Add SEPA bank transfer; remove transfer fees

[buschgeology]

Now that fiverr officially has a German language version, how about offering SEPA bank transfer for withdrawing earnings? International bank transfers are expensive to receive in Germany and not everybody wants to use PayPal, as their privacy protection is practically nonexistent and they ask absurd rates for currency conversion ($ to € in this case), on top of their own transfer fees.

Furthermore, I believe that after you already took a whopping 20 % commission off our earnings (which is absurd in itself), bank transfers should be free on your side, period. Charging another $3 for actually handing over the money feels like extortion to me. In order to get any meaningful hourly rate out of my gigs, I’d have to ask prices that nobody would be willing to pay.

It boggles my mind that freelancers all around the world seem to be okay with these conditions. I for one will be looking for alternatives.

[maitasun]

International bank transfers are expensive

Costs of having an international business

not everybody wants to use PayPal

I get better rates using Payoneer

whopping 20 % commission off our earnings (which is absurd in itself)

How is 20% absurd? Do you have any idea how much it costs to run a website like this? I personally don’t, but I know how much it would cost me to create a structure to sell my own services, advertise, bring in clients, revenue, etc.

Fiverr is the only place I’m aware of I don’t need to do much to have orders coming in, and I’m extremely happy paying 20% for all of this.

Charging another $3 for actually handing over the money feels like extortion to me

That, I believe, are the payment processors fee, so no directly related to Fiverr.

I’d have to ask prices that nobody would be willing to pay

Have you actually tried? How do you know no one would be willing to pay?

It boggles my mind that freelancers all around the world seem to be okay with these conditions

It’s an international marketplace and it seems you’re coming from a very narrow minded perspective. There are places where the minimum wage is $100/monthly and I’m sure there are places even lower than that…it’s a big world!

I for one will be looking for alternatives.

That’s only fair, but you could have done without this post though

There are places where the minimum wage is $100/monthly and I’m sure there are places even lower than that…it’s a big world!

Yes, Urdeke, you’re right. There are… Venezuela’s minimum wage is $4.

[maitasun]

What does that mean effectively? There are actually people living on that amount or in reality most people makes over that threshold?

I know things have been rough over there for a while, but about 10 years back I met a group of Venezuelans and they were all incredibly loaded, which I guess it makes sense if they can afford living/studying abroad. But since then I been lowkey fascinated and wanted to visit Venezuela.

What does that mean effectively? There are actually people living on that amount

Yes, exactly that! Especially the elderly whose only income is their pension.

Some families have it a bit easier, since several of their members have migrated and can send them monthly payments. Not much, though, about $100. But that’s better than nothing.

but about 10 years back I met a group of Venezuelans and they were all incredibly loaded, which I guess it makes sense if they can afford living/studying abroad.

Back then it was quite different, but even then not everyone had the wealth you saw on those you met.

When it refers to Venezuela’s past 20 years, and the luxury shown overseas, be careful - all that glitters isn’t gold. You never know where the money came from.

But since then I been lowkey fascinated and wanted to visit Venezuela.

Urdeke, it’s my country. A beautiful, generous and wonderful one, with people and places that would win your heart, but I would advise you not to attempt visiting here.

[coerdelion]

That’s very sad, Maitasun … and I think Brazil is in the same boat right now …

[maitasun]

That’s very sad, Maitasun … and I think Brazil is in the same boat right now …

That’s very sad, Maitasun …

Coerdelion, it has been the biggest looting in Human History that anyone has done against any nation. But even so, we still keep our joy, our happiness. Always seeing the bright side of life and making jokes out of what could hurt us most. That’s something these people will be having a hard time - a very hard one - to take away from us. 😉

[tamarapereir397]

Now that fiverr officially has a German language version, how about offering SEPA bank transfer for withdrawing earnings? International bank transfers are expensive to receive in Germany and not everybody wants to use PayPal, as their privacy protection is practically nonexistent and they ask absurd rates for currency conversion ($ to € in this case), on top of their own transfer fees.

Furthermore, I believe that after you already took a whopping 20 % commission off our earnings (which is absurd in itself), bank transfers should be free on your side, period. Charging another $3 for actually handing over the money feels like extortion to me. In order to get any meaningful hourly rate out of my gigs, I’d have to ask prices that nobody would be willing to pay.

It boggles my mind that freelancers all around the world seem to be okay with these conditions. I for one will be looking for alternatives.

It boggles my mind that freelancers all around the world seem to be okay with these conditions.

