“Something I would like to read more about is how to talk to clients that are not used to commissioning illustrations and don’t know how the design/licensing world works. I have the feeling they get scared when presented with things like additional fees for whatever (rush, copyright transfer, source files, additional revisions...). Sometimes I’m unsure how to not give in / stay professional but without scaring them away. I know some clients are worth losing, but maybe some are just insecure and phrasing things properly could help.”

Laura, you’ve already figured out the hard part. Most freelancers sort clients into two boxes: good client and bad client. You’ve spotted the third box, the one where most of them actually live: good client, zero context.

The bakery owner who wants a mural. The startup founder who needs spot illustrations for their website. The author self-publishing their first book. These people are not trying to lowball you. They have simply never bought illustration before, and they’re pricing it against the only reference points they have: a Canva subscription, a cousin who “does design,” and a vague memory that logos cost €50 on the internet.

When your quote arrives with line items like usage license and source files +40%, they don’t think “how unreasonable.” They think “I have no idea what any of this means, and I’m afraid to ask, because then this professional will know I’m clueless.”

Scared clients don’t negotiate. They disappear.

So the job isn’t to defend your fees. It’s to translate them.

Illustration by Adriana Danaila

The mistake: pricing that reads like a penalty list

Here’s what a lot of quotes look like to a first-time client:

• Illustration: €800

• Rush fee: +50%

• Copyright transfer: +250%

• Source files: +40%

• Extra revisions: €90 each

Every line after the first one reads as a punishment. A fee for wanting it faster. A fee for wanting to own it. A fee for wanting the “real” files. A fee for changing their mind. The subtext a new client hears is: everything you might want costs extra, and you don’t know enough to know what you want.

None of these fees are wrong. Rush work does cost more. Full copyright transfer should cost dramatically more. But the presentation is doing damage the pricing doesn’t deserve.

The reframe: sell packages, not penalties

The single biggest fix is to stop presenting add-ons and start presenting complete options.

Instead of a base price plus a menu of surcharges, send two packages:

Package 01 — The Essentials Final illustration, 2 revision rounds, delivery in 21 days, license for web and social media. €900.

Package 02 — The Full Kit Final illustration, 4 revision rounds, delivery in 12 days, source files included, extended license covering print and advertising. €1,800.

Notice what happened. Nothing is a fee anymore. The rush isn’t a surcharge, it’s just how fast Package 02 arrives. Source files aren’t an upsell, they’re simply in one package and not the other. The client isn’t being nickel-and-dimed; they’re choosing between two coherent things, the way they’d choose between two phone plans.

And there’s a bonus: their choice tells you their budget without you ever having to ask. (If you can, avoid asking a client their budget. You’re handing them the anchor.)

Licensing: explain the why in one sentence, then move on

Licensing is where new clients get most scared, because it sounds like legal trouble. The fix is not a paragraph about intellectual property law. It’s one plain sentence, delivered like it’s the most normal thing in the world — because it is:

“The price includes everything you need: the illustration, plus the rights to use it on your website, social media, and printed materials. If you later want to use it in paid ads or on merch, that’s a simple license upgrade — just let me know.”

Three things are doing work here:

1. “Includes everything you need” — the default license covers their actual use case, so there are no “wait, I can’t post this?” surprises later. Build your standard license generously enough that this sentence is true.

2. “If you later want...” — upgrades are framed as a future convenience, not a present threat.

3. No jargon. Not “non-exclusive in-perpetuity license for digital media.” Just: website, social media, print.

The client who was afraid of licensing now understands what they are actually buying. Their fear was never about the price of the license. It was about not understanding what license they actually need for their specific case.

Copyright transfer: the real ask behind the question

When a new client asks for “full copyright,” they almost never want copyright. They want reassurance. Specifically: “Can I use this however I need, and am I protected?”

So before quoting the +300%, ask what they’re actually planning:

“Happy to talk through that! Usually full copyright transfer matters for things like trademarked logos or if you plan to resell the artwork itself. For most projects, the license I include covers everything — you can use the work everywhere your business shows up, forever. What did you have in mind for it?”

Nine times out of ten, the answer is “Oh, no, we just want to use it on our site and stuff.” Great. You just saved them €5,000 they didn’t need to spend, and you’ve become the professional who saved them money instead of the one with the scary fee list.

The tenth client actually needs the buyout, and now they understand why it costs what it costs.

Revisions: set the frame before it’s a conflict

“Additional revision fees” scare new clients because they can’t predict how many revisions they’ll need — they’ve never done this before! So don’t make them predict. Make the included rounds feel substantial, and frame the process:

“The project includes two full revision rounds — that’s usually more than enough, because I’ll share the sketch stage first so we make the big decisions before anything is final. If we end up needing more, additional rounds are €X, but honestly, most projects never get there.”

You’ve told them: there’s a process, the process is designed to prevent the problem, and the fee exists but is rare. That’s the difference between a fee that reads as a trap and a fee that reads as a boundary.

When they still push back: reduce scope, never price

Sometimes even the well-translated quote is genuinely above their budget. Here’s the line in the sand: the number can move, but only if the deliverables move with it.

“My standard fee for this scope is €1,600. If budget’s tight, I can bring it to €1,100 by trimming to two revision rounds, a 21-day timeline, and a web-only license. Same quality, leaner package.”

You’ve stated your real rate (so they can’t anchor you to the discount forever), named exactly what came out, and stayed completely warm while doing it. No defensiveness. No “well, my prices are my prices.” Just a professional adjusting a package.

And if they can’t meet even the lean version? Then Laura’s instinct is right — some clients are worth losing. But you lose them like this:

“I can’t get to that number without cutting corners I’m not willing to cut. If the budget grows down the line, I’d genuinely love to work together.”

Half of these come back within a year. The door you close politely stays a door. The door you slam becomes a wall.

The mindset shift underneath all of this

Laura asked how to “not give in, stay professional, but not scare them away” as if those three things are in tension. They’re not. They’re the same skill: treating client education as part of the service.

You are, in this scenario, the only expert in the room. That’s not a burden; it’s the whole reason they’re hiring you instead of DIY-ing it. Every calm explanation of why source files cost extra, every jargon-free sentence about licensing, every “here’s what most clients in your situation actually need” — that’s you doing your job at a level a scared, silent PDF full of surcharges never could.

The clients who get scared off by a well-explained quote were never going to be good clients. But the insecure ones, they just need better phrasing. They don’t need lower prices. They need a guide.

Be that guide and charge like the expert.

Want your question in the next Ask Adriana?

Reply to this or dm me with your situation. Client messages you can’t decode, quotes you’re afraid to send, fees you don’t know how to explain. Paste the actual client email if you’re comfortable (I’ll strip anything identifying).

I’ll pick one question per edition and answer it in full. If yours doesn’t get featured, I still read it — and it shapes what I write about next.

