Can Beginners Make Money on Fiverr?
The short answer? Yes, Fiverr is good for beginners. And, no, Fiverr isn’t good for beginners.
The pros:
It’s an easy-to-use platform that offers a variety of services
If you’re a beginner, you can start freelancing and earning money online
You can offer pretty much any service
There’s competitive pricing
No experience required
And now the cons:
It’s very competitive
It’s hard to stand out
You’re competing on price, not value
The platform’s low pricing structure may make it difficult for beginners to earn a sustainable income, especially if you lack the experience and skills to offer high-quality services.
The platform’s fees and strict rules can limit a beginner’s flexibility and creativity
Here’s the video format if you prefer watching!
Let’s break down the pros of Fiverr as well as the cons a little more comprehensively so you can decide if it’s right for you. We’ll end by mentioning some good alternatives to make money writing.
My personal opinion is that Fiverr is the plague, it’s the devil’s platform, it incentivizes beginners to price themselves artificially low to get clients.
But I have heard from other writers that it’s worth a try, so I’ll do my best to offer a fair and balanced review of whether Fiverr is good for beginners.
However. Well. You’ll know my opinion.
1. What is Fiverr?
Fiverr is a marketplace. You can buy goods, or you can sell goods. You can buy or sell pretty much any digital good on there.
While perusing Fiverr, I found typical stuff, like writing blogs and SEO-optimized content. I also found more random stuff, like people who will find people for you, build a card game deck for you, or rate your appearance and give you advice.
And of course, there’s even the meta Fiverr gig — this guy will write you a Fiverr job description for the low, low price of $5!
If you’re a small business, I think Fiverr is probably great. You have a wide-open marketplace of people selling anything under the sun.
Prices tend to range from $5 on the lowest end, all the way up to thousands of dollars.
2. The Reasons Why Fiverr is Good for Beginners
The hardest part of being a freelance writer is getting your foot in the door. With no portfolio, no experience, and no network, it’s tough to know how to get started.
On Fiverr, no matter what you want to sell, you can easily sell it. It’s relatively easy to get set up, and especially if you’re priced low, buyers may find you. You don’t need experience. You don’t need past clients.
Fiverr can be a decent way to get your first client or two before using your network or a job board.
3. Why Fiverr Isn’t Good for Beginners
I am big on people getting paid what they’re worth. And in my opinion, Fiverr coaches you into believing you’re not worth very much. Plus, after you price yourself at $5, they take a 20% cut!
It’s a seller’s market. And you’ll be competing on price rather than expertise. No matter what you do, there will be someone doing it cheaper than you. It’s so hard to stand out.
And clients will treat you like you’re cheap. They will be more likely to micromanage, expect free revisions, and leave bad reviews if you don’t satisfy them completely.
Honestly, the best clients I have are the ones that pay me the most because they value and trust me. The lowest-paying ones micromanage me the most because I have priced myself lower to them.
In short, it’s easy to get started, but it’s hard to actually make a living or continue on. According to Fiverr’s website, the average user gets paid less than $9 an hour. That’s barely minimum wage, folks. Plus none of the benefits of a waged job like healthcare or retirement.
4. How I Recommend Using Fiverr
The typical advice on Fiverr is this: sign up, create your profile, get started, and price yourself super low until you get reviews, then start pricing higher.
I disagree. Even priced at $5, you’ll be fighting to get noticed among thousands of other sellers. And I firmly believe you should never try to compete on price, because there’s always someone who can go lower.
Instead, you should either go deep and expensive or go extremely niche and cheap.
Go deep, expensive expertise
For instance, this guy writes articles and books only about personal injury law. He charges $220 for a 1000-word blog post or $10,000 for an ebook. That’s not too shabby. Maybe he started off lower, but even then he was only competing with ~100 other personal injury writers.
What are you really good at? Pets, food, data science, photography? Parent coaching? Writing about botany?
Search Fiverr for your topic, the deeper the better. Not just pets, but cats. Not just photography, but stationary photography. The internet is a wide, wide world and you’re sure to find a buyer for your deep service.
Make sure there are one or two other sellers, but certainly not more than 100. Then estimate how much you’d need to charge to live, plus 20% because that’s what Fiverr takes.
For example, say you want to earn $50,000 a year. That’s $24.04 an hour, annually. It takes you five hours to write a blog post about cats. So that’s roughly $125, plus 20% is $150.
You’re not competing with many people, so you can go more expensive. As you get more reviews, charge more.
Go niche and fun
On Fiverr, I was able to find results for pretty much anything I searched for. And even if there was just one or two reviews, almost all sellers had some buyers.
What are you good at that you either enjoy very much, that doesn’t take you much time, or both?
For example, this voice actor sells British-accent voice mails. This seller is a personal shopper and stylist. This person will edit your Tinder pics. Those are all in the realm of $5-$15 per service. While not a lot of money, these
Make a shortlist of topics. Estimate each by how much you enjoy them, 1–10, and roughly how long it takes you to do them. Don’t pick anything that takes you longer than an hour. Then post a few postings for those activities or services. This doesn’t have to be something you’re an expert at — just something not many other people are doing, that you can do at scale.
Check the prices, and go a little below average. For example: if there are eleven sellers for pet photography, take the average of all the prices and subtract five dollars.
5. Alternatives to Fiverr for beginners
Let’s say you neither have deep expertise nor fun, niche little activities you can do for fun. Honestly, I don’t think Fiverr is a good choice for you. Instead of going to a marketplace, I recommend doing two things to start earning money as a beginner.
Create a client-attracting portfolio. I do this with my writing on Medium. I write stuff that clients would love to have on their blog. Clients find the content using my techniques. Then they contact me to hire me.
Join communities and network. For example, on Superpath, I’ve been able to connect with clients.
Is Fiverr good for beginners? Honestly, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s in the name. Do you really want to post your services on a platform that takes its name from originally only charging $5 for a service?
Hopefully this article helped you figure out if you’re a good fit for Fiverr, or if you’re better off looking elsewhere.
Happy writing,
Zulie