What is the point of using the Milestones feature?

[khafff]

It seems that offering separate orders is obviously better, because:

1) You get paid right after what could be a milestone
2) The client orders several times from you, so that makes him a returning buyer, and that's a great indicator of performance

Maybe there are more reasons to use separate orders, add them below if you thought of it.

Why use milestones at all? If there's no point, I think the Fiverr team should make it more reasonable.

[shalock]

There's a lot of reasons to work with milestones, although it will depend on what kind of work you do 

I will tell you from my perspective as an illustrator.

Milestones works perfect with large projects, a lot of buyers don't want to make multiple orders as they get charged a commission every time they order; or they want to work it in a single project because that's what they need.

Maybe it's a new buyer with no reviews on their profile and it's ordering a huge order, to secure yourself to get paid you can use milestones, as they work as multiple orders inside one and you get paid every time you deliver a milestone.

For organization purposes. Maybe the project is complex and the best way to work on it is divide it in multiple steps to keep it all clear and organized.

As I said, that's how I've used it, maybe not applicable to all kind of gigs.

[melanielm]

I use Milestones semi-frequently, and agree with Shalock's points. Some buyers hire me to write 25,000 words or more. Using Milestones helps ensure everyone is happy with the progress of the overall order. The last thing I (or my buyers) want is to have 25k words delivered and then find it doesn't match buyer expectations or intentions.

Milestones create a continuous and hands-off flow of work for the project, too. Setting up separate, consecutive orders would be more annoying and time consuming, to be honest.

[formissionx]

I have a client who's looking to book a Gig for a 20K word eBook. I too am thinking of going for milestone payments. Since you've mentioned that you've already used this feature, I just wanted to ask one question. Let's say if I do 7 milestones of $200 each, will I get paid $200 after completing every milestone?

(P.S. I read one community post where someone mentioned that you only get paid after the first milestone, and the payments for remaining ALL milestones get paid after completing the entire project. Is this how it works?)

Thanks in advance! 

[amwolloamwollo]

I have used milestones for more than 3 projects and i've learned the following:

1. Milestones helped me to break large projects into small deliverable projects. This removed the feeling of being overwhelmed by huge projects.

2. I got paid while still working on the same project unlike before where i had to wait for months to complete large projects.

3. In some cases, it becomes easier to justify the cost of the project and avoid under/over charging  the client.

4. Gving project updates is also easier. 

[strategist_ceo]

It isn't useful to me. I tried using it once, and problems arose: a 7-day delivery became more than 4 weeks. The milestones need to be manually accepted by the buyer one at a time, which is frustrating for both parties involved. The buyer wasn't happy that time, but they understood the limitation.

[psykkopatte]

It's very useful for 3D jobs for big projects I must say, there are projects that take weeks to make, being paid for each tasks is important because if client decides to leave, not to reply anymore etc, this would be a huge waste of time and money.