Pricing...5 bucks, really?

[Guest dezine9]

Sorry if I’m missing something as I am new to Fiverr. But are people really doing such intricate work for only 5 dollars? I normally charge a lot more on other sites and in real life (I do graphic design). All the type of work offered here takes time and skill and I’m not sure why it’s being devalued to FIVE DOLLARS. If anyone can explain to me how more money is made I’d appreciate it.

[genuineguidance]

More money is made through one offering “Extras” on their Gigs. Even new sellers can now offer this (It wasn’t available when I started here). Most will give very “basic” work for the $5 Gig, and if one wants more intricate work, that is where the Extras come in. Yes, you will find some who seem to be promising a lot of work for a mere $5, but, many of them may be new and trying to get established here or live in a country where the currency Fiverr pays them in is worth a heck of a lot more than that $5!

GG

[Guest dezine9]

Thanks for the response. I still think the extras are at too low a price (for those in the Western world), and I don’t see a lot of clients opting for them often.

[Guest crowfeet]

DISCLAIMER: I’ve only recently started using fiverr.

Hi,

Short Answer: Yes.
Long Answer: When I started using fiverr I was super miffed at how people were OK with offering their services for a flat rate less than minimum wage. Normally, I’d expect most creative professionals to charge more than this, but at the same time I also understand the economic mentality behind offering your services for such a low price (not that I necessarily agree with this). The two micro-economic models I’m referring to are, “high volume low price”, and “low volume high price”. You can make a considerable amount of revenue with both models and as far as I know, Fiverr supports both models. Just recently, they added a Custom Requests feature that allows Buyers to get custom work done(often more complicated than a five dollar job) and for Sellers to bid on those respective offers. Fiverr caps out at $1,000 per offer. Popular gigs that charge $5 with extra’s adhere to the “high volume low price” I mentioned earlier.

[zeromark]

For $5 you usually just do something basic, like a sample or sketch. You charge more for doing professional work. Although most new sellers have to start by offering lower prices, it still doesn’t mean they’ll do it for only $5. For example site building. For $5 you might get a single page. If you want a full responsive site beautifully created, you will have to pay hundreds and hundreds of $ just like anywhere else 🙂

[dusuacangmon]

mine averance for 1 job is 15$, i just got 60$ order yesterday 😃

[fastcopywriter]

“Sorry if I’m missing something as I am new to Fiverr. But are people really doing such intricate work for only 5 dollars?”

Yes.

“I normally charge a lot more on other sites and in real life (I do graphic design).”

And how many hours do you have to work on those projects? How often do you have to drive to the client? Or can you do everything online?

“All the type of work offered here takes time and skill and I’m not sure why it’s being devalued to FIVE DOLLARS.”

#1 Rule of Real Estate: How much is a house worth? Whatever the buyer is willing to pay for it.

There’s no such thing as devalued. There is only value. Maybe your logos are wroth $500 to you, but to people on Fiverr, they might be worth $5 to $50 and if you can’t work within that range, they’ll hire those that can. Furthermore, it doesn’t take time if you’re a fast worker and thinker. I write radio commercials in 15 minutes or less, and my clients loved me. Outside of Fiverr, I would take 30 to 45 minutes just because my boss was a jerk that hated work that was delivered too soon, then I would make revisions just because advertising people enjoy demanding them. If a cat has four legs, ad people look for the fifth leg. If it’s not broken, they break it, and then I have to fix it. That’s the real world, this is Fiverr.

[rentedmule]

Good luck with this, Brother!

Out of curiosity I came to Fivver with 25+ years experience with clients like: Sony, THQ, TBS, FOX, HBO, Lightstorm, Acclaim, Warner Bros. and EA. I figured ppl would appreciate/embrace my services. Especially at $5!? So I started by offering a Basic $5 gig. I thought it might be kinda fun. Until…

Crickets. Nada. Zero. REALLY?? I’m giving away thousands of dollar’s of work… as a TEST!!?

Now I feel like an idiot for buying into this.

Good luck, Fivvers!!

(DO NOT drink the Kool-aid)

[levinewman]

To me, the idea of a Fiverr ($5 gig) is a misnomer because my average job is $40 even. Now, you may be thinking $40 per gig would be low, but that’s only because the $5 jobs skew the real money. I’m a business writer and I’m just a few bucks (literally) from $50,000 since January, solely on Fiverr.

It can be done; I do it every single day. And I’m not even a Top Rated Seller.

