That $15 Fiverr logo order that turned into a two week nightmare

I took a $15 logo gig on Fiverr last month just to fill a slow Tuesday. The guy wanted 17 revisions over two weeks, and I ended up working like 20 hours on it. I kept thinking I’d just finish it, but he kept changing his mind about colors and fonts. After the third week, I finally told him no more changes unless he paid for a package upgrade. He got mad and left a bad review, but honestly, I should have walked away after the first few hours. Has anyone else gotten trapped by those super cheap jobs that balloon into huge time sinks?

3 comments

3 Comments

wells.evan6d ago

Whoa, those revision numbers can get wild, but I think 17 revisions over two weeks is actually pretty standard for some clients. In my experience, the real trap isn't the number of revisions, it's letting them go on without setting clear limits upfront. I had a guy once ask for 20 variants of a logo but they were all tiny tweaks to kerning and saturation. You set a hard cap at like 3 revisions or you charge extra after that. It's tough to learn, but walking away after the first few hours is usually the right call.

sanchez.ivan6d ago

17 revisions over two weeks" is insane. My buddy took a $10 gig on Fiverr once and the guy kept asking for new cat illustrations every day for a month. He ended up drawing like 30 different cats for ten bucks. He finally just refunded the money and blocked the client. Sometimes you gotta cut your losses early.

william_craig75d ago

Yeah exactly, and @wells.evan nailed it about setting limits upfront. The problem is when you're new you don't know any better and you just want to please everyone. I've seen people waste weeks on projects that should have taken maybe two or three days just because they didn't say no. That Fiverr story with the cats is rough but honestly it's a lesson everyone learns the hard way at least once. You get so invested in trying to make the client happy that you forget you're basically working for free. Sometimes the best move is to just walk away and let them find someone else to waste their time.