Fiverr quits the race to the bottom with new premium freelancer marketplace

Fiverr is one of the most well-known freelance marketplaces, but it hardly has a reputation for excellence. It’s not a premium brand. Rather, it’s the place you go to when you need something simple done, but don’t want to splash out the cash to pay a real freelancer.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, and until recently, it has been content to occupy this niche. But given the growing threat of established services like Freelancer and People Per Hour, as well as new upstarts like the Manchester-based Twine, it has launched its own premium marketplace called Fiverr Pro.

Fiverr Pro strictly adheres to the well-known Fiverr model; you can order jobs with a single click, and freelancers can offer additional paid extras. The key difference isn’t just in price, but that Fiverr Pro is a curated environment, with freelancers specifically invited based on their merits.

The company says that it chose freelancers who have demonstrated excellence across the transaction experience, from producing the work, to communication.

To boost its professional credentials, Fiverr has also reached out to freelancers from other platforms, and has amassed talent that has previously worked with Google, Vodafone, and other well-known blue chip tech companies.

Beginning today, freelancers are available in four different categories: writing and translation, graphics design, digital marketing, and video and animation.

The news comes at a time when the company is desperately targeting the higher echelons of the freelance marketplace. It just announced the acquisition of Veed.me, a specialist marketplace that focuses on the video and animation sector, whose clients include Facebook and Google.

This makes sense. High-end freelance contracts often reach into the tens of thousands. It only makes sense that it’d want a piece of that pie.

But the Fiverr brand is one that’s fundamentally tained by its association with the lower-quality, less respectable element of freelancing. Time will only tell if it will attract these high-end freelancers, or if they’ll look elsewhere.