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Rant: My uncle said Fiverr buyers never tip, and after 3 years I finally get why he was wrong
Back in 2021 my uncle Ray, who did graphic design on Fiverr and Upwork for about 8 years, sat me down and said flat out, "Don't bother with Fiverr, buyers there never tip and you'll get stuck doing $5 logos forever." I took his word for it and put all my energy into Upwork, bidding on jobs from clients in Chicago and Austin, and honestly it worked okay for a while. But last January I got curious and threw up a simple Fiverr gig for resume formatting at $35. Within 6 weeks I had 14 orders and 9 of those buyers left tips, some as high as $20 on top of the base price. My uncle's advice was true in like 2015 when Fiverr was all $5 gigs, but the site changed and he never updated his view. The fee cuts still bug me, Fiverr takes 20% and Upwork takes 10% plus that connect system, so neither one is a free ride. I'm not saying Fiverr is better, but the tip thing is real now and I wish I had tested it sooner instead of listening to him. Anyone else get steered wrong by someone who quit the platform years ago?
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paige_craig5h ago
Man, my buddy Dave went through the same thing with a guy at his co-working space who swore Shopify was dead for small sellers. He kept parroting stuff from like 2018 about how you could never make money unless you had a warehouse and a team. Dave finally launched a tiny store last spring selling phone cases and pulled in solid tips on custom orders within two months. People just love warning you about a game they stopped playing years ago.
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