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A Fiverr in the old days was a Fiverr

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#1

Been here since several years but just found out the past weeks how much fiverr has changed over the time.

When I came here 2010, a fiverr was what you had to pay to get what the Gig offered.
Example: Design a logo with X reviews
I bought it and I have been given the psd file as well. Done deal.

Example: Create voice message for answering machine.
I bought it and was able to put it on my business answering machine. Done deal.

So today it is all different.

Example: Design a logo with X reviews
You have to pay an extra for the psd file. I’m not sure why since most sellers won’t offer many reviews. If you can’t hit the nail after 3 reviews and drop the gig, how much sense makes it at all? None of the logo providers were able to hit the nail but we were close for several projects and I was able to finish it on my own based on their psd file. Not possible anymore today.

Example: Create voice message for answering machine.
Today I have to pay an extra fee for “commercial use”? Sorry to say but most people coming here are using the stuff for their business. So choosing a Gig for my answering machine should already include this fee - AS it did several years ago.

So, it all changed from a fiverr to “very limited basics which are only targeted to lead you to extra gigs”. I was far more happier with the old fiverr.

Now, I assume that some sellers might now jump on this post so let me make this clear upfront: You chose to sell service for a fiverr.

Even if this might sound harsh but for me fiverr decreased in quality and what you get for your money. 2010,2011,2012 were years where a fiverr was worth something, I got more for my fiverr. Today I get far less. And yes, people come here because they want or can only afford to spend a fiverr.

What happened?

#2

Well, just go to a bidding site and make it clear in your listing that you budget is just $5 for whatever. You are entitled to pay what you want, just as sellers are entitled to set their prices and what they will do for them. The only thing that changed was that Fiverr has made it easier to do so. Besides, inflation is a thing…

#3

Uhm, it’s not about going to a bidding site, it would be the same if I would say that sellers should go to freelancer sites when they want to make more money.
We are still talking about a fiverr and we had much more of it. Inflation does nothing have to do if you have to pay more than 600% in addition just to get what you used to get before ie source file or the use of the voice message on your answering machine (just two examples). So what you currently get for a fiverr is not any longer that useful as before and that is what fiverr should think about.

#4

Maybe where you live $5 is a lot of money but after the 20% is removed that leaves $4, from which 15% self employment tax is removed leaving $3.40.

Paypal also removes some from that original $4. So from that $5 we get about $3.20.

I wouldn’t put in 7 days a week as I do now for that. I wouldn’t work here at all because it wouldn’t be worth it to me.

I would earn $320 a month for working 12 hours a day 7 days a week. That wouldn’t even pay for my car insurance. It depends on where a seller lives. It’s terribly expensive where I live. The minimum wage workers get here is $15 an hour and even that is considered not enough to live on.

#5

$5 might be not a lot but it’s still about a job for a fiverr. Everyone should know that you can not get rich by fiverr jobs only but this wasn’t the intention as far as I understood it. It was a site where you could make a fiverrr on the side.
Again, its only about the two examples I gave:
A source file should come with the logo - what sense does it make when the seller does not offer many reviews and still did not get the logo right? Wasted $5. Or, the seller offers it only in a low resolution.
What about the answering machine message which might be naturally only business related, since I’m not sure how many people are using fiverr to get those messages/greetings on their personal voice box. So, it makes no sense to charge additional money for it.

I know I won’t change anything with this but this is my Fiverr story - you don’t get any longer the value as you did in the past.

#6

So pay $10 or $15. Or even $20. It’s still cheap. From $20 the seller only gets $16 before he takes out taxes. And if you want to pay only $5 find a seller who will do it for $5.
I hire a designer for $5 who does an amazing job every time with unlimited revisions. No problems and it’s beautiful work. Maybe only hire top sellers with thousands of great reviews is the answer. There are some great designers here who do amazing work for only $5.

#7

I’m sorry, but for every kind of service you have listed in your example, there are still gigs priced at $5. You and other posters on this topic always seem to completely miss this point.

That said, yes, there are a lot of sellers who price services over $5. However, in almost every case these are sellers who have been offering their service on Fiverr for a long time, have 100’s (sometimes thousands of reviews) and in many cases get 100’s of requests for work each week.

