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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When we left off in my last post, I was 45 days into my experiment. I was hopeful that a conversation would turn into a sale and asked you to keep your fingers crossed. Cliffhanger! It’s been pretty much two months to the day since my last blog update. Even then, I knew I’d follow up and share my progress with you all, success or failure, whatever that looked like.
There was a mid-point update on the socials about a month ago because I had to say something. Thanks to getting super busy, I just dropped off the planet as far as the blog was concerned. So, thanks for being patient. Here’s the down-low on what’s been happening in my last two months on Fiverr and how I became a Level One Seller.
Month Three on Fiverr as a Seller
That conversation turned into something alright! It had a snowball effect that led to nine orders (five of those were custom offers) and completed Gigs by the end of the month. And I loved it, seriously loved it. You know how much I love to make stuff and how I’d felt a little off about something for a while. While, this new challenge, with something different to do every time I pulled out my camera, was just what I needed. I am energised in my work both on and off Fiverr and loving it.
During the completion of the Gigs, I was grateful to receive nothing but Five Star reviews from those I worked with. It turns out many people are discovering Fiverr for the first time, too, so it helped to remind them to leave a review and that I was trying to build my profile on the App. I’ve since learned that when I select a portfolio image, it has to be approved by the Buyer to show up on my Gig. So I now directly ask them to support that, too; nothing too complicated, just a simple direction.
I mentioned in the previous post that I was planning to open up some Gigs that would be a little easier to work with International Buyers; photo editing and simple social media graphic design work. But to date, I haven’t needed to do that. Instead, I closed two of the additional Gigs I opened, and I’m now focusing my efforts on the three offerings, all in product photos.
Now, you’ll want to know about the money, right?
That was the original challenge, could I make money as a product photographer on Fiverr. I opened my first Gig on the 8th of July and now, in my third month as a Fiverr Seller, I earned $903.70 (USD). Then at the end of September, I cashed out $558 (AUD) to my bank account. These funds cleared after the 14 day wait period and after the currency conversion from USD, and Fiverr took its 20%. An additional amount is uncleared and will form part of next month’s payout. Not too shabby for a new seller offering bargain-basement prices.
Month four was this month, October, and on the 15th, I officially became a Level One Seller. I had met the requirements about ten days before that. As soon as I created a Seller profile on Fiverr, I installed the App to respond to messages or requests from Buyers quickly. The tracking there gives you a clear idea of how you’re travelling and how far you have left to go to your next level up. And I must admit, as a competitive person, I might be enjoying watching that status bar a little too much.
Other than competitiveness, why care about the seller level you’re on? For me, there are a few key reasons. Firstly, as you move through the ranks, it’s assumed that you’ll raise your prices. Win. Initially, I thought your percentage paid to Fiverr dropped, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. And secondly, as your level increases, you’re acknowledged as more reliable to potential Buyers and Fiverr itself. Those are some decent hoops to jump through. But I understand what a risk it can be for a Buyer, especially associated with product photos, so I’m happy to do it. Like all things on Fiverr, getting to appear in front of thousands of potential customers with no upfront costs, I’ll keep jumping.
To get out of newbie jail (the new seller category, haha), you must do the following;
Be an active seller for at least 60 days
Complete at least 10 orders (all time)
Earn $400 or more
Maintain a 4.7-star rating over 60 days
Deliver a 90% response rate score over 60 days
Score a 90% order completion rate over 60 day
Achieve a 90% on-time delivery score over 60 days
Receive no warnings over 30 days
If you’re interested, you can read more about it on their website.
Though, for a minute there, it looked a little shaky. Thanks to current postal hold-ups leading to a cancelled Gig. You have to maintain a 90% or better completion rate to meet the levelling criteria, and with the bare minimum of jobs completed (10), I didn’t have room to spare for cancellations. But, we scraped through and made it. Phew! Being that close and almost losing it gave me a bit of an insight into how important it is always to be booking new work. You’re only as good as your last 30 days as far as Fiverr is concerned. Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.
Month Four on Fiverr as a Seller
There was a time when I was doing a lot of message answering for no result. Was my Fiverr career over after a single successful month? Impressions were starting to drop on my Gigs, and I began to feel a little concerned. Especially after one custom offer that I’d negotiated fell through, it was a monthly Gig for 20 images that would’ve been a great one to have in the bag. So far, that hasn’t worked out, but we’ll see how it goes. Frustrating, for sure, but soon the tide turned again.
This month has seen an increase in larger and bundle jobs which are still coming through the first Gig I ever set up. This Gig still leads the others in impressions, clicks and orders though most of the ordered are in some way customised. Which is a nice option to have, that’s for sure. October saw a couple of small Gigs complete early before a total of 7 Gigs got backlogged waiting on the post. One was pushed back to the end of November, waiting on the international post, but the rest had delivery dates from the 21st to the 27th of October.
Now, about that Fiverr money!
