Yesterday was my Fiverrsary aka my cake day! - I want to share some tips

[lilacpunch]

It’s officially been 3 years on Fiverr ❤️

It’s been quite the experience. I’ve reached so many goals and have been able to use Fiverr as a starting point to the rest of my career. I’m excited to see where this year takes me. I’ve grown so much since my first year on Fiverr. It was always my dream as a kid to be a graphic designer and now I can say that I am. I’ve worked on so many amazing projects for people and got to experience cultures all around the world just from working online in my industry.

There have been downs and days where I just felt burn out. I nearly stopped Fiverr all together at one point but I found some solutions to when you run into the downsides of freelancing on Fiverr and I want to share it. Here are 3 Rules to Freelancing on Fiverr in honor of my 3 years on Fiverr. (This is just my perspective, I’m not claiming this to be the right or only way to do it. It’s just what has worked for me.)

If you feel like you keep getting clients that you just don’t agree with or it’s revision after revision or you end up using that cancelation button…then you may want to keep reading.

1. Set your boundaries
   It’s not impolite or bad customer service to say no when a buyer goes beyond their scope of work. A lot of people fear cancelation and tend to keep working on it even though it’s well beyond what they should be doing.

• Make it clear from the start in your gig how many revisions they will be getting. Don’t leave that part blank!

• Assess, if it’s a small revision beyond the limits, sometimes it’s okay to just do it without going through the process of explaining it all. You can usually get an idea of if that person isn’t respecting the boundaries of revisions or if they just need one last touch to finish the project.

• If a buyer comes in immediately with gig requirements well beyond the scope of work they paid for, don’t go to cancel! Sometimes all you need to do is explain what they can get for what they bought and the price to cover all of their requirements. I once turned a $15 gig into over a $200 gig by doing this.

• If you’re in the middle of your gig and the buyer starts turning sour on you. Kindly explain to them what they received for what they bought, what you can do for free and what will be a paid revision or service. If they don’t agree, you have to decide if a potential bad review or cancelation is worse and choose from there. Unfortunately sometimes this is unavoidable but don’t worry! It happens to everyone who freelances at some point.

2. Price your services by what you want to get paid, not competitively.
   While having the cheapest services on Fiverr is likely to get you more business… you’re likely to experience burnout and customers that don’t respect your boundaries. Side note:While I do say this, if you are new to Fiverr I recommend focusing on competitive pricing but know your limits to being “underpaid” while you’re new and need to establish a name.

• When setting your pricing, don’t try to guess the amount of hours something will take and stick to the pricing on just that alone. Almost everything is custom on Fiverr and every project requires different hours. Pricing by the hour without considering other things could lead to you undercharging massively.

• If gigs are charged by the service instead of the hours anyway why does this matter? How do I know what to price these? Here is an example of a service: Say you’re a graphic designer and your gig is to create a simple flyer. You might think, a simple flyer shouldn’t take more than 2 hours and if minimum wage here is X amount of money, then I’ll charge according to that. In this case, it may be a good starting point to do that, but I recommend boosting it another $5-$10 on your gigs final price because you are the skilled professional. You are the specialist in this work and the buyer is coming to you because they are either too busy to do it themselves or don’t know how. You deserve to get paid more and people WILL be willing to pay for this.

• Finally, build your pricing up. Start for a few months at one price and then when you feel like you’ve outgrown the pricing, modify your gigs. If you have reoccurring customers, you should reach out to them and let them know. If you’re willing to keep the old pricing for them too then state this. Sometimes a repetitive client where you know the pricing works well for you, is better than potentially losing a client for switching the prices on them suddenly. Pricing takes time to figure out. You’ll find that you’re undercharging very quickly if you feel burnt out and can’t keep up with the demands. You’ll also find that if you’re not getting as many orders like before then you could have changed your pricing too drastically.

3. Finally, take a break!
   Everyone needs a break. EVERYONE. Freelancing is fast paced and all about the hustling lifestyle. It’s easy to get caught up in your work and never take time for yourself. Then, one day you’ll hit a point where you find a massive decrease in your productivity levels and wonder what happened. It’s because freelancers often times neglect taking breaks or forget to all together. Here are the best times to take a break.

• When you feel like you need a break. This may be obvious… but how many times have you felt like that “but have to finish this gig first”? If you can’t take a huge break, taking 15-30 minutes away from your work could recharge you enough to take a break.

• When the amount or the demand of your orders start to decrease. If you’re receiving less orders, then is the perfect time to take a day off! Don’t push trying to figure out how to get in more orders. It’s your chance, make a run for it! 😛 If you have a lot of orders but it’s simple tasks, then taking a day off at this time is perfect too. You might think you’ll fall behind but it’s amazing what a day off can do with your productivity levels. Think of it as your secret weapon when you need a boost or shift in your work life.

• Holidays and Your Birthday. Say you forget to go out of office and someone purchases your gig during these times, most everyone will understand if you have a holiday or birthday and you let them know from the start. Tell them, what is going on, tell them when they can expect the delivery and ask for a 1-2 day extension. Like I said, most people are okay with this. There’s only been in my experience a few people that needed it to be finished by the original delivery date.

I hope you find value in these tips. Thanks for reading! Feel free to list your own if you want.

Here is to another year on Fiverr! 🥳

[uk1000]

It’s officially been 3 years on Fiverr ❤️

It’s been quite the experience. I’ve reached so many goals and have been able to use Fiverr as a starting point to the rest of my career. I’m excited to see where this year takes me. I’ve grown so much since my first year on Fiverr. It was always my dream as a kid to be a graphic designer and now I can say that I am. I’ve worked on so many amazing projects for people and got to experience cultures all around the world just from working online in my industry.

