You can construct your prices in a way that takes fees into an account, for both standard gigs and custom offers. Your buyer doesn’t need to know that you include 20% fee into the price. I don’t think it’s against the ToS per se but it might be considered an attempt at manipulating the buyer in a certain context (“poor me, I have 20% fee to be taken away”) and you absolutely don’t need that.
Also, it’s kind of irrelevant information for the buyer, I suppose. They either agree to pay the price or not.
No, there is no need to explain the make-up of your prices.
Similarly, no need to mention your rent, any drug habit you might need to feed or the over-eating teenagers you are supporting.
None of your expenses are relevant to clients. Your price is the price you charge.
I disagree. It is not appropriate in the vast majority of cases. However, sometimes buyers need slapping with a reality check for their own good.
I get people all the time asking me to work for less or include the likes of pricey stock footage in videos. In the latter case, I have to point out that I do not have a magical ability to source several stock video clips for $60+ each to use in a video that I can sell to them for $60 in total.
Likewise, there is a peculiar species of buyer who orders direct once in a while, then gets it into their head that any subsequent work will be heavily discounted. Usually, these aren’t the kind of people who will take no for an answer easily. Often, they also message asking for discounts before having reviewed already delivered work. (Thereby making it feel like there is the unsaid threat of a negative review hanging in the air.)
With anyone like that, I simply say that I takeaway less than 70% on any order, and as such, my rates are already discounted.
There is no need to elaborate further than that, but it does usually work to deliver a "no, you are not getting a discount you cheap expletive expletive" message more gently than just saying "on your bike."
I tell them that my prices are much lower than the standard industry rates. Or that they’re already discounted, and that I can’t lower them any further.
In that case why not explain the value of your work instead of what your profit margin is? No competent, good buyer bases their purchase on your profit margin. Good business people know they pay for value not vendor’s costs.
Anyone who haggles does it because they don’t understand or appreciate your value. You don’t need to share your profit margins to stop the haggling and that approach wouldn’t prevent it. And most people only haggle if they get a feeling you’ll be receptive ie your rates are too low. That attracts an entitled, incompetent buyer.
There’s likely a reason people think they can haggle you like this or why you’re attracting the kind of person who does it.
If you were selling yourself off Fiverr, would you moan on to a prospective client about the cost of advertising, or how much that replacement laptop power supply cost when the old one blew up, or the cost of a new licence for MS Word when compared to that old copy of Office 2010 you’ve been using for a few years now? No, of course not.
Why not? Because your client doesn’t care about your costs, and indeed it would be very odd and off putting for a client to hear you approach the subject with them. It’s not appropriate. Fiverr’s fees to host your profile and provide you with a hassle-free e-commerce ability is just another business cost.