After 6 years given to fiverr, $132K in earnings, Been a Top Rated Seller for straight 5 years, Fiverr is officially dead for me as a seller since they launched the new level system

[akshay_sihag]

I joined fiverr in 2018 and soon after i started earning good, i quit my job and became a full time freelancer. First 5 years were great. Here are my stats for first 5 years

$24,000/year sales per year on average, 170+ orders completed on an average per year, till this date i maintained 4.9 rating. 100 unique clients on an average every year. 98%-100& response rate on an average per year. 

And then came March, 2024 when fiverr announced the new level system. The day they introduced it, i instantly became a Level 1 seller, all my gigs started degrading from first page to now 2,3 and soo on, now it's not even on the last page. 

I struggled for entire year, here are my stats for 2024 year

$7500K/in entire 2024 in earnings, only made 60 sales, 30 unique clients, 100% response rate, still 4.9 rating.

Today on December 26, it's been 3 weeks since i got any order at all. All my gigs are at a score of 8 and yet my success score is at a level 6, fiverr don't even promote me to a Level 2 (asked them multiple times in emails). 

No conversions in promoted gigs at all, none of my gigs appear even in first 20 pages of the search.

Fiverr is now officially DEAD for me, i have started looking for a job once again, i have a family to feed, a wife and a kid & my parents. All are dependent upon me. I am not saying that my experience on fiverr wasn't good at all. It was good while it lasted.

I learned that nothing is permanent, no matter how good you are at doing something. 

I was so demotivated for this entire year, i struggled a lot. 

Thank you fiverr for everything, thank you for teaching me so many things in life. 

If any moderators are reading this out there, please take this as a piece of advice from me : The moment you started the new level system many good sellers were doomed on this platform, i know a few sellers who began with me and became TRS just like me and even for them now fiverr is officially dead. 

Also i hate your new level system, no matter how many supporting answers or whatever you wanna reply with, i don't know why i suffered because of your new level system, but i gave it my fall. This entire year even when i was depressed i gave it my 100% and completed every single order on time and with 5 star reviews from all clients. 

To those sellers for whom this new level system worked out great, i am happy for you. Cheers to you! 

But for those old sellers who were on this platform for a very long time and they ended up same as me, it's okay.....this is life and it happens, it's not your fault. 

At the end fiverr is just another platform to get clients, try other platforms. Try something else, good luck to you guys. 

Thank you fiverr for those glorious 5 years, i am taking happy memories and some bad ones from the last year on my fiverr, i hope you guys do something about this new level system. You guys just made this already competitive marketplace even more highly competitive market pro max level. You shouldn't have started comparing freelancers to other freelancers in the same category, this marketplace was already very crowded and highly competitive, now you have taken it Ultra Pro max level where only a few can compete.

I have seen sellers on front page having 1-2 orders in queue and some sellers with 50+ orders in queue. Don't do that, fix your algorithm, let everyone make some money here. Don't give all the bread to one person. It should be a healthy competition, not focused on sellers who make you the most money in less time. 

That's all i wanted to say, thanks everyone who read it this far. Thank you for hearing me out.  I have attached screenshots of my profile for those who wanna see it.

Thank you

[safkat_hashem]

That's horrible! Nothing left to say @akshay_sihag

[ataul_haq]

Tears came to my eyes as I read your writing. How much effort and time you have put into Fiverr! 

I hope you find some way to make money.

As a new freelancer, I learned from your teachings and carefully implemented these. 

Thank You 

[fahad_shiblu]

Some point you mentioned are very meaningful. Nothing is permanent. Man it touches my heart believe me. One thing always keep on your mind, if you are an expert you will make money. No matter from what platform or job.

[donnovan86]

On 12/26/2024 at 10:46 AM, akshay_sihag said:

I learned that nothing is permanent, no matter how good you are at doing something. 

 

It's not. They track the last 2 years for a reason, because they want to promote people that are consistent, and which had a good track record the last 2 years. Some people don't, they rely on older orders to keep them afloat. And that might do it for a while. But eventually.. it won't cut it. 

40 minutes ago, fahad_shiblu said:

One thing always keep on your mind, if you are an expert you will make money. No matter from what platform or job.

It depends if the platform gives you exposure and you can generate sales. That might not always happen and it does become an issue if you use multiple platforms with very little success..

[chuoichien1102]

I am also a developer like you. In my opinion, you should not quit your main job to become a full-time freelancer because:
- I think the income of 24k USD/year is not much higher than if you work for a company. Only consider quitting when your income is double or triple.
- Only consider freelancing as a part-time job.

