New platform launched to enhance freelancer-business relationship

Freelance marketplace provider, Fiverr International, has recently launched a new platform called Fiverr Business, which seeks out to help larger companies manage their projects with freelancers. 

A little over a year after going public on the New York Stock Exchange, Israel-based Fiverr (FVRR) says that the platform will also enable corporate teams and departments to collaborate with each other seamlessly. 

According to Forbes, freelancers are likely to find themselves in higher demand now and in the future, with 47% of employers more likely to hire independent professionals. This shift of freelancers being hired now more than ever was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlighting the current demand for freelance services, the company reports that after conducting a global survey of over 2,000 businesses, they found that 52% were allocating more budget to freelance services.

“The pandemic has forced companies everywhere to rethink best practices for hiring, and this means focusing on a full-time team supporting their core competencies while integrating freelance talent as a way to easily scale,” adds Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman.

The new subscription-based solution will cost US$149 a year for teams of up to 50, and Fiverr is offering the service alone (on top of freelancer fees) to companies for free for the first year. More team members can be added at an additional cost. 

“We do believe in the product and the direction that we want people to get real value before they decide,” says Fiverr Group Product Manager, Meidad Hinkis.

Fiverr Business will enable businesses to: 

• Access a curated freelancer supply, with an additional level of quality assurance (supply is curated using Fiverr’s AI tools and hand-picked by Fiverr customer success managers according to business needs)
• Access to Fiverr’s 24/7 personal executive assistant for account setup, freelance talent matching, and other white glove services
• Access project management tools to create new projects, manage upcoming orders, and organising teams around shared goals and tasks
• Control and track budget approval and project status, manage groups and reporting through governance and administration tools
• Communicate and collaborate with in-house team members and external freelancers across Fiverr orders without leaving the Fiverr environment
• Create the team’s secret black book of trusted freelancers the organisation likes working with and privately share it with team members

Trusted by esteemed companies such as L’Oréal and Unilever, Fiverr states that while the pandemic will eventually subside, the demand for remote work and freelance talent is here to stay.

With that in mind, they sought out to create an integration that fits into an organisation’s workflow and merges into becoming ‘part of the digital onboarding experience’ for employees – enabling freelancers to access email, Slack, Dropbox, and the Fiverr Business team account. 

The enterprise-ready platform was designed to cater to the needs of larger organisations seeking firmer control and visibility into the use and spend on freelancers across teams.

By subscribing to the platform, businesses will also be able to set budgetary limits across the organisation, track expenses, and manage the duration of all engagements centrally.

By the end of June 2020, in the span of a year, 2.8 million customers had bought services from freelancers across over 160 countries.