Thanks to Laura for kicking this off. This is exactly the kind of question this series exists for.

You walk away, because you’ve read one too many “raise your prices” LinkedIn posts and now dropping below your quote feels like betraying yourself.

Or you quietly absorb the difference, because you’ve seen one too many “AI will steal your job” posts and saying no to anything feels like a risk you can’t afford.

Both are starving artist strategies. But you and me are here to be thriving artists. So let’s go behind the scenes on how this played out on a real project.

The brief

A boutique agency needed visual direction and hand-drawn assets for their website. The goal was to frame the brand as family-owned and approachable, to differentiate from the edgy, neon style of their competition.

They came through Fiverr. They were considering two other freelancers. We had a call, brainstormed about the vision, they got a feel for my creative ideas and I won them over :)

Because we talked a lot and came up with so many ideas we could fill two web pages, I needed to get a feeling of their budget first. So, I drafted two packages.

This is what I do when a client doesn’t disclose a budget. Mostly because I tend to lose trust in my own pricing and absorb the client’s way of evaluating my work. So I prefer to lead with the pricing — usually higher than I’m comfortable with — instead of being led. I also don't want to be that freelancer who lowballs to win work and then resents the project.

The two packages

Not two tiers of quality. Two different creative directions.

Their reply came the next day: “I’m leaning toward Option B but is there any way we can get this closer to $5K?”

I didn’t ask for their budget. The packages made them tell me.

Now the part most freelancers get wrong

Here’s what I need to say clearly: $5,000 was below both packages.

Not a small trim of Option B. Not “slightly under.” Below the floor of anything I’d put on the table.

This is the moment. Right here. The moment where you find out which kind of freelancer you are.

The starving artist mind treats this as a verdict on your worth. The thriving artist mind treats it as a design constraint. The same way "it needs to work on mobile" isn't an insult, it's just a parameter you design around.

What I actually cut and why

I went back through the scope line by line with one question: is this load-bearing or decorative?

Load-bearing means: remove this and the story collapses. The site loses its emotional core.

Decorative means: adds richness when the budget allows. The thing works without it.

Same creative ambition. Tighter execution.

Client said yes the same day. First milestone paid within 24 hours.

I didn’t discount. I re-scoped.

That difference matters more than it sounds. Discounting tells the client your original price was inflated, that you were testing them and you’ll fold under pressure. Re-scoping tells them your rates are fixed, your thinking is clear, and you know exactly what each element is worth.

One of those signals builds long-term trust. The other teaches clients to negotiate you down every single time.

This is one of 26 real case studies inside the Pricing Atlas.

Each one with actual numbers, the client conversation, the negotiation moment, and what happened after. It also includes a breakdown of my pricing methodology, proposal templates, and an NDA you can use straight away.

Growing library. Buy once, get all future updates free.

Get the Pricing Atlas + Template Bundle →

A client came to me needing a series of line art illustrations for marketing materials — envelopes, letters, brochures. Different scenes that could be reused across the many brands they were serving.

The brief listed 16 illustrations. The natural instinct is to price that number.

I didn’t.

Here’s how the negotiation actually went — and why the structure of it mattered as much as the outcome.

Phase 01: Creative direction and building trust

Before talking price, I asked one question:

Should each illustration work as a standalone scene — or are you thinking about a modular system where elements can be recombined across different formats and brands?

I already knew the answer. For a team managing multiple brands across different print formats, standalone illustrations would become a liability fast. You’d end up with a rigid library nobody knows how to adapt.

But I didn’t say that. I asked.

Because the best way to get a client to believe in an approach is to let them arrive at it themselves.

She confirmed: yes, modular would be much more useful long term.

That single shift — from “a set of illustrations” to “a reusable system” — changed the entire shape of the project. It also changed what I could reasonably charge for it, because I was no longer selling files. I was selling infrastructure.

Read more

A client came to me needing two festival maps — a day version and a night version for a small music festival in Germany. My public fee for a festival map was $1,250.

The night version was straightforward: take the day map, add chair info for the orchestra concert, add some new people. About 20% extra work on top of what was already done.

Most illustrators would have priced it like this:

Map 1: $1,250

Map 2 (20% extra work): $250

Total: $1,500

That math is logical. It’s also wrong.

I charged $2,150. No negotiation. No explanation beyond the scope of what was included. The client paid without pushing back.

The difference — $650 — didn’t come from extra hours. It came from one reframe that changed how I price almost everything:

Price what the client receives. Not what you do.

The night map isn’t 20% of a map. It’s a complete, fully usable festival map — printable at high resolution, cleared for commercial use, ready to go on signage, programmes, social media, the website. The client walks away with two complete marketing assets, not one-and-a-fifth.

An asset that gets 100% of the benefits should be priced for 100% of its value.

The work to produce it was 20%. The value it delivers is 100%. Those are two completely different numbers and most illustrators charge for the first one while the client is getting the second.

This is the shift nobody teaches you.

When you’re starting out, pricing by effort feels fair. You’re trading time for money and at least the math is honest.

But clients don’t buy your time. They buy what they can do with the work once they have it. Two festival maps on the walls of a venue, in the printed programme, across the festival’s Instagram — that’s not 20% more value than one map. It’s double the assets, double the reach, double the commercial utility.

The moment I understood this, my quotes changed. Not because I started overcharging, but because I stopped undercharging for the value I was actually delivering.

What this means practically:

Before you price any project, ask yourself three questions:

How many final assets does the client walk away with? Each one has independent commercial value regardless of how much extra work it took you.

What will they do with it? Print at scale, use commercially, publish publicly — these all multiply the value of what you’re delivering.

What would it cost them to commission this separately? If they came back next month asking for the night map as a standalone project, you’d charge $1,250. Why should bundling it together make it $250?

The answers to those questions — not your hourly rate — are what your quote should be built on.

Over the next few months I’m going to keep sharing exactly how I price, negotiate, and structure projects — with real numbers from real work, nothing softened or rounded.

The first paid breakdown is already written and drops this week: how I turned a 16-illustration brief into a $2k style exploration — and set up the next $10k — without discounting once.

And if you’re tired of guessing what to charge — The Pricing Atlas waitlist is now open. Early bird €67, launches late June.

Talk soon,

Adriana

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.

Get your ticket here.

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.

When I first joined Upwork, I brought the same mindset. I curated my strongest creative samples, wrote a bio that reflected my personality, and waited.

Illustrated representation of Adriana waiting

Of course nothing happened. My immediate conclusion: the platform is saturated. Too many freelancers, not enough work. I nearly quit.

That assumption was completely wrong — and it almost cost me $400k+.

The $400K Lesson

After eventually earning over $360k+ on Upwork and $65k+ on Fiverr (I have to thank the internet myths for starting way too late on that one), I can tell you exactly what I got wrong in those early days.