[akshay_sihag]

On 1/2/2025 at 3:02 AM, donnovan86 said:

It's not. They track the last 2 years for a reason, because they want to promote people that are consistent, and which had a good track record the last 2 years. Some people don't, they rely on older orders to keep them afloat. And that might do it for a while. But eventually.. it won't cut it. 

Whatever the reason may be, i just hate that they are tracking the record of last 2 years and comparing sellers to other sellers. 

Market is already very highly competitive due to AI, and now fiverr changing the seller system took jobs of so many fellow freelancers like me. 

I am doing better now just for an update, i explored other things and now doing good in that. Just a message to all who are reading this post : Don't ever be dependent on one single platform, don't ever stay stagnant for too long. Upskill your knowledge, skills, explore new opportunities, follow the trend and grow along with it. The next generation of freelancers that is coming is gonna be even more skilled than those who are already well performing here on fiverr. 

Those who are on front page of the fiverr right now, a strong competition is coming soon, don't get carried away with your high ranking and TRS badge, sooner or later someone will surpass you so you better keep an eye out.

And to those who just joined fiverr and are new to all this, keep grinding and keep upscaling yourself if you wanna reach to the top.

Good luck to everyone!

Edited January 14 by akshay_sihag

[akshay_sihag]

On 1/7/2025 at 2:17 PM, chuoichien1102 said:

I am also a developer like you. In my opinion, you should not quit your main job to become a full-time freelancer because:
- I think the income of 24k USD/year is not much higher than if you work for a company. Only consider quitting when your income is double or triple.
- Only consider freelancing as a part-time job.

I worked for 12-14 hours to earn that much through fiverr. I can't possibly do a job along with freelancing & that's why i quit my full time job, nobody can work a job and do freelancing at the same time unless they are earning very good by working very less hours which i believe is very rare nowadays or unless you work 20 hours a day.

Anyways after quitting fiverr i explored other opportunities and upscaled myself and i am doing better now.

 

[akshay_sihag]

On 1/2/2025 at 2:21 AM, fahad_shiblu said:

Some point you mentioned are very meaningful. Nothing is permanent. Man it touches my heart believe me. One thing always keep on your mind, if you are an expert you will make money. No matter from what platform or job.

Absolutely! That's why i didn't gave up. These platforms are mere a mediator between your amazing skills and the clients who need them. There are always other ways of getting new clients and offering your skills. I knew this day would eventually come and but i was too lazy to prepare myself for that. 

And then when it hit me hard, i understood what i need to do now and i did that and i am glad this happened to me otherwise i would never have known that i am capable of much more than just fiverr. 

[donnovan86]

31 minutes ago, akshay_sihag said:

Whatever the reason may be, i just hate that they are tracking the record of last 2 years and comparing sellers to other sellers. 

 

The answer is simple. There are way wayyyy more people when compared to 5 years ago for example. The pandemic doubled or tripled seller numbers, and more people came in since then. Sure, they purged a few accounts, but realistically, there are way more people and they need to differentiate them and rank properly. Not saying this system is perfect, but they are trying at least. 

33 minutes ago, akshay_sihag said:

follow the trend

I will be honest, it varies depending on your niche. But following the trend won't always help, if anything it can make things worse. Because once the trend is over, you either follow the new trend which you don't have any skills for, or you remain with a gig that doesn't really have demand anymore.

[akshay_sihag]

6 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I will be honest, it varies depending on your niche. But following the trend won't always help, if anything it can make things worse. Because once the trend is over, you either follow the new trend which you don't have any skills for, or you remain with a gig that doesn't really have demand anymore.

AI trend is not going anywhere anytime soon, i was referring to that. 

It can only make things worse if you don't know what you are doing and just following the trend blindly like a sheep crowd

[donnovan86]

14 minutes ago, akshay_sihag said:

AI trend is not going anywhere anytime soon, i was referring to that. 

 

AI is not the only thing in this world my dude. Some niches are heavily impacted, others won't see any change at all. And the same thing was valid before AI, if you always try to catch as many sheep as possible by pursuing trends and what's hot, chances are that you won't really catch anything..

Edited January 14 by donnovan86

[chuoichien1102]

1 hour ago, akshay_sihag said:

I worked for 12-14 hours to earn that much through fiverr. I can't possibly do a job along with freelancing & that's why i quit my full time job, nobody can work a job and do freelancing at the same time unless they are earning very good by working very less hours which i believe is very rare nowadays or unless you work 20 hours a day.

