What’s Wrong—and Right—About Fiverr.com?

What’s the Controversy?

Many people on Fiverr work too cheaply. That’s it. Don’t be one of those people!

How Much Can You Really Make?

There are a ton of successful talent on Fiverr. Fiverr is the largest freelance marketplace in the world by many measures. But the top sellers work long days and have been doing so for years. So expect to work long hours, and spend months building your client base if you want a high annual income.

Read the article in Forbes about how Redd Horrocks makes $15,000/month doing voiceover on Fiverr. Or check out how this voice over dad made $1.5 million in five years. Finally, view some sample listings here.

However, it’s NOT about how much you charge to do a project (known as a “gig”). It’s about how much you make per hour. And how much you make per year. On Fiverr, you are the “seller” and the voiceover service you offer is a “gig.” To compare one kind of work to another, always count time spent auditioning, preparing, following up, and in transit. If you have to get dressed and make a round-trip drive to audition in person, and reschedule other things, count all those hours.

Why Bother?

If you want to add some clients to the “Clients” portion of your website when you’re just getting started, Fiverr makes it simple. It’s also an easy place to test the waters of working online from your home studio without much risk or effort. You can test the waters on Fiverr, then switch to a freelance marketplace such as Upwork. Much of the work on Fiverr does not require auditioning. Work, get paid. So the hourly rate can be higher when you factor in the time saved by needing less driving, auditioning, preparing or negotiating.

Of course, it can be smart to do a few projects inexpensively to get started even if you want to build your business on Fiverr. The system has to learn to trust you. People on the internet always do dumb things like setting up multiple accounts and then buying services from themselves to make themselves look popular. Or liking their own Facebook posts from fake accounts, etc. Because of the scammers out there, you have to get a few clients before you can be trusted, typically ten customers in 60 days on Fiverr.

So you might want to do low-paying work for a few weeks to get trusted, then raise your prices. When you’ve been around for awhile Fiverr will let you set minimum prices as high as $300 each for your voiceover gigs.

How Easy is it to Start?

To get started, go here and click “Become a Seller”.  Join using either Facebook, Google or your email address, then click “I am a voiceover artist,” then “start selling”, then “create a new gig”, and the interface will take you through the “Scope and pricing” steps. Start low. Raise your price after you become a Level 1 seller after several weeks.

To create your commercial samples, take this two-hour in-person class to learn how. Over 3,100 practice scripts