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In this article I am going to cover the platform “Fiverr” where I am on both sides as a “buyer” and a “Seller”. Some of you might be familiar with this platform and the main reason for writing this article is to help you sort out when to use and when to avoid.
Background
Fiverr is a platform that can be used by freelancers to sell their services.
The amount of services and categories are large and for us within music and art you can find designers to create your artwork, editors to create visual content, mixing and mastering engineers as well as promotion (we will cover that last one more later).
The name “Fiverr'' came from the platform's early beginning where the idea was to be able to buy a service for five dollars. Now, there are not many services left that cost five dollars. Although the selection has grown to be competitive.
How it works
To buy a service you create an account which is a straigh-forward process. Add a payment method and you are good to go.
You can filter services by category or simply use the search bar to type a keyword.
Once you found something interesting you could either order from their page or contact the seller to discuss your project and needs.
If you are planning to sell services on Fiverr you do create an account and verify yourself by sending ID to Fiverr. Setting up the account is also pretty straight-forward.
Start creating a gig based on your knowledge and you are good to go.
Fiverr works as a middleman between the seller and buyer, storing the money until the work is accepted. This makes it safer to work with unknown freelancers.
They also step in if there is a dispute.
Good thing to have in mind is that the platform keeps 20% of every order which leaves the seller with 80% of the listed price of the service. Seller also pays a service fee of 5.5%.
This means that if a service costs $100.
-Buyer pays $105.5
- Seller earns $80
-Fiverr earns $25.5
Experiences as a buyer
Since the process to become a seller on Fiverr is rather easy. You can’t expect everyone to be a professional.
Be selective and do your research.
Read reviews (both positive & Negative)
Watch their portfolio
Contact them prior to ordering to ensure that they believe to meet your expectations
Low price, low expectations.
Fiverr is a good place to find gems that do great work for a low fee. This is possible because you can work with people globally and in some areas a dollar is worth more.
Just have in mind that the golden rule is that the more $ the better product.
In the end of the day you will have to take a chance but use the above tips to be selective to increase the chances of finding gems.
Services to avoid as a musician
The whole reason I even started my own gig on fiverr was because of this.
I will get to the point.
Don’t do music promotion on Fiverr.
Fiverr is great for creative gigs like artwork, editing works and hiring session musicians.
When It comes to music promotion I would say that there is a very small percentage that is legit and it is not worth taking the risk at all.
I get that it may be tempting to believe that you get playlisted on several high performing playlists for $30 a month but as we say, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is”.
Be sure to use the above to evaluate gigs. Read reviews, both positive and negative.
What these people do is that they create playlists solely to make a profit. They buy followers and run bot-traffic to provide streams. So they basically take money and put an artist in the list. Takes one minute of work.
Of the $30 you give they put $15 into cheap bot-traffic. With one hundred artists a month it generates $1500 profit from one list. Scamming musicians.
You as a musician got a couple of 1000 streams from bots and put your music at risk of being taken down from Spotify.
I repeat. Do not do music promotion on Fiverr!
Profitable services as a musician
What I have found to be where you could get the most “bang for your buck” is within graphic design, creating your artwork.
Usually, this could be eating around $200-$400 from your budget hiring a good designer creating a custom artwork. On Fiverr you could get away with less than $100.
However, there are a lot of graphic designers on the platform. Be sure to filter thoroughly to get a designer within your genre and style. Then look through their portfolio and try to find elements in the style that you like and can refer to within your visions.
Read the reviews that are both positive and negative.
Lastly you want to contact the designer prior to placing an order.
Another important aspect is to have most of your vision finished and explain this to the designer in the most detailed way possible. This is always good whether you are working with a graphic designer or sound engineer. The better you can explain your idea and vision. The more likely it is that you will get a product close enough to that!
Experiences as a seller
Just as there are many sellers, there are even more buyers on the platform which can put you in some unpleasant situations. The majority of orders do run smoothly although the ability to order themselves may confuse some people to proceed with an order without being sure of what they are ordering, (yes it is true).
I have a thorough explanation on my order page in what the gig is all about specifically asking to be contacted prior to an order. Despite this effort I did receive several orders without being contacted from people thinking I would do something else than what was described.
This doesn't benefit anyone as it ends up with you having to cancel orders which hurts your stats and progress on Fiverr.
There are also some that take advantage of this system to get work for free and claim they ordered the wrong service.
Fiverr does handle disputes but in my experiences often takes the buyers side.
My solution to this issue has been to overprice my gig to make people be more careful before ordering.
This should filter unserious buyers.
My gig
What is my gig? You may wonder!
As contradictory as it may be, I do music promotion where I pitch songs to Spotify playlists.
The reason I started this gig on Fiverr was solely because of the scams and how musicians got used. I saw (and still see) so many falling into fake playlist promotion and to believe that it is as easy to pay someone and get thousands of legit streams.
I wanted a way to be able to reach out to these musicians. Both to help with my knowledge and try to change their mindset within music marketing results.
During my years doing this I believe I have successfully helped both giving organic results and spreading the knowledge of how to spot fake playlists.
Final
Use Fiverr with caution. You can find really good gems but be aware that basically anyone can sell services and quality will vary. Do your research.
Be extra cautious with music promotion or avoid it completely. Just because they say it is organic it doesn’t mean they speak the truth..
If it would be as simple as heading to Fiverr, pay some random dude $30 to get famous.
I think we all would be famous by now. Keywords:
If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
It is a marathon, not a sprint.
Over and out from Aristic!