Fiverr Community Forum

Do $5 Gigs Blend in?

Your Fiverr Experience Conversations
#1

I am a new seller on fiverr and my services are very cheap, always starting at around $5 or $10. I have gotten one order last month but am not getting anymore or very much attention. The other day I decided to see how someone else would edit my video for only $5 I wanted to see if it was way better or way worse than the quality of product I was offering for the same price. I sent the raw footage of a video I had already edited and then waited for my delivery.

The next day, I recieved my video and went to see what the seller had done. It was really really bad. The music was slow and boring which didn’t fit the video which was a compilation of cool parkour stunts. I had given the seller 4k footage and it was returned in what looked like about 420. The seller had told me he would include a number of effects including reversed clips and slow motion. None of these were included. He used the same 3 transitions in between every single clip throughout the 5 minute video. I would have to say the raw footage was better than the finished video.

After that experience, I was wondering if most $5 gigs are like that, which in that case, buyers would just ignore those gigs. Or was this just a bad gig that didn’t do a great job? If this is normal then i’m definitely going to raise my prices. Please let me know if this is normal or not.

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#2

My Dad used to tell me that you get what you pay for.

Pay $5 for a watch, you get a $5 watch.

Pay $100 for a watch, you get a quality watch.

Simple.

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#3

Ok so you’re saying that if the finished product will be worth more than you should make the price higher, even if you are just trying to get your first sale?

#4

I’m saying that many Buyers will look at $5 Gigs and question the quality.

Stay away from $5 price tags.

Go higher.

You know, $15, $20, $25+.

Only you will know what your skill is worth.

Charging just $5 so you can get some sales is what the majority of newbies here do.

Next time you look over the Forum post titles, count how many say something like, “Help me to get my first order” and then check out their Gigs.

I’d be surprised if most - if not all - of them are $5 Gigs.

Be different.

Be bold.

Charge more than $5.

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#5

Exactly what @looseink said.
I’d add also that most often buyers that only want to spend $5 - or try and barter - seem to be the worst to deal with from my experience. That $5 means a lot to them, and they expect way too much for it.

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#6

You get what you pay for, except when you don’t.

There are some incredibly skilled sellers who price their services at a very low cost, but then there’s a plethora of bargain bin sellers with not an ounce of skill or competence.

On the other side, there are pros who have very high fees but more than make up the price in the quality of their delivery. But then there are overblown, overpriced sellers who won’t even acknowledge your existence unless you cough up their exorbitant fees, and grossly under-deliver in the end.

Price is most definitely not a 100% foolproof determination of quality of outcome, but price definitely influences expectations.

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#7

Thank you very much. I appreciate your help

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#8

Ok thank you for helping. I really appreciate it

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#9

Very good tips. Thank you very much for your help!

#10

Video editing is time consuming. I once edited a music video for a college class, it took me 5-hours, and I wasn’t sure if it was my very best.

For $5, I would not want any project that takes over 15 minutes, with the exception of things I absolutely enjoy.

I disagree, today you can find quality Casio watches for $15, with all the features you could ever want. Price of a good depends on many factors, such as mass production, cost of the materials, etc.

Fiverr is no different than hiring an accountant, lawyer, doctor. You won’t know if your provider is good or bad until the service is delivered.

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#11

Thank you a lot for your help! I do really enjoy video editing and would probably edit much longer for lower price than you suggest. However, i’m sure that lots of buyers think the same thing as you so in that case I will definitely raise prices.

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#12

I would also like to add the following.

In the old days of Fiverr, there was less competition, and I believed that getting more orders with low prices meant making more money. In fact, I did make a lot of money.

Nowadays, I think we’re all getting less orders, which is why many sellers are choosing to make more money per order.

However, don’t raise your prices so much that you get no orders. Look at what your competitors are charging and try to be in their range. If A, B, C are charging $20, $50, $10, you can charge $25 or $15, but I wouldn’t recommend charging $100.

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#13

If $5 clients wanted $5 worth of time/work that would not be a drama. I see people making it clear that they expect top quality Mixing & Mastering which will be 6+ hours for $15**. There is no math that allows for that without death from starvation being the only outcome.

The problem is that most people seem to work on the horribly flawed assumption that a $5 steak must be every bit as good as a $30 steak, or a Hyundai is every bit as good as a Mercedes. While the cheap option should do its job, there is a reason that it cannot be the same price. The steak that the $5 restaurant buys is $1 per portion and cooked by someone (most commonly) untrained whereas the $30 steak costs $10 per portion and is prepared & served by well-trained & experienced people in a nice room.

$5 Gigs are fine if they are $5 work. Otherwise they are a very bad idea for everyone, esp when $5 people try to claim they are better than real professionals who sell quality work for moral pricing (as in it won’t lead to death of either the buyer* or seller).

:slight_smile:

*if you wonder at that ask any experienced Mix Engineer how many times they have to deal with people who show up with butchered mixes that caused the track to tank - not that it is easy to sell any music these days due to the $5 mentality but rotten mixes can’t help the Story of a song to stand out so people don’t hit next before they get emotionally involved.

**and that is before we get into the ball of wack that is people expecting terrible performances being turned into Freddie Mercury with plugins which is a total impossibility. It is not surprising they only want to spend $5 seeing they have already decided to only invest $5 of their own effort into the song (something good acts never fall into).

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#14

When it comes to this kind of stuff I always go with “If I think like that other people think like that too.” And pay attention to what I do when placed in a certain situation. In this case, how do I act when I do shopping? What make me pick an item instead of another?

  • What is it for? Is the first question I ask myself when I’m shopping. If I want a t-shirt to go hiking in the woods I probably won’t even look at the 500$ white tees. I’ll probably go for a cheap dark colored t-shirt, so it won’t be a big deal if it get stained or ripped. And look for something that “breathe” so I don’t sweat my life when I take a walk. But I will go more expensive for the shoes. I don’t want my feet to hurt, I don’t want to slip in the mud or break them if I trip on a branch. I need something confortable and sturdy. So my budget will be way higher for the shoes than for the tee. But I still have a limit, so I’ll probably get the best shoes I can for the money I have. If I can’t afford the 500$ shoes, I’ll probably go for the 250$ shoes. I won’t pay attention to the 10$ shoes because they probably won’t fit my needs, but I will totally go for the cheapest tee I can find.

So by analyzing that I come to that conclusion: My needs play the major role in what I’m willing to pay for something, then comes budget ( If I can afford it or not), aesthetic comes last. Only once I find an item that fulfil my needs and fit my budget, then I’ll pick among the choices I have, the one that visually please me the most.

Now time to apply this to my gig. What do my buyer need? Obviously in my case it’s an illustration, but for what. Most of the time the illustration will represent their brand or their project (Book covers, album covers, game illustrations, etc.). So they need quality first and it shows. I’ve sold my basic package only once and it was as a sample. They want details and printable quality. Good. What is their budget? Obviously they are ready to pay more to have quality since none of them wants my basic package. But at the same time they are all independent artists themselves, so they probably can’t afford a 1000$ illustration, like a big company would. So good quality, mid range budget. And for the aesthetic, since I’m in the illustration field we can just put it in the quality category.

Last step, is to look at my competition and offer a price that’s somewhere in the middle while making sure my illustrations look above average for the price and time put into it. At least, that’s how I roll and so far, so good.

TL;DR Identify who are your customers and how would you shop if you were them.

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