How much I made on Fiverr in my first year

It all started with a simple question, can I earn money on Fiverr as a photographer? Keen to get into doing more product photography, I was looking for a way to find clients and generate more work for myself. A YouTube video about a freelance copywriter on CNBC’s Millennial Money convinced me to turn to Fiverr. And after the first month, I received my first order.

After the first six months on the platform, I was on a roll that didn’t stop. Soon I was a Level One (I wrote about that), then Level Two Seller. I don’t plan to break things down as precisely as I did in that second post (about becoming a Level One Seller, but later I’ll talk about the amounts and the impact it had on the photography arm of my business as a whole. Scroll down if you’re just here for the dollars… I get it.

 

What’s been happening since my last post?

 

Around April, things got hectic around here as my workload more than doubled. Not only was I continuing to maintain my roles in my business, but I was doing all the photography and processing myself. It was chaos, let me tell you. I started getting a little more help here and there with general admin like my emails or managing the enquiries. I looked to add new people for the website and social media curation side of things over at Chalkboard Digital.

But still, with everything happening and a holiday looming, I had to take stock of my situation. Make a plan! Luckily, I love a good plan, so with some time off marked out for July, I put my Fiverr on ‘Away’ and stopped taking orders for a few weeks. I worried that it would mean a drop-off in enquiry when I returned or, worse, dropping off the search results altogether. But I knew I needed to find some people to help me if things were to continue to get bigger! What can I say? I’m team go big AND go home.

 

Getting a little help

 

So, during my holiday, I started to think about what I wanted to do and what I could outsource from the work we did. There was a lot I still feel I want to keep my eyes on personally (Facebook Marketing and Direct Emails especially), and that would take longer to hand over confidently. But there were other things I could step back from or check in with quite easily; if I was willing to loosen the reins a bit. So I did. I took some of those things and found specific people that could help. I trained some myself and outsourced (often on Fiverr) others.

When I returned from break, I marked myself as available, and it was all smooth sailing from there. Well, as long as you don’t count getting the plague and a dead SD drive that corrupted five shoots in one hit. Ugh. Yup that all happened, which made the remainder of July and all of August a lot despite all my hard work and changes. But now, at the end of September, I feel like I finally got through the worst of that. With the team in place and a few price increases, I feel like I can manage the enquiry that is coming in.

 

Plus, I’m well on my way to becoming a Top Seller!

 

Which is excellent and something I’ve had in my sights the entire time. I’d love to add that badge to my profile; only thousands of dollars in sales to go. (see my dashboard view below) Haha. Something else I want to look into before the end of the year is the ProSeller program to check out the benefits to me as a seller and the requirements to apply for the program. I’ve seen some accounts with less than ten reviews marked as a ProSeller, so I’m not sure what the deal is. If you know, let me know in the comments. Until then, I’ve made sure to have both a Fiverr and a Fiverr Business profile up and running (screenshots below) to grab as much attention as possible.

 

 

Fiverr Profile

 

Fiverr Business Profile

 

 

What did this new stream of income from Fiverr mean for my business?

 

Well! This is the part that I didn’t expect, especially after one year. A 2000% increase in Photography sales through my business direct happened in the past year. No, that’s not a typo—two THOUSAND per cent increase. When you see the figures below of the amount I’ve earned, it will just cover the income earned directly from Fiverr. I think that’s the only way to be respectful of our clients. But the short version it’s a lot more than I expected and is more than the Fiverr figure by a lot.

Before working on Fiverr as a photographer, I didn’t call myself one. I was a blogger. But I did the odd photo job here and there for clients but had never really gone all in. However, enquiry picked up as soon as we started posting photo content from the Fiverr Gigs to our feeds (mine and the business account). And up and up and up.

This was another reason it no longer worked for me to have my finger in every pie of my business. With boxes arriving almost every day with new items to be photographed, I desperately needed some help. And a price increase. Which we did at the start of the new financial year and will do again at the end of this calendar year. I’m okay with saying that right now, especially on Fiverr; I’m way too cheap. But that’s building experience and a roster of regular clients right? These things take time, and I am thrilled with our progress.

 

 

Get to it already. How much did I earn from Fiverr in my first year?

 

This is it, what you’ve all been waiting for, right? I’ve included some screencaps below my Dashboard to back up what I’m saying. Someone always wants proof of this stuff, and I’m happy to provide it. All amounts are listed in USD and, when exported, are converted into AUD. I’ll give you the figure at the very end for the direct from Fiverr (via Payoneer) to my bank account Australian Dollar figure. Full disclosure here, I’m not hiding anything from the tax man.

The breakdown below shows each calendar year (and summary at the top of the page, spoiler alert, haha) and the ebb and flow of it all. There are months where I’m taking on more work than completing it (it only counts as earned when a Gig is Delivered) and others where I’m delivering a lot of work, booked the month prior. I find it all evens out in the end, and with holidays in December and July, I’m happy with the consistency of it all.

 

2021 Calendar Year (started August 2021)

2022 Calendar Year (to date)

 

According to my accounting software, I received $15,521.04 (AUD) into my business account in my first year on Fiverr.

 

This is net and is less various charges, deductions of my advertising, Seller Plus program fees and any purchases of services on Fiverr I deducted from my account. I mean, not too shabby, right? Especially when you consider that this whole thing started as a whim, and I didn’t expect much. Add to that the other work I’m doing, the referrals to my business and the general growth that has been part of the upward movement. I’m a happy girl.

So, if you ask me if you should investigate if a platform like Fiverr would work for you, I’m a big fat yes. I use it often as a Buyer and a Seller, which says a lot since I opened my account in November 2015 for a transaction as a Buyer that was eventually cancelled and didn’t open again until 2021. It might be worth another look if it’s been a while since you checked it out. It certainly was for me.

 

And before I go, here are my current gigs

 

My current Gig strategy is to focus on the primary photography Gigs consistently performing well. I’m using the Seller Plus program to gain access to additional Key Word information and Gig performance stats to enable me to choose the right keywords for all the right places.  Do I think it’s necessary to do this to earn good money on Fiverr? No. But if you’re someone like me who loves to analyse a bit of data and hunt down the best keywords possible, I’d recommend it. Plus, your money is released in 7 days; I can’t argue with that when I’m on a 14-day withdrawal program for my cash flow purposes.

I’ve added a couple more to my profile since I started, but as you’ll see, they are very similar to when I began. This is what I’m running with right now (featuring the listing slides because who doesn’t love to sticky beak on how others are setting up their profile). And if you’d like to work with me, I’d love to have you. Head over to my Fiverr profile, and let’s get started.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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