How to Start Your Own Fiverr-Style Website Without Giving Away 20% of Every Sale

 

If you have ever thought about starting a website where people can hire freelancers, book coaches, or order design work, you have probably run into the same wall I did. Every option seems to come with a catch. Fiverr and Upwork take a big cut of everything you earn. Building something from scratch costs tens of thousands of dollars. And most of the "easy" WordPress plugins were actually built to sell physical products, so services always feel like an afterthought bolted onto the side.

That is what led me to WP Sell Services, a WordPress plugin built specifically for selling services instead of physical goods. I want to walk you through what it actually does, who it is for, and where it falls short, in plain terms, no developer jargon required.

The problem with most marketplace plugins

Picture a normal online store. You buy a product, it gets shipped to your address, and you get a tracking number. Simple.

Now picture hiring a freelance designer for a logo. There is no shipping address. Instead, there is a back and forth: the designer needs to know what you want, they deliver a draft, you ask for a change, they deliver again, and only then are you actually done.

Most WordPress marketplace plugins were built for the first scenario and then stretched to cover the second one. It usually works, but it feels clunky, like using a moving truck to deliver a pizza.

WP Sell Services was built the other way around. The whole plugin is designed around that back-and-forth service process from day one. Nothing is bolted on.

What you actually get, and yes, it is free

A lot of "free" plugins are really just a taste of the real product, meant to get you to upgrade. WP Sell Services is not that. The free version is a complete, working marketplace on its own.

Here is what it includes with no cost at all:

• A simple setup wizard. You pick your marketplace name, currency, and how much commission you want to take, and it builds the core pages for you.
• An easy listing builder for sellers. Sellers walk through six steps to create a listing: title, three pricing packages (think Basic, Standard, Premium), photos, frequently asked questions, and a form asking buyers what they need.
• Built-in payments. Stripe, PayPal, or manual offline payment; no other store plugin required.
• A real order process. Every order moves through clear stages: collecting requirements from the buyer, work in progress, delivery, revisions if needed, and completion.
• Reviews and seller rankings, so buyers can see who is trustworthy before they pay.
• A dispute system, so if something goes wrong, either side can flag it and you, as the site owner, can step in with the full order history in front of you.
• Commission control, either one flat percentage or different rates for different sellers.
• Automatic emails for every step of an order, so nobody is left wondering what is happening.
• Portfolio pages, so sellers can show off past work even before someone places an order.
• Tipping, where a happy customer can tip a seller directly, and the seller keeps the whole tip.

None of this is locked away for a paid version. This is simply what you get by installing the free plugin.

Two different ways to run your marketplace

This is the part that genuinely impressed me. The plugin supports two completely different ways of connecting buyers and sellers, and you get to choose one or run both together.

The Fiverr way. A seller creates a listing with set prices. A buyer browses, picks a package, and pays right away. The order then walks through the requirements and delivery process automatically.

The Upwork way. A buyer posts what they need, along with a budget and deadline. Sellers send in proposals. The buyer picks their favorite, pays, and the same delivery process kicks in from there.

Most platforms force you to pick one style and stick with it. This plugin lets you run either, or both, side by side. That flexibility matters if your idea does not fit neatly into one box. A home repair marketplace, for example, might want fixed prices for simple jobs and a request-a-quote option for bigger ones.

Who this is actually built for

The people behind the plugin have laid out six specific types of marketplaces you could realistically build with it. Here they are, in plain terms:

• Tutoring and coaching sites. Tutors list subjects and pricing packages, students browse and book sessions.
• Design service marketplaces. Designers offer tiered packages with revisions built in, a good fit for creative agencies or freelance collectives.
• Consulting directories. Consultants list audits or ongoing retainers, and clients compare and choose.
• Home service marketplaces. Cleaners, plumbers, and handymen where customers post a job, and pros send quotes.
• General freelance marketplaces. An open platform where anyone can list a service, and anyone can order one, essentially your own version of Fiverr.
• Request-based service sites. Buyers post a brief and sellers submit proposals, more like Upwork.

If your idea does not match one of these exactly, that is fine. The underlying pieces (listings, pricing packages, order forms, reviews) can be reshaped to fit most service-based businesses.

How it stacks up against the alternatives

I want to be fair here, because no tool is perfect for everyone. Here is an honest comparison.

Compared to Fiverr or Upwork. Those platforms take somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of every sale, and you are building your reputation on their platform, not your own. If Fiverr changes its rules tomorrow, that affects your income. WP Sell Services runs on a website you own completely. The trade-off is that Fiverr and Upwork already have millions of people searching every day. You will not have that built-in traffic on day one.

Compared to stitching together WooCommerce with several marketplace add-ons. This route often ends up costing 200 dollars a year or more once you add up all the extensions, and getting five different plugins to play nicely together is its own headache. WP Sell Services does it all in one plugin, for free.

Compared to other WordPress marketplace plugins like Dokan or WC Vendors. These are solid plugins, but they were designed for physical products and adapted for services later. They typically lack a proper requirements form or a real revision tracking system. WP Sell Services was designed for services specifically, so those pieces feel native instead of added on.

