I was getting maybe 1 response out of 20 proposals for months. Then I looked at a guy who had like 50 five star reviews and noticed his proposals were super short, like 3 sentences, and he always mentioned something specific from the job post in the first line. Tried it last Thursday and got 3 replies out of 5 bids. Has anyone else had luck stealing someone else's format?
I was sitting in a coffee shop in Portland last Tuesday when Fiverr dinged me $10 for a late delivery because their own timezone glitch showed it as 2 minutes past deadline, and after escalating to a supervisor they finally admitted the error and refunded it, has anyone else gotten them to back down on a bogus fee?
Honestly, I was skeptical but paid $50 to a guy on Fiverr for a 30-second radio ad voiceover. The audio quality was good enough that I used it as a sample on my Upwork profile. A local business owner heard it last month and hired me for two follow-up projects. Has anyone else turned a cheap Fiverr buy into something bigger?
Last Tuesday I woke up to three messages from people who wanted to hire me for copywriting gigs. Two of them accepted my proposal within an hour. By Thursday I had $1,200 in escrow which felt insane coming off a dry February. But then Friday hit and all three clients wanted revisions by Sunday. I stayed up until 2am rewriting a landing page for a crypto startup while trying to fix a blog post about pet insurance. By Saturday noon my laptop froze and I lost an hour of edits because I forgot to save. I made good money that week but I also cried in my car after a grocery run. Has anyone else had a killer payday that just wrecked your whole week balance?
So I've been on both platforms for about a year now. Upwork I got a few decent gigs but man the fees are brutal. Fiverr though? I keep seeing people post these $5 gigs for full website builds. I tried the buyer request thing on Fiverr last week and got 47 responses in 10 minutes. How is anyone supposed to stand out when you're competing with people offering to do a logo for $3? I ended up going with Upwork for my last project because I could actually write a proposal and have someone read it. But then Upwork took 20% of my $200 job. So which is worse - wasting time on Fiverr's spam pile or losing a chunk of your check on Upwork? Has anyone found a happy middle ground?
Last month a guy on Upwork told me his budget was flexible for a WordPress fix, so I quoted $400 and spent 3 hours rebuilding his whole site. When I sent the invoice he said oh I meant $40 flexible and ghosted me. Has anyone else had a 'flexible budget' person turn out to be the cheapest on the platform?
I was messing around at 2 AM last week and created a gig on Fiverr offering goat yoga sessions for $15. I don't own goats, I don't do yoga, and I've never even been to a farm. The system approved it instantly and I actually got a message from someone in Portland asking about availability. I canceled the order obviously, but now I'm wondering how many other ridiculous gigs slip through their filters every day. Has anyone else had a fake or joke gig accidentally go live and get real interest?
I thought I was being smart paying $60 for a Fiverr SEO package last month. The guy had like 500 reviews and promised to get my profile ranking higher so buyers could find me easier. Two weeks later my dashboard showed 2 visits from some random IP address in Vietnam and zero messages from real people. I tried messaging him for a refund and he just kept sending copy-paste replies about algorithms needing more time. Meanwhile I could have spent that $60 on a decent stock photo subscription or even just bought myself lunch to feel better. Honestly I feel like these cheap SEO gigs are the same as buying followers on Instagram it just looks good on paper. Has anyone actually gotten real results from these low cost Fiverr SEO packages or am I just unlucky?
I was sitting in my car during my break at 3 AM and opened the delivery file to find a stretched dolphin clipart with my business name in Comic Sans, so I spent the next 30 minutes typing up a refund request while wondering if this is what I get for only paying $35.
My buddy Mike told me to price at $15 an hour on Upwork just to build a profile. I listened, landed 8 jobs in 2 weeks, and spent the next 3 months doing grinding edits for people who treated me like a robot. One client in Ohio asked for 6 rewrites on a 500-word blog post for $12. I finally raised my rate to $40 and suddenly the same kind of projects took half the time and actually paid. Who else got burned by bad advice from someone who never freelanced a day in their life?
I was at a Brew & Beans in Austin trying to finish a logo revision for a Fiverr client when the barista came over and told me I had to buy another drink or leave. My timer was ticking on the order and I ended up rushing through the edits while standing at a counter outside. Has anyone else gotten burned by a cafe's time rules when you're on a tight deadline?
