williambryan392

Jumping in to say I think that's the problem @yonixer. You can only have one account. You're supposed to use the same account for both buying and selling. You're not supposed to have an account for each. Maybe that's not the problem, but I think it might be.

I think we have very similar methodologies! Like you 99% of my clients are great, and I think a huge part of that is the pricing.

Yep I get that too! Frustrating. Or 'I need a free call to see if I want to pay for a call'. Hmmmm, no thank you.

That hit me too. I think they are working on that according to an acknowledgment they made on the main post/thread. Massive agree with you on this. I don't these should be automatic negatives.

Fair enough! I would counter that just because they're not replying to everyone here, or changing what they're doing (at least yet) that doesn't mean they're not aware of and paying attention to this (listening). And this is where I have massive sympathy, it's truly sad to read this. I don't relish anyone having a bad/hard time. You've been here since 2010, you're literally an OG Fiverr seller!

Good point well made. Doing it retroactively (and based on 2 years) means it's hard to shift the needle let alone in just 30 days. Yep, agree, it's their house, and I do think the decisions they make are data-led. I don't think they are making these decisions out of an emotional response.

I get you. I suppose the problem would be that there are so many sellers with thousands or even tens of thousands of reviews that it would take too long for the new system to effectively balance sellers out, thereby disadvantaging newer sellers. You know where I am! 😆

