After $200k and 2500 orders I stop offering my services on Fiverr

[ninaschulz]

Not my choice, but it's been a great run. See you guys on other platforms.

Once again, the Success Score is broken, like most things on the platform—barely functioning or straight-out broken. I've been here for a long time, and I don't remember an update without bugs. Fiverr relies on a huge algorithm update from developers whose bugs we see every day. 👏

This platform was always a gamble in my opinion. According to the previous algorithm, I was a TRS and spent two years on the first page. With the new algorithm, I'm deemed a trash, inexperienced designer. Oh well.

[donnovan86]

Rethink the approach, because things can easily go back to more successful times.

As for why there are problems:

• way less buyers on the platform
• AI has decimated the market, especially design and writing, among many others. 
• way more competitors, have you seen how many people offer design services? 

So yeah, there are lots of negative things that have a bad influence on our earnings right now. In your case, after checking your reviews, I think it might have to do with 2 rather negative reviews you had recently. Eventually, those will wear off. Obviously, bad reviews and more specifically those that are private will hold a lot of weight. I would suggest to keep the account active, there's no benefit in closing it, whereas if you still have those gigs active, you might still get orders 🙂 

[mandyzines]

Eh, every platform has a special way of being "innovative" as well as "elevating" exposure and "empowering" freelancers. I'm sorry so many hours/days/months/years were for naught for you. If it makes you feel any better, some of us have a good social credit score and still have watched the interaction with our gigs and us diminish over the past four months or so. Some of us even lost access to our accounts because things are so...innovative.

[donnovan86]

41 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

If it makes you feel any better, some of us have a good social credit score and still have watched the interaction with our gigs and us diminish over the past four months or so. Some of us even lost access to our accounts because things are so...innovative.

Yeah, it's not the success score as a whole, I think AI and people having cheaper alternatives to freelancers is why there's such a big downfall for any freelance platform. Especially in 2024. And I could say the same about a massive number of other platforms honestly, not just Fiverr. Upwork also started focusing a lot on AI, and I am sure other platforms will follow. If they survive, of course. 

[melanielm]

I understand the frustration. I've been on Fiverr since the beginning and started freelancing almost a decade before that. Things always change. I used to make a decent living on content mills (Anyone remember Associated Content? Yikes, I'm old!) and there was a time I could pay all my bills with Fiverr if I had to. (Glad I didn't have to.) It's now just one of the facets of my career. Many basic/content-focused/creative careers are declining for the regular folks who do them. So, we shift to something else or become extraordinary. 

Absolutely frustrating and stressful at times, but necessary. Life is full of bugs.

[desmond_aubery]

17 hours ago, ninaschulz said:

Not my choice, but it's been a great run. See you guys on other platforms.

Once again, the Success Score is broken, like most things on the platform—barely functioning or straight-out broken. I've been here for a long time, and I don't remember an update without bugs. Fiverr relies on a huge algorithm update from developers whose bugs we see every day. 👏

This platform was always a gamble in my opinion. According to the previous algorithm, I was a TRS and spent two years on the first page. With the new algorithm, I'm deemed a trash, inexperienced designer. Oh well.

Wow. So incredibly sad to see the pain you are in.  😔

The advice about keeping your account open is wise advice. Life often has seasons and chapters, and some very long, dark winters - but eventually spring comes again.  🙏

[ninaschulz]

Thanks to all of you for the kind words and support.

Here are the metrics I noticed. Please add more if you'd like. Maybe this will be helpful to somebody.

1) Prices over $30-50 are a big NO NO for the Success score if you aren't a TRS seller.

2) Every revision is considered a "Conflict."

3) If the buyer is IDLE, it's your fault for not completing the order fast.

4) Support doesn't actually remove the negative stats from the account even if they say so.

5) Promoted gigs are still a scam.

6) Responding to buyers within 24 hours isn't good enough anymore (Goodbye peaceful weekends).

7) Buying reviews is still a thing. 50% of first page sellers have fake reviews and now they aren't even bothering to hide it.

"8)" automatically transformed into a "😎" emoji and this reminded me that I don't want to invest even the slightest effort into anything anymore, so let it be a list of 7.

 

Honorable mention: Support is 101% ChatGPT now. I really miss their text templates now 😞 

 

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, ninaschulz said:

6) Responding to buyers within 24 hours isn't good enough anymore (Goodbye peaceful weekends).

 

That's still fine. I still have a 1 hour response time and I reply within 2-4 hours most of the time. But there are also times when I reply immediately, so it balances out. 

3 hours ago, ninaschulz said:

4) Support doesn't actually remove the negative stats from the account even if they say so.