Compared to hosted marketplace builders like Sharetribe. These usually charge anywhere from 99 to 500 dollars a month, and that bill grows as your marketplace grows, which is a strange incentive since you are paying more the more successful you become. WP Sell Services is either a one-time purchase or a modest yearly fee, with no monthly toll tied to your growth.

Compared to hiring a developer to build something custom. A custom-built marketplace realistically costs anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 dollars, plus ongoing maintenance. This plugin covers most of what a custom build would give you, at a tiny fraction of the price.

Real problems this plugin solves

If you have tried building a service-based marketplace before, some of these will sound familiar.

"Services do not fit neatly into a normal order form." Solved because the plugin treats requirements, delivery, and revisions as real steps in the process, not something you have to fake with sticky notes and comments.

"I do not want a monthly bill eating into my profits." Solved because the free version is genuinely free with no monthly fee, and even the paid version is a flat yearly or one-time cost, not a percentage of your revenue.

"I need buyers to be able to post a job, not just browse a catalog." Solved because both the catalog style and the request style come included in the free plugin.

"Disputes turn into a mess of back-and-forth emails." Solved with a built-in dispute tool where you can see everything about an order in one place.

"I have no idea if my marketplace is actually growing." This is one area where the free version stops and the paid version, called Pro, picks up. Pro adds real analytics: revenue trends, order stats, and rankings of your top sellers.

"Paying my sellers manually does not scale." Also a Pro feature. It adds automatic payouts through Stripe, PayPal, or digital wallets, so you are not manually sending money to each seller.

"I already use WooCommerce or another store plugin and do not want to run two checkouts." Pro connects directly to WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, Fluent Cart, or SureCart, so you can keep using the checkout you already have.

"I want to charge sellers a membership fee, not just take a cut of sales," Pro adds the option for sellers to pay a recurring fee to be on your platform, on top of or instead of commission.

"I want my own branding everywhere, not the plugin's name." Pro includes white labeling, so your brand shows up on every email, dashboard, and admin screen instead of the plugin's.

"My server is running out of storage from all the delivered files." Pro lets you store delivery files on cloud storage like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud instead of your own server.

Switching from another plugin

If you are already running a marketplace on Dokan or WC Vendors and thinking about switching, that is a real project, not a quick weekend task. You need to move your sellers, their listings, and their order history without breaking anything along the way.

The top tier of the paid plugin includes import tools specifically meant for migrating from Dokan or WC Vendors, which tells you the people behind this plugin expect agencies and site owners to actually need this. There is also a full set of developer tools if you or someone you hire wants to move data more directly.

In practice, this usually means exporting your seller and listing data from the old plugin, matching it up to how WP Sell Services organizes things (everything is built around pricing packages rather than flat products, so this step takes a little care), and then having sellers whose listings do not translate cleanly redo them through the new listing wizard. It is not an instant one-click switch, but the tools to do it exist.

Getting started, in plain steps

If you want the fastest path from nothing to a working marketplace, here is roughly what that looks like:

1. Install the free plugin and run through the setup wizard, picking your marketplace name, currency, and commission rate.
2. Decide whether you want the catalog style, the request style, or both turned on.
3. Create your first listing yourself, just to test the process, using the six-step wizard.
4. Connect a payment method. Stripe, PayPal, and offline payments all work without needing any other store plugin.
5. Place one full test order yourself, from start to finish, so you see exactly what a real buyer and seller would experience.
6. Add the marketplace to your homepage using the plugin's ready-made blocks, so visitors can actually find it.

The setup itself really does take minutes. Picking a design and writing your copy will take longer, but that is true of any website.

What it costs

The free plugin costs nothing and works on as many sites as you want. The paid version, Pro, is where the business tools live:

• Personal, 99 dollars a year or 249 dollars once for lifetime access, good for one site
• Professional, 199 dollars a year or 499 dollars once, good for multiple sites
• Agency, 249 dollars a year or 629 dollars once, unlimited sites plus extra tools meant for agencies handling client projects

Every price tier unlocks the exact same features. The only difference between them is how many sites you can use it on and how fast support responds to you. There is also a 30-day money-back guarantee if it turns out not to be the right fit.

Where this is not the right choice

I want to be upfront about this instead of pretending the plugin is perfect for everyone.

If you are selling physical products, skip this one entirely. It is built specifically for services and intentionally leaves out things like shipping and inventory tracking. Something like Dokan would suit you better.

If you need customers showing up on day one and cannot spend time or money bringing in your own traffic, a platform like Fiverr or Upwork will get you sales faster, even with the fees they charge. This plugin gives you ownership, not an audience. You still have to do the work of getting people to your site.

And if you are planning something at a genuinely massive scale, think large enterprise-level procurement systems, you are probably looking at something bigger than a WordPress plugin altogether.

The bottom line

If your goal is to run a service marketplace and you would rather own your platform than hand over a chunk of every sale to a company like Fiverr, this is a genuinely solid option. The free version is not a watered-down trial; it is a full working marketplace you can launch today. The paid version exists for the moment your marketplace outgrows manual payouts, and you need real reporting and automated payments.

The honest catch is traffic. Fiverr and Upwork hand you an audience that already exists. This plugin hands you the platform and leaves the audience building to you. If you already have people who would use your site, or a plan to reach them, this can take you from an idea to a working marketplace in a weekend instead of months.