Firstly this is just my opinion, there is no incentive for me to share the below, Fiverr hasn't asked me to do this and given the way the community is responding I’m aware I could get some (a lot of) disagreement with this. For context, I’m a TRS/Pro and have replaced my prior financial services/tech income using Fiverr. To be transparent I’m also a forum m0d, but please don’t think that means you can’t disagree with me. I’m not someone that hides posts, or blocks/warns people for disagreeing, only if someone is abusive/grossly unprofessional. Free speech is important so don’t be shy. I have learned a lot from this community over the last few years, users like @imagination7413, @frank_d, @damooch916, @vickieito @breals @visualstudios @newsmike to name a few (I know I'm missing loads) have been awesome, and from time to time I’ve tried to contribute positively myself to help others. I also think it's great to see established sellers like @levinewman sharing their thoughts/concerns on these changes and also being heard by Fiverr. That doesn't mean they'll act on it, they don't owe us that, but at least they're listening. Anyway, here we go… I get why you’re annoyed. I would be too. Everything looked great on your profile, with lots of 5* ratings and buyers leaving great written reviews. Maybe you thought this new level system was going to get you to TRS (often seen as the holy grail of Fiverr success). Then BAM, you’re dropping a level or more when you thought everything was going great. It's kind of like getting dumped by a partner when they told you they loved you the day before. The thing is, there were probably problems you weren't seeing. You feel discarded and unloved, but the only thing you can do is learn and change. So I’ll say again, I would be annoyed/confused/frustrated/upset too. It’s a gut punch, and not expected. I have both empathy and sympathy for you. I mean that sincerely. Now, I’m going to make some assumptions/(potentially obvious) statements… Fiverr isn’t making up the data it's using. It has always been there, you just haven’t had visibility of it in the same way you do now, and it hasn’t been contributing to your overall score/level until now. Fiverr is fixing the bugs. Bugs do happen, it can be a 1 person startup or Google, and bugs still get through. I think Fiverr will want to know why as much as we do, that doesn’t mean they’ll tell us why, but they don’t want bugs any more than we do and will fix them. Fiverr wants buyers to be happy. Stating the obvious, every seller knows this, but I think they saw a trend of buyers saying they were happy publicly when in fact they were less happy privately, and this was causing buyers to make the ‘wrong’ decision when picking a freelancer based on the public information. They tried to fix it with private reviews, and this is a further evolution of that. Fiverr wants sellers to be happy (it may not feel like it right now). Like any marketplace, Fiverr is a 2 sided ecosystem, and there needs to be a symbiosis between the 2 sides. I do believe that fundamentally Fiverr wants sellers to be successful, because if they have successful sellers, they can have buyers who get what they want, and if both sides are happy, Fiverr makes money. However, most marketplaces prioritize buyers over sellers. Uber, doordash, airbnb, you name it. It’s necessary to maintain the ecosystem. It’s far cheaper to acquire a seller/provider than a buyer. Algorithms are massively complicated. There are hundreds (thousands!?) of data points potentially now included, coupled maybe even with AI doing some analysis. We cannot expect every SM/CS agent/product owner/developer (or even the CEO himself!) to understand it entirely. Every account, with all its data points from all the various reviews (as well as profile setup, gig setup, everything) makes every seller account unique. This means it’s almost impossible for someone at Fiverr to give you 100% concrete feedback on why something is the way it is. I’m NOT saying everything is perfect, and I want to provide a balanced view so to be transparent I will share the things that concern me, and also show I'm not a Fiverr shill... Cancellations shouldn’t automatically be considered a fail. I once had a buyer spend 4 figures on a business plan, and when I met with him it was clear that he didn’t in fact need a business plan (I won’t go into detail on why) but I don’t want to sell things people don’t need, and so we agreed to cancel. He was thrilled and went on and spent money with other sellers who could give him what he did need. Support did amend my OCR when I explained why, but this could have still privately impacted me which I don’t think is right. Buyers make mistakes ordering, they change their minds, and stuff happens. Sellers shouldn’t be penalized for giving a buyer a good experience by canceling. Revisions are part of the creative process. The healthy way to view revisions is that it’s an opportunity to get the work to the best possible standard according to the buyer's expectations and your ability. I don’t think revisions in themselves should penalize the seller, it shouldn’t be automatically classed as conflict, but obviously, there’s a line, and sometimes excessive revisions are because the seller has overpromised and massively underdelivered. I once had a pitch deck go through 15 rounds because the buyer changed practically everything, the name, the logo, the colour scheme, the market, the product/service. You name it, they changed it and it ended up being an entirely different business. I think I overdelivered, but this probably counted against me. Response time can be brutal to maintain. I know the feeling of wanting to reply quickly, you want to close the sale, and it’s important buyers get a timely reply so I understand why it’s judged by Fiverr. This pressure gave me burnout, and I actually started to actively reply slower. This meant I avoided getting into back-and-forth conversations. I used to be at 1 hour response time for my first year, and I was most recently at 3 hours (I focused on it for the last couple of months once I got my energy back), but for the second half of last year I was at 6 hours, and in December it hit 10 hours. This January was still my best month for revenue. My point is don’t overly sweat it, I think decent buyers know you have other clients & commitments, and good buyers understand waiting for a few (or more) hours for good sellers. With so many data points it’s now become less important overall. The rating and review form is complicated. I’ve had buyers message saying it’s confusing, it’s time-consuming, or even apologizing as that was not the review they wanted to leave when I asked what I could have done better. Note I’m not asking them to change it (that’s not allowed), I just ask if they have any pointers on how I could have done more to help, especially when they've already decided to work with me further. They say nothing, it was great. They could be lying, but given I work with all my buyers on Zoom I think I know them reasonably well enough to judge if they're being disingenuous, and they buy again, and they tip me. The ratings/emojis should be linear IMO, and I think the value for money is a bit of a flawed concept. I also don't like professional work being judged by emojis, but it's not my platform, it's Fiverr's. Promoted gig inbox message/follow-up message feature. Promoted gigs have helped me get sales, but promoted inbox messages have instead led to questions and even anger. ‘Why did you message me’, ‘this is spam’, ‘leave me alone’. I have to explain it’s not me, but Fiverr. This means I’ve avoided promoting my gigs that cost more and just left the cheaper CPC ones promoting. Order page auto messages to fill in requirements ( @mandyzines lol), or join consultation calls. I find these automated messages to not be well structured, or overly polite. They’re very blunt, and I would rather control the messaging to my buyers myself rather than rely on automated messages. It makes me wonder what the promoted gig message says. The consultation feature needs a buffer. This is to prevent back-to-back calls which ultimately means a call either starts late or finishes early, which no buyer wants. Fiverr communication. With hindsight, I think more could have been done to prepare the community for the inevitable level drops (assuming Fiverr crunched the numbers for the impact beforehand), but maybe they didn’t expect it. The communication needs to be aligned as we are receiving some mixed messages. I also think it’s unreasonable for us to expect @Kesha to respond to everyone. That’s what support or your SM is for, but as per my earlier algo point, they can only know, or indeed share so much. Communication also goes both ways and beating down on Fiverr staff is never going to get you what you want. I think it can also undermine valid feedback, so be constructive. It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior, and I think you should only say on the internet what you’d say to someone's face. Buyer ratings. There needs to be a better way to rate buyers. Seller insights feature was a great step and very helpful. But still, I'm a coward, and rate every buyer as 'Great Buyer' because if I say anything else they could burn me with the private review out of spite. So, I want to leave you, my fellow sellers, with these sentiments… This is a one-month transition, let's watch this space... Fiverr does want you to be successful because if you’re not then they won’t be either. I believe this change was done to make things better, not worse. It might not seem like it, but they will be listening (but that doesn't mean they'll implement what you want). You built success before on Fiverr when so many others tried and failed. You learned what it took to get great feedback and keep clients happy with the old system. You can learn how to be successful with the new system. You’re great at what you do? That means you’re capable, and you can do this. The game is still the same, but the rules have been updated. You don’t need to be level whatever to make money. I know a level 2 doing 5 figures a month, and a TRS doing 3 figures a month. Remember the person, whether they are Fiverr staff, or your fellow buyers and sellers (or me as you respond to this!). I'll say again I think it's great the community is giving feedback, that the forum is active and people are sharing and learning from each other. I mean it and I stated at the start that free speech is important. Perhaps above all remember you don’t work for Fiverr, you work on Fiverr, so make Fiverr work for you. Treat it as a business, adapt to the market, and of course don’t rely on one customer/platform/revenue stream to put food on the table. Evolve or die, that's the brutal truth, and it's true of however or wherever you make your income. You never know what's around the corner. Just my overly long 2 cents, and if I'm a level 0 in a month I might be making a dramatically different post, but I'll also be thinking what I can do to improve, to add value, and to grow again. Feel free to beat me up, venting is healthy!