Anyways after quitting fiverr i explored other opportunities and upscaled myself and i am doing better now.

 

It's great if you have your own website, or somehow get clients outside of this fiverr platform, you won't be charged any fees to fiverr.

[akshay_sihag]

13 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

AI is not the only thing in this world my dude. Some niches are heavily impacted, others won't see any change at all. And the same thing was valid before AI, if you always try to catch as many sheep as possible by pursuing trends and what's hot, chances are that you won't really catch anything..

Nobody said anything about catching multiple sheeps, it's an old saying don't keep your feet in two boats at the same time coz both of them will sink. 

Anyways yeah AI is not the only thing in the world but AI is everywhere right now and in almost every niche, it's helpful in every other niche nowadays if you know how to use AI for your work. 

AI isn't gonna replace all the jobs in my opinion, it's only gonna help you make your work faster and more efficient. it will help people to do more work in less time and some huge companies might use AI to replace few human jobs but not all. 

So my take is use AI in your work and make it more efficient and explore more opportunities in your own niche and explore sub-niches in your niche. 

AI has helped me a lot in my work and that's how i can say this. 

I make websites, graphic design, figma mockups and also make youtube videos now and AI is helping  me a lot in all of these.

Edited January 14 by akshay_sihag

[akshay_sihag]

32 minutes ago, chuoichien1102 said:

It's great if you have your own website, or somehow get clients outside of this fiverr platform, you won't be charged any fees to fiverr.

Exactly!

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, akshay_sihag said:

So my take is use AI in your work and make it more efficient and explore more opportunities in your own niche and explore sub-niches in your niche. 

 

I suggest you focus on your own work and don't tell others what to do 🙂 

At the end of the day, every freelancer has the right to embrace AI and provide AI services or completely ignore it. I see very well that at least when it comes to writing, a lot of buyers use AI and then come back to real writing because their stuff doesn't rank at all. 

1 hour ago, chuoichien1102 said:

It's great if you have your own website, or somehow get clients outside of this fiverr platform, you won't be charged any fees to fiverr.

Generally a freelancer should have that. You still have to deal with fees, and you have to spend a ton of money on ads to MAYBE acquire clients.

[akshay_sihag]

21 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I suggest you focus on your own work and don't tell others what to do 🙂 

Thanks for the suggestion, @donnovan86, but I believe forums like this are for exchanging ideas and learning from each other, not shutting down discussions. Sharing thoughts doesn’t mean ‘telling others what to do’—it’s just contributing to the overall conversation. A positive and open mindset always helps more than comments like this.

You made a valid point about niche-specific impacts, but calling others’ thoughts 'chasing sheep' doesn’t really add anything helpful. Sharing your knowledge is great, but doing it without being condescending makes the discussion a lot more meaningful for everyone.

And as for focusing on my work, I assure you I’m fully capable of managing my own tasks while still being a part of this forum. I’d really appreciate it if we kept the tone here friendly and productive. This should be a space for collaboration, not competition.

At the end of the day, the goal isn’t to prove who’s smarter, but to share knowledge and learn from each other. Let’s try to keep things respectful and make this space useful for everyone involved

[webdeveloper89s]

I feel you bro, same goes for me. I am on fiverr from last 9 years in same niche with similar stats. But with the new system they dropped me to level zero and everything is finished for me on this platform.

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, akshay_sihag said:

So my take is use AI in your work and make it more efficient and explore more opportunities in your own niche and explore sub-niches in your niche. 

 

11 minutes ago, akshay_sihag said:

I’d really appreciate it if we kept the tone here friendly and productive. This should be a space for collaboration, not competition.

You specifically told me to use AI in my work. I don't like, care for or use AI, and this discussion is about the new level system removing your capability to acquire more work. Not about AI, nor whether others use AI or not. Let's keep things on topic. It was a lack of respect forcing me to use AI, and I didn't ask for any take. So yeah, let's keep things civil and not assume things or force people onto stuff. 

The new level system is the way it is because a lot of people tried to circumvent how the old system worked, they were canceling orders to avoid issues, asked buyers to leave a specific review, they copied gig descriptions from others, etc. Plus, the number of sellers doubled/tripled for many categories due to the pandemic, and it only increased since then. The problem I see is the fact that private reviews exist, because even if you're rated very well publicly, sometimes there will be customers that rate you poorly privately. And then you have no idea what happened, what you did wrong, there's nothing constructive there. Yet that feedback matters way more than regular feedback.