 

Can't really say anything specific other than the fact that even if some orders were canceled due to buyers ordering without my consent or stuff like that, I still received messages from new buyers, which was not the case until the success score update. So I tend to believe they are changing some stuff there.

3 hours ago, ninaschulz said:

Every revision is considered a "Conflict."

I have a revision every week or two weeks, and honestly I didn't really feel a massive problem here either. I think the issue stems when you have multiple revisions requested. I generall only receive one revision request and it didn't seem to be a problem. 

[desmond_aubery]

8 hours ago, ninaschulz said:

Thanks to all of you for the kind words and support.

Here are the metrics I noticed. Please add more if you'd like. Maybe this will be helpful to somebody.

1) Prices over $30-50 are a big NO NO for the Success score if you aren't a TRS seller.

2) Every revision is considered a "Conflict."

3) If the buyer is IDLE, it's your fault for not completing the order fast.

4) Support doesn't actually remove the negative stats from the account even if they say so.

5) Promoted gigs are still a scam.

6) Responding to buyers within 24 hours isn't good enough anymore (Goodbye peaceful weekends).

7) Buying reviews is still a thing. 50% of first page sellers have fake reviews and now they aren't even bothering to hide it.

"8)" automatically transformed into a "😎" emoji and this reminded me that I don't want to invest even the slightest effort into anything anymore, so let it be a list of 7.

 

Honorable mention: Support is 101% ChatGPT now. I really miss their text templates now 😞 

 

May I respectfully (as a Newbie) add my two-cents worth?
1)  I have not noticed this in my case. My minimum price for my Gigs is USD 200 - most are way higher.
2)  Good to know.
6)  I try to respond as fast as possible - that's what my tablet allows. Would it perhaps be wiser to block your activity out every weekend?
7)  Yes - I have seen a fair amount of this. This is shamefully evident on a few external support forums (I later dumped these). Shocked me as, after a really nasty case with an 'el cheapo' client early on, I try to background check potential clients very carefully now.
The Support <=> ChatGPT claim is frightening.   

[filipdevaere]

26 minutes ago, desmond_aubery said:

The Support <=> ChatGPT claim is frightening.   

I can assure you that I (as a Seller Plus member) never received an automated response from the support team.
I think those automated responses go to sellers who don't pay extra for Priority Support.

[desmond_aubery]

24 minutes ago, filipdevaere said:

I can assure you that I (as a Seller Plus member) never received an automated response from the support team.
I think those automated responses go to sellers who don't pay extra for Priority Support.

DA: The Support <=> ChatGPT claim is frightening.   

Now, with that said, this is even more frightening, sorry to say.  🤔

We are paying a 20% platform overhead charge - surely this covers marketing (advertising), human support? Why does a seller have to pay extra for these 'niceties'?
 

[filipdevaere]

6 minutes ago, desmond_aubery said:

Why does a seller have to pay extra for these 'niceties'?

Yes, we pay 20% for "using" the Fiverr platform.
What I see is that Fiverr is slowly making everyone pay more to make extra profits. The latest example of this is to increase the price of Seller Plus.
I think they have downsized the support team (saving on the number of employees) and these people have been replaced by the "automated answers".

Don't forget there are a lot less buyers compared to last year.

 

[desmond_aubery]

5 minutes ago, filipdevaere said:

Yes, we pay 20% for "using" the Fiverr platform.
What I see is that Fiverr is slowly making everyone pay more to make extra profits. The latest example of this is to increase the price of Seller Plus.
I think they have downsized the support team (saving on the number of employees) and these people have been replaced by the "automated answers".

Don't forget there are a lot less buyers compared to last year.

 

Thank you very much for clarifying.  🙏☺️

I always evaluate the fairness of an overhead charge in terms of the deliverables it provides. A flat rate of 20% is already very high. A sliding reducing scale based on annual income, or even per job size, would be more fair.

In the engineering world, a 20% 'service fee' is pretty high. You know, profit on high volume items e.g. automotive heat-transfer components - for an OEM, or aftermarket supplier - 10% profit margin is an accepted norm - at 1 million products per annum.

The platform makes money a number of other ways, including the 14 day 'clearance period' where the funds are possibly placed on 7 day call to earn interest.

Sellers have to factor in all these overhead costs into our projects. I do wonder if this high on-cost is perhaps one of the reasons for less buyers? I do note that ALL the competitors also have less buyers, leading some to do really silly things - I steer clear of that mess.

I have enjoyed Fiverr because of its professional operation and security of payments. Practically, I bring many of my own clients here as it is easy to get things done through the interface and milestone Gig offer feature. It works for me even though I end up doing a lot of external marketing where I would have thought the platform would have done that for me. It is what what it is.

[printingitem]

There are too many competitors and AI update issues.