In case you haven't heard of it yet, fiverr.com is a website that sells online services for a base price of 5 dollars.
When I started selling on Fiverr in 2015 under the username lexibeedoodles, I was trying to take a recent hobby of drawing zentangles to make a little money on the side while I was attending university. I started at the base price and spent a minimum of three hours making drawings for about $3.50 each after Fiverr took its obligatory 30 percent share.
Since then, I have increased the prices to match the time I put into them. My most popular "gig" or product is drawing portraits of peoples' pets, and my best experiences have come from the personal interactions with people who like what I do and want to order their own unique piece. When someone orders a portrait of their lifelong pet, it makes my day. When someone orders one of a pet who recently passed, I am honored to make them something to remember them by.
I draw animals the way I do because when we see a beloved pet, we don't just see them; we see all that they mean to us. To me, that feeling is deserving of intricate designs and detail of the kind I put into my pieces. I've also done logos for start-up businesses and pieces for screen printing websites, which were all pleasant experiences. I can't thank my past buyers enough for their support and kindness.
However, Fiverr's environment creates a limited audience for people who need to put time into their work. Many buyers are looking to buy something cheap to turn a profit. Too often, I have been contacted by someone wanting an entire coloring book or a card set who is only willing to pay for a fraction of the time it would take me to make a nice product. It takes me three to five hours to design, draft, and hand-draw each order. If someone wants thirty unique drawings and my price is now at least 35 dollars, I cannot drop the price of each piece for a couple hundred dollars. I understand their intention to make money for themselves, but those people should recognize that some artists do put time and effort into their work that deserves more than a dollar an hour.
As a whole, Fiverr can be a good experience or a terrible one. Not everyone on Fiverr will do anything for a small amount of money, like many sellers and YouTube videos imply. There are people who are skilled on the website, and there are people who are not so much. It's an experience I would only recommend to people who want to sell something relatively simple they can produce in under an hour for a low price. Artists and other creators who have professional experience and want to make a business should probably seek freelance work from another place.
