For those sellers based in countries other than the US! Discuss rates only in USD or pay the price for the Fiverr conversion rate...

[olayadli]

I have just discovered this so thought I would share it here so at least some are aware because I wasn't!

I was contacted by a pro buyer for a larger project than my existing gigs allow. It was complex, had many parts so I wanted to make an offer with a breakdown of each service since they all required different rate structures and she said she might want to contract certain services with me but not others depending on cost. This client is based in the EU like me so I thought it natural to discuss rates in EUR. My surprise came when I went to create the final custom offer. If your account UI is in any currency other than USD you will realise that custom offers can only be entered in USD, but they display as your chosen currency in the Fiverr messages screen.

I used the final amount agreed, I applied the conversion rate available in most global exchange rate information sites and entered the USD amount in the box. After submitting it the rate displayed in the UI was 4.6% higher than the amount I entered in the exchange rate. (i.e. the amount agreed and used for the conversion was €540, which resulted in $588 at the 17/11/2023 conversion rate of 1.08898, but when I entered $588 in the order creation and submitted, it showed up as €565 in the messages UI). This means that Fiverr applies an extra fee of 4.6% to their exchange rates and my client wondered why it was €25 more expensive than initially agreed. I contacted support but the response was underwhelming and did not answer my question of why the discrepancy and how to fix it.

So if as a seller you want to avoid paying an extra 4.6% in fees for accepting an order, consider only discussing offers in USD or only ever mention rates through the 'create a custom' offer interface. The buyer can then decide if the extra 4.6% exchange fee is worth paying if they happen to look up the conversion elsewhere.