They said my bids all sounded like the same template and that killed any trust. Did tweaking your approach actually land you more gigs or was it a waste of time?
Was scrolling through the Fiverr terms yesterday because I was bored and saw they take 30% on your first $500 in earnings per transaction. Upwork takes 20% but that drops to 5% after $10k with a client. I thought both were around 15%. How is anyone starting out supposed to build anything when the platform eats a third of their income? Has anyone actually made decent money in those first few months after fees?
Some teenager was telling his friend that nobody uses Fiverr anymore because AI can do everything, and I just sat there sipping my drink thinking about how I built my whole side hustle on there back in 2018. Has anyone else felt like the platform is dying or is it just me?
Some guy on YouTube kept saying spam buyer requests was the secret to getting started. I did that for 3 weeks straight, sent out maybe 80 custom proposals, and got zero replies. Turns out most buyer requests are just lowball clients or scammers fishing for free work. Has anyone else noticed those requests are mostly garbage now?
I paid a Fiverr seller $50 for a logo last month and ended up spending 6 hours trying to fix the vector file myself because they gave me a flattened PNG. Then I had to pay another freelancer on Upwork $100 to rebuild it from scratch. Has anyone else lost money by going cheap on design work and regretted it?
I decided to test Fiverr for a small project last month, a simple logo for a side thing I'm doing. Paid $75 for a seller with decent reviews, thinking it would be safe. What I got back looked like something from a free clip art site from 2005, all jagged and generic. Had to go to Upwork and pay a proper $250 to get it fixed by someone who actually asked about my brand. Anyone else get burned on a cheap Fiverr gig that ended up costing more in the long run?
I spent 2 years on Upwork chasing $15 writing gigs and got nowhere. Then I switched to Fiverr in March and listed my basic package at $20. Within 3 weeks I had 5 orders from buyers who actually gave detailed feedback. The platform takes 20% same as Upwork but I earned $340 my first month. Has anyone else found Fiverr easier for landing that first solid review?
I knew Fiverr's fees were bad, but I just did a $50 logo gig last week and they took $10 right off the top. That leaves me with $40 before taxes. The client paid $56 total after their own service fee too. I get that they run ads and host the platform, but 20% feels like robbery compared to Upwork's sliding scale that goes down to 5% after $10k with a client. Has anyone else done the math on how much you lose to fees per year on Fiverr vs Upwork?
I needed a quick logo for a new freelance profile and thought $50 on Fiverr was a steal. The guy sent me something that looked like it was traced from a free vector site in 10 minutes. Did anyone else burn cash on a cheap gig before realizing you gotta pay more for real quality?
I used to swear Upwork was the only platform worth my time, but last week I had a long talk with a guy who rents space in my moving warehouse. He showed me he made $4,700 in one month just doing short logo tweaks and quick edits on Fiverr, and he doesn't even have a profile picture. I always figured Fiverr was for cheap gigs, but he explained how he uses the 'buyer requests' feature to grab repeat clients. Has anyone else flipped their opinion after seeing real numbers from somebody on the other platform?
I swapped my boring headshot for a picture of my golden retriever wearing a tie, and suddenly my gig messages tripled. Did a dumb experiment for 2 weeks last month and the dog photo out-performed the human one by 40%. Anyone else try weird profile tricks like that?
Back in 2022 I was doing simple logo gigs for $25 each, then this guy messages me asking for a whole ecommerce site with 15 pages. I laughed and said sure without thinking because I was half asleep. Anyone else ever agree to something ridiculous on autopilot and then regret it instantly?
I was browsing the Upwork forums and noticed someone mentioning how they bundle small tasks into single milestones instead of separate contracts. I tried it on a writing gig where I had 5 short articles for $20 each, bundled them as one $100 project, and the fee dropped to $10 instead of $14 across 5 contracts. Has anyone else played around with milestone bundling to dodge those annoying per-project cuts?
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and I was finishing up a logo design for someone who sounded legit. They paid the $150 gig fee, and I delivered the files within 48 hours like normal. Three days later, Fiverr sent me an email saying the payment was reversed because the credit card was reported stolen. I was pissed because I already spent 6 hours on that project and they took the money back. I filed a dispute with Fiverr support, but they basically said tough luck and kept the platform fee anyway. Has anyone else had to deal with a chargeback scam on either platform and actually got your money back?