Fiverr is a popular little site that doesn’t get much notice from writers. There are good reasons for this but there are ways around the primary issues. This company is Fiverr.com and it’s a bright little gem. On the surface the premise is simple: you agree to do anything you list on the site and the client pays you $5 to do it. Before you toss this article away, please give me a minute to explain; I think you will be happily surprised.

No, I am not telling you to write a huge article for $5. There I said it so you can relax and we can move on to the review, where I will tell you exactly how to make more than $5 for an article.

Getting started with Fiverr

This is so simple it’s almost criminal! You just sign up with your name and email. You will be sent a verification email. Respond to that email and you are ready to get started.

Please take a few minutes to wander around the site and get familiar with it before jumping it. Later I will discuss the community areas and they are a great place to start. Another thing you are absolutely going to want to do is look at the job (on this site they are called ‘gigs’) that others are offering.

You will find virtually anything you can imagine here. This is a fun site and you will probably get a ton of ideas just while looking around at what others are offering. While I of course promote the writing aspects of this site, don’t limit yourself! I have no way of knowing what you areas of interest are or what talents you possess, so be sure to look in those areas as well. You may well get gigs outside of writing and that is great.

Filling out the Fiverr Profile

This is an important part of Fiverr but all you need to include is a photo and a brief bio. This is a really simple profile, beyond your ‘about me’ section and photo there is nothing else left except to choose your language. That’s it and you are done.

The Fiverr Dashboard

The Dashboard here is very basic and you should have it mastered in just a couple of minutes. You have a ‘To-Do’ tab that lists the gigs you have to complete.  You also have a ‘sales’ tab that will help you manage your gigs. On the right hand side of this page you will see a selection for ‘Revenue.’ You need to know this because it is choosing that option that allows you to get paid. There is also an ‘Inbox’ tab for site mail. You will be notified here when your gigs sell. You will also be notified via email.

Posting a Gig on Fiverr

This is simple, straight forward and hard to mess up. When you click to add a gig you land on a page where you just answer the questions. You put up a photo, logo…whatever you feel represents your writing. The photo is required. Post a bit about what you offer and submit. It goes live immediately.  That is all that there is to the process.

Making Offers

Once you have posted a gig you will have access to published requests that people might have. You have to act fast because others will. When you see it, make an offer. Initially you will be limited to one per day. After you have leveled up you will be able to make more offers per day. This is done to protect the buyers from an overload of email.

How to make real money on Fiverr

Now I promised you at the start of this article that I wasn’t going to suggest that you write for next to nothing and I’m not. There are ways around this and once you start looking at the writing gigs posted you will see it. What you do is limit the amount of work that you will do for $5. You simply specify the word limit you are willing to write for $5. If they want more than that then they purchase as many gigs as necessary to reach that number.  That is one way.

The other way is to work diligently and level up. After you have hit level one, work on getting to level two. You can make a lot more money on level one and even more on level two. After that it will be up to the site to promote you further but many people do very well at level two. All of this is due to the ‘Extras.’

Levels

Levels are important because they let you create offers for more money. The higher your level, the more gigs you can offer and the more you can charge. There are two automatic levels:

Level One: According to the website, when you get to level one you are getting serious. From the site: You’ve been active on the site for 30 days and completed at least 10 orders while maintaining excellent ratings and a great track record. You’ll automatically be promoted to Level One. At this Level, you’ll gain additional features making it easier for you to offer more advanced services and generate higher income.

When you get to this level you get the following

• 2X Gig Extras ($5, $10, $20)
• Gig Multiples (max. 4)

Level Two: At this level you have entered what they call the Pro League. From the site: You made over 50 orders in the past two months while maintaining excellent ratings and a solid track record. You’ll automatically be promoted to Level Two; unlocking advanced sales tools to further expand your services and increase your sales. You’ll also receive priority support.

When you reach this level, your new perks are

• 3X Gig Extras ($5, $10, $20, $40)
• Gig Multiples (max. 8)
• Priority Support

The third level is reserved for Top Sellers and is not automatic. You are chosen manually by the editors of the site. The criterion that they use in the selection process is, according to the website: Seniority, volume of sales, extremely high rating, exceptional customer care, and community leadership. As a Top Rated Seller, you’ll gain access to more extensive sales tools, early access to beta features, and receive VIP support.

• 4X Gig Extras ($5, $10, $20, $40, $100)
• Gig Multiples (max. 20)
• VIP Support

Extras

This is simple: Once you have reached level one you can add extras to you gig. What this means is that you will have an option to select things you will add to the basic gig for a specified amount of money. At level one for example, you can add that you will write an additional 100 words for $10 or 200 words for $20. You will also have the ability to let the buyer select additional word quantities via a drop down box.  This can then all be done in a single order. You can even add in things like SEO optimization in addition to the basic text or even social media promotion. It’s entirely up to you.

Multiples

When you see multiples this refers to the number that a client can request in a single order.  Let’s say that the client wants 400 words and you are a level one that will write 100 words for $5. He can place a single order for the job (He is requesting a multiple of 4.) Now if he wants 1,000 words then he is going to have to place at least 3 orders.  Two orders for 400 words each (that’s a multiplier of 4 for each one) and then a third order for 200 words (a multiplier of 2.) Now if you are lucky, the client will place 10 separate orders. This is great initially because you have separate orders and thus 10 separate reviews. One friend had this happen on his very first gig and he leveled immediately! It makes no difference in the long run in getting paid but the more positive reviews, the faster you level and the faster you can make even more money.

Ratings

If you are familiar with EBay, then you understand the importance of ratings. Here they will make or break you. You have to pay attention to these because if your ratings are bad then you will not get clients and you could even lose levels. It’s that simple. Thankfully it’s not really all that difficult and the clients are for the most part really great. After all, they are only spending $5 so they don’t tend to be overly critical.

Getting Paid

One really great component of this site is that once the gig has been paid for you don’t have to wait until some site specified payday. You simply access the revenues area of your account and then click on the ‘withdraw’ button. The funds will then be transferred into your preferred account.

As in most cases, Fiverr does make payments to PayPal. However here there is another option and that is to a debit card. The cards are distributed with the Fiverr logo from Payoneer.  You can use them as you would any other debit card. An interesting note here for those who are also writing for Guru.com or any of the other sites that partner with Payoneer is that you can add your Fiverr account to the card you already have.  In fact, you can add all of your Payoneer partner accounts to a single card. This makes it much easier to access your payments.

Each regular gig pays $5. That is not negotiable and it never changes. You get $4 of that and the site gets the other $1. That’s it, plain and simple; for every $5 that you earn, the site gets $1.

The Fiverr Community

On most sites the community is a place to exchange hints and tips but on Fiverr it’s a lot more. Here you can get ideas for new gigs as well as ideas for marketing and promotion.  You can meet other Fiverrs (the name given to those who use the site) and learn the best (and worst!) ways to promote your gigs. This is extremely useful when you first get started because the clients you meet on this site are unique to this site. As is true in everything, there is a learning curve. Those who have been successful here can save you a great deal of time by showing you what works for your particular gig type.

That’s basically it for the Fiverr site currently. They are in the process of trying out new ideas so there will probably be updates to this review in the near future. This is a great but under-rated site and is especially good for new writers. There are no editors to deal with, the customer service is great and the site is really a lot of fun just to browse. It’s always great when you can work and play at the same time.