I was thinking like a creative. Not like a client.

Creatives market themselves through passion, talent, and aesthetics. But clients aren’t buying any of that. They’re buying risk reduction. They want someone who will solve a specific problem, on time, without friction — the right deliverable at the right price. (Not to be mistaken for cheap work.)

Fiverr and Upwork aren’t galleries. They’re search engines.

And no one goes to Google to feel inspired. They go because they have a problem and they need it solved.

The Question That Changes Everything

Most struggling freelancers ask themselves: “What work do I want to show?”

Successful freelancers ask: “What problems are buyers already searching for?”

That single reframe is the difference between building a service around your taste and building one around actual demand.

Fiverr gives you the tools to answer this question directly. Their analytics show you:

• What keywords buyers are actively searching

• How much money is moving through each category

• How competitive any given niche actually is

This data exists. Most freelancers ignore it entirely. Instead they build gigs around what they enjoy creating, what’s trending on Instagram, or what looks good in a portfolio. And then they wonder why no one is buying.

Map illustration trending on #10, average order price >$100

That's exactly how I decided to add a Map Illustration gig to my services — not because I was passionate about maps, but because the data told me buyers were searching for them. And I still got to draw in my style, because that's something I offer inside each package: Art Direction. So you get to have your cake and eat it, too ;)

Once I find a relevant keyword, I switch to Buyer Mode and type the exact keyword into the search bar and I get full access to my competition. I’m looking at their prices, their portfolio, their thumbnails and I start defining my own offer.

And this is how I set up gigs that lead to $1,700 orders.

The Real Saturation Problem

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: freelance platforms are indeed saturated with freelancers. But saturation is actually a good signal, because it means demand is real. Both Fiverr and Upwork have proven they can attract not only freelancers, but also buyers at scale.

The gigs that struggle are the ones built around the seller’s creative identity. The gigs that thrive are built around a specific, searchable problem that buyers have right now.

Find the gap between what buyers are searching for and what the current supply of freelancers is actually offering. That gap is where you build.

What’s Next

I’m putting together a live workshop where I’ll walk through exactly how to use Fiverr’s analytics to identify profitable niches and design gigs that align with what buyers are already looking for — not what freelancers feel like selling.

We’ll cover:

• Analytics research: how to read the data

• Thumbnail design that converts

• Pricing tiers and upsell strategies

• Client onboarding and offboarding

• Safety protocols against scammers and buyer abuse

If that’s something you want in on, drop a comment below or send me a DM and I’ll make sure you’re the first to know when it’s live.

The platform isn’t the problem. The lack of business thinking behind it is.

If this resonated, share it with a freelancer who needs to hear it.

Share The Gentle Hustle

Most freelancers will scan these platforms, see low prices, and dismiss them as broken, instead of seeing the opportunity.

Illustration by Adriana Danaila

I only started considering Fiverr after being a freelancer for nine years. Before that, even while landing big clients on Upwork despite the myths, I still believed the Fiverr rumors: $5 gigs, low-quality freelancers, low-quality clients. I didn’t want to be associated with that image. I thought “serious” creatives didn’t build their careers there.

Until I stumbled across a freelancer quietly thriving on Fiverr. She had structured offers, clear positioning, and consistent demand.

That moment forced me to question my assumptions.

So let me be that freelancer for you.

Orders from my Fiverr Dashboard

01. Fiverr

Fiverr today is not the $5-logo meme people still repeat. AI has swallowed most low-effort execution work and what remains are structured, higher-ticket, problem-solving offers. Fiverr in 2026 is about $2K–$5K packages, not $5 gigs.

Here’s what most creatives misunderstand: Fiverr gives freelancers pricing power. There is no race to the bottom unless freelancers choose to engage in one. The platform doesn’t force low prices. When freelancers scan Fiverr and see low prices, they assume they need to match them to succeed.

That’s not how you win on freelance platforms.

On Fiverr, you define the product. You choose the outcome, tiers, scope, price, and upsells. You’re not applying, you’re packaging. And that’s not gig work. That’s offer architecture.

It works best if you:

• Don’t want to constantly scan job boards

• Want a lead generation that works in the background

• Prefer predefined packages over constant negotiation

• Are willing to structure your offer clearly

It’s not a portfolio platform. It’s a marketplace.

And the biggest advantage Fiverr has is data. You see keywords, impressions, clicks, and conversion rates. When something doesn’t work, you begin to understand it’s not a skill or worth problem — it’s a business problem. You adjust pricing, positioning, and scope based on real demand signals instead of chipping away at your self-confidence. I wrote a full breakdown of how one of my best-performing gigs completely stopped converting — and what Fiverr’s analytics revealed about what clients were actually buying → [link].

And the skill you build there — packaging and pricing your value — transfers anywhere: Upwork, LinkedIn, direct clients. You start understanding demand from a business and sales perspective, not just from a style and aesthetics one.

If you want to see what this looks like in numbers, I broke down one of my $23K 2025 quarter where most revenue came from two Fiverr structured gigs.

02. Upwork

I still love Upwork. It’s how I started. It took me a year to land my first gig there, but what I learned about client acquisition and communication is exactly why I was successful in my first month on Fiverr.

Upwork rewards strong communicators and bold professionals. If you can read briefs strategically — especially between the lines — introduce yourself with confidence (even a bit of humor), position your value clearly, and negotiate scope assertively, it’s incredibly powerful. Especially for complex, multidisciplinary projects that sit between writing/design, business/illustration, science/vibe coding, and similar hybrids.

The trade-off? It requires consistent effort. You respond to demand instead of defining it — scanning posts, writing proposals, and putting yourself forward each time.

That’s why I’m selective. If I’m investing time in a proposal, it needs to justify the effort. I don’t burn Connects randomly. I apply where I know I have a clear advantage.

Upwork works best if you:

• Enjoy proposal writing and pitching

• Are comfortable directing the client, not just taking instructions

• Thrive in customized, complex projects

• Don’t mind consistent manual applications

It’s a great platform, but it costs time.

Contra, Dribbble, or Behance

Platforms like Dribbble, Behance, and Contra operate very differently from Fiverr or Upwork. They are showcase and discovery platforms first. Marketplaces second.

They prioritize identity and aesthetics, you upload beautiful work, you get likes, you get featured, and sometimes you get discovered and end up with a project.

From my experience, freelancer-first platforms rarely outperform buyer-first platforms. Because they subtly train freelancers to act like beauty pageant contestants instead of solutions to business problems. You compete on taste and aesthetic alignment. But because beauty is subjective, selling becomes unpredictable.

I’ve tested all three.

Behance hasn’t brought me any direct clients so far. It’s been excellent for showcasing work, but not for generating structured demand.

