Can you make $50,000 a year on Fiverr?

[landongrace]

When I started on Fiverr, I thought, it would be great to make an extra $600 a month. That would really help

alot. I set up a gig and I got to $600 a month in about 3-4 months.



I remember an article I read on the Fiverr blog which opened my eyes to how much money people were making on Fiverr. I saw a super seller had made $50,000 a year on Fiverr. I thought, Wow. I hadn’t tried to make more because I didn’t know it was possible. But after reading about it I saw that it was. So I started working on it.



50,000 is $4000 a month, $1000 a week, $142 a day.

Currently I was at $20.00 a day.



So it was interesting to see that I only needed to make about $120 a day more than I currently was. I also realized that at my current rates on Fiverr, I was not going to have enough hours in the day to make this happen. So I was going to have to raise my rates? It was a slow process, but I needed to be good enough that people would except the higher rates. I also needed to provide a higher level of service which also would justify the rates.



I actually reached some of my highest months so far, before I became a TRS, so don’t let anything hold you back. I haven’t reached an average of $124 a day, but I am hitting an average of about $80 a day. As I keep refining my offers and managing my time better, I am excited to see what is in store next.



80% of my orders are repeat customers, so it looks like my focus is on finding more repeat customers that need weekly deliveries. I will be at full capacity with only about 25-50 repeat customers.



Another interesting observation is that I have 8000 impressions a month in my category, but I only need 25-50 repeat customers. I don’t think traffic will ever be a problem. I just need to be one of the best, and I need to be one of the nicest people someone will work with on Fiverr.

[belengarcia]

Great post. I have a question though. With that many repeat clients, how do you manage changes in your gigs? For example, if you decide to raise your rate, do you maintain it unchanged for them?
My plan is also increasing my rate in the future, but I’m afraid that repeat clients will choose another seller. I guess most people come to Fiverr looking for the cheapest prices.

(I understand if that is “confidential information” that you don’t want to share)

[twistedweb123]

Great post! I break down potential earnings in a similar way. Before each year, I decide how much I want to earn. I then break that down to a per day amount.

I’ve built my own tool to basically track and log everything I do a day, including money earned (after commission). I find this really helps me to stay focused. I basically start work each day and chip away at that tally until finished. If I finish early, I work a bit more. If I finish later, I end work for the day.

Great follow-up question belengarcia, that’s a really interesting scenario. Personally, I only retain rates for very good repeat buyers (i.e. been with me for quite some time, usually atleast a year with weekly orders).

[dtongsports]

That’s definitely one of my goals here on Fiverr…hit that 50K in one year mark! However, lately, I’ve been more focused on combining Fiverr with growing outside of it to reach that mark now as I’d rather keep that 20% sometimes, especially on larger projects. Don’t mind paying 20% for new customers and for $100 or less projects, but now I’m reaching for the $300, $500, and $1000 jobs/projects and no one deserves 20% of that much unless they are bringing in 10 of those projects a week, and fiverr doesn’t do that for me…yet… 🙂

I guess the point is to work on both and eventually they’ll both be at 50K. 🙂
I think Fiverr likes being a businesses revenue generator rather than a freelancers dream and has encouraged such IMO. A lot of their stories include people/sellers who have already established businesses that found Fiverr recently as a useful tool instead Sellers who started on Fiverr years ago and have created the foundation. It’s a new model and a new business, and although it is possible, and individual sellers are already accomplishing this as well as ‘teams’, Fiverr has slowly changed it’s brand and marketing plans to focus on businesses to basically become one of that business’ sales people/force. Good thing is that this will attract more buyers and also more investors with real money to continue to grow the population of members and also to give more credibility to Fiverr as not everyone will just create a profile and sign up in order to buy your services.

I think if they create a ‘GUEST’ option where buyers can appear as Guest and not have to sign up for a membership/profile that it will increase revenues 10fold and make that $50,000 a very reasonable and achievable goal for a lot of sellers.

Nice post.
DTong (TRS)

[landongrace]

Reply to @belengarcia: I don’t think there is a straight forward method. On my whiteboard video (100 words), I went from $5.00 to $25 at level 2. I moved my $5.00 gig from 100 words to 20 words. I was already giving $25.00 of value in the early deliveries at $5.00. I was still very competitive with my competition at $25.00.
I was very kind, thankful and respectful. If I was directly asked about the price change, I probably stated, “Thank you so much for your message, I have really enjoyed making the whiteboard videos here on Fiverr. These videos are very time consuming to make and I have had to raise the price to cover the cost of production. I will always strive to offer products that have tremendous value for you at a great price. I would enjoy working with you again.” If your competition is hammering you on price and they have a better product, this will not work.

When I got too busy and had to suspend my gigs to control the orders, an interesting thing happened. I could still take orders from my regulars, but the custom quotes were about 10-20% higher. They were happy that I could “work them in” even though I was “slammed” I left that gig paused for about 3 months while the custom quotes still kept coming in, Scarcity can be a really good thing.

There is a tendency to want to discount for frequent customers. Many of my regulars actually pay higher per word because of a level of consistency, availability and service that I provide them. They are more concerned with a smooth work flow and a consistent product.

My gig offers 2 things, 20 words and 100 words. If it is not 20 words or 100 words, I custom quote it. Most projects are not one of the 2. So I can quote based on the amount of work and not by a pre-determined scale or word count. I don’t offer scaling prices on my gig. For me a 400 word video is much more time consuming per word, than a 100 word video is. More is not usually less expensive to make.

I have been at the $5.00 and $25 price points for over a year, so I haven’t slowly moved prices on my regulars during that time, but you see how custom quotes can move around.