Now, anyone who sells anything doesn’t sit back and keep their price at the most basic when they are overwhelmed with demand for their product do they? Even the price in charity shops goes up with inflation.

I’m sorry, but I can never understand the mentality/arrogance? of this kind of rant. I buy as well as sell on Fiverr and have never spent over a fiver for a service. All you’re highlighting is the fact that you want something that at least two people are selling. One of these people is selling this service for $5 and another is selling for a greater amount and you want the service being sold at a higher markup but don’t want to pay more than $5. That’s like me filling up my car and telling the attendant at the station that I want to pay what I did in 2010 for a full tank, it’s still just gas after all…

As for people coming here because they can only afford to spend a fiver, the majority of people who use Fiverr actually sell work on elsewhere as their own. However, if someone out there is seriously looking to establish a business with a $5 logo, a $5 answering machine and so on, well… Good luck!

#8

Good point. A $5 logo and $5 answering machine message to start a business and anything more will break the budget-- you’re right that might indicate a tough road ahead.

#9

I’m sorry but Sellers are coming to fiverr to make a quick buck. The buyer is usually not interested in your own fees, this is up to your very own.
See you are in luck and found a great designer. Its not about the design but the gig as you see in my post.

1 Like
#10

@cyaxrex
With your statement about buyers coming to buy a logo for $5 you are telling everyone that they are cheap. This site is called fiverr for a reason, right?

You didn’t get that I was talking about the past and wonder why it changed. There are still sellers here that sell for $5 but not everyone. And yes, in some cases you have to be specific. Not everyone speaks the same language so if you are looking for a message other than english, you might not have a big pool.

Mentally/arrogance rant? Thanks for going personal instead of having a mature discussion. Well done. See the world outside your own cosmos, it is far bigger and other people have other needs than you.
Doing a business on $5? Sorry but you are the seller here not me and didn’t get the message. I’m talking about how it used to be on fiverr.

#11

@misscrystal
So you as the seller are telling that all your customers don’t get their business right because they make a $5 business with you?
Seriously, stop talking bad about buyers - we are usually your customers and I am just staying that we got more in the past years than now.

#12

Firstly, I like my cosmos and I’m sure you would. Please feel free to visit sometime.

To address your point as clearly and objectively as possible, though, let’s say you start selling on Fiverr. You set up a gig priced at $5 and start getting some orders. Now, as you get more established, you get more and more people who want to order your services. In this case, you have to extend your (typically 2 day) delivery time to cope.

At this point, though, you loose some custom because people don’t want to have to wait any longer for you to deliver. Gradually, though, you again find yourself overwhelmed with orders. In this case, you either take advantage of people’s need for your service and charge a little more to make your work finally worth your time, or you take a charitable, “I’m going to work for $5 no matter what,” altogether charitable approach to selling.

Now sorry, but you would never expect anyone offering a service anywhere else to do that. Also, for a lot of people, demand becomes so great that it simply isn’t possible to service clients needs from a “Fiverr’s just something you do on the side for a bit of ebay money” perspective.

Aside then, from the above, a lot of buyers seem to assume that because Fiverr is called Fiverr, anything produced for a fiverr must be very easy to do. In this case, a lot of buyers have no problem asking for multiple revisions because their brief has changed etc. All sellers, therefore, do when they charge for things like extra revisions, is protect themselves from sitting for hours re-doing work for nothing.

Lastly, I work other places as well as Fiverr and sell exactly the same services that I do here for $5, for $20-$30. Fiverr is the only platform, though, where some people seem to get upset when some sellers start selling services for more than $5. - I really can’t understand this. Not when other people do offer these services for $5. This is why I accused your original post as being arrogant. My apologies though if I came across as a little too venomous. Like I said, though, I just can’t understand it…

#13

The designer I hire for $5 who does amazing work always has at least 25 orders in his queue. I wait a week to get my orders from him. And I always tip him. I am always delighted by his work.

There is no reason not to search around for such a seller if that’s what you want.

There are many sellers like this still. Just find a great seller who still only charges $5 if that’s important to you.

