c/fiverr-vs-upwork-debates

Spent 2 hours on a 3 minute 'quick fix' for a client's logo

Client on Fiverr wanted me to just 'tweak the colors' on their logo file. Turned out they sent me a flattened JPEG, so I had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch in Illustrator. Two hours of tracing shapes and matching fonts later, I finally got it done. They tipped me $5 and said it was easier than they thought. Has anyone else had clients hand you a garbage file and expect a magic wand?

2 comments

anthony_jackson31•4d ago

I finally hit my worst Fiverr day after 200+ gigs, and it was a $17 order

Last Thursday I had a simple logo tweak gig, the kind I've done a hundred times, and the buyer in Ohio kept asking for 'more pop' without any real direction. Six revisions later they left a 3-star review with a wall of text about how I didn't listen, even though I followed every vague hint they gave. That one bad order dropped my overall rating below 4.9, and my next two days of impressions basically flatlined, which is brutal when you live off that search ranking. I've had bigger losses on Upwork, a $400 project that ghosted me after a week of work, but this small one hurt more because it hit my public score. Anyone else notice how one toxic low-ticket buyer can wreck more momentum than a silent fail on a big contract? I'm honestly thinking of raising my Fiverr prices just to filter out those kinds of clients, has that worked for anyone here?

2 comments

caseywalker•4d ago

The 20% fee math actually favors Fiverr for small gigs, and that bugs me

I've been team Upwork for like 4 years now, mostly because I hate Fiverr's whole vibe of racing to the bottom on price. But last week I ran the numbers on my last 12 orders and found something that surprised me. For gigs under $50, Fiverr's flat $2 minimum fee on the buyer side plus 20% on my cut actually nets me MORE than Upwork's 10% after they stack their sliding fee with the $0.15 connect bid costs. I did this in a spreadsheet after complaining to a friend in Austin about a $35 logo job, and I had to eat my words. I still prefer Upwork for bigger contracts since the 5% tier kicks in at $500, but for quick tasks like a hundred word rewrite or a simple banner, Fiverr's real take-home is better. How many of you actually track your net per hour instead of just the platform rate? That changed how I quote small jobs, and I'm curious if anyone else found the same thing.

2 comments

danielk84•5d ago

I stopped bidding low on Fiverr and started charging double my usual rate

For about 6 months I was stuck getting $10 logo design gigs on Fiverr and wondering why I was so busy but broke. Then a guy in this group mentioned he stopped accepting any job under $50 and his income actually went up. I tried it last month, raised my rate to $75 for a basic logo, and I only got 3 orders instead of 15 but made more money overall. The weird thing is those 3 clients treated me better and didn't ask for endless revisions. Has anyone else tried raising prices on Fiverr and seen the same thing happen?

2 comments

coleman.hannah•13d ago

That freelancer who said 'never work for free on Upwork' was totally right after I did 3 unpaid samples and got ghosted

I did 3 unpaid writing samples for a buyer on Upwork who promised a $500 contract and then vanished, proving the advice from a random forum user named @freelance_grinder was spot on, has anyone else ignored good warnings and regretted it?

2 comments

juliaa65•13d ago

Threw $300 at Fiverr for a logo design and got clip art garbage

I needed a quick logo for a side project last month, so I hired a Fiverr seller with 5-star reviews for $300. They sent me a logo that looked like they just Googled 'clip art lion' and slapped my business name on it in Comic Sans. No layers, no vector files, just a low-res JPEG I couldn't even resize. I asked for revisions, and they ghosted me for a week. Meanwhile, I've heard Upwork lets you vet portfolios better and see their actual client feedback. Has anyone else gotten burned by a Fiverr seller who claimed to be a pro but was just using free templates?

2 comments

the_robin•15d ago

Found a way to get repeat clients without lowering my rates

I was stuck getting one-off gigs on Fiverr for months. Then I tried sending a short follow-up message two weeks after each job just asking how things were going. Out of 12 clients I reached out to, 4 came back with new work within a month. Has anyone else tried this or got a better method for keeping clients?

2 comments

luna261•16d ago

That one guy on Reddit who said to always charge a rush fee

Saw this post from some user called FreelanceWarrior23 last year saying you should tack on a 50% rush fee for any deadline under 3 days. I thought it was extreme, like who would pay that? But last month a client on Fiverr came at me with a 48 hour turnaround for a 15 page pitch deck. I quoted my normal rate plus the 50% rush fee and they actually agreed. Got paid $675 for something I usually charge $450 for. Made me wonder how many gigs I've been leaving money on the table before that. Has anyone else tried something similar and gotten pushback from clients?