The fact that they are taking the last 2 years on the platform into account for the success score is also fine. That's because some people were very good years ago, and now they outsource or they are just slacking and use mostly AI to complete their work. Plus, the last 2 years or last year specifically, those tend to offer a better insight into how good the seller is right now, instead of reviews from a decade ago. 

My take is that if you don't have impressions/clicks, most likely there are bad private reviews accumulated for one or more of your gigs. Check the dashboard, see if there's anything negative for your gigs, it will say if it's due to cancellations, if buyers are unhappy and so on. Newsflash, this was not available until now, and we had no idea what happened with the gig and what we did wrong. At least now we have some insight.

[akshay_sihag]

41 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

You specifically told me to use AI in my work. I don't like, care for or use AI, and this discussion is about the new level system removing your capability to acquire more work. Not about AI, nor whether others use AI or not. Let's keep things on topic. It was a lack of respect forcing me to use AI, and I didn't ask for any take. So yeah, let's keep things civil and not assume things or force people onto stuff. 

I think there’s been a misunderstanding, @donnovan86. I never specifically told you to use AI in your work, nor was it my intention to force anything on you. My comment was meant as a general suggestion to encourage discussion and share ideas—not as a directive or an assumption about how you work. 

If my words came across differently, I apologize, as that was not my intent. Forums like this are meant for open dialogue and respectful exchanges, and I genuinely value diverse perspectives.

That said, I think we can both agree that keeping the discussion constructive and focused on the topic at hand benefits everyone here. Let’s aim to make this space collaborative and welcoming for all.

41 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

The new level system is the way it is because a lot of people tried to circumvent how the old system worked, they were canceling orders to avoid issues, asked buyers to leave a specific review, they copied gig descriptions from others, etc. Plus, the number of sellers doubled/tripled for many categories due to the pandemic, and it only increased since then. The problem I see is the fact that private reviews exist, because even if you're rated very well publicly, sometimes there will be customers that rate you poorly privately. And then you have no idea what happened, what you did wrong, there's nothing constructive there. Yet that feedback matters way more than regular feedback.

Yes, private feedback shouldn't exist in the first place and the fact that it affects our profile a lot more than the public feedback is just insane.

41 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

The fact that they are taking the last 2 years on the platform into account for the success score is also fine. That's because some people were very good years ago, and now they outsource or they are just slacking and use mostly AI to complete their work. Plus, the last 2 years or last year specifically, those tend to offer a better insight into how good the seller is right now, instead of reviews from a decade ago. 

It's not fine, as you said only "Some" people are outsourcing their work, that doesn't imply to all people. While implementing this many good sellers who wasn't doing any of this also got affected because at some point in those 2 years everybody got some negative review or late deliveries and nobody knew that one day fiverr is gonna take in account all of those things to calculate your success score. And fiverr can't get away with saying "New orders affect your success score more and that success score will stay mostly stable". This is both good & bad. Good for those who are already TRS, bad for those who got demoted and now can't level up their success score because they are not getting enough orders in the first place.

41 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

My take is that if you don't have impressions/clicks, most likely there are bad private reviews accumulated for one or more of your gigs. Check the dashboard, see if there's anything negative for your gigs, it will say if it's due to cancellations, if buyers are unhappy and so on. Newsflash, this was not available until now, and we had no idea what happened with the gig and what we did wrong. At least now we have some insight.

 This is the only good part that they have given us the information & areas to improve upon. However i am very against the private feedback and comparing the sellers to other sellers.

Edited January 14 by akshay_sihag

[sabin_ecom]

This is truly so sad to hear about your struggles and I can understand the pain of seeing something you worked so hard for fade away. Your dedication to Fiverr and the success you achieved over the years is absolutely incredible and it’s disheartening to see that the changes to the platform have a big impact on your business.

[domenikbrenner]

That's a horrible story, not only did they kick the stool under your feet away, they also don't even implement their own system correctly. 

Why on earth do you have 8, 8, 8, 8 for all your categories, but not "officially" a success score of 8? Shows you how messed up that is. It should be straight forward; From all the available categories, you should get an average score, and then act on that. If it's 7 or above; You go up a level, if it's under 7, you stay, if it's under 6 you rank down even further. 


And 8 is definitely above 7! You should have been moved up a level at the very least, if they don't even rank you properly. I have been struggling with ranking, but basically everyone is complaining about that on fiverr and there are so many reasons for why you're not ranking well. But the success score works against the way they advertised it! 
Why even bother with the success score and all those numbers when they obviously mean diddly squat?