Dribbble has brought me leads — and interestingly, they were always high-ticket and easy to work with. What I love about it is those clients wanted to work specifically with me. There was no bidding, no competing in a feed, no convincing someone I was “better” than 50 applicants. They had already decided they liked my work. And that dynamic felt smooth and pleasant.

But I had no real data. No keyword signals. No impression metrics tied to buyer intent. No visibility into what was converting or why. It was discovery-driven, not system-driven.

Contra is newer in my toolkit. I love how clean and premium it looks. But from my early experience, most traffic there comes from freelancers, not buyers. It feels closer to a social network for creatives than a marketplace with embedded demand. And considering it takes time to properly set up and curate the profile, I’m still evaluating whether the return justifies the effort.

Some of these platforms offer payment processing and light escrow features. But escrow without a strong resolution system doesn’t mean much. Protection isn’t just about holding money — it’s about enforcing agreements and having a neutral party step in when freelance-client communication breaks down.

Without structured dispute handling, it’s still largely relationship-based.

In practice, I often prefer a simple Stripe structure: 50% upfront, 50% on delivery. Clear terms. Clear expectations. Controlled workflow. And if things go wrong, I at least retain the 50% as a kill fee.

With many escrow models, partial protection can become complicated. Unless the platform actively enforces scope and resolution, the leverage isn’t always as strong as it appears.

These platforms can absolutely generate opportunities, especially if you already have positioning and visibility. But they function more as positioning engines than demand engines.

That’s why, for me, they are complementary — powerful for showcasing my strongest, highest-ticket work — but not foundational sources of predictable demand.

So which platform is worth it in 2026?

It depends on your stage and how you want to operate.

Here’s how I use them.

Fiverr is my micro-gig demand engine. Structured, productized offers. Fast to deliver. No Zoom meetings required. Order → execute → deliver. No time spent on outreach. It’s where my standardized packages run in the background and generate consistent demand.

Upwork is where I pursue custom, higher-ticket projects. That’s where my mix of skills helps me differentiate, negotiate strategically, and win contracts that require more complexity and collaboration.

Dribbble and Behance function as discoverability engines. Agencies and established brands browse there for inspiration. I use them to showcase my highest-level work and position myself for dream projects.

Contra is more of a premium digital business card for me. Clean, curated, modern, but not a primary demand source (at least not yet).

Conclusion

If I were just starting out, I wouldn’t try to be present on every platform at once. I would choose a combination of two: one marketplace and one showcase .

More specifically, Fiverr + Dribbble.

Fiverr gives you something incredibly valuable at the beginning: data and built-in demand. It can generate sales relatively quickly, sometimes even in the first month, and it forces you to clarify your offer, structure your pricing, and think in terms of outcomes rather than aesthetics. And because most freelancers have low prices, you can actually stand out with a higher price.

Dribbble, on the other hand, offers strong discoverability. Agencies and established brands actively browse it for inspiration and talent. It allows you to position your highest-level work and attract clients who are looking for a specific aesthetic and are often ready to invest. Since it’s also evolving toward more marketplace features, being present early could become a strategic advantage.

One platform builds your sales discipline and income stability, while the other sharpens your positioning and visibility. Together, they balance demand with discoverability and cultivate a skill set that remains valuable regardless of how platforms evolve.

Next post: The real reason you’re struggling on Fiverr or Upwork (it’s not saturation).

Subscribe now

We called it Four “Bad” Ways of Getting Clients That Actually Work, and the goal was simple: to debunk some of the moral panic around client acquisition and show that different paths can work, even the ones people love to judge.

Illustration by Adriana Danaila

Steph is a freelance home improvement, lifestyle, and commerce writer who relies primarily on cold outreach, networking, and pitching to find clients. She is based in Wisconsin, USA. She started building her business in 2019, after quitting teaching to stay home with her young children. These days, she spends her time typing away, drinking coffee with heavy cream, and running The Simple Freelancer, where she shares practical, no-nonsense advice for freelance writers twice a week. She ended 2025 with around $70K in freelance income—so yes, she really knows what she’s talking about.
(If you’re a freelance writer, you should absolutely subscribe to her Substack.)

Subscribe to The Simple Freelancer

I come from a very different place.

I’m a freelance illustrator who built most of my client base through freelance platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, where I’m top-rated. I’m a self-taught illustrator with a business degree, which I genuinely think might be the best degree an artist can have. I’m also the creator of The Gentle Hustle, a growing community for freelance illustrators shaped by my 14 years navigating graphic design, illustration, and independent work. I live in Romania, Eastern Europe.

Same conversation.
Same four methods.
Very different lives.

During our collaboration, we walked through four common ways freelancers get clients and unpacked the myths around each one. But after the post went live, I kept thinking about something we didn’t explicitly name at the time.

At first glance, it looks like our choices come down to personality:
introvert vs extrovert, platforms vs pitching, structure vs spontaneity.

But the more I sat with it, the more I realized something else was shaping those decisions too.

Geography.
Language.
Proximity.

So this piece is a continuation, a few thoughts that only crystallized after the conversation.

Freelance platforms

One thing that stood out to me during our conversation was hearing that Steph also started freelancing on Upwork early on. That alone says a lot about how powerful these platforms actually are.

For Steph, platforms were a starting point. As her confidence grew, she naturally moved toward cold pitching and deeper networking — paths that made sense given her industry, language, and location.

For me, platforms felt almost accidental at first. I genuinely thought I had just stumbled upon Fiverr and Upwork by chance. But looking back now, I don’t think it was random at all.

Freelance platforms flattened geography.

They removed the need for proximity, warm intros, or being “in the room.” They offered structure, payment protection, and global reach — things that mattered deeply when you’re not based in a major creative hub.

What felt like a coincidence was actually the only available option.

Cold pitching

In our original post, we agreed on something important: cold pitching works… if you can tolerate rejection and put in the time.

For a long time, I framed my hesitation around pitching as an introvert–extrovert thing. But I don’t think that’s the full story.

Cold pitching is deeply tied to language, culture, and perceived familiarity. When an editor, marketer, or decision-maker receives an email from someone with a foreign name, a different cultural cadence, or slightly off humor, there’s often more friction, even if the work is good. Not always consciously. But it’s there.

No wonder cold pitching felt synonymous with “awkward” or “spammy” to me for years. I grew up in a part of the world where trust is hard-earned and rarely assumed.

Pitching isn’t just about ideas.
It’s about tone, timing, and sounding like you belong in that inbox.

And Steph is a great example of how powerful pitching can be when those conditions align. She shares a really practical cold-pitching framework in our collaborative piece, which I am 100% stealing.

Referrals and networking

We also talked about how referrals and networking are often seen as something reserved for extroverts with lots of free time.

There’s another layer here too: time zones.

