I launched a new Fiverr gig and got my first order in 30 days
I’m not the cheapest. I’m not the highest rated. Here’s what happened.
Last month I published a new gig on Fiverr:
Medical and science illustrations. Starting price: $350.
Here’s what the competition looks like in that category.
$5. $10. $70. Highest price starting from $170. The page is full of sellers with Top Rated badges, Fiverr’s Choice labels, 500+ reviews, perfect 5.0 stars.
I have 127 reviews. 4.8 stars. A Vetted Pro badge — which sounds impressive until you realise buyers don’t always know what it means. And my gig starts at $350, which puts me somewhere between “that’s steep” and “why would I pay this when I can get it for $10 right there.”
30 days days after publishing, I had my first order: $750.
How I knew this gig existed
This time around I didn’t come up with this through keyword research. I found it by looking at what clients were already ordering from me — just hidden inside less specific gigs.
Over 15 years of illustration work, I’ve done everything: brand illustration, infographics, editorial, maps, lead magnets, sketchnotes. Those broader gigs attracted all kinds of buyers. But buried inside that order history… there was a pattern I had been ignoring.
Medical and science clients kept showing up. Health startups. Educators. Wellness brands. All asking for something vaguely described as: “something beautiful”. And yes, I know. I keep saying: don’t sell illustration as decoration.
That’s still true. Which is exactly why my gig doesn’t say “beautiful medical illustration”, even though that’s what they’re actually looking for.
So how do you translate “beautiful” into something clients are willing to pay for?
You define it by contrast. Not clinical. Not textbook. Not academically precise. But: Editorial-style. Engaging. Simplified for non-experts.
Same desire. Different language.
These clients already had taste. They were finding me through my generic “digital illustration” gig and then asking for something very specific.
Which meant one thing: There was demand I wasn’t directly speaking to. And more importantly, there were clients who would never even find me, because they didn’t know how to search for a “style.”
This is a lesson I learned a long time ago: Clients don’t have your imagination. Just because you can create a festival poster, doesn’t mean they think you can design a podcast cover, or a medical illustration… unless they see a medical illustration in your portfolio.
Your job isn’t just to create.
It’s to package what you can do in a way clients can recognize themselves in.
That’s the gig I built.
What the gig actually says
The description doesn’t try to appeal to everyone.
It says: “Not all medical illustrations need to look clinical. Health startups, educators, and wellness brands often need visuals that explain, not overwhelm.”
Illustrations I did for a Pilates workbook
It has a “these are ideal for” list: patient education, health tech platforms, wellness brands, biotech storytelling, editorial articles.
It has a “not for” list: surgical accuracy, academic publications, technical anatomy manuals.
It has a three-step process. It has FAQ questions that answer the things buyers actually wonder — what license is included, are illustrations medically accurate, who is this for, who is this NOT for.
Every section is doing one job: making the right buyer feel like this was built for them, and making the wrong buyer self-select out before they waste anyone’s time.
That specificity is the trust signal. Not the badge. Not the star rating. Not the price. But the fact that I’m not willing to just take any gig.
So why didn’t the $10 gig get the order?
Let’s be fair: those gigs do get orders. A lot of them.
There is real demand at that price point.
People buy quick, cheap execution all the time.
But here’s the trade-off no one talks about:
For my one $750 order, a $10 seller needs 75 orders to match the same income.
Seventy-five clients. Seventy-five conversations. Seventy-five rounds of revisions, feedback, edge cases, and “just one more tweak.”
That’s not just more work. That’s a completely different business model. And I’m not interested in managing 75 small transactions to earn what one well-positioned project can bring. I’d rather have fewer, higher-value projects.
The kind where the client is not just looking for someone to execute, but someone to think.
And to be clear — this client didn’t just click “buy.”
They looked around. We went back and forth on pricing. They had a lower budget, and I didn’t just fold. So why did they still choose me? Because I didn’t position myself as someone waiting for instructions.
I led the discussion. I told them what would actually help them achieve their goal with this asset, what to avoid, how this would be used across formats. The conversation shifted from: “Can you do this for our budget?” to “Okay, how should we approach this?”. That’s a completely different dynamic.
Most freelancers still operate from an employee–employer dynamic.
An actual sustainable career is build on business-to-business relationships.
Equals. And honestly, that was one of the biggest mindset shifts I had to go through to reach my first $100k (more on my journey here).
So no, I’m not trying to compete with $5 gigs.
I’m building offers that attract the $500+ client, the one who values clarity, direction, and outcomes over just execution.
Because in the end, it’s not about how many orders you get.
It’s about what kind of work your business is designed to attract.
What this means for you
The mistake most people make when they set up a Fiverr gig is starting from what they can do.
I can do illustration. I can do design. I can do animation.
That’s not a gig. That’s a CV.
A gig starts from what a specific buyer is looking for at 11pm when they have a problem and a budget and need to feel confident enough to click order.
The bridge between those two things — between what you can do and what a buyer is actively searching for — is hiding in your own portfolio, the same way my medical gig was hiding in my order history. It’s there. You just need someone to point at it.
The workshop
That’s exactly what we’re going to do next week.
We’re not starting with only keyword research. We’re starting with your work.
Bring your portfolio — your Fiverr profile if you have one, your website, your Instagram, whatever shows your actual work. We’ll go through it together and I’ll show you where I see a gig. Not based on what sounds good in theory. Based on 15 years of pattern recognition across hundreds of clients and what they actually come looking for.
Then we’ll build it properly:
Analytics and keyword research — how to find what buyers are already searching for in your niche
Gig structure and description — writing for the buyer at 11pm, not for a job application
The middle tier principle — pricing architecture that makes the decision easy
Thumbnails that convert — why CTR and conversion are two different problems
Onboarding, offboarding, scammer protection — the operational layer nobody talks about until something goes wrong
Live. Practical. I’ll be looking at real profiles and giving real feedback — not generic advice.
Limited to 15–18 participants to keep it truly actionable.
The gig that will work for you already exists somewhere in your portfolio. You just haven’t packaged it yet.
See you at the workshop,
Adriana
P.S. Send me your portfolio or profile link when you sign up. The more I can see before the session, the more specific I can be when we get to your work.