The best ways to maximize the chances of success for your order is to contact Fiverr sellers before you place an order. A few simple questions can help you to avoid the headache of dealing with incompetent freelancers.
⚡ No Time? Here’s The Quick Guide ⚡
The best way to get great results on Fiverr is to contact Fiverr sellers using a straightforward and respectful approach:
- Initiate Contact: Go to the seller’s profile (or gig) and click on the ‘Contact Me’ or ‘Request to Order’ button to start talking through Fiverr’s inbox system.
- Follow Fiverr’s Rules: Avoid mass messaging (AKA spamming), sharing personal contact details, and communicate professionally.
- Be Clear and Concise: Provide a brief overview of your project, what you’re looking for, and ask specific questions. Avoid overwhelming the seller with too much information or being too vague.
- Listen to Suggestions: Sellers might offer useful suggestions or request more details on your project. Be open to their expertise but also know when to decline upsells or advice you don’t need.
- Negotiate Wisely: Negotiation is acceptable, but many sellers offer rates on Fiverr that are already lower than their off-platform prices. Build a relationship first, then negotiate.
If you follow these guidelines, you will find it easier to find and choose the best Fiverr sellers for your project. In the meantime, you’ll also avoid many common problems that can lead to a bad Fiverr buying experience.
Contact Fiverr Sellers Before Ordering
You’ve searched the marketplace and found the best candidates for your project, and now you’re trying to decide who is the best choice. Perhaps you’ve already gone through vetting each seller and whittled that list down even more.
Contacting a seller with your questions is really all that’s left to do. As a seller and a buyer with who has been on the platform, I believe this is the best way to vet sellers before you spend any money.
(The best way to vet a Fiverr seller is to hire them for a small test project, if you were wondering!)
It’s a simple and free way to gauge whether a seller is the best fit for you, as well as nailing down any specifics about your project. It’s not too tricky to contact Fiverr sellers, but there are a few things that you should bear in mind before you send them a message.
How to Contact Fiverr Sellers
This part is easy.
Just go to the seller’s page and click on the ‘Contact Me‘ button (bottom right of image below):
Sometimes, you might see ‘Request to Order‘ (green button – may also appear as a white button, depending on which variant of gig page design Fiverr is testing when you click on a gig):
Despite the change in words, this button still does the exact same thing. All it means is that the seller has set their gig so that buyers have to contact them before ordering. These sellers usually need more information before they start work.
Whichever button you see, click on it and you’ll be taken to the Fiverr inbox.
After this initial contact, you won’t have to do this again. Fiverr will keep your conversation in the inbox. It works like instant messaging, so you can simply pick up the conversation whenever you need to.
Now you might be wondering why on earth anyone would need a guide for this. I agree, so let me get into the real meat of this article!
Fiverr Has Some Rules About Contacting Sellers
Like any other platform, Fiverr has a few house rules that you will want to respect. Breaking these rules can quickly lead to the frustration of a disabled account!
Don’t Mass Message Fiverr Sellers
Fiverr has some very trigger-happy spam filters. These are in place to prevent mass-messaging scammers from carpet-bombing them with their latest scheme. There are a lot of these people on Fiverr. As a result, this filter is easy to trigger, and when it does, Fiverr automatically disables your account.
That means you won’t be able to use the platform until you sort everything out with Fiverr. To avoid this, just make sure you send reasonably unique messages to each seller and wait a few minutes between sending messages.
Don’t Share Contact Details
Fiverr is very strict about going off-platform unless it is necessary for the project, an only within an order. Don’t send sellers your email address, telephone number, social media, or anything else like this, as your account may be disabled.
It’s worth noting that sellers will often report buyers who do this, so it’s best not to try to game this system at all. That’s not to say you can’t share your website or project documents, but make sure that this is the primary reason for sharing something.
Communicate Professionally
This rule is perhaps an obvious one. You don’t need to be super-professional. Business casual and conversational is fine. Fiverr’s community standards ask users to be respectful and has guidance on what to avoid. Fall foul of these, and… yep, you got it. Your account will be disabled!