Most networking events, coffee chats, and industry calls are optimized for Western schedules. For someone in Eastern Europe, that often means evenings, late nights, or sacrificing personal time to stay visible in US-centric spaces.

You can do it—I have—but it comes at a cost. It requires rigid scheduling in a lifestyle I intentionally try to keep flexible. Sunny afternoons suddenly turn into Zoom calls. Spontaneity disappears.

So while networking works, it’s not equally lightweight for everyone.

Content creation and personal branding

This is where things get interesting.

Content creation is one of the few ways to bridge geographic distance at scale. It gives people context before you ever speak to them. It lets your thinking travel ahead of you.

For me, content became a way to build trust without proximity, to show how I think, how I work, and what I value before ever reaching out.

For Steph, content is a way of staying top-of-mind and consistently reminding people what she does and what she offers.

And here’s what we both agree on:

Best way to make content is when your income doesn’t depend on it.

Platforms (in my case) and cold pitching (in Steph’s) gave us stability first. Content came later, as an expansion, not a survival strategy. That order matters, and it’s rarely acknowledged in online advice.

What I see differently now

At the beginning, I thought our different client-getting methods came down to personality and preference.

Now, I think it’s more accurate to say this:

Different methods feel accessible depending on where you live, the language you work in, and how close you are to opportunity.

Pitching rewards proximity.
Platforms neutralize distance.
Content builds bridges over time.

None of these paths are superior. They’re contextual.

The mistake isn’t choosing the “wrong” method, it’s ignoring the conditions you’re operating within. And those conditions shift.

So instead of asking “What works best?”
I think a better question is:

What wouldn’t work for my niche, language, cultural background, or lifestyle?

Because the market may be global, but trust, familiarity, and opportunity are still filtered through local lenses.

You can read both mine and Steph’s full perspectives in our original collaborative piece.

Next Week’s Post:

Which freelance platforms are still worth it in 2026

Illustration by Adriana Danaila

As illustrators, we’re taught that style is the holy grail.

Find your style. Polish it. Protect it. Clients will come.

Even though I’ve build a sustainable illustration career without a specific style, deep down I still thought that was the way to go. Until now.

One of my best-performing Fiverr gigs was hand-drawn doodle infographics. When “storytelling” became the hottest buzzword in marketing in 2025, I thought I’d finally found my future proof strategy: lean into narrative, raise prices, sell the magic behind my visuals.

And at first, it looked like it worked.

Recent orders came in at $900–$950, one client even left a $150 tip. I told myself it was my storytelling skills paying off, my ability to find visual metaphors, to make ideas resonate. Which wasn’t wrong. At the end of most collaboration, I always get “I love how your brain works!”. But that came at the end of the contract. “Story” wasn’t why clients were actually buying my services.

The day I broke my own gig

My best performing gig, for the longest time, was this one:

I will create hand-drawn doodle infographics

And I was attracting a very diverse range of clients, some low ticket, some high ticket. So, in a pursuit to attract only high ticket clients I changed it to:

I will create custom hand-drawn infographics that tell a story

Then I turned on Fiverr ads and went all in.

Results after 60 days:

• 47,000 impressions

• 202 clicks

• $150 spent on ads

Which meant my thumbnail was working and people were clicking despite my pricing being higher than most competition.

I thought I’d cracked the algorithm.

Plot twist: 0 orders. It made no sense!

What the analytics revealed

When I finally opened the keyword data, the reason was obvious:

Fiverr was sending me traffic for:

• doodle

• hand-drawn logo

• sketch

• line art illustration

People shopping for wedding gifts, personal projects, $40 icons.

Meanwhile my real buyer before the title update came through one single keyword:

infographic.

Not doodle.
Not hand-drawn.
Not sketch.

They were buying the outcome.

And yes, they left $150 tips for my storytelling.
But storytelling was just the cherry on top, not the reason they ordered.

They didn’t know they needed storytelling in the first place.
They just wanted a useful piece of visual they could share with peers.

I wasn’t selling an outcome. I was selling art.

So I asked myself: what were my latest orders actually about?

One was a lead magnet + bookmark to give to their audience.
Another was a thought leadership piece for presentations and newsletters.

Nobody ordered “a doodle”.

They ordered:

• understanding

• authority

• something their business could actually use.

Then I looked at how lead magnet design is sold on Fiverr.

Screenshot of live gigs on Fiverr under “Lead magnet”

Now this is an image that’s worth a thousand words :))

Corporate PDFs. Grey eBooks. Not sure about you, but this isn’t something I’d be excited to receive in my inbox.

And that’s when it clicked. This isn’t an illustration niche. This is a category I can disrupt.

The pivot

I deleted every mention of style.

No doodle.
No line art.
No hand-drawn.

My new title is:

I will turn your content into high-converting lead magnet & marketing infographics.

No art.
Only outcomes.

This is Day 1 of this experiment. I’ll report back in 30 days.

My real plan for 2026

Not to find my style.

To finally answer this question:

How do I make storytelling something clients can recognize, understand and choose to pay for?

Because until storytelling becomes a visible outcome instead of a mysterious talent, it will always be undervalued.

And to give you some context, in a next post I’m thinking of breaking down this gig and what projects it attracted, what the budget was, what add-ons the clients bought, the feedback, lessons learned. Let me know if that’s something you’d love to know more about.

Talk soon,

Adriana

A few months ago, Katerina — who hadn’t been paid for design work from late 2022 until September 2025 — saw one of my posts about my Upwork earnings.

Rather than dismissing it as luck, she thought, “If she did it, I can do it too.”

What followed unfolded faster than she expected.

You can read her version of the story → here
And below is the same journey — from my perspective. 😉

STEP 01: Understanding where to start

When we first spoke, Katerina wasn’t lacking skills, she was mispositioned.

• Title: Framer Expert

• Hourly rate: $25/hr

Here’s the problem:
On platforms like Upwork, “Expert” signals $80–$120/hr.
At $25/hr, it doesn’t read as a bargain, it reads as confusing, if not even scam.

So we fixed the signal first:

• Expert → Specialist

• $25/hr → $40/hr

Instantly more believable. More aligned with client expectations.

This is the part most freelancers skip — and the reason they stay stuck.

STEP 02: Finding what actually differentiates her

Her bio originally opened with:

“For me, design has always been about people, not just pixels…”

Nice, but generic.

Her real differentiator was hiding in plain sight:
👉 15 years of sales experience

So I told her:

Push your differentiator from line one.

She changed the opening to:

“With 15 years of sales experience behind me, I understand what actually drives business growth and how to connect that with compelling design.”

Now she wasn’t “another Framer designer.”
She was a designer with a business mind.

STEP 03: Letting the market shape the message

As she started getting orders, a pattern appeared.

Most clients weren’t asking for custom design.
They had bought Framer templates — and were stuck trying to customize them.