I’m happy to report that as of today (the 23rd of October), I’ve worked my way through the backlog and delivered them all. That home stretch effort will put me ahead of September for both money earned and Gigs completed. At the time of writing this post, I’ve booked $1,205 (USD) of work with one cancellation ($120). At this stage, I haven’t cashed out for October, but given the majority of work was done in the last week and won’t clear for another 14 days, I’m expecting to cash out is $480 AUD. Again, this is after currency conversion and Fiverr’s 20% fee. That will leave the bulk of the funds earned in October in my Fiverr account clearing.
Interested in working together? Find me on Fiverr here!
The videos pop up on YouTube all the time, twenty-somethings making tens of thousands of dollars a month online. When you dive a little further, you’ll find a few main ways they do this. But the one that grabbed my attention (first) was Fiverr. I knew of the site, of course, but hadn’t been on there for years. Are people still making money on Fiverr? Can I make money as a photographer on Fiverr? Always interested to explore a way to make money online, I decided it was time to investigate.
Getting started on Fiverr
I didn’t have to set up an account as I had one, with Fiverr credits still sitting in it waiting to be spent. But what I did need to do was get my profile set up for selling on Fiverr. A simple enough process as I went through the motions of filling out page after page of profile information and settings.
Next up, there were the Gigs. This is what Fiverr calls the work you do on their site; you’ll get used to it. With so many categories of work and me no being sure of what I wanted to offer, I did some research. I looked into the categories and different offerings of work. I found a few I was interested in and dived deeper into how Gigs were written and set up.
Having narrowed it down to a few categories, I knew I wanted to offer either copy or blog writing, photography or photo editing. All of which are skills I have and could reasonably offer someone else. I’m also pretty proficient in each when needed, so that a quick turnaround would be possible.
Choosing a service category to offer
In the end, though, I decided to create two offerings based on Product Photography. I felt a little meh with my writing mojo, so I figured it was best not to inflict that on others. And the photo editing, I thought I could always add later. Product photography was probably a little niche for a first Gig, given you have to arrange to get and return the products. But it was interesting to me and not widely offered in Australia, so I went for it.
Setting up the Gigs was a little time consuming, to say the least. But, with a window open in Canva (to create collaged image files) and another with samples of comparable work on Fiverr, I got to it. All in all, with edits in the following days, it looks like about three hours to set both Gigs up. Not too shabby if I’m about to make thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, right? Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Can I make money as a photographer on Fiverr?
As a low-level seller with no reviews, the pricing to be competitive is a disgrace, to say the least. But, from what I’ve learned from my YouTube friends, the low prices are really just a jumping-off point for customers to add extras and build your portfolio to where you can charge more. (So, I’m a bargain photography-wise. If you need anything right now, hit me up on Fiverr, haha).
To date, after 45 days and a couple of shares on Twitter, I have responded to about five messages and could maybe be booking my first Gig. Literally, as I write this, it’s looking like I’ll be booked for some website images via a custom order for AU$250 (the site is in USD, so converting it is a whole thing, especially when booking an Australian client.
The reality is though, it’s been 45 days with no real action on my Gigs. I plan to create some short videos to add to the Gigs to show off my studio and give them a real face/voice once I get set back up in there (the floors are still curing). From everything I have seen, making a Gig video could help push my listings further to the top. That said, my research tells me what I really need are completed Gigs with completed transactions and reviews.
But, how do you increase your rank to get Gigs to increase your reviews to then increase your rank?
That’s the real question, right? How do you get work when you appear so low in search because you have no reviews. That’s what I’m trying to figure out now. Some of the folks online suggest getting family and friends to review, but from what I can see, a transaction needs to occur for a review to happen. Perhaps they mean to get them to book a Gig and complete it to review you, but that feels a little iffy to me.
My plan? Just keep plugging along, making tweaks and changes to my Gigs. I’ll probably add some more with different style focuses to increase my odds. And I was thinking, if I had an enquiry for extra photo work right now, I would send them through Fiverr even though I could totally charge more if I billed them directly.
For now, I have to be comfortable with the fact that this is not a get rich quick scheme and it will take time to build up reviews and work. Which is an excellent reminder to all of us not to get too sucked into the make money online side of YouTube. I’ve had this blog, and my business, in some capacity for over a decade now and it’s only in the past few years it has fully supported me. The ways I make money online are diverse, and to date, there is no one way that stands alone as the sole provider.
Where to from here on Fiverr?
From here I’m going to keep my fingers crossed I get this first Gig. Then I’m going to hope for a glowing review and even future work from this potential new client. While that’s all happening, I’m going to open up Gigs for photo editing and some more based around product photography that doesn’t focus on light, bright studio shots. Things along the lines of a dark and moody style and a more lifestyle based style. If that even makes sense. Haha. But, whatever happens, I’ll continue to keep you updated on my quest to make money as a photographer on Fiverr. Watch this space.
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need some product photography work done? find me on Fiverr
