Outcry Over Fiverr’s New Levels and Rating System (2024)

The public feedback beta test is drawing to a close. Fiverr announced the launch of a new levels and rating system: the community did not take the challenges of the new system well.

UPDATE: Fiverr’s bungled launch of the new levels and ratings system has turned toxic, with almost the entire selling community up in arms against the silent company. It’s bad.

UPDATE 2: One of Fiverr’s top sellers – who has made over $1.4 million on the platform – is set to quit. His explosive post is linked below, but only sellers who have Seller Plus can read it. I’ve created a new post just to cover this story with all the relevant screenshots: Levi Newman to quit Fiverr?

UPDATE 3: Levi Newman shared the results of his meeting with Fiverr – we’ve got the screenshots and the analysis.

If you have been working on Fiverr for a few years, then the thought of a new review and levels system probably made you sigh. Fiverr’s ecosystem changes are rarely good news for sellers already struggling with the stress of working on the platform. The latest one is no different.

So, what’s new? Quite a lot. Links to Fiverr’s official documentation are provided at the bottom of the article, along with my opinion (spoiler: I don’t like it).

Fiverr’s New Levels and Rating System Explained

Since 2017, Fiverr’s levels system has remained unchanged, with sellers mostly adapted to its rigors. Starting February 14th (yes, Valentine’s Day!) Several things will change:

• A new success score assessing service and delivery quality
• Daily levels evaluations rather than monthly
• A new feedback system that combines public scoring with “value for money” questions
• Order completion rate and on-time delivery removed from levels criteria
• A ‘grace period’ for recovery before a level drop
• The Top Rated evaluation process is more transparent
• The Pro badge is not connected to a seller’s level
• Emoji reviews are here to stay
• Existing ratings and reviews will be left unchanged
• The Success Score and Ratings are only a part of the overall ranking algorithm

The new Fiverr levels and rating system will not be fully implemented until March 14th, giving freelancers a month to adapt. It is expected that Fiverr will do some final tweaking in this last period before full release, but users should not expect any major changes.

Success Scores Are a New Fiverr Rating System

The most noticeable change to the feedback and levels systems was the introduction of success scores.

We’re introducing the success score to help you better understand the factors shaping your performance evaluation and visibility in the marketplace.

Fiverr

A mockup of this system (image above), which is not yet implemented, shows that sellers scores will either positively or negatively impact their score, on what may be a 10-point system. The system will judge factors including:

• Gig order history
• Customer satisfaction
• Quality of communication

Fiverr claims that this score will “ensure a holistic performance review”, with each gig getting its own score.

Fiverr is promising to roll them out over February 2024. The company believes this helps to give sellers what they want: a new transparency that was missing from private reviews.

It is not known how much of a part private reviews play in this new system, if at all. However, the new success score may meet many seller demands to know what was being said in private reviews, potentially allowing them to adapt and change in areas of underperformance.

Top Rated Evaluation Process More Transparent?

Until 2024, the process for becoming Top-Rated Seller was unknown. In 2024, a new TRS evaluation process is coming. Sellers will be able to check their progress to TRS by checking their level overview page.

There are six metrics required to advance; once they are fulfilled, staff will consider progression. When a positive or negative decision is made, sellers will get a notification.

Emoji Reviews on Fiverr Are Staying

When the feedback beta test was first introduced, emoji reviews recieved some of the biggest criticism. Despite this, Fiverr has decided it will stay, stating that:

Emojis were introduced to offer customers an extra layer of expression, enabling them to convey a more nuanced and emotive satisfaction level with their orders

Fiverr

New Levels System – and Badges? – Coming to Fiverr

This is the biggest change in Fiverr’s levels system since 2017, with Fiverr reflecting that the changes to ratings and reviews meant “your stars are about to mean more”. Despite this claim, sellers will still need more than 4 out of 5 stars to maintain any other level than new seller.

It is uncertain whether this helps Fiverr to achieve its goals of “shifting the benchmark” to help sellers succeed on Fiverr without the pressure of a 5-star review, particularly for high-priced, low-volume sellers who come out worse than low-price, high volume sellers in the metric numbers game.

Some sellers have commented that this levels and ratings revamp contradicts its big push upmarket and drive to increase overall pricing on the platform, pointing to the much-reviled new ‘value for money’ as the biggest mistake.

Fiverr’s Value for Money Metric Causes Controversy

Another widely-criticized aspect of the new review system during the beta test was the ‘Value for Money’ metric. Many sellers in the beta test noticed they were consistently getting 4.7 reviews with the ‘value for money’ rated lower.

Fiverr has not responded to sellers asking if this was a glitch. Instead, it has doubled down, stating that:

Consistently high ‘value for money’ scores may signal opportunities to raise Gig prices [….] Our analysis of historical data over the past 4 years shows consistent ‘value for money’ scores across pricing levels, ensuring dependable feedback as you navigate your freelancing journey (sic)

Fiverr

Higher priced sellers have made a point of telling Fiverr that the ‘value for money’ question is poorly worded and is pushing sellers to reduce pricing. Fiverr has stated that this new metric is in fact an old, formerly private one, which is now being divulged as a part of creating a new and transparent system.