So when she later raised her rate to $60/hr, we rewrote the bio again — this time around a clear pain point:

“You bought a Framer template and now it’s a nightmare to customize and launch? I’ll populate it, create the pages you need, add CMS, forms, embeds, connect your domain, and launch your site in 4 days.”

Same skills.
Clearer problem.
Higher value.

STEP 04: Use the platform like it’s a platform (not just a job board)

Most freelancers treat Upwork like a place to send proposals.
That’s leaving money on the table, so we focused on using every visibility lever the platform offers.

A. Upload an introduction video

This matters more than people think. On platforms crowded with spam and low-effort profiles, letting clients see you and hear you builds trust fast.

💡Tip: Don’t mention Upwork in the video.
You’ll want to reuse it on Fiverr, your website, or LinkedIn later — and future you will thank you for not creating extra work. 😉

(Yes, I made this mistake. No, I still haven’t re-recorded mine for Fiverr.)

B. Set up fixed-price packages using “Projects”

This is one of the most underused features on Upwork.

By creating fixed-price offers:

• You show up in more places on the platform

• Upwork pushes your profile both through proposals and product-style listings

• You get analytics: impressions, clicks, and orders

Which means you’re no longer guessing.

You can see what titles work, what offers convert, and improve them over time — like a business, not a lottery.

We adjusted her thumbnails, clarified the three-tier pricing, refined the description, and added a clear upsell strategy.
That’s when her first Project order came in.

Where is she now (3 months later)

• 9 completed jobs

• 4 contracts in progress

• $2K+ in earnings

• Rising Talent badge

• Confidence — in her skills and her future

And yes, she would have figured this out on her own.
But it would’ve taken months — maybe years — of trial and error, self-doubt, and a real risk of giving up.

For context: my first Upwork gig was $1.
Katerina is already ahead because she skipped steps.

Where is she heading

You can check Katerina’s profile → here.
You’ll notice her earnings are currently set to private.

This is intentional.

Early on, she priced projects lower to build momentum.
Over time, that created a mismatch:

• Past projects at $100–$200

• Current offers at $500+

• An hourly rate that no longer matched the visible history

The signal was off. So she removed it. Within 24 hours, she already had 4 projects in discussion. Before that, clients were opening proposals and starting conversations but often hesitating.

The visible pricing history didn’t align with the offers she’s selling now.
Once the mismatch disappeared, so did the friction.

For now, she’s keeping her earnings private as an experiment, focusing on larger, better-aligned projects, and letting her positioning do the work.

Why I am sharing this

This his isn’t a one-time setup where you flip a switch and suddenly succeed. This is a business.

You experiment. You test. You adjust your strategy as you go. But getting your foot in the door is the most important step to focus on. Once that happens, the rest starts to unfold naturally.

I want to help you with that first step, so I’m hosting a live workshop:

The $1K/Month Micro-Gig Blueprint
How to build sellable offers on Upwork & Fiverr — and prepare for 2026
📅 Dec 17 · Live on Zoom · Recording included

If you’re tired of guessing, over-preparing, or waiting to feel “ready” —
this is for you.

Access Link → here

​Note: While this workshop is tailored primarily for illustrators, the insights and strategies will be valuable for other freelancers as well.

As a thank you for supporting this Substack space, all subscribers get a $10 discount with the code GENTLEHUSTLER.

See you there!

Adriana

illustration by Adriana Danaila

As 2025 comes to an end, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this year actually taught me.

For most of my career, I did what many illustrators do. I obsessed over defining my style. I tried to land an agent. I chased the “big global clients.” I tried to grow a huge Instagram following. I really believed that big was the goal.

What I didn’t understand back then is that the career I actually wanted would come from going small.

Not small in ambition — that part never left me.
But small in structure.
Small in offers.
Small in working hours.
Simple, predictable, repeatable… the kind of “boring” work that ends up building a sustainable career.

Going small is what gave me the space to build a life I actually enjoy. It let me grow at my own pace — the slow, steady kind of growth where you go from cocoon to butterfly without rushing the transformation or performing it for anyone.

The Year I Tried to “Do Social Media Properly”

The funny thing is: 2025 wasn’t a stressful year because of client work.
It was stressful because of social media.

At the beginning of the year, I decided I would finally “do it right”: post consistently, share more behind-the-scenes, talk about my process, and show up daily. I treated LinkedIn like a part-time job and tried my best to keep up with that pace.

And it worked, in its own way.
I grew an audience.
I had great conversations.
I showed more of myself and enjoyed parts of it.

But I was always online.
Always thinking about the next post.
Always preparing something for the algorithm.

This was very different from how I usually live — someone who takes long breaks, pet-sits her way through Europe, goes to dance and acting classes, and enjoys a lot of unstructured time.

I realized that constantly being “visible” online pulled me out of the slower rhythm that actually helps me grow. I’m someone who needs stretches of silence and space — the cocoon phase — to do good work.

But social media asks you to be a butterfly every single day, even when you’re still figuring out your wings. And that pressure made everything feel heavier than it needed to be.

Letting Go of the Industry Fantasies

For a long time, I felt like I was “less” of an illustrator because my path didn’t look like the traditional success story.

I didn’t have an agent.
I wasn’t discovered by a giant brand.
I didn’t have a distinctive, signature illustration style.

And yet… I was living a pretty happy and fulfilling life.
I was earning consistently.
I was working part-time hours.
I was making time for travel, movement, and everything else that matters to me.

It slowly clicked that maybe the problem wasn’t me — maybe the expectations are just unrealistic for most self-taught, self-represented illustrators.

Social media can be helpful, but it only truly works after your business already works. It amplifies your voice, but it doesn’t replace the foundations. And when you’re still figuring out your direction, social media asks for a clarity and consistency that you probably don’t have yet — which is perfectly normal.

You’re basically being asked to present a whole identity before you’ve even defined it for yourself.

The Myth of the Polished Portfolio

This year also made me realize how overrated the idea of a “perfect” portfolio is.

Mine isn’t perfect.
It’s not cohesive.
It doesn’t scream a highly original style.

And yet… I’ve earned close to $250K from illustration alone in the past 5 years.

Clients aren’t waiting for you to have the most distinctive style. They just want clarity:

• what you offer

• how much it costs

• how long it takes

• and whether you’ll deliver

Your style grows naturally when you’re actually doing projects, getting feedback, and seeing what resonates. It’s a gradual process — another kind of cocoon-to-butterfly moment that doesn’t need to be forced.

When I let go of the pressure to invent a perfect style, I could focus on the work itself. And slowly, my voice emerged on its own.

Why I’m Sharing All This (and What’s Next)

After talking to many illustrators this year, I realized a lot of people are stuck where I used to be: waiting to have everything figured out before they feel worthy of earning.