#14

@cyaxrex
Sorry, seems from a sellers point you can’t get what I mean. So all I can say is, read again.
And yes, people coming here are expecting services for $5 thats what it is all about. Its not about giving you something little and exclude everything else. Maybe the seller who takes to many orders might not be able to meet the timeline or whatever so he is spending more time overall and needs to compensate it somehow. I don’t know and thats ok. Again, one more time: It worked in the past very well and no one complained.
In addition, it is not about sellers who are doing great jobs, it is about the fiverr system that changed over the years. Please have a read on all my posts.

#15

@misscrystal
I do not say anything about your great designer. It is awesome that you found him and I respect that for sure! I don’t care about waiting time, I care about the basic things. Like, again, the source file for a logo or the right to use a voice file without buying an additional gig. Its simple and common sense when fiverr started and did for all those years. Its all about that not the designer delivering quality work.

#16

Dollar stores used to be a dollar… You go in and everything is a dollar and over time… Dollar stores still sell things for a dollar, but not everything in the store is a dollar. Every business has to evolve over time. Its great to say Back in the day a movie ticket was a nickel but today to take my family is an equivalent of a monthly bill.

Fiverr has evolved, and yet its still Fiverr. Many people offer things for $5 including some extras depending on the sellers, but Fiverr evolved to offer those options its the sellers who make the final call and the rules shouldn’t “limit” sellers to be able to offer their services because it doesn’t fit with the philosophy. The principal is there, gigs are $5 but you might not get AS much as you used to be able to get, but $20 doesn’t buy me a lot of groceries anymore either. I can’t go to the store and say I loved it how it was 5 years ago, I could get more, can you bring that back. Everything evolves/inflates and its only a matter of knowing that this changes will come, with every business/industry.

Fiverr started the way it did to grow itself and now the growth period is saturated need to expand itself. Its only natural. As buyer and seller all we can do is adopt to the changes in ways that are suitable, and if they are not for either party then can migrate some where else. The reality of things.

Just saying it like it is.

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#17

Well if it’s only another $5 and you really know the designer or voiceover artist does great work, since you can tell from the samples and reviews, is it too much to pay $10 or $15 instead of $5? It might be according to where you live, I’m just asking.

Nothing stays the same forever especially on the internet. The only sure thing is change.

#18

About 4 years ago I would get a weeks worth of food for $80. Not it’s more like $200 for the same things.

#19

Well, I suppose this could go round and round. It would be interesting, though, to compare how many sellers using Fiverr and selling services for $5 there were in 2010 compared to now. My guess is that there will actually be more now because people know that if they put the work in and build up enough of a reputation they can actually make a decent living on Fiverr.

In this case, knowing that services can eventually be extended to make more money is an incentive for people to use Fiverr which should be good for buyers like you because it gives you access to a phenomenal amount of talent and variety of services. In fact, you could say that this might even be the reason that Fiverr is still alive and doing well.

Yahoo worked but it doesn’t anymore because it didn’t adapt to the marketplace. TV worked but is gradually being replaced by online services. Horses still work but a lot of people use SUV’s…See, could go on forever. I still don’t think its fair though to imply that Fiverr isn’t Fiverr anymore because SOME people sell services for more than $5. Most do, me included.

#20

OK, your emphasis was on Fiverr services not being $5 anymore because the site evolved. My point was really just that if it bugs you enough to write about it on the forum, the bidding sites are another alternative.

Besides, the website makes more money, and considering how cheap so many services here are even with the extras, I just don’t really see the issue. For example, that voice message gig isn’t really about the source file/commercial use, it’s also paying for the microphone, the professional software license, the time of the seller, the internet bill, rent (etc). All you really need to do is look at new sellers who offer what you want and don’t have the extras. A bidding site just saves you some research time… isn’t it just easier to pay the extra money to get the extra–if you need it?

I mean, you’re German. $5 isn’t that much money (it’s around €4.50, I think?). If you were in a country with a horrible USD exchange rate, you’d have a point. As it is, if you don’t like it, then you don’t need to use it. We all have options. As sellers, of course we’re going to raise our prices when we can and it works out. The only thing that concerns this is supply and demand.