These 3 Women Made More Than $100K on Fiverr — and They Told Us How
It all adds up.
Offering freelance services at $5 a pop may seem like it’d never yield substantial success — but that’s not what Charmaine Pocek, Kendell Rizzo and Redd Horrocks found using Fiverr.
Fiverr is an online marketplace that helps freelancers sell their services. It’s free to sign up and market your services on the platform, but Fiverr collects 20% of the transactions made over the site.
Though you don’t have to set $5 as your lowest base price for services, Fiverr spokesperson Abby Forman recommends sellers start at a low threshold so they can establish themselves on the network.
But the profits you can reap are limitless.
6 Strategies to Help You Make Money on Fiverr
Pocek, Rizzo and Horrocks all initially joined Fiverr as a way to earn money on the side of their full-time jobs, but as their businesses grew, they transitioned to using the platform as their primary source of income. They each wound up breaking six figures.
These three phenomenal Fiverr sellers shared their best advice with us about successfully using the platform to make money.
1. Don’t Hesitate — Just Start
This first piece of advice seems pretty obvious. To gain any measure of success at anything, you have to start somewhere.
But Pocek, a 42-year-old resume writer from Houston, Texas, said one thing she really appreciates about the Fiverr platform is that there are no startup costs.
“There’s no risk, whatsoever, in listing anything,” she said. “There’s no capital, no overhead and no risk.”
Fiverr sellers offer their services using the talent, skill set and equipment they already have, so essentially there’s nothing to lose.
“Just go ahead and list your gig,” Pocek recommended.
She joined the platform in 2011 and has made about $1.2 million from the site, becoming the first woman and the first American seller to gain such success.
2. Showcase Your Qualifications
If you’re just starting off with Fiverr, you likely haven’t had the opportunity for many clients to rate your services or recommend you to others.
So as a stepping stone to success, Pocek advises sellers take advantage of the section on their profile to describe themselves.
“You can list there your education [and] your credentials, so people know they’re dealing with a professional,” she said.
3. Choose a Niche
While you could list on your Fiverr profile every potential service you could deliver on, Rizzo, a 29-year-old crowdfunding copywriter from Naples, Florida, recommends you tailor your services to meet a specific need.
That’s what she attributes to her success — and she learned by making the mistake the first time.
“[When I first joined Fiverr], I just put all these different skills up there — writing, editing, anything I could think of I put it on my profile,” Rizzo said.
Nothing stuck. So she tried again a few weeks later with a different approach to restrict her offerings to one focus.
“I had just recently done a few crowdfunding campaigns,” Rizzo said. “So I put all my crowdfunding campaign services on this fresh profile and within three hours I had orders. And from there it really took off, much bigger than I even imagined.”
She joined Fiverr in 2015 and has made about $110,000 in profits. Rizzo said when she sees others who are successful on Fiverr, she notices that they also have chosen something specific.
“I think it’s necessary to stand out on the platform,” she said.
4. Diversify Your Offerings
While you might want to start off offering $5 services to establish yourself as a seller, Rizzo recommends you don’t lock yourself down to that price point.
“So many people focus on the $5 but that’s just where it starts,” she said. “I would never limit yourself to just offering $5 services.”
When she first joined Fiverr, Rizzo charged $5 to create press releases and email campaigns leading up to the start of a Kickstarter campaign. Now she offers strategic crowdfunding packages for $250, $500 and $750, depending on how large the campaign is.
“I try to have something for everything,” Rizzo said.
Creating packages to reach clients at different price points helps diversify your client base and bring in more business, she said.
5. Make Sure the Client is Happy
In the freelance world, pleasing the client is your bread and butter. If your success relies on repeat business or recommendations, you ought to be making sure your clients are satisfied.
“A lot of [achieving success] is just about … providing stellar service and understanding and listening to your clients and building those relationships with your clients,” said Horrocks, a 34-year-old voiceover artist from Maple Grove, Minnesota.
“One of the reasons why I am so successful is I have a really strong client base that I cultivated over the years, and I do everything I can to protect my client base and make sure they are continuously happy,” she said.
Horrocks joined Fiverr in 2012 and has earned over $400,000 on the platform.
One thing in particular Horrocks recommends is making sure you deliver your product on time. She said clients often have deadlines themselves, so turning something in late could create a bad domino effect.
6. Evaluate Your Finances Before Going Full-Time
This piece of advice can work for anyone turning a side gig into their main source of income. Devoting full-time attention to selling on Fiverr could result in higher profits.
However, Horrocks recommends exercising caution before quitting a stable job. When she decided to quit her job, she gave her employer four months’ notice.
“What I did when I gave them my notice is that I immediately stopped using my paycheck and started putting that aside and lived just off of my Fiverr income to make sure I really could do it,” Horrocks said. “That was instrumental in making me feel secure and able to make that transition without impacting anything for me.”
She advises people to really analyze their finances and budgets before transitioning to freelancing full time.
“Part of being able to turn a side job into a full-time job is making sure that you can support your lifestyle and support yourself,” Horrocks said.
Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.