But you don’t need to be “ready” to start.
You don’t need the final version of your style.
You don’t need the perfect portfolio.
You don’t need a daily posting routine.

You just need a clear, simple way to get work — something steady enough to support your life while you’re still growing into your next version.

A lot of these reflections shaped what I’m teaching next. If you’re curious about applying this approach to your own work, I’m hosting a workshop about the micro-gig system I’ve been using for years.

We’ll talk about:

• what clients actually wanted in 2025

• small offers that work even if you’re a beginner

• how to use Upwork, Fiverr, and LinkedIn without burning out

• how to navigate the AI shift without panicking

• and how to start or reset in a calmer, more grounded way

It’s meant to support the early stages — the cocoon phase — when things feel uncertain and you’re still becoming the illustrator you want to be.

If you want to explore this approach with me, here’s the link to join the workshop.

As a thank you for supporting this Substack space, all subscribers get a $10 discount with the code GENTLEHUSTLER.

I’m sharing this as a place to think together before we step into a new year, so we can start 2026 with a little more clarity, a little less anxiety, and actual joy for both our craft and our business.

As always, thank you for reading, being here, and quietly building your own version of a sustainable life.

Talk soon,
Adriana

Instead of forcing one identity or limiting myself to only one offer, I decided to build a system where each income stream serves a specific purpose, audience, and energy level.

Different skills. Different offers. Six streams of income… hopefully :))

Not all of them are fully fledged yet, so if you’re just starting out, don’t worry. I don’t have everything figured out either. Proof that this doesn’t happen overnight; it starts with one gig, one client, one experiment.

This is just where I’m evolving it to.

Okay, let’s peek behind the curtain:

illustration by Adriana Danaila

Fiverr — The Cashflow Lab

What it is for me:
My fast-income, fast-validation playground.

I treat Fiverr like a creative lab where I can test ideas, offers, and price positioning before turning them into bigger projects elsewhere.

On Fiverr, I’m not selling Adriana the brand.
I’m selling specific creative solutions that people can buy easily and quickly.

What I’m offering:
Simple, clear, productized gigs — the kind that solve one small problem really well, and which can be scaled up with an upsell strategy.

Think:

• “illustrated map with 10 landmarks” - easy to add more landmarks

• “3 icons package for web and app” - easy to add more icons

Pros:
↳ Fast visibility and organic discovery (thanks to Fiverr’s search engine).
↳ Great for testing demand without a website or funnel.
↳ Once optimized, gigs keep bringing clients, without me applying to job posts.

Cons:
↳ Price-sensitive audience. Takes time to attract premium buyers.
↳ Creative fatigue if you overbook small gigs.
↳ Limited client relationships: it’s transactional by design.

How I’m using it now:
Because I’m still refining my style, I use Fiverr to test my many illustration styles before going all in and building a portfolio.
If something performs well on Fiverr, I’ll polish and raise the price on Upwork or offer it as a premium custom service for when clients approach me off-platforms.

Fiverr is my quick cashflow and data stream. Their analytics are truly helpful.

2. Upwork — The Authority Platform (kinda…)

What it was for me: my premium offers, bigger projects, deeper client relationships, and long-term collaborations.

Here, I show up as “Adriana The Brand Illustrator & Graphic Designer”. It’s where I’ve built my long-term relationships and got to do my most complex work.

Pros:
↳ Clients with bigger budgets and established brands.
↳ Reliable system for repeat work.
↳ Social proof (reviews, earnings, badges) that builds real authority.

Cons:
↳ Slower onboarding process — proposals, interviews, waiting.
↳ Platform competition (though lately, well-optimized profiles get boosted, even if new).
↳ Creative fatigue from scanning endless job posts looking for the right fit.

Lately, I’ve intentionally paused most of my Upwork activity. Instead of chasing projects, I’m testing what happens when I treat Upwork as a passive visibility platform, a place where my profile and portfolio do the talking.

I want to understand whether authority and profile SEO tweaks can still attract the right clients quietly, without proposals or constant activity.

Right now, traction feels slower, but that’s part of the experiment. I’m giving the algorithm (and my past results) time to speak for themselves.

For now, Upwork is my “quiet mode” test, not my main hustle, but an observation lab to see how visibility behaves when I step back.

3. LinkedIn — The Brand Engine

What it is for me:
My personal brand machine, the space where I share the mindset, business lessons, and humor behind my freelance career.

Here, I’m not selling illustration directly. I’m selling trust, expertise, and philosophy.

It’s where clients find me for collaborations, and brands approach me for sponsorships or speaking opportunities.

Pros:
↳ Organic visibility if you post consistently.
↳ Builds reputation beyond services.
↳ Creates inbound leads and partnership offers.

Cons:
↳ Requires consistency and authenticity, the space is crowded, but it’s full of opportunity for new, honest voices, especially creatives
↳ It’s slower to monetize unless you pair it with another offer (newsletter, courses, merch, etc.).

How I’m using it now:
I use LinkedIn to connect with other creatives, attract sponsorships, and grow my Substack audience. It’s also where I get to use my own illustrations strategically — not just as portfolio pieces, but as content.
When I post an illustration that explains a freelance truth or visualizes a business idea, it attracts the kind of clients who see the useful side of illustration, not just the aesthetic one.

LinkedIn is my visibility and influence stream.

4. Substack — The Thought Stream

What it is for me:
My writing and reflection space, a long-form home for everything I can’t fit into a LinkedIn post.

It’s where I explore the philosophy behind freelancing, art, and money.
The audience here is smaller but more interested and engaged.

Pros:
↳ Direct line to readers.
↳ Turns followers into a community that I actually own.
↳ Opens doors to future monetization (sponsorships, digital products, books).

Cons:
↳ Slow growth at first.
↳ Time-intensive: long-form writing needs focus.
↳ Not immediately profitable.

How I’m using it now:
Substack helps me brain-dump and structure my expertise into insights and potentially, future assets. Each post becomes the seed for something bigger: digital products, courses, collaborations, or education materials for freelancers.

Substack is my credibility and authority stream, the kind of place where thoughts mature into ideas, and ideas grow into opportunities.

The Next Phase: From Active to Passive

All these streams — Fiverr, Upwork, LinkedIn, and Substack — are active income.
They rely on me showing up, creating, replying, pitching, writing, and delivering.
And while I love the work, I don’t want to be permanently on call for my own creativity.

So my next focus is to start building passive income streams — things that can keep earning even when I’m offline or deep in another project.

I’m talking about:

• Courses — turning my freelance systems into structured guidance.

• Digital products — templates, resources, and creative toolkits.

• Merch — art that sells itself.

Courses and digital products take time to build, they’re up-front effort, long-tail payoff. So my first step into this world is print-on-demand, because it’s fast to test and I already have a library of original assets, icons, and illustrations I fully own.

