New Year's Goals: Goldilocks Pricing
Pricing yourself right on Fiverr is a pretty big subject, and it's definitely an important one, because it can have a big impact on how well you do on the platform, and I suggest you make "pricing for success" one of your goals for the new year.
What's Traditional
The usual course of action for pricing on Fiverr, and the one I generally recommend, is to start low, and slowly grow. What that means for you will depend on what service you're offering. For me, as a voiceover person, it meant starting with a humble price for a useful number of words (200 words for $5), until I had enough orders coming in to justify edging up my prices a little at a time. What I did was initially to just reduce the number of words I'd narrate for $5, then eventually I increased my base rate, made commercial rights an extra, and so on.
If I were to start over again, yes, I'd do the exact same thing. I believe you need to establish yourself on the platform first, get those numbers coming in, develop a good reputation, have great reviews and become at least a Level One seller with many five star ratings, before edging the prices up very much.
Bread 'n' Butter, and Goldilocks
You may have multiple gigs, but right now I'm going to talk about your main "bread 'n' butter gig;" the one that gets the most notice, the most orders, and makes the most money for you. Let's keep our focus there for now, and ask ourselves, "how do we take that main gig from "bread 'n' butter" to at least "burger 'n' fries," and maybe eventually to "steak 'n' potatoes?" Answer: By raising rates, of course! But how...how quickly...and how much?
While your other gigs can be a price playground, I think your bread 'n' butter gig needs to handled with care. You've worked hard to establish a base of customers there, and they have chosen you because your pricing is favorable when compared with the quality of your product and service. If you suddenly double what you charge either through reduced amount of product or increased price, many will fall away. However, if it's done in intervals, you have the benefit of keeping some of your current buyers while building a base of new customers who don't mind your higher prices.
Eventually, you want to bring your main bread 'n' butter gig to a point where the prices you offer are the best you can reasonably expect based on the prevailing prices on Fiverr, and your own relative skillset. If you are way high, yes, Fiverr will try to promote you in search more, and that can feel good, but you probably won't get many new orders. If you keep yourself too low, Fiverr will promote other gigs over your own, and again, you may not see as many orders as you'd like. So I propose that you do a little shopping of your own and try to find those "Goldilocks" numbers.
Do Your Homework
Put your browser into incognito mode, and do some searches in Fiverr for gigs similar to yours, using the search criteria you would like your own gig to be found under. Look at that first page of hits. Look not only at who shows up, but what their pricing is, and most importantly, how many ratings they've gotten, since that indicates how popular they are and how many orders they are getting. Based on that criteria, which of the front page folks are the money-makers?
With the most popular people identified, it's time to visit their gigs and check out their wares. Click through to the gigs of some Fiverr's most solid citizens, and an honest appraisal of their talent relative to your own. Are you better at what you do than they are, about as good, or not as good? It's hard to judge that objectively, but do your best. Look not only at the pricing, but how much people are getting for the money. Look also, closely, at what the top folks are including in their base price, what they charge extra for, and how much extra they charge.
What I think you'll find is that the gigs Fiverr promotes most readily are from sellers who have higher prices, good sales numbers, and good reputations. You'll also find that, generally there's a certain equilibrium in price among those more successful sellers. Yes, there are exceptions, both higher and lower, but if you invest some time in it, you'll discover what that equilibrium is. And when you do, you'll find some numbers that are, as Goldilocks would say, "juuuuust right." Assuming you're in the same talent ballpark as they, it's that Goldilocks price that you I suggest you target and move toward in slow, easy steps. If you're not quite as good, stay a little lower.
What About Your Other Gigs?
There comes a point where you've got enough juice with Fiverr that you can start to have some fun and experiment with pricing. Experimenting is fun, but it's risky, so I don't recommend making sudden, dramatic changes to the pricing of your main gig, just to see what will happen. But you can definitely experiment, and that can result in something something I've been successful with which I call "mult-tier" pricing. I get into that in great detail and show you how it has really helped my sales on Fiverr, in my HeadSlapper 3 video. It's one of the best ways to "up your game" on Fiverr. It's not difficult, but there's method to that madness, so I strongly suggest you do the video first, develop a strategy/game plan, then proceed!
There's so much you and I can do together to improve your gig's performance. Schedule your Gig Doctor appointment by hitting the Gig Checkup link at the top of this page for an inexpensive personalized checkup and consultation!
For those of you who do voiceovers, or who are interested in entering that fun profession, I can help there too. Check out my voiceover coaching services.