I really would rather have no orders than to have the wrong orders. I just keep haven’t to make my self believe that.

[Guest ayagamal541]

No One don’t want this goal , but who can accomplish it ! 😉

[landongrace]

Reply to @dtongsports: I agree with you. Diversification. I have been freelancing for over 20 years and right now about 25% of my income is Fiverr. I would have never dreamed that Fiverr would have grown to that high of a percentage of the income. For me, the Fiverr work flow for smaller projects is much more efficient than I can do outside of fiverr on my own. Right now for me it is worth the 20%. Just like a store would rent space in a shopping mall to have access to the foot traffic. Many of those stores pay a monthly lease and a percentage of sales. Here at Fiverr, I only pay for the traffic when I get a sale.

Pat Flynn has a podcast about productization. It explains why the Fiverr model works. (Well he doesn’t mention Fiverr.) It has really revolutionized what I think about micro jobs and freelancing all together. It is easily to find with google.

I will never ever have 1 job, one employer, or 1 customer. It’s just too risky.

[landongrace]

Reply to @dtongsports: I had a customer early on say, “Come on this is Fiverr not Elance!” and I thought to my self, but it really is. Like you said, as all of the providers can help raise the bar, the perception can grow from a $50 a gig site to a $500 a gig site.

It doesn’t matter how great the product is, if the consumer didn’t come prepared to spend that amount, they probably won’t.

[dtongsports]

Reply to @landongrace: Which is why Fiverr isn’t a ‘micro-gig’ site anymore and they brand ‘business services’ so much now. It’s true though. One place with a lot of things for a lot of different businesses. Fiverr isn’t going anywhere and sets the standard for an industry still in it’s infancy.

[landongrace]

Reply to @dtongsports: You have encouraged me. The ship is sailing.

[landongrace]

Reply to @ayagamal541: Many have accomplished it. It is more about the seller, than the platform. First realize that you can do it. then put steps in place to take you there.

[zeromark]

Awesome post!

I’ve been thinking that If I get lucky enough to get noticed next to all the competitors and given a chance to get level 1 or 2 I might have to change my price if I ever wanted to get serious about earning money here and I’ve had no idea how I would do it. This (the reply you posted) has helped me even though it might be much into the future for myself. The first post itself is very inspiring!

Also you seem to post on forums and help newbies such as myself for which I am very grateful, so you can’t be a bad guy (awesome guy actually!), you will reach your goal in no time! Or even further, good luck! 🙂

[Guest ayagamal541]

Promise , i will work on it .

And i wish the best sales for all 🙂

[belengarcia]

Reply to @landongrace: Thanks!! Your posts are always very helpful.

[Guest fatimaskills]

Iam a new seller on fiverr and i havent even made a single dollar since so many days ! reading people like you inspires me but makes me sad at the same time ! Hope you more success.

Regards

[Guest ayagamal541]

@fatimaskills I am a new seller too and I made all my best to get only 1 order, but I still don’t have any sale.
I wish to get only one order to prove my talent and professionalism in video editing.
Some of the top sellers told me to wait and I will get orders, so I don’t have anything to do unless waiting.

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @ayagamal541: I think there are lots of things you could do while waiting. 🙂

-Revise your video a little to make the English read well. If you need help, get a friend who is a native speaker to help or hire a helper.
-Promote your Fiverr profile in social media and/or hire marketing help on Fiverr.
-Build a landing page to direct traffic toward your Fiverr profile
-You have 7 gig slots and only one is taken! What else can you do?
Can you hold a sign in an interesting location in Egypt?
Can you make funny videos people could buy to put on their YouTube channels?
Can you help people with their gig videos? You could even partner up with other
Fiverr sellers to offer allowed music and fluent English in those videos!

Those are just a few ideas and if you keep reading the forum, blog and Fiverr Academy you’ll probably find more. Don’t just wait, spend time building your business and your brand while you wait!

[Guest escape]

Reply to @ayagamal541: You will get I am sure. I was in the same situation like you for an month and just now i got orders the last 3 days and got new buyers requests. Be patience and change gigs videos. Delete what not sell and put up a new. I did and it was great to se how buyers behaive and what they want…

[Guest escape]

Reply to @fonthaunt: I agree with fonthaunt, an seller with experience have always good advices:).

[Guest ayagamal541]

Reply to @fonthaunt: I am sorry for my English here and in the video and thank you so much for these tips.
I am already searching for the best way to promote my gig, but I still don’t know what is the best!
and about the gigs, I won’t create another gig because I don’t talented unless, video editing, this is the only work that I can do it professionally.

[Guest ayagamal541]

Reply to @escape_: Thanks a lot and I will wait!
Wish for you more sales 🙂

[Guest escape]

Reply to @ayagamal541: Thanks you too:)

[zimamedia]

That’s pretty insightful. I started with the idea of making $100 a week. That was sustained after 3-4 months. The focus has since changed to $100 dollars a day.

[emmaki]

You can make more, although I would recommend against putting all your eggs in one basket as a freelancer. Better to maintain a lower income across more sites so that you’re not entirely dependent on the whims/games of fortune that all platforms suffer from time to time. Besides, wouldn’t you be a little bit annoyed that some $10,000 of that 50k would be going to Fiverr in commissions and yet, if a PayPal dispute arised (for example) you’d get a “sorry, nothing we can do about it” response?

I know I would, even if I was swimming in money and the loss of income was a drop in the ocean.

[jamshed_khan]

Time = Money

I know a super seller from my country (Pakistan) who is earning $26000/month.

We all know, positive reviews and excellent work may lead us to go on the top.

Best of luck