You work through Fiverr! it’s like Fiverr is a company you work for. If you work in.a store you will not receive the same value the store makes. Fiverr gets you the clients. Of course they deserve to charge a fee for that. Otherwise, what’s the point? If you want you can work by yourself but I doubt you can get as many clients as in any freelancing site and all of them take commissions. I don’t get you or any person who comes vent about Fiverr commissions. Of course could be less but it’s not. Maybe one day.

[lisamar94]

Here in Dominican Republic, minimum wage is about $5-6 DAILY (converting the dominican peso to USD), and that includes quite a few full-time jobs. A housemaid for every single day, that stays Mon-Friday and leaves on Saturday, can usually make around $160 monthly.

Yes, Fiverr has a commission that still hurts me, and yes, the payment is super slow, BUT, the amount of clients/jobs I get access to (and a lot of them are repeating customers), is overwhelming. Also, Fiverr has a lot of features that other websites do not; even if those websites charge less commission or pay faster, I still do not get nowhere as many clients as through Fiverr…

I guess, I’ve just had to accept this fact, because honestly it’s the website that has been giving me the most results!

[buschgeology]

International bank transfers are expensive

Costs of having an international business

not everybody wants to use PayPal

I get better rates using Payoneer

whopping 20 % commission off our earnings (which is absurd in itself)

How is 20% absurd? Do you have any idea how much it costs to run a website like this? I personally don’t, but I know how much it would cost me to create a structure to sell my own services, advertise, bring in clients, revenue, etc.

Fiverr is the only place I’m aware of I don’t need to do much to have orders coming in, and I’m extremely happy paying 20% for all of this.

Charging another $3 for actually handing over the money feels like extortion to me

That, I believe, are the payment processors fee, so no directly related to Fiverr.

I’d have to ask prices that nobody would be willing to pay

Have you actually tried? How do you know no one would be willing to pay?

It boggles my mind that freelancers all around the world seem to be okay with these conditions

It’s an international marketplace and it seems you’re coming from a very narrow minded perspective. There are places where the minimum wage is $100/monthly and I’m sure there are places even lower than that…it’s a big world!

I for one will be looking for alternatives.

That’s only fair, but you could have done without this post though

Have you actually tried? How do you know no one would be willing to pay?

I have raised my prices and since then haven’t had a single sale. My service is a niche product (scientific writing/proofreading) that doesn’t seem to match the usual crowd here, so I’m guessing higher prices aren’t helping.

[lisamar94]

Have you actually tried? How do you know no one would be willing to pay?

I have raised my prices and since then haven’t had a single sale. My service is a niche product (scientific writing/proofreading) that doesn’t seem to match the usual crowd here, so I’m guessing higher prices aren’t helping.

It might be a silly question, but have you offered your services in the Buyers Request section??

I’m just wondering, honestly, because 90% of my sales are from BR! Even if I’ve increased my prices. Through that section, I continue having repeat buyers. However, I understand that not all of the categories work in the same way, and I get it.

[tatjanamitevska]

I get you. I do bank transfer and it absurd.
Between the absurd exchange rate from $ for euro and the transfer fee.
I adopted a different strategy on Fiverr and I would suggest you do the same. I compete in the segment where people are looking for quality and in this segment you don’t compete in price but in quality of your delivery. I ask the amount that I like ( around 1000 euro per order for big orders).
My price = my hourly rate+20% that I give to Fiverr+ unrealistic exchange rate dollar to euro+ bank transfer + time if the clients want revision.
If you are from Germany compete in differentiation , there are not a lot of people from Germany in the platform thats your unique selling point and ask the price you would ask in Germany trust me if the quality of the work is great people will buy it.

*Also in the analytics page I have my earnings in euro and in earnings page in dollars. When I do custom offer I can’t do it in euro so I need to look for a currency exchange rate online which is never the one Fiverr is using. Since fiverr is starting to aggressively market itself in Europe they should change this things and I hope they will.

[buschgeology]

It might be a silly question, but have you offered your services in the Buyers Request section??

I’m just wondering, honestly, because 90% of my sales are from BR! Even if I’ve increased my prices. Through that section, I continue having repeat buyers. However, I understand that not all of the categories work in the same way, and I get it.

That’s not silly at all, because I didn’t know about that section! Thank you for the heads up! Checking it out now, I only find an empty table saying “no buyer requests”. As I understand the help article about it, that means nobody is currently requesting services in my field, correct? If you have any more insights to share about how that works, feel free to message me so we don’t derail this topic.