I understand, and this is just my guesswork... Auto-completed orders may not affect your account negatively. Orders that are accepted affect your account positively. Orders that are also rated (positively) also affect your account positively.

Perhaps not directly, but indirectly, when compared to other orders from competitor sellers, if their orders are being accepted (success point), and then rated (another success point) then I think indirectly you will be negatively impacted. (Obviously this is me speculating).

I get you, but I expect she's been tagged maybe hundreds of times today and is in firefighting mode, answering what she can when she can. I expect the other questions are being noted and further info sought, and there have been comments from her stating that it's all being noted. I had the same conversation with CS last night re the cancelation metric and I got 3 canned replies so in the end I gave up and flagged to my SM. It was a painful experience. Today we get the info that it was mistakenly included. Given the bugs, and the lack of info I don't blame Kesha for playing it safe, and only adding info that is known to be correct.

I think a lot of what needs to be said was already said, and I won't add to it overly. There are now so many data points included in the ongoing evaluation, and it is much more complex, including I think AI judging communication amongst other things. For all this to be done correctly takes a lot of thought and a lot of work. Algos are incredibly complicated, and few (including me) could ever understand them. I admire Fiverr for innovating but something doesn't seem right. Cancelations that shouldn't have been included have in fact been included (kudos for acknowledging this and being open about it) and I've seen a TRS with 0.2 as a score. As well as a lot of sudden location issues (maybe naughty sellers are being caught, or maybe it's a bug). So my biggest concern is this... These are the easy-to-spot bugs/issues we see and my concern is that there could well be other bugs we don't. If these can make it through the QA process, then what harder-to-spot things did too? I think 'trust' is really important between platforms and users, and whilst the intention might have been to improve transparency and trust, these bugs run the risk of doing the opposite. So, due to what's happened, I wonder if there will be a thorough code review to ensure other things haven't slipped through, or the QA process amended, or the changes rolled back or the one month implementation extended to allow for changes. I think transparency is now more important than ever so I hope we learn more. (I'll also add that we should remember @Kesha is the messenger here, not customer support, or a developer or a success manager (I think!), so let's not shoot the messenger and if you need specific account feedback then contact support or your SM.)

There was a word in the post that auto flagged it for moderation. The system isn't perfect and there was nothing wrong with your post that I can see so it's approved. Also, depending on the time of day, mod availability and forum activity levels (it's very active atm!) it can take longer than usual.