AI Deepens Its Impact on Fiverr

With Neo now launched to the majority of platform users, many suspect that the new review system is feeding into Neo. While this remains to be seen, the huge increase in visible metric-measuring and the importance of Neo to Fiverr’s search in the future indicates that this is a strong possibility.

Criticisms of the New Levels and Ratings System

As with all major changes on Fiverr, the change was met with plenty of criticism from the community. Debate has raged across several threads on the official Fiverr Forum, with one poster getting upset enough with the changes to make contact with the EU AI, citing the upcoming EU AI Act as grounds to force Fiverr’s reconsideration of these changes to their system.

Some buyers are also unhappy with the new system, finding it cumbersome and time-consuming to fill out. Sellers also noted Fiverr’s claim that:

And research shows, ratings between 4.0-4.9 are actually more trustworthy.

Fiverr

Fiverr has not provided a citation for this claim yet. Sellers pointed out that the way in which the new levels system was designed effectively put ideal performance at 5 stars, since demotions may happen anywhere between an overall 4.3 to 4.7, depending on the seller level. Many sellers pointed out that the ‘Value for Money’ metric was a damaging and contradictory one, sharing stories of buyers who believed they had left a 5-star review, only for it to be published on Fiverr as a 4.7 review.

While buyers who contacted Customer Support were able to get this fixed, sellers would be in violation of TOS to ask too many questions about these “bad reviews” – too many of which could cost a level. It is not known whether Fiverr’s ‘Value for Money’ is glitched, buyers are confused by the new rating system, or lying to their sellers.

Other sellers criticized the platform for being a factor in their worsened health as a direct result of the stress of keeping up with metrics. These sellers underlined that the changes would only increase stress. Some said that they were already forced to take frequent health breaks from the platform to prevent poor health – noting sadly that they were easily replaced by younger sellers who would not heed their warnings.

At the time of writing, Fiverr has not responded to any community concerns, despite staff being tagged in several comments with direct and indirect calls for comment.

Direct Links to Information on Fiverr Website

The new system is not yet fully live and still very much in “pre-launch” so information from Fiverr is limited. It is expected that more information will be released over the next two months.

Reviews and Ratings Page – Seller Help Center

New Pathways for Success – Overview of New Levels and Ratings System on Fiverr

New review system is live?! – Fiverr Forum

What Do You Think of the New Fiverr Rating Systems?

In a word? Yikes. There’s quite a lot to be negative about as a seller. But I will try to keep this as neutral as possible.

One thing that is clear is that Fiverr is setting an even higher bar for sellers with its new system. The challenges of maintaining performance on a monthly basis have now been quickened to daily evaluations (with an undefined ‘grace period’). It doesn’t matter if you’ve been on Fiverr for 1 month or 10 years, everyone is held to the same standard.

Somehow, in trying to make 5 stars less important, it has only increased their importance. Fiverr has presented the increased evaluations as a net positive, introducing it as a seamless fast-track to success for newer sellers. However, few sellers are biting. Older, more established sellers in particular are critical of the system – yet resigned from long experience of Fiverr’s deafness to criticism.

Employees of companies around the world rarely hold more than one annual performance evaluation – yet Fiverr has gone the opposite way, ostensibly to push standards up and crowd the platform’s worst sellers out.

The cost is punishing the sellers it does want to keep.

Despite all these issues, Fiverr rarely walks back on its big decisions like this; at best, minor concessions will be made, leaving sellers with a sense of deep frustration and resignation. For the platform’s best, there is no reward – and many are threatening to leave as a result. Of course, Fiverr’s plentiful supply of new sellers means this is not a great concern for the platform, but it does serve to underline seller’s claims that the platform simply doesn’t care about them.

What do I think? I’m going to hold my final judgement until mid-2024 when the system has been for a more robust test-drive. There is a highlight in that private feedback is finally (a little) more transparent, but this highlight is very much in the shadow of the many other issues that the new system appears to have.

For now, I am negative about the changes and believe they only serve to make sellers’ lives ever-more stressful – and do not believe that this will help to resolve Fiverr’s long-standing feedback issues. One of the most notable and concerning complaints on the forum is that buyers are reporting that Fiverr is posting different scores than buyers believed they gave. Fiverr has not responded to any of these criticisms, which has left many in the community angered by what they perceive as a lack of transparency or care for its sellers.

On the whole, it feels like Fiverr did listen, and tried to implement changes – but then took a massive two steps back. The result is a change that leaves Fiverr’s oldest sellers angry and threatening to leave the platform. While new sellers are there to fill the ranks, the pressure to stay on top once they reach will be higher than ever – and there is no telling the damage to people’s mental and physical health that these ever more punishing evaluation systems bring with them.

Time will tell. I will be following the progress of the new levels and feedback system as it goes through its final testing period – keep this blog bookmarked for the latest! In the meantime, check out the blog for some seller guides. All of us are going to need to level up to stay afloat on Fiverr in 2024.

Above all, please don’t forget to take a break from Fiverr if the platform is affecting your mental or physical health. I didn’t, and I got an autoimmune disease from the stress. No amount of success is worth a lifelong chronic illness. Good luck, and I hope you listen to this advice better than I did when I was younger!