There are way too many hidden statistics and algorithms at play, way more than necessary!

It's best to diversify, you're very right. I have started looking into other platforms to sell my services, too. 

[deivys20071]

@akshay_sihag 

  omg u earned $1720 in December ...but..I earned $28 + $4 tip 🤣😭!  I started in 2015 and I remember the good years and good earnings. I was also a participant in a system similar to Fiver Pro, which later did not meet the requirements because of a Crazy Client 😭👺  and they took away my access to that special place where you could set high prices where clients bought the services 😶....    Now how do I survive? Well, thank God for the good relationship I had with clients, but they don't come every day. And I also met good friends from Pakistan and they send me orders 🙏

Edited January 15 by deivys20071

[szilard_]

On 12/26/2024 at 10:46 AM, akshay_sihag said:

I joined fiverr in 2018 and soon after i started earning good, i quit my job and became a full time freelancer. First 5 years were great. Here are my stats for first 5 years

$24,000/year sales per year on average, 170+ orders completed on an average per year, till this date i maintained 4.9 rating. 100 unique clients on an average every year. 98%-100& response rate on an average per year. 

And then came March, 2024 when fiverr announced the new level system. The day they introduced it, i instantly became a Level 1 seller, all my gigs started degrading from first page to now 2,3 and soo on, now it's not even on the last page. 

I struggled for entire year, here are my stats for 2024 year

$7500K/in entire 2024 in earnings, only made 60 sales, 30 unique clients, 100% response rate, still 4.9 rating.

Today on December 26, it's been 3 weeks since i got any order at all. All my gigs are at a score of 8 and yet my success score is at a level 6, fiverr don't even promote me to a Level 2 (asked them multiple times in emails). 

No conversions in promoted gigs at all, none of my gigs appear even in first 20 pages of the search.

Fiverr is now officially DEAD for me, i have started looking for a job once again, i have a family to feed, a wife and a kid & my parents. All are dependent upon me. I am not saying that my experience on fiverr wasn't good at all. It was good while it lasted.

I learned that nothing is permanent, no matter how good you are at doing something. 

I was so demotivated for this entire year, i struggled a lot. 

Thank you fiverr for everything, thank you for teaching me so many things in life. 

If any moderators are reading this out there, please take this as a piece of advice from me : The moment you started the new level system many good sellers were doomed on this platform, i know a few sellers who began with me and became TRS just like me and even for them now fiverr is officially dead. 

Also i hate your new level system, no matter how many supporting answers or whatever you wanna reply with, i don't know why i suffered because of your new level system, but i gave it my fall. This entire year even when i was depressed i gave it my 100% and completed every single order on time and with 5 star reviews from all clients. 

To those sellers for whom this new level system worked out great, i am happy for you. Cheers to you! 

But for those old sellers who were on this platform for a very long time and they ended up same as me, it's okay.....this is life and it happens, it's not your fault. 

At the end fiverr is just another platform to get clients, try other platforms. Try something else, good luck to you guys. 

Thank you fiverr for those glorious 5 years, i am taking happy memories and some bad ones from the last year on my fiverr, i hope you guys do something about this new level system. You guys just made this already competitive marketplace even more highly competitive market pro max level. You shouldn't have started comparing freelancers to other freelancers in the same category, this marketplace was already very crowded and highly competitive, now you have taken it Ultra Pro max level where only a few can compete.

I have seen sellers on front page having 1-2 orders in queue and some sellers with 50+ orders in queue. Don't do that, fix your algorithm, let everyone make some money here. Don't give all the bread to one person. It should be a healthy competition, not focused on sellers who make you the most money in less time. 

That's all i wanted to say, thanks everyone who read it this far. Thank you for hearing me out.  I have attached screenshots of my profile for those who wanna see it.

Thank you

I am in the same boat, I am also a pro, top-rated seller, and have a success score of 10, but since more than half a year, my impressions dropped to a constant 50-200/day, even with maximum ad spend

[donnovan86]

3 hours ago, szilard_ said:

I am in the same boat, I am also a pro, top-rated seller, and have a success score of 10, but since more than half a year, my impressions dropped to a constant 50-200/day, even with maximum ad spend

You did have a bad review within the past 6 months, and since you're not a high volume seller, and not everyone leaves private reviews, it's clear why you have this problem. That bad review has a major negative impact.