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Fiverr Review: The Best Online Marketplace for Website Fixes and Graphic Design Services for You?
Now that I’ve been a Fiverr customer for a number of years, I wanted to share a review of my experience so far.
Fiverr covers a wide range of services, but, just so we are clear, Fiverr is best used for specific gigs with predetermined outcomes – when you want a gig completed fast and within a small budget. I use them primarily for website fixes and all sorts of graphic design services, so that is what we will cover in this Fiverr review.
In this post, I’ll go through why I use Fiverr more than their many competitors for short-term services or one-off engagements, like logo design, video voiceover, whiteboard creation, landing page design, website fixes, web development, etc. I’ll also give you a thorough look at the pros and cons of Fiverr. In addition, I’ll let you see and listen to examples of some of what I’ve gotten done on Fiverr so you can judge for yourself.
Table of Contents
▪Why I Use Fiverr Much More Than Upwork
▪Key Features I Like
▪A Look Inside My Fiverr Website Tech Orders
▪My Fiverr Tech Guy vs. My Offline Tech Experience
▪A Look at My Fiverr Creative Deliverables
▪How to Open a Fiverr Account
▪Pricing
▪Pros
▪Cons
▪Other Satisfied Fiverr Customers
▪Conclusion
Why I Use Fiverr Much More Than Upwork
I was one of the Elance customers who decided not to jump ship after the widely covered ODesk/Elance merger in 2013. And I still hung in there when, after only 18 months later, they relaunched and morphed into yet another entity – Upwork. That was in the early days when I started my copywriting business.
So, I am no stranger to the freelance marketplace contenders.
I’ve used Upwork for different services over the years. I still use them for one service in particular. I’ll explain in a sec. However, quite frankly, I have not seen much difference between the quality of Upwork’s services and that of Fiverr. That may be because many of the freelancers (sellers) on Upwork also market their services on Fiverr . . . and probably all of the other freelance platforms as well.
In fact, my own email marketing automation tech geek of several years now (Yusuf) is on both Fiverr and Upwork. I originally found him on Fiverr and hired him to handle some email marketing automation technical backend work for me. When I switched my marketing automation from Aweber to ActiveCampaign (which was relatively unknown, making affordable techs hard to find on Fiverr), I turned to Upwork.
Lo and behold, it was then that I saw Yusuf, my tech from Fiverr was also a seller on Upwork. And he knew how to work the new ActiveCampaign platform!
Between Upwork and Fiverr, I’ve only seen a difference in price. Upwork tends to be higher than Fiverr for the exact same services, like graphic design services and website tech fixes. This, of course, does not include Yusuf; his fee works out to be the same no matter which platform I use to hire him.
But I digress . . .
As my business began to grow, I needed a less muss, less fuss way to tackle all my short-term tasks. I knew a tad more than the average non-tech-savvy business owner, but tech is not my forte. Neither is/are graphics. So, it would take me much longer to complete certain projects. I don’t have the time to spend shopping, interviewing, scanning in-depth online marketplace reviews, particularly when I needed something in a hurry.
In that regard, Upwork was way more than I needed, with a process that is too cumbersome with too many layers and options. It takes a lot more time to find freelancers, who, quite often, are on Fiverr’s simpler, streamlined and seamless platform anyway.
On top of that, because of Upwork’s setup, I would always need to start over – figuring out the payment model, creating an ad/post, etc. Ugh!
Therefore, aside from sticking with Yusuf, who handles all of my backend email marketing tech work on Upwork, I prefer to use Fiverr for my website/cPanel, WordPress tech and graphic design jobs (including web design, business card design, infographic design, flyers, voiceover for videos, whiteboard design, etc.).
Key Features I Like
No Burdensome Heavy Lifting on My Part
One of the features that appealed to me with Fiverr is that I am not asked to do the work to attract sellers to my projects. I don’t have to fill out a questionnaire for every project, which some other online marketplace platforms, including Upwork, require. I don’t need to create an ad-like post about my project, specifying the skills required, which I often do not even know. No one asks me to sift through an endless batch of profiles of freelancers and agencies based on skillsets to find talent that’s a good match or wade through and screen a number of proposals.
When I reject an applicant, I’m not asked to explain why I did so. I don’t usually have to correspond with candidates before hiring them, except in special circumstances, and usually, only if I want to. Even if I do have to contact them beforehand, it’s generally a “short and sweet” process.
If I am at a point where I need a quick job at a fixed rate, I usually don’t have the luxury of time to take the numerous steps other online marketplaces require to find a suitable freelancer.
With Fiverr, I simply enter the type of service I need in the search bar, and voila! A page displaying the results opens up. Check out what comes up when I type “law firm logo” without entering in any other parameters.
Now, look at what comes up when I change my budget to a maximum of $5.
Either way, the quality does not drastically change, and Fiverr sellers have always been more than happy to accommodate me when I asked for things like a more minimalist graphic, etc. – for the same quoted cost.
