The front page of Fiverr.com
These days it’s often difficult to find a postcard from Turin, Italy, a genuine rock from a garden in Ireland, or even someone willing to burn a paper effigy of your enemy, especially all in one place. However, all of these things and more can be had at fiverr.com, for the price of $5 each.
Fiverr is an online market where registered sellers can post ads for specific tasks, called “gigs,” that they are willing to do. Likewise, buyers can post wanted ads for tasks or items they are in need of. The only catch is the price, which is fixed at $5 for every gig on the site. Sellers are rated based on promptness of service and overall quality of the completed gigs, similar to eBay and other online shopping auction style sites. Sellers have 24 hours to respond to orders – otherwise the buyer is automatically refunded his or her $5.
Interested in selling on Fiverr.com? All you need to get started is a PayPal account and the willingness to complete any type of task. After your gig is purchased and the final product is sent, you will receive $4 in profit. Fiverr.com takes a $1 cut as commission. Because all messages sent between buyers and sellers is through the Fiverr Web site, your true identity is never displayed. This keeps your safe from potentially angry customers, who may or may not have thought your completed “gig” was worth their $5!
So how reliable is Fiverr.com? Are any of the gigs actually worth $5? In the interest of providing a thorough review, we decided to throw down a Lincoln and see what we got. After browsing through several pages, we picked a gig offering to turn any photo into a cartoon style caricature. By the end of the end of the next day, the photo was finished and delivered through e-mail. Was the final product representative of the photo? You decided for yourself.
Original image (left) versus Fiverr.com final product (right).
Contact the reporter at Peter.Lazaravich@asu.com
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
fiverr.com is a scam, people on that website selling toren, hacker, or illegal stuff. And the website have no safety rules for the buyers, if you buy something you just losing your money…
I disagree. Fiverr is not a scam. You are going to see more of fiverr in future. It is a blessed place for freelancers. I bought and sold in Fiverr
There is another place like Fiverr and the price is $10 per product/service.
That statement carries a lot of weight coming from a guy named Malathy who can barley speak English. Actually you type just like the guy who scammed me and disappeared. Took the money, never did the work, no help from Fiverr to get my money back.
Avoid that site at all costs, it’s one big scam. Once the little third world “freelancers” take your money and run off Fiverr says it’s “out of their hands”
I am frustrated with their lack of professionalism. For some reasons my account registration didn’t work and I cannot login into the system. Instead of canceling my info ( which I suggested in order to start anew ) they asked for a different email. Now they have both my email(s)and personal info, and I still got zero service. Since they are so “attached” to my account ( ” There is no need to cancel your information from our system” ) I am a bit puzzled/ concerning about how do they plan to use my personal info.
you can also try http://tenbux.com
My Fiverr problem is that they are keeping all my private information and I have no service or product in exchange. For some reason “the account is not active”. It’s a month now and I asked 3 times for my personal information to be cleared out from the system. They simply refused. Terrible Customer Service. No Privacy Policy on their site. No info on them or their company. This lack of transparency irritates me immensely and I feel that I was ripped off.
I use Fiverr and TenBux and I have to say Fiverr is much better. Not only is TenBux a cheap knockoff of Fiverr, but it also suspended two of my gigs without notice and without reason! Professional? I think not.
Fiverr, on the other hand, is very professional. As for personal information, they only ask for email and name, and they are not allowed to use it (read terms on their site).
About the sellers on the site, I agree some of them are very crappy, for lack of a better word. You just have to know who is and isn’t a good seller based on their description and feedback.
I used Fiverr but the quality was not in. Now i use http://www.clickfive.net
All services cost $5 but made by professionnal.
There is a lot of substandard stuff on fiverr, I should know I bought it! And the people concerned had so called ‘great feedback’! Fiverr really need to tighten up as complains will start to pur in as it gets more popular. If your looking for seo work or content then check out clickfive .. again a $5 service, but very high quality. ClickFive.net
Fiverr is ok just be careful what you buy many people send screenshots for proof of work complete but remember these screenshots are easily altered.
Fiverr is ok at best. I don’t understand why, if the buyer is required to pay for a gig right away – then why does the seller have to wait 14 days to get that money? Fiverr says the money has to “clear” but all payments are via Paypal which is cleared in minutes??? Waiting two weeks for $4 to clear (the site takes their $1 cut right away for all gigs purchased) is a bit much. You might as well get your own site and offer those gigs yourself and get your money right away. Just sayin!
Fiverr is very cool. I used it often to get tweets out to large amounts of people at a time. I have also just tried UpHype.com. This one’s is all about “Hype” and is more focussed on marketing efforts to promote your message, business or product? UpHype jobs are called “Hypes”. Hypes range from promoting your message to a user’s 100,000 Twitter followers to writing an article or press release for your blog. http://uphype.com. Plus it has a fun design like fiverr.
what about http://www.magicgig.com who took another dimension for selling gigs for $10?
The design is way better than all and more professional too
I ordered a gig and in 3 days was delivered and with no proof that it was dont. I kept emailing this person and never replied. I would keep away from fiverr unless you want to waste money.
Fiver is a great site, was a very interesting start to a new online concept I’m calling the “$5 Micro-economy”. Sure there were sites for coding or data outsourcing like elance and odesk, but Fiverr and other sites like http://www.justafive.com are giving individuals with more broad skill-sets like illustrators, video freelancers, impressionists and more offer their services up for the general public. You can find things like “I will be your boyfriend on Facebook for $5″ or “I will voice-over your YouTube video for $5″ or “I will draw any photograph or image you send me for $5″ are great “microjobs” that “non tech” folk find useful or entertaining and willing to purchase. I happen to like JustaFive.com because the site offers $10 and $20 jobs in addition to $5 jobs and it has a built in referral/affiliate program for you to make money from referrals.
A new “niche” version with a twist I found is http://www.TASKwebsiteservices.com. Website Services marketplace… but cap is $100 and below. Opens up some interesting opportunities for buyers and sellers. Just needs to traffic…