[zeus777]

I guess it does depend on how you approach it. One of the gig I offer here are illustrations, and my base gig is the line drawing only. When I first started here 5 years ago, I used to do the line drawing AND the color for $5, but after a while I raised the price. The way I save time now is when someone asks me to work on a character, I recycle the pose from past images. I also have a “line drawing pose” template I made, and I will add draw the head and attach it to the body. This makes everything very quick. For business purpose images though, I charge more with the gig extra, and all the poses are original and not recycled. Some of my character images were done in 20 minutes. I came up with a way where I will spend a much shorter time, so I feel like I won’t be wasting my time and slave over an image just for $5. Back then when I first started, I was drawing everything from scratch, and I was telling myself dang, all this time I’m putting into must be worth $20 at least because some of the images did take 2 hours or so…but still I joined Fiverr knowing it’s $5, so I couldn’t complain! Do I think my line drawings are worth more than $5? Well, if I can say so myself, yes. But right after I graduated I was broke and was having a very hard time getting a job in my field, but Fiverr made me realize that my images are at least worth $5! Now I work outside Fiverr I work as a freelance illustrator and I get paid $50~$200 per image so I’m good. Fiverr is Fiverr, the outside world is the outside world. 😃

[Guest crowfeet]

Reply to @kjblynx: I see your reasoning, but that doesn’t happen until you’ve accumulated a backlog of requests. You’re really getting $4 per $5 dollar gig because of fiverr’s 20% commission policy and for people new to fiverr this isn’t exactly instantaneous.

[logo_desing]

It’s not only 5 dollar. You just need to start with 5. when you got 2 level seller position, then you can sell 600 dollar at a single order.

[fastcopywriter]

Reply to @levinewman: Graphic designers tend to overvalue their work, I have yet to meet a graphic designer from my contacts that wants to do Fiverr. They all think their logos are worth $500 and their landing pages are worth $1,500. Meanwhile, Newbold3d is making $100,000 a year.

[r3k0d3d]

Depends on your niche, the work and whether you feel like it’s worth the time, $ and effort doesn’t it? Personally I’m loving it atm, I’ve had 6 gigs in little under two weeks, a lot of ppl don’t even get that in a few mths, so I like to think I’m doing something right? I’m only doing this for some side change but if this fully takes off, who knows? I still have quite a few gigs to create as well, just waiting to level up so I can take full advantage of what Fiverr has to offer and then it’s on like Donkey Kong, LOL 😛

[Guest crowfeet]

Reply to @kjblynx:

kjblynx said: The point is it isn't less than minimum wage when you're not even working close to an hour, and if you're spending more than an hour on a base $5 gig you need to rework what you're offering.

In the case of something that might take little effort or skill, yes.

If you spend 15 minutes on every $5 gig, you’ll eventually cross over into an hour. That means that 4 gigs at 15 min each will give you $20, and if you tack on fiverr’s 20 percent commission fee that’s $16. If you’re using Paypal to withdraw your funds that’s a 2% withdrawal fee. So, $15.68. That’s not over the $25 you mentioned, but it is $5 over minimum wage in the long run.

That being said, the OP was specifically questioning the types of gigs offering intricate work that clearly takes more than a few minutes of the seller’s time. There are sellers on fiverr offering to do custom creative designs and websites for only $5.

[Guest ecoverwarrior]

Reply to @zeus777: i like your services…please how can i get such training if i want to learn from you. thank you in anticipation

[jamesbulls]

My rate is $60/hr., and I let clients buy in for as little as $5 at a time. Yeah, Fiverr takes 20%, but that’s not a big deal for me when their platform handles so much work that I’d have to do myself to reach the same number of customers. After I take out Fiverr’s 20%, and I factor in the time it takes me to respond to emails, complete orders, and upload the finished product, I’m netting between $40 and $50 hour - sometimes more depending on what gigs (and their extras) are ordered.

[tareq96]

you can get more by extras , but I don’t look for money as it’s not a job for me , I’m having fun so I’d be happy to get money for having fun , btw I haven’t earned anything yet 😃

[zeus777]

Reply to @ecoverwarrior:
I don’t really think I can teach you ( if that’s what you are hoping to get) but one thing I can tell you is that you can learn how to draw/ use photoshop using youtube. Just go to youtube and type in how to draw ******in photoshop, and you’ll find hundreds of tutorials. It will help a lot. You don’t need Photoshop of course, you can always start with a pencil and paper and start drawing anything and everything. It will take time though.

[roskopeeko]

Reply to @dezine9: My average gig is around $40 or so. You have to embrace it to grasp it - something that I really held off from as I thought the same as you do now - but now I’m glad i’m on board. I guess your field will dictate whether it works for you, but in my field it works well. You can set your own extra prices, but be prepared to offer something for $5. I so rarely get a $5 dollar job, and when I do, it takes me no time at all.