There have been downs and days where I just felt burn out. I nearly stopped Fiverr all together at one point but I found some solutions to when you run into the downsides of freelancing on Fiverr and I want to share it. Here are 3 Rules to Freelancing on Fiverr in honor of my 3 years on Fiverr. (This is just my perspective, I’m not claiming this to be the right or only way to do it. It’s just what has worked for me.)

If you feel like you keep getting clients that you just don’t agree with or it’s revision after revision or you end up using that cancelation button…then you may want to keep reading.

1. Set your boundaries

   It’s not impolite or bad customer service to say no when a buyer goes beyond their scope of work. A lot of people fear cancelation and tend to keep working on it even though it’s well beyond what they should be doing.

• Make it clear from the start in your gig how many revisions they will be getting. Don’t leave that part blank!

• Assess, if it’s a small revision beyond the limits, sometimes it’s okay to just do it without going through the process of explaining it all. You can usually get an idea of if that person isn’t respecting the boundaries of revisions or if they just need one last touch to finish the project.

• If a buyer comes in immediately with gig requirements well beyond the scope of work they paid for, don’t go to cancel! Sometimes all you need to do is explain what they can get for what they bought and the price to cover all of their requirements. I once turned a $15 gig into over a $200 gig by doing this.

• If you’re in the middle of your gig and the buyer starts turning sour on you. Kindly explain to them what they received for what they bought, what you can do for free and what will be a paid revision or service. If they don’t agree, you have to decide if a potential bad review or cancelation is worse and choose from there. Unfortunately sometimes this is unavoidable but don’t worry! It happens to everyone who freelances at some point.

2. Price your services by what you want to get paid, not competitively.

   While having the cheapest services on Fiverr is likely to get you more business… you’re likely to experience burnout and customers that don’t respect your boundaries. Side note:While I do say this, if you are new to Fiverr I recommend focusing on competitive pricing but know your limits to being “underpaid” while you’re new and need to establish a name.

• When setting your pricing, don’t try to guess the amount of hours something will take and stick to the pricing on just that alone. Almost everything is custom on Fiverr and every project requires different hours. Pricing by the hour without considering other things could lead to you undercharging massively.

• If gigs are charged by the service instead of the hours anyway why does this matter? How do I know what to price these? Here is an example of a service: Say you’re a graphic designer and your gig is to create a simple flyer. You might think, a simple flyer shouldn’t take more than 2 hours and if minimum wage here is X amount of money, then I’ll charge according to that. In this case, it may be a good starting point to do that, but I recommend boosting it another $5-$10 on your gigs final price because you are the skilled professional. You are the specialist in this work and the buyer is coming to you because they are either too busy to do it themselves or don’t know how. You deserve to get paid more and people WILL be willing to pay for this.

• Finally, build your pricing up. Start for a few months at one price and then when you feel like you’ve outgrown the pricing, modify your gigs. If you have reoccurring customers, you should reach out to them and let them know. If you’re willing to keep the old pricing for them too then state this. Sometimes a repetitive client where you know the pricing works well for you, is better than potentially losing a client for switching the prices on them suddenly. Pricing takes time to figure out. You’ll find that you’re undercharging very quickly if you feel burnt out and can’t keep up with the demands. You’ll also find that if you’re not getting as many orders like before then you could have changed your pricing too drastically.

3. Finally, take a break!

   Everyone needs a break. EVERYONE. Freelancing is fast paced and all about the hustling lifestyle. It’s easy to get caught up in your work and never take time for yourself. Then, one day you’ll hit a point where you find a massive decrease in your productivity levels and wonder what happened. It’s because freelancers often times neglect taking breaks or forget to all together. Here are the best times to take a break.

• When you feel like you need a break. This may be obvious… but how many times have you felt like that “but have to finish this gig first”? If you can’t take a huge break, taking 15-30 minutes away from your work could recharge you enough to take a break.

• When the amount or the demand of your orders start to decrease. If you’re receiving less orders, then is the perfect time to take a day off! Don’t push trying to figure out how to get in more orders. It’s your chance, make a run for it! 😛 If you have a lot of orders but it’s simple tasks, then taking a day off at this time is perfect too. You might think you’ll fall behind but it’s amazing what a day off can do with your productivity levels. Think of it as your secret weapon when you need a boost or shift in your work life.

• Holidays and Your Birthday. Say you forget to go out of office and someone purchases your gig during these times, most everyone will understand if you have a holiday or birthday and you let them know from the start. Tell them, what is going on, tell them when they can expect the delivery and ask for a 1-2 day extension. Like I said, most people are okay with this. There’s only been in my experience a few people that needed it to be finished by the original delivery date.

I hope you find value in these tips. Thanks for reading! Feel free to list your own if you want.

Here is to another year on Fiverr! 🥳

If you have reoccurring customers, you should reach out to them and let them know.

Though you’d also have to be careful about being flagged as spam. It might be best to just adjust the prices so you don’t risk getting flagged (unless maybe you have a very recent order with them or they have very recently contacted you).

[lilacpunch]

If you have reoccurring customers, you should reach out to them and let them know.

Though you’d also have to be careful about being flagged as spam. It might be best to just adjust the prices so you don’t risk getting flagged (unless maybe you have a very recent order with them or they have very recently contacted you).

I agree! Very good point to bring up. If it’s been a customer that hasn’t recently ordered, it’s best to move on. Thank you for including this.

[mhdiqbal3000]

I agree! Very good point to bring up. If it’s been a customer that hasn’t recently ordered, it’s best to move on. Thank you for including this.

So much info, that I already know but by experimenting. Wish I could read it earlier. Thanks anyway.

[helenabester]

This is such great advice! This is what the Fiverr forum SHOULD be about. Congratulations on your success!