So, that’s how to stay on Fiverr’s sweet side. But Fiverr isn’t really the important part of the equation here. Sellers are.
As you may have noticed, Fiverr’s a little trigger-happy with the account disabling. For sellers, this can be absolutely disastrous. Most sellers know the rules very well and are very sensitive about working with buyers who might put them on the wrong side of Fiverr.
Fiverr sellers are also very cautious of working with buyers who might hurt their stats, as their stats are closely tied to visibility on the platform. Poor stats means less or even no income.
In other words, there are a few things you need to be mindful of when you contact Fiverr sellers so you make a good first impression. If you don’t, you may get rejected, even if your project is a good fit for them.
Let’s talk about that now.
Tips for Contacting Fiverr Sellers
First things first: follow the rules above. This is most of the battle won! The issues below are known as “red flags,” which is a freelance term for signs that someone may be a terrible client and best avoided.
Be Clear and Concise
Opening messages don’t need to include every little detail, multiple questions, and 10 attachments to explain your project. This is overwhelming and off-putting.
On the other hand, don’t also lead with “hi” and nothing else. Give Fiverr sellers something to work with when they reply. Personally, I like to just respond with “hi” back, knowing full well the next sentence will be “how are you”.
This might be a polite way to start a conversation, but for sellers who deal with hundreds of messages a day, it’s a huge timesink.
Skip this. Nobody will mind.
All you need to do here is introduce yourself, give a quick overview of your project and what you’re looking for, and ask one or two opening questions. You can always ask more questions later!
(And if you really want to say hi, how are you, just put it at the top of your message!)
Listen to Suggestions from Sellers
After an initial briefing , some sellers will almost always have suggestions and ideas about your project and how to work on it for the best results. These ideas won’t always be good, but sometimes they may be.
One classic example is the “surprise me, use your creativity” directive from buyers. While this sounds good, you may not love the output. If a seller carefully guides you back to providing details on what you want in terms of creativity, provide it.
On the other hand, some sellers may try to upsell services that you don’t need. It’s OK to decline these and explain why if you see no value. If the seller keeps pushing after you reject, you may want to move on. This is can be a sign that someone is more interested in your money than a successful project.
Don’t Try to Negotiate Too Hard
A lot of buyers like to negotiate. That’s not a bad thing – but it’s worth bearing in mind that many sellers’ Fiverr pricing is a lot lower than their pricing away from the platform.
It’s also worth noting that many sellers have been burned by buyers seeking discounts on initial projects with the promise of more work in the future. That work rarely comes, making this a red flag.
Worse, many sellers have had bad experiences with “cheap” buyers who secured a juicy discount, only to then treat the seller terribly and leave a bad review.
Once bitten, twice shy. Every seller is different. Some are open to negotiation, some will shut you down immediately. If you want to negotiate, you can definitely try – but if the seller is unwilling to negotiate, leave it.
On Fiverr, the best position to start negotiating as a buyer is after you have completed work with sellers and they know you better.
That’s it, folks!
It’s not hard to contact Fiverr sellers, and it’s arguably not that difficult to communicate with them either. Fiverr also makes improvements like direct message replies every so often. This new feature in particular is a great way to bring the conversation back to where you want it if a conversation isn’t staying on track. This article has really been about avoiding common mistakes that a lot of buyers make.
As a Top Rated and Pro Verified seller on Fiverr working on the platform since 2013, I’ve found the inbox to be a place where I filter buyers that I want to work with from everyone else. These tips are really here to help you make sure you make a good impression on sellers so you can stay on the right side of their filter.
Think of it as a job interview; it can go both ways!
Simply being professional and respectful of their time is all you need to do. Throw in a little knowledge about Fiverr’s rules, and you’ll find that contacting sellers on Fiverr is a great way to find the best sellers for your project.
TL;DR: Don’t be that guy and you’ll be the kind of buyer that Fiverr sellers want to work with!