[janali]

If the exchange rates from Dollar to Euro were at least accurate, that would be nice. But somehow Fiverr uses its own predefined exchange rate which never added up with rates you can find on google for example.
I see where OP is coming from to be honest. If someone living in America has a 5 Dollar job, they get 4 Dollar in the end. If I (in Germany for example) get a 5 Dollar gig, I get 3.55 Euro minus processing fees.
In order to receive minimum wage in Germany (9.35 Euro per hour), I would have to finish 2,.6 x 5 Dollar orders per hour. In comparison, I’ve read here on the forum that some sellers are able to afford a school semester for 5 Dollar.
Of course, living standards are different all over the world. But especially then I would think they would implement some way to charge e.g. German customers in Euro without the exchange rates considered.
If I had a 5 Euro gig, not only I would profit off that, but Fiverr would, too.

[janali]

If the exchange rates from Dollar to Euro were at least accurate, that would be nice. But somehow Fiverr uses its own predefined exchange rate which never added up with rates you can find on google for example.

That’s a fairly common practice and it’s called spread, that’s why I try to never use my credit card abroad for example, because banks rate will always be the absolute worst because of their spread. I like Payoneer, for example, because their spread is 2%, so I know that at all times all I have to do to know Payoneer’s rate is to Google the currency and multiply it by 0.98, and that would give me the effective rate.

If someone living in America has a 5 Dollar job, they get 4 Dollar in the end. If I (in Germany for example) get a 5 Dollar gig, I get 3.55 Euro minus processing fees.

But this makes sense, somewhere along the payment process you’ll have a currency conversion, that’s a service that’s being provided to you, and as such it should be charged.

The only way I see around that is to freelance in an European platform that has Euro as their default currency, but as a rule of thumb any international company will use USD.

But especially then I would think they would implement some way to charge e.g. German customers in Euro without the exchange rates considered.

I feel like that’s too much hassle tbh and it’d make everything more confusing for buyers. Have you seen the German version of Fiverr? It could be things are set in Euro there? Unlikely but worth checking out maybe?

If I had a 5 Euro gig, not only I would profit off that, but Fiverr would, too.

I hardly think so, because now they would have to deal with a different currency and they’d be the ones to have to convert it to work that up in their books. I’m no accountant so I don’t know how interesting that would be to them from a financial point of view

the German version of Fiverr? It could be things are set in Euro there? Unlikely but worth checking out maybe?

They are already implementing Euro automatically for German customers. If I preview my gig, it says 4 Euro something automatically, or when I send a custom offer it directly converts it into Euro in the offer which makes for really odd prices like 132,45€ instead of 150 Dollar for example.

And my point was that if they just took it as 150€ instead of those weird Euro prices, and then when they deduct their fee off the order when it’s completed and the payment is ready for withdrawal, then they could add the conversion fee so that the buyer doesn’t even notice this because it’s on the seller’s side of the process. But I suppose some clever buyers may call it a scam then because they technically are being charged more (which they wouldn’t notice if there was no switch between euro and dollar in the process)

As it is right now, this is also difficult because I can only really calculate my prices in Dollar. So say I tell the client their order will cost 150 Dollar and only then do I send a custom offer (if they want an estimate before) then the actual price will be a completely different one because the custom offer then shows the converted amount in Euro plus fees, so I can never make an accurate estimation of what my services would cost a European client.

[janali]

the German version of Fiverr? It could be things are set in Euro there? Unlikely but worth checking out maybe?

They are already implementing Euro automatically for German customers. If I preview my gig, it says 4 Euro something automatically, or when I send a custom offer it directly converts it into Euro in the offer which makes for really odd prices like 132,45€ instead of 150 Dollar for example.

And my point was that if they just took it as 150€ instead of those weird Euro prices, and then when they deduct their fee off the order when it’s completed and the payment is ready for withdrawal, then they could add the conversion fee so that the buyer doesn’t even notice this because it’s on the seller’s side of the process. But I suppose some clever buyers may call it a scam then because they technically are being charged more (which they wouldn’t notice if there was no switch between euro and dollar in the process)

As it is right now, this is also difficult because I can only really calculate my prices in Dollar. So say I tell the client their order will cost 150 Dollar and only then do I send a custom offer (if they want an estimate before) then the actual price will be a completely different one because the custom offer then shows the converted amount in Euro plus fees, so I can never make an accurate estimation of what my services would cost a European client.

this is what I mean, the Dollar price is 15 $, in Euro it’s 13.97 plus fees for the buyer. If they would just keep it as 15 Euro, both Fiverr and the seller would profit off of that instead of making it even less profitable for a European seller by taking the (more or less) accurate converted price and then adding and deducting fees because I don’t think people fully understand the point of Fiverr if the basic gig price is 4.66 € instead of, well, a fiver.

yes, i just realized that there is a punctuation error in my proofreading gig. 😃