Lots of changes! Like most of you I agree it's confusing, and I think the value for money element isn't a great metric to use. A Michelin meal is never going to be value for money, but that doesn't mean it isn't brilliant and deserving of 5/5. Maybe though this is the space Fiverr wants to dominate (think McDonald's not Michelin). I do buy McDonald's from time to time, and it's never 5*, but I still go back for the value. Other places I go because they're brilliant, and never value for money. I just find it strange as I felt Fiverr had been trying to up the quality on the platform... pushing pro, minimum pricing on websites ($80 I believe) and not accepting all new sellers amongst other things. Value for money seems to push the other way. I've also received confusing reviews. The written review is great, they've ticked 'exceeded expectations', given a tip and even ordered again. Yet marked me down on value for money. Riddle me that! One thing I do like about it is that I'm no longer stressing every review being 5*, obviously I want it, but I feel it's beyond my control now. It is what it is. However, I am concerned that it could impact my TRS (along with the other coming changes such as success score) if we need to maintain 4.7. Maybe it would be better to have just changed stars from out of 5 to out of 10. I don't know. I don't mind them improving the system, I've said before I think that 5* or fail is flawed for ratings. I also read somewhere that the goal is to take the pressure off receiving 5* reviews, but if you need 5* reviews to be TRS (and that's the goal for 99.9% of sellers) then the pressure remains. Anyway, my plan is to increase some of my prices further rather than reduce them. If I'm going to get dinged on value for money then it may as well be worth it for me, I also think I can further dissuade value (McDonalds) buyers from working with me, and instead get the Michelin buyers who are used to quality work costing more. As I say nothing wrong with McDonald's (ok I know there is but you get the point), I just didn't want to sell like that. If this does end up being a race to the bottom though I'll just flip my model. I'll charge silly money for consultancy, and become an agency, hire super cheap talent, a VA manager to run things and lower my prices for all non consultancy work, then churn out the work. It won't be what I'm truly capable of delivering, but I guess if buyers are happy, then Fiverr is happy, and I'll be happy (I think!). Happy Valentines day! It's going to be an interesting month!

Hey everyone, been a little while! My love/hate (often introverted) relationship with social media got the better of me and I checked out of all social media for many, many months. Someone forwarded this post to me and so I've now pulled off the forum (and linkedin) bandaid and thought I'd say hello. Glad to see a lot of familiar faces here, and despite some ups and down you are all doing well and pushing forward! I'd say my Fiverr year has been consistently 'ok', no massive growth, but also no real pull back. The last couple of months have been a bit quieter, but I got an average/poor review, and also took the whole of August off so maybe it's a consequence of that. I also think this time of year, between Thanksgiving and the new year are usually a bit quieter if memory serves. I'm planning to do some overhauling of my gigs in the next few weeks, restructure how I'm doing things, and maybe even launch some new services in the next couple of months. I feel I haven't really grown much (in every sense aside from my waist line) and I want to take some action instead of thinking about the action. Some of the things on my todo list are the same things from January this year so I know I'm procrastinating. I should check in more often here. It's genuinely very nice to see all the talking points, thoughts and opinions! You're all decent people. Wishing you all the very best this holiday season and into the new year!

There are lots of active gigs that aren't allowed. It takes Fiverr time to find them and remove them. If you got a warning you should have received an email telling you why. Contact support@fiverr.com if you need more information about it or you think removing your gig was wrong.

Yes. It says in your screenshot 'over the course of 30 days' and you are at day 16. I can see your gigs on Fiverr. What gigs did they delete? Are you sure?

It means you received a warning 16 days ago for breaking the Fiverr Terms of Service. To maintain your level / be promoted to the next level you have to have zero warnings in the last 30-day period.

Thanks for confirming! Given it was scheduled for yesterday but the reminder came out for today I’m guessing something has messed up and it’s not happening. It was also scheduled for 3 hours. Seems kinda long!

It was scheduled for this time yesterday, but the link didn’t work for me. I just got an email reminder saying it was starting now so I figured someone got the date wrong but the link still doesn’t work. Anyone else?

You don’t necessarily need to change anything. A lot of freelancers have suffered reduced demand in recent months due to the economic climate. Review your competition, check your pricing is competitive, make sure your gigs look good and even perhaps launch a new gig. Obviously check your analytics, if orders have dropped perhaps you had a bad private review. Finally as mentioned becoming TRS isn’t automatic, TRS sellers are hand picked by Fiverr. This info is available in the help centre, and so are lots of other great tips so if you haven’t read it thoroughly I think it’s definitely worth doing. Oh also, to add, I think AI is really destroying some categories. There’s some great tools for literally every category, maybe you’re a victim of that.

Congratulations @filipdevaere, very happy for you and well deserved!

Too risky, unless you have worked with them before and trust them. If they are out of money I would tell them you are ready to complete the work when they are ready to pay.

Yes it's possible. Contact support and check with them. The terms of service were recently updated so perhaps you've been impacted (rightly or wrongly) by those. Stating the obvious... be clear with customer support. Concisely explain what your gig is/does, and therefore why it doesn't break ToS. Make it easy for them to understand and therefore help you. Good luck!

Demotion means you will lose a level, so if you are TRS you will go to Level 2, if you are level 2 you will go level 1, and if you are level 1 you will go to new seller. As for when you start getting orders again, no one knows. Follow the terms of service and this won't happen again.