March 10, 2022
Posted by Tyler Cruz

On November 8th, 2017, Fiverr revamped its seller leveling system by making a bunch of changes.

The leveling system on Fiverr provides badges and designations to differentiate more trustworthy and respectable sellers from one another. A seller with a higher rank is more attractive to buyers and also benefits from some added perks HRIS. The new changes should have a noticeable effect once the first evaluation takes place early next year.

Overall I like the new system, although they could’ve done a better job if they had thought about things a little more.

Here is my breakdown of changes to the new system:

Seller Evaluations

Previously, once you were promoted a level (1, 2, or Top Seller), you would remain there unless something drastic happened to your account’s performance.

Now, all users will be evaluated on the 15th of each month, starting on January 15th, 2018. Each level has specific criteria that must be met in order to maintain the level, otherwise you will (assumedly) be demoted. Getting promoted to levels 1 and 2 appears that it will be automatic, but getting promoted from rank 2 to Top Seller will need to be done by manual approval.

Some sellers have voiced their opinion that more levels should be added. I think I agree. Right now, there are 4 seller levels: New Seller, 1, 2, and Top Rated Seller. You become a New Seller automatically, level 1 is pretty easy to achieve, level 2 is not that much harder and can be achieved after about 6 months or so (need 50 completed orders and have made $2,000+), and then suddenly it’s a massive jump from level 2 to Top Rated Seller.

Here are the requirements to become a Top Rated Seller:

• Complete at least 180 days as an active Seller on Fiverr
• Complete at least 100 individual orders
• Earn at least $20,000
• Maintain a 4.8 star rating over the course of 60 days
• 90{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} Response rate over the course of 60 days
• 90{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} Order completion over the course of 60 days
• 90{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} On-time delivery over the course of 60 days
• Avoiding receiving warnings over the course of 6 months

That is not easy to achieve!

In fact, I’m only barely halfway eligible for the Earnings requirement:

It might make sense for Fiverr to add a level 3 between 2 and Top Rated Seller.

I predict there will be a LOT of demotions overtime, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it will give greater meaning to higher levels again.

You can view the full list of levels and their benefits and requirements here.

Seller Seniority

There is now something called “seller seniority” which I’m not clear I know what it is exactly, but unless Fiverr has a limited amount of automated promotions they give each month, I would then assume that seniority is limited to the Top Rated Seller promotions, where they are decided manually.

Seller seniority is calculated from the date that a seller first published a gig, so basically older Fiverr seller accounts are given preference for promotions over new ones. This is kind of unfair to new users, but I do understand it as longer sellers have been proven to be loyal to the system and probably know it better.

Mutual Cancellations Count Against You

I can’t believe that Fiverr still isn’t listening to sellers on this one, and this is one of my biggest pet peeves on Fiverr – mutual cancellations count against you.

If you have a dispute with a buyer, you can mutually agree to cancel the order. The only reason I’ve ever had to open a dispute is for this reason.

Despite clearly instructing and warning potential buyers to contact me before placing an order (which I do to both make sure I can do it and that the price is fair), some buyers still place an order without messaging me first anyways. And then they’ll expect me to do $500 worth of work for $5, or want me to do a job way outside of my scope of skills, or they simply won’t reply to any of my questions. And so I have to resort to mutually agreeing to cancel the order. The buyer gets a full refund and the order is cancelled. No harm, no foul, right?

Wrong.

Despite it being completely the fault of the buyer who didn’t follow instructions and still receives a full refund and wastes my time, Fiverr deems mutual cancellations against the seller! Basically they deem a mutual cancellation to be the same as a normal cancellation, and therefore it affects a seller’s cancellation rate, which is one of the criteria for maintaining a level and getting promoted. It also affects how well your gig ranks on the Fiverr platform, so the higher your cancellation rate, the lower your gig will appear in searches and results.

Here is what their new policy says about this:

Sometimes a buyer and I cannot resolve an issue, so an order is mutually canceled. Will that affect my order completion and my level?

The order completion rate calculation is based on the number of orders you have completed over the last 60 days. If you consistently provide a quality service—and you only sell a service that you’re able to provide—one canceled order shouldn’t hurt your level status. In general, to keep your current level, you should aim to keep your completion rate above 90{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} in the past 60 days.

So if you had 17 completed orders and then had to mutually cancel 2 of them because the buyer never provided any details about their gig, too bad for you! You only have a 89.4{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} completion rate and are not eligible for a promotion!

This is so backwards and unfair for sellers, and I cannot understand why Fiverr doesn’t change this policy.

$10,000 to Go

As mentioned earlier, I have about $10,500 more to go before I am eligible to be a Top Rated Seller on Fiverr.

It took me a couple of years to get here but I’m hoping I can complete it in under 1 more year. Then we can see how much benefit (if any) being a Top Rated Seller is and how much more money I can make.