2 comments

kimdixon•17d ago

I picked Fiverr over Upwork for my graphic design work and it actually worked out better for me.

Everyone in this group seems to think Upwork is the only way to go for serious freelancers, but I went against the grain about 6 months ago and focused on Fiverr instead. I was tired of bidding for projects on Upwork and constantly getting undercut by people charging $10 for a full logo package. On Fiverr I set up my gigs for custom branding at $150 each, and I booked 8 orders in my first two weeks. Has anyone else had a better experience on the platform that everyone hates on?

2 comments

charlieh74•17d ago

Had a buyer ghost me on a $250 gig and realized I was pitching to the wrong kind of people

I was on Fiverr for like 2 years grinding out logo gigs for $50 each. Last month a buyer messaged me super excited, we did two rounds of revisions, and then poof. Nothing. No response for a week. I was mad at first but then I looked at his profile. He had no reviews as a buyer, joined that same day. That's when it hit me - I was spending all my time on people who treat Fiverr like a gamble, not a service. The serious ones are on Upwork with verified payment methods and actual budgets. Now I screen for that before I even reply. Anybody else notice a pattern in which platform attracts the flaky buyers vs the serious ones?

2 comments

patricia_hill60•17d ago

Last Thursday I spent 45 minutes on a Fiverr buyer request that turned out to be a scam

Was sitting at my kitchen table in St. Louis, saw this gig request for a logo redesign that paid $350. The description was super detailed, seemed legit. I put together a whole proposal with sketches and everything. Then the guy messages me asking to pay him $50 upfront via some weird link so he could 'verify my account'. I knew right then it was a scam. Told him to take a hike. Wasted my whole morning. Has anyone else noticed these scams getting more common on Fiverr lately?

3 comments

kelly.margaret•18d ago

Noticed a huge shift in my gig ranking after I updated my gig video last April

I had this one gig on Fiverr that was stuck on page 4 for like 8 months. I changed the video to show me actually doing the work instead of just talking, and within 2 weeks I jumped to page 2. The algo seems to really push video content now, I swear. Has anyone else seen their rank jump after tweaking their gig media?

3 comments

the_rose•21d ago

Wasted $350 on a Fiverr gig for a logo that looked like clip art from 2003

The seller had 5-star reviews and promised unlimited revisions but after 3 rounds they ghosted me and I just had to eat the loss has anyone else gotten burned by a highly rated gig like that?

3 comments

gracej99•21d ago

Switched from Fiverr to Upwork and doubled my rate in 3 months

I used to grind on Fiverr doing $15 logo gigs with unlimited revisions. Switched to Upwork in January and landed a $30/hr content writing gig on my second proposal. The difference was actually writing custom cover letters instead of just clicking 'send offer'. Has anyone else seen better pay on one platform over the other?

2 comments

wadejenkins•22d ago

That one Fiverr buyer who wanted a website for 50 bucks

Last year I took a gig from a guy in Ohio who needed a simple landing page. He kept adding features over 3 days, like a full blog and a payment system. When I asked for more money he said 'but I only have a 50 dollar budget'. I finished the bare minimum and never took a fixed price job that low again. Has anyone else had a buyer try to stretch a tiny budget into a full blown project?

2 comments

waderamirez•22d ago

The one thing that actually helped me win gigs on Upwork was copying my proposal format from a top rated freelancer

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?

3 comments

iris_barnes87•22d ago

The $10 late fee on Fiverr that I fought for 45 minutes and actually won

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?

3 comments

keith164•27d ago

That $50 Fiverr gig for a voiceover actually landed me a real client

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?

3 comments

sullivan.quinn•27d ago

Unpopular opinion: my best week on Upwork was also my worst

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?

3 comments

quinnperry•27d ago

Why does nobody talk about how Fiverr's buyer request system is basically a race to the bottom?

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?

3 comments

the_john•29d ago

The 'client said the budget is flexible' trap got me again

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?

3 comments

scott.alex•1mo ago

The day Fiverr's automatic approval system accepted my gig for 'Professional Goat Yoga Instruction'

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?

3 comments

black.oliver•1mo ago

Spent $60 on Fiverr SEO gig and got 2 website visits from bots

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?

3 comments

kellyallen•1mo ago

Booked a Fiverr gig for logo design and the guy sent me a clipart image from a 2005 Word doc

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.

3 comments

logan271•1mo ago

That friend who said 'just lower your rates to get started' cost me 3 months of garbage work

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?

3 comments