You Can Adjust Prices Without Having to Negotiate with Freelancers
Fiverr sellers have price range sliders built into their site so that buyers can adjust the cost of a project according to what the buyer deems essential. Say you’re doing an ad, and you need a 200-word voiceover recorded, and the seller is asking for $5.00, but then you decide you want to expand it to a 600-word voiceover. You can enter the new number in the slider to find out the new amount to see if it fits within your budget before you place your order.
Here’s what that looks like when I randomly choose a voiceover freelancer and request the price for a 200-word voiceover, followed by a request for a 600-word voiceover:
A Look Inside My Fiverr Website Tech Orders
As you can see from the image below, from January 2020 through April 2020, I ordered eight tech-related gigs from the same Fiverr tech guy (the red boxes represent his avatar). The total cost was $51.
Here are some examples of the details of what I asked the Fiverr website tech to fix:
April 8, 2020, I requested that he place a 2020 Super Lawyers badge on a law firm’s website Home page.
April 8, 2020, I requested that he place a 2020 Martindale-Hubbell AV-rated Preeminent Lawyer’s badge on that same law firm’s website Home page.
March 21, 2020 – see image below:
March 15, 2020 – See the image below:
March 4, 2020 – See the image below:
So, you get the picture.
My Fiverr Tech Guy vs. My Offline Tech Experience
Had I placed the aforementioned eight orders with my old offline developer today, it would have cost me $120 to $150 an hour (w/30-minute minimum). Not every website bug fix needs to be a mortgage payment! Adding insult to injury, I had to wait in a cue until he found time to service my complaint, because of his schedule and, and, and. Been there. Done that.
A few years ago, a millennial with a number of web tech geek friends revealed to me that most of the bugs I had should only take 5 minutes to fix. He said because some geeks know you don’t have a clue as to what fixing your problem entails, they drag out the amount of time it takes to say they’re done (when, in fact, they were done, 4 to 5 minutes after they logged into your website). Some of them then relay some technobabble that most of us don’t understand – and charge an arm and a leg for that privilege.
This is not to say that all web techs do this. I want to believe that most people are honest and decent, but my experience says otherwise, especially, after I started to learn how to do a lot of this tech stuff on my own. Things I paid an “expert” through the nose to fix, I later learned firsthand (after figuring out how to do it myself) that so much of time-based pricing was absolute bunk!
That millennial was spot on.
I’ll take my Fiverr guy any day of the week over that unnecessarily inflated bullshit.
Now I am not saying that Fiverr is the answer to everything under the sun. It’s not. It does have its issues, which I will share in the “Cons” section later in this article, but the advantages far outweigh the shortcomings in “my book.”
A Look at My Fiverr Creative Deliverables
Infographic
An infographic, as you will learn, or you should anyway, is an assortment of images, charts, and text that gives a simple outline or summary of a topic. Infographics provide a visual way to reach your target audience. Below is an infographic created for me on Fiverr that I use to help my followers understand how to create effective marketing messaging, in other words, copywriting.
Two-Minute Voiceover and Whiteboard Video
The narration in the following video was done by a Fiverr seller. I got frustrated with the sensitivity of my cell phone recorder. Each time I started the narration, I was interrupted by a slew of background noises – dripping water, a siren, a door slamming, someone running down the staircase, the rustling of the paper I was reading from. I threw up my hands and went directly to Fiverr.com.
This video started out as an article formatted as a list that I decided to repurpose into a whiteboard explainer video.
A whiteboard video is an animated video that digitally brings content to life as the narration unfolds. Whiteboard videos are done in a number of styles. Some marketers use a moving image of a hand drawing the story as the voice narrates. Other marketers use a collection of images that appear as the voice narrates, as I had the Fiverr seller do for me here:
Side Note: To be honest, I rushed this video. There are better quality affordable whiteboard videos and voiceovers on Fiverr for next to nothing in price.
Logo
I needed a logo that captured what I do while identifying the industry I specialize in. As much as I appreciate the scales of justice and the fountain pen point, I always thought of them as cliché for their respective industries. However, I changed my mind when I saw how the Fiverr designer, combined them for me.
My Business Card
I ordered the design of these business cards, along with the source file. The source file is what a graphic designer can turn over to a customer so that the customer can make edits on their own or have another designer make edits. I recommend always paying the extra five bucks to get the source file. Some Fiverr designers will charge as much as $20 for the source file, which is still a bargain.
Landing page
I could have created the following Maradex flyer on my own; it’s that simplistic, but Fiverrs are just so much faster. They navigate design programs all day long, so what takes me many hours, they can do in the blink of an eye. And yes, there are much more sophisticated, affordable landing page design options on Fiverr. We had this created simply to showcase the copy.
Website
A Fiverr web developer created this template for me for my “parent” company, Stacey Mathis Copywriting. When I moved into the legal industry, I wanted to keep the same design that so many of my customers had become accustomed to. The Fiverr web developer was able to handle all the development work on the back end and front end required to make that happen.
Affordable. Stress-free. And quick.
How to Open a Fiverr Account
Creating an account on Fiverr is free. To open an account, visit Fiverr.com. Enter the email address that you would like Fiverr to use to send you notifications, receipts and other communications. This will also be the email address you will use to login to the platform.
