Have you ever used Fiverr?  If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work for the company, here is your answer.

Today I have a guest post from a person who used to work for Fiverr.  He would prefer that his name is not disclosed.  Please welcome my anonymous guest and leave him a comment at the end of his post.

Over recent times, the innovative freelancer platform Fiverr has gained much popularity. The idea of the platform is that people capable of doing useful things can offer their service for $5. Fiverr has its advantages and disadvantages, mainly depending on one’s expectations, but it is a really good way to at least start your way in the freelance world.

Although a lot people say ‘work in Fiverr’, it is actually ‘work FOR Fiverr’. This is because every order you receive brings 20% commission to the team behind the platform. In other words, the more you work, the more you AND Fiverr earn. This seems okay till you reach the point when you start receiving too many orders and, consequently, pay too much commission to Fiverr.  From every $100 you earn, you get only $80.

However, Fiverr surely provides a few benefits in return for the commission. First of all, when someone needs a service – to get something written, converted, animated, voiced or anything else – they know they can find the right person in Fiverr. This means you don’t have to create your own blog, optimize and hope for prospective customers to find you.  All you need is to offer an attractive gig (deal) in Fiver and the orders are guaranteed.

Fiverr also guarantees that you will be paid. The money for the order is safely kept aside and the buyer cannot order your gig without paying immediately. Once you deliver your work and it is reviewed and marked as completed, you receive the money in your account.

However, all this has a few negative sides, apart from the fact that you need to give away 20% of your earnings. First of all, you can receive negative feedback even if your work is good.  That depends solely on the buyer and their opinion.

Secondly, you may get too many orders and be unable to complete them before the deadline you have set. For example, if your gig promises to complete the work in 24 hours, imagine receiving 20 orders at once.  It would be really hard to complete them without outsourcing. And, of course, once you have missed the deadline, the buyer can cancel the deal, which is an automatic negative feedback and of course you lose the money.

Apart from all this, there are incentives you receive for being good at what you do. Once you have been at Fiverr for a month and have completed 20 orders, you become Level 1. This means that you can ask more for your gigs or offer other services – for example, express delivery. However, if you decide to use this, you still have to pay the 20% commission. For instance, if you give the buyers the opportunity to buy 10 articles for $40, you will actually write 10 articles for $32, because the other $8 go for Fiverr.

Personally, I think Fiverr is a very good opportunity to get started, to find work and meet serious buyers. However, it is no use paying so much to be allowed to work, particularly when you start getting lots of orders.

Moreover, the competition in Fiverr is really hard, so you can’t put up the prices too much, because there always is someone to offer your services for less.

That is why I left – the strict deadlines, the big commissions, the inability to decline a task once it is ordered and the fact that I have to wait for 20 days before being able to withdraw my earnings – all this made me think that Fiverr is not so good after all.