patrikdr

Glad it's working out for you. I believe it's heavily dependant on what the service you're offerin is, and on how much it would actually affect your usual delivery time and the orders in queue.

My account has pretty much recovered to the activity from before getting my first subscription. Getting 1-3 orders ever 2 or so weeks is what I've usually had doing voiceover work. I've always had a 1-3 day turnaround on all of my orders/gigs, so I can't really tell if it matters as much, but given there are even profile pins, such as "This seller responds quickly to messages," and some such, I wouldn't rule it out of the equation. The general rule is, the quicker you can do something without the quality dropping, the better overall impressions will be regardless of the website on which you're offering your services. While this isn't possible for all services on fiverr, I'd say being able to finish things such as voiceovers within a minimal time period (3 days) is sure to get buyers coming back. As for the general impression after turning off subscriptions, I've had a lot more impressions, clicks and orders. Note that it isn't the subscription being turned on in itself that causes the problem, it's likely the difference between your usual order completion rate/queue and the subscription (which often stays unfulfilled for weeks and months on end, which was the case for my subscription). Tread carefully when it comes to subscriptions, but even just the prospect of them isn't worth the trouble in my opinion. You can offer discounts without the use of the system, and there's way more demerits both for the seller and the buyer. Sometimes I even wonder who at Fiverr comes up with these services, and more importantly, why? A lot of features they've been coming up with lately are just sidegrades or straight up downgrades to the system they've had. Instead of focusing on cutting costs and offering a better split for sellers (20% is awful, which is why they're losing a lot of talent), they're chasing trends from other websites which then just get silently turned off and replaced by a new fad. I just don't get their 'ideas.'

Update: 3 months after taking down all my subscription options, my numbers are once again rising. I hope that tells you everything you need to know about fiverr subscriptions.

Hello! My name is Patrik. I'm a long time reader, first time poster. I've been on Fiverr for about 2 years now, Level 2 Seller in the Audio category (Voice Acting). I should note that this opinion piece is entirely based on my experience, as well as the experience of some of the lovely folks I've met who also use Fiverr as one of their sources of income. From personal experience, my gigs have been sucessful for most of the 2 years. The start was slow, but picked up pace within 3 months. Since then, I've had at least one buyer weekly, and have been making $100-$300 monthly, which is okay based on my expectations. I've had between 2000 and 3000 impressions on my 2 most popular gigs. However, once I've decided to add the Subscription option and actually received my first subscription, this has changed. Since Voice Work is very gig-dependant (not in the Fiverr sense of a gig, but rather as gig-work, work that is not guaranteed and one you need to constantly pitch yourself for), the subscription obviously took months to complete. Not due to my ineptitude or anything; far from it! I deliver within 24 hours of every single order, oftentimes even within 12. The buyer took their time with their creative work, so I managed to finish the subscription with them after 4-5 months of constant waiting with that "1-2 orders in queue." Coincidentally, my impression numbers during that time didn't jsut drop - they plummeted. Note that I have a 100% 5-star rating, delivery speed under 24 hours and a response rate of 1 hour. By Fiverr's standards, I should be a prized seller. Better yet, I keep climbing in the Voice Acting world as well, getting better and better roles outside of Fiverr, because they stopped promoting my gigs and shoveled them at the back of the list. So, what gives? As would everyone in my situation, I opened a support ticket where I was met with the standard corpo speech of "we're sorry you're dealing with this" and "you should try improving your quality," yada yada yada. In reality, it's due to their algorithm that I was cut off. Why? Likely because it calculated that I do not finish the orders I get, because of that "1 Order in Queue" from the subscription. So, now that I'm at 500 impressions per week, down from 2000 a year ago, I have nothing left but to move on to another platform, or to completely quit freelance gig-work and join an agency (which, to be honest, is a better way to earn, but it's also more restrictive and complex rather than doing it all your way). My question to my fellow sellers is - Have you experienced something similar? I know of at least 7 other people who have/had the exact same situation as me. Any my advice is - Until this is proven to be wrong (and backed with data), I highly suggest you stop offering subscriptions if you aren't in the line of work where they could be utilised on a day to day basis. Thank you for reading. I will attempt to keep track of the thread and reply as much as I can. P.S. I've also been wondering for what purpose is Fiverr's cut 20% if they don't even offer you the ability to be found by a buyer? I've found more buyers outside of Fiverr and pointed them to my Fiverr profile than Fiverr has pointed any organic on-site buyers to me. At least as of the last 5 months. Very, very bizarre.