How To Test Software With Fiverr

If you read anywhere near the scale of blogs I do, you get the hard sell on various pieces of software a lot. Often a lot of the reviews of things are positive and the software’s official website are often those long sales pages that look basic, promise the world & are difficult to leave. However, I’ve bought software from similar sites & been very happy with them. I’ve also bought some crap before now and whilst you can get refunds, it can be tricky.

Recently though, the amount of poor software I have bought has dropped considerably, how have I done it? Simple – I’ve used Fiverr.

What is Fiverr?

Fiverr is the next big thing in marketplaces, my twitter feed raves about it, ViperChill raved about it, I love it. Basically it lists jobs and tasks that people are willing to do for $5. It was in ViperChill’s comments that I shared this technique, in this post I’ll expand what I mean.

How To Use Fiverr To Test Software

When you login to Fiverr, you need to search for the name of the software you’re looking for in the search box in the left hand column and press enter.

Unless you’re really unlucky, you should get a list of gigs and tasks for $5. Then you simply pick a user (known as a seller) to test the software (some of them are really in your favour. For example, I searched for ArticleRanks and found some people selling five article submissions (that cost $10) for $5!

You need to carry out a small amount due dilligence to help eliminate time wasters. It’s definitely a buyer’s market with Fiverr protecting you but things I would look out for are the following:-

• Amount of feedback – Obvious Really
• Date since last feedback – A lot of gigs receive no feedback whatsoever. The gigs with recent feedback are probably the ones you want to look at.
• What’s needed from you – Often before work begins you need to supply some items to the seller. This as well is a good indication of what you need to run the software should you decide to use it. Obviously you don’t want to pay $5 and then help your contractor carry out the task.

Don’t rely solely on feedback though, as it can be gamed, but as it’s only $5 per task, it’s a great way to test run software.

One Thing To Bear In Mind

Problems can arise however should sellers not deliver on the task. This is unfortunate but not particularly avoidable (for $5, you cannot expect the world). This has happened to me once before: the seller to had a family illness and asked me to cancel. Which was fine, I’m not a complete slave driver!

Unfortunately, when I cancelled, I got this message:-

I knew that there was a problem well before the end of the task thanks to my seller being responsive, but I couldn’t cancel until after the end of the expected delivery time.

Furthermore, instead of getting your $5, it goes into credit on the site. So although you aren’t out of pocket & can use it on the site, you’ll never see your $5 again.