need to hire a freelancer, you need to consider whether you want just quantity or quality. I hope this will help you make a decision as a buyer.
Insecure freelance career on Fiverr
The freelance career on Fiverr is totally insecure and vulnerable. The freelancers try to do anything and everything to get orders. Only a few of them are able to make a good amount of money, but their accounts are still insecure.
Fiverr can ban or remove freelancers’ accounts for any reason, even without a reason or system bug.
I saw many freelancers on their forum who had been working for more than 5+ years, and many of them had high rankings. But their accounts were banned, removed, or blocked.
Some of the freelancers said that they didn’t even know the reason. A few of them received email confirmation regarding the ban, but they claimed that it was not the true reason described in the email.
See the screenshot below that shows a top-rated freelancer who was banned after 8 years of his career without a valid reason (according to his explanation).
You can also read the whole conversation & history on the Fiverr forum. Before I conclude this topic, I would like to quote the last few sentences:
Your account is not as a valuable business as you think! It’s not a business at all…It’s just one mouse click from a fresh graduate can make you loss 8 years of work.
nine_tails_fox
So if you’re a freelancer who is trying hard to build a career, think wisely if you’re not wasting valuable time, effort & reputation on the wrong platform.
Related: Why you should not depend on freelance marketplaces.
Fiverr is destroying entrepreneurs
Fiverr (indirectly) allows people to sell 3rd party tools, software, themes, plugins, and other digital assets.
For example, many sellers sell premium themes, plugins, SEO tools, etc. But it’s totally illegal to sell those items because they are not the owners of those products, nor are they allowed to do so.
On the other hand, many bad buyers are buying those digital products from Fiverr instead of going to the original distributor.
As a result, entrepreneurs and tech industries lose money every day. Fiverr could prevent those illegal sales, but they don’t stop them.
Fiverr would take immediate action when it comes to their loss. For example, if a freelancer transacts outside of their platform, then they will definitely take a step toward it. However, they ignore those illegal sales until they are transacted inside the platform. After all, they also make money from those illegal sales.
The above screenshot is just an example, but there are hundreds of them. Some of you may think that it’s just the installation of the themes & plugins. But if you open the gigs and see the details, it will become clear to you. See the below screenshot as an example of a gig description:
Otherwise, the titles on the screenshot also indicate the license. However, no one is allowed to resell or disburse those digital products. Also, some of them are nulled/pirated themes and plugins.
So, Fiverr is a big threat to entrepreneurs and tech industries. If you’re a solid person, never buy illegal products/services.
Bad customer support on Fiverr
Fiverr customer support is one of the worst places. They don’t like anyone to contact them, and even if you do, they generally give copy-paste template answers.
In my personal experience, I contacted them several times, and I found most of their answers were the same (line by line). These are generally stock answers, and they just copy and paste.
See the screenshot below as proof.
After I met all the requirements for being top-rated, they did not promote me because it was a manual process. After a few months, I thought it was better to contact them. Maybe they did not read my question and answered me just by seeing the title/subject of the ticket.
In the above screenshot, you see that I contacted them four times within a six-month period. I wrote different subject lines each time and asked questions differently, but I received the exact same answers that were copied from their template.
It seems they also have not updated their template in a long period of time, don’t they?
However, it’s not about my story. It’s all about their environment. If you go to their forum, you’ll see how upset their sellers are! Let me help you to find a few of the forum posts:
- Fiverr’s TERRIBLE, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Customer Service
- Worst customer service do not use ever
- Very bad experience with Fiverr customer support
- Worst customer service
I could show you a couple more hundred bad experiences. However, you got the idea, aren’t you?
Fraudulent activities on Fiverr
Fiverr is a breeze for fraud buyers. In many cases, these frauds get their jobs done for free, and the freelancers always become the victims.
Generally, frauds initiate refund requests intentionally and always win the game. For example, at the beginning stage, I wrote some code, and once I delivered the order, the buyer downloaded the code and initiated a refund.
However, the buyer was very happy during the development process and confirmed to me that he got everything as expected. He asked me to send the file to him, and as soon as I sent it, he downloaded it and asked for a refund. Actually, this was on his mind from the very beginning, but I have not understood. See the screenshot below, which will make everything clear to you.
In the above screenshot, you saw that I was hired to fix a theme (code), and I rewrote the theme and fixed everything. Then, the buyer confirmed with me and told me to send the file. But as soon as I sent it, he opened a dispute, asked for a refund, and complained that I had removed important files. It was a total lie. Also, the buyers can always download the code from their order page (delivery).
What can you do against these frauds?
This type of case has happened to me several times, and it has also happened to many other freelancers.
However, as a freelancer, you have nothing to do if the buyer initiates a refund. Fiverr itself happily declares that it will not give you the money until the buyer accepts the work. No matter if you completed the whole task successfully or as per the agreement. The buyers are always king on Fiverr. And most frauds take this advantage & misuse this opportunity. If a buyer asks for a refund, you have nothing to do except leave it in God’s hands.
However, Fiverr is still in a safe situation, and its profit is still there. Because they will not send the refunded amount to the buyer’s bank account and will keep it in the Fiverr balance. That means the buyer has to spend the money only on Fiverr in the future. So Fiverr can get their profit and use the money that was held on their balance.
They say that they created this system to protect sellers, but in reality, it only protects their company. The sellers are never protected; they are the victims.
Do you still think that Fiverr is a legitimate platform for freelancing? I don’t know about you, but I decided to leave their platform (although I still have the profile).
Fiverr is a barrier to startup businesses and individuals
Many of their promotional strategies & campaigns are trying to educate that people are wasting their money with existing freelancers & agencies who run their businesses outside Fiverr.
According to a document on Wikipedia, one of their advertisement was “You’re paying too much for design.”
Actually, Fiverr is trying to tell people that they are spending more money than is unnecessary. They can provide the design service at a lower cost on their platform.
But in reality, they are making freelancers poor and serving below-average services.
If you do not agree with me on this topic, you can search on YouTube and see what people got after ordering on their platform. Let me help with one example that has been reviewed by Ahrefs and the link below contains their experience on Fiverr.
Conclusion
Fiverr is a rating & quantity-focused freelancing platform. Their main marketing strength & tool is the cheap pricing model. The more ratings & orders a freelancer has, the better chance he/she gets.
Freelancers have no security when it comes to disputes or refunds. They can ban any freelancer at any time, even without any valid reason. Their customer support is one of the worst and most angry teams, and they don’t want the freelancers to contact them.
Therefore, many freelancers are trying hard to land a job on their platform, and many of them quit every day. Also, there are some freelancers who are able to make money on their platform, and that’s a nice thing to hear about. But there is no guarantee or consistency. Anything can happen to anyone at any time.
As I said at the beginning, this review is not biased anyway. However, I posted some screenshots and references based on my personal experience. These are required to prove the different circumstances and elaborate on their overall environment. My main goal is to write an honest review and help others, especially freelancers, so they can make wise decisions and invest their time, money, and energy where it matters.