Once you sign into Fiverr, they will send you an activation email. Just click the link in the email to activate your account. Check your SPAM filter if you can’t find the activation email.
Note: If your email is already associated with a Fiverr account, you will not be able to use that particular email address to create a new account.
Next: Proceed to the Settings section by clicking your profile picture, and then click Settings > Billing.
Enter your billing information, company name, your full name, address, country, and your VAT ID number, if relevant.
If you’d like to automatically receive invoices for purchase made on Fiverr, mark the relevant checkbox.
If you are in Australia, you’ll need to indicate if you are registered to GST. If so, you will need to enter in your Australian Business Number (ABN).
Pricing
There is no fee to join Fiverr as a buyer. However, there is a service fee for all purchases: a service fee of $2 on purchases up to and including $40. They charge 5% on purchases above $40. This helps the Fiverr folks operate the platform and offer 24/7 customer support for the orders you place.
Pros
►My Fiverr handles my repairs within minutes most times. Yes, there are some things that take a day or two, but you know that beforehand because Fiverr limits the amount of time their sellers have to complete each project. Of course, some more complicated things may take more than 48 hours, but most issues I’ve had have not.
►You can very easily browse through gig offers to find something that fits your needs. You can communicate with the seller via the Fiverr platform before placing your order with them. Some sellers even prefer that, and they make that clear on their pages. They do that to make sure they understand what you want so that they can deliver what you want within the time frame you need.
►You can also customize your project request. With this type of order, the seller will be able to adjust the deadline as well.
►Fiverr has an awesome app that’s available for iOS and Android. I love this feature because I get a notification whenever my seller is trying to get in touch with me, and you can, of course, set your smartphone so that the notification is audible. Best of all, it’s super easy to use.
►Fiverr always has your security in mind. Passwords have to be changed – meaning, the password you may need to provide to a seller in order for that seller to fix a glitch on your website or add a blog to your site, etc. I wanted to list this as a con, simply because it annoys me sometimes. However, it’s really a plus. The Fiverr company and the sellers occasionally remind you to change your passwords, which you should be doing anyway with EVERYTHING. If we’ve learned nothing else from Equifax, Chase Bank, AT&T, New York Law Journal, AOL, and all the rest, data breaches happen. You can never be too careful.
Cons:
Shit happens. That’s right, occasionally, something can go wrong on Fiverr. Like with anything else in life you’ll run into someone who doesn’t deliver on a promise. I had a seller turn in something to me after the deadline. He said there was some weeklong holiday in his country, and, for some reason, he was unable to tell me until the holiday ended. Another time, I wanted a video done, and there was more of a language barrier than I bargained for. Certain American nuances were not completely understood and expressed in the work-product of a seller. C’est la vie.
However, and this really goes under the PRO section, when things go wrong on Fiverr, there are lots of options to deal with them.
When a seller does not respond or is late for more than a day, you can cancel your order and your money is refunded. If you’re not happy with the deliverables, Fiverr has a Resolution Center you can reach out to. Their Customer Support team is also available to resolve differences as well.
Refunds, however, are a bit tricky on Fiverr. When you request a refund or cancel an order, Fiverr refunds the money to your shopping balance, basically, like a store credit that you can apply to your next Fiverr order. On the other hand, if you prefer that the money be reimbursed to your PayPal or credit card account, Fiverr will issue a one-time refund. However, a second refund request may need to be reviewed by Fiverr’s Risk Management Team.
As of this writing, Fiverr.com is ranked among the top 100 most popular sites in America, and it is one of the top 200 in the world since early 2013. In addition, Fiverr has had national ad campaigns. As a result of this popularity and publicity, a flood of extraordinarily high-priced sellers joined Fiverr to offer their services. When you type in service you’re looking for into the search box, many of those sellers will come up on page 1 and beyond. Don’t be discouraged. Use the “budget” drop-down menu and simply change the minimum and maximum amounts to $5 or whatever you are willing to pay for the service you want and the system will filter out the sellers that do not meet that criteria.
So, you will find many providers there now that charge significantly more than $5 for services. Except, the way I look at it, the whole purpose of using Fiverr is because I want to stay within my micro-budget. I never understood why someone who charges $3,500 to design a logo would be on a platform competing with equally talented designers who charge $5 for the same damn thing.
By the way, those high-priced sellers are very often less talented than the $5 sellers. I saw a graphic designer whose minimum price was $3,570. Making matters worse, every sample in his portfolio absolutely sucked! I could create something significantly better myself with the fonts and graphics in Microsoft Office – seriously! And I have zero graphic design talent. None.
Other Satisfied Fiverr Customers
Just in case you were wondering, I’m not the only one singing Fiverr’s praises. These three business owners – a software development company, a ricotta snack brand, and a podcast duo also shared their positive Fiverr experiences.
Conclusion
Fiverr is and has been my go-to marketplace for graphic design, website fixes and other quick projects for years, and I recommend them for any business or person who is looking for an affordable and efficient way to resolve website and graphic design issues. Really.