(If you missed it, I wrote a Substack post about intellectual property for freelancers — definitely worth checking out if you want to understand how to protect your creative work so you can monetize it later.)

Subscribe now

5. Printful — The Leverage Layer

What it is for me:
My experiment in building creative assets that earn beyond client work.

I’m using Printful to turn some of my illustrations, especially the ones inspired by freelance life, into physical products.

Not as a full-scale “merch drop”, but as an experiment in creative autonomy.

Pros:
↳ Hands-off logistics: I design, they handle the rest.
↳ Lets me test new designs quickly without a big upfront investment.
↳ Adds a passive element to my income ecosystem.

Cons:
↳ Low margins unless you build a brand or audience around it.
↳ Still requires marketing — passive income isn’t passive at first.
↳ Needs patience and iteration.

How I’m using it now:
I’m experimenting with small themed collections tied to my content, think “Freelance Life” or “Gentle Hustling” targeting my LinkedIn and Substack audiences.

It’s my way of giving physical form to my brand and secretly, testing a new offer idea: custom illustrated merch for cool brands who actually want stuff people wear, not stash in a drawer.

So, I’m planning to use Printful as my brand enforcer and freedom stream — the part that might one day earn even when I’m not working. We’ll see what it takes to make it happen.

I’m building this in real time, so I figured: why not partner with the tool I’m actually testing?

Yep, this post is in partnership with Printful. But you know me, I only team up with platforms I genuinely use and see potential in. So no sugarcoating here: if this income stream flops, you’ll definitely hear about it. 😏

Here is an affiliate link if you want to test Printful for yourself .

Final Thoughts

Each platform reflects a different piece of me:

• Fiverr → the fast problem-solver

• Upwork → the top 1% professional

• LinkedIn → the storyteller

• Substack → the thinker

• Printful → the product creator

I’m not trying to be the same person everywhere. I’ve tried that and it burned me out. I was losing all spark and joy by posting only illustrations and working only on illustrations all the time.

So now I’m building a portfolio of selves — each one designed to reach a specific audience, serve a specific purpose, and feed a different kind of income.

There’s no such thing as a perfect platform. But there are plenty of imperfect ones that can work together like gears in your creative machine, if you design them intentionally.

💬 For paid subscribers:
I’m starting a new chat thread where you can share your portfolios, and I’ll offer insights on which platform might be the best fit for you to approach first, based on your work, goals, and creative focus.

Stay creative ;)

Your Freelancer Next Door,

Adriana

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I didn’t start out of passion, first it was curiosity, then necessity.
I thought success meant constant growth. Every year should be bigger, right?

Well, actually some years teach you how to earn, and some teach you how to live.
Here’s what 14 years of freelancing really looked like: the good, the bad and the lessons I learned the hard way.

Illustration by Adriana Danaila

The Baby Years (2010–2013)

Curiosity > Confidence
I was just figuring out what freelancing even was.
Experimenting. Guessing. Making $1 gigs baby steps.

2010 — $0
Created my Upwork profile. Landed zero gigs.

2011 — $200
First freelance gig ($1!). Proof that someone would pay me.

2012 — $2,000
Still figuring out the platform while working full-time.

2013 — $12,250
Started outearning my salary, so I quit my job.
Had no plan, just momentum and the gut feeling this was going to work.

💡 Lesson: Start before you’re ready. Curiosity pays better than waiting for “perfect.”

The Toddler Years (2014–2016)

Chaos > Boundaries
I was walking on my own, but with zero direction.
Tried to say yes to everything. Learned what burnout smells like.

2014 — $16,500
Said yes to every project (terrified to lose momentum) → burnout #1.

2015 — $14,700
Raised prices → fewer hours. Still afraid to slow down.

2016 — $12,600
Same rhythm. Steady but flat.

💡 Lesson: Overbooking isn’t ambition, it’s fear disguised as productivity.

The Teen Years (2017–2021)

Experimentation > Identity
This was my “Who am I even?” phase — acting, traveling, freelancing half-time, getting a taste of my independence.

2017 — $6,700 (+$5,000 from acting)
Creative detour: switched focus to acting. Put freelancing on pause.

2018 — $13,300
Back to design gigs. Slower rhythm. Lived two months in Bali.

2019 — $11,200
Started pet sitting and traveling around Europe. Work wasn’t the focus.

2020 — $21,600
Felt guilty for the “chill” years → worked my ass off → burnout #2.

💡 Lesson: Don’t cage yourself in 5-year plans. Life and career should flow together — giving each other space to shape what your path becomes. Creative careers need creative lives. Otherwise, what would you even be drawing from?

The Adult Years (2021–2025)

Systems > Survival

Finally learned to run a business and how to laverage all my experience and side hobbies. I learned what to say no to, how to build income streams, and how to rest without guilt.

2021 — $25,400
Registered as a business (up until now, I was just an individual professional).
Started studying the things no one teaches creatives: money, value, and positioning.

2022 — $106,500
BOOM!! Upwork + Fiverr + first Fortune 100 client + first off-platform client.
All that learning and investing in myself finally paid off.

2023 — $66,200
Post-COVID freedom. Traveled more, worked less.

2024 — $54,500
Bought my apartment. Took a break to focus on renovations, no guilt this time. It was an investment in future creativity.

💡 Lesson: Take yourself seriously as a business. Stop working out of passion alone — start working out of usefulness. And remember: to make money, you need to spend money: on your education, your mindset, your wellbeing, and on creating a space that fuels your creativity.

The Wise Elder Years (2025 and beyond)

Freedom > Growth

This next phase is about building assets, so the business grows even when I take a step back.

2025 — $47,700 (so far)
Working half-time hours on commissions. Building my personal brand, sharing what I know and creating content on LinkedIn and Substack.

Goal for 2026:
Build 6 new income streams as a creative:

• Brand Sponsorships

• Affiliate Links

• Merch

• YouTube

• Speaking Gigs

• Newsletter

💡 Lesson: Freedom comes from multiple safety nets.
The goal isn’t to escape work, it’s to make it work for you.

Why do I think I can pull it off?

Because I’ve seen others do it.

If there’s one thing I want you to take from this, it’s this:

If I could do it, you can too.

I’m not more talented or special, just stubborn enough to keep showing up.
The work is hard. No sugarcoating it.

But that’s a good thing. It means less competition for the ones who stay consistent and think long-term.

So take your time. Enjoy the ride. Appreciate where you are, because every step counts. You’re already closer to your dreams than you think.

I trust you,
Adriana

The real question is:
Who actually owns what you create?

Let’s talk about intellectual property (IP), the invisible force behind any creative business.

illustration by Adriana Dănăilă

IP Basics Every Freelancer Should Know

“Work for Hire”

This is basically legalese for “you no longer own your own work”.
When you agree to work for hire, you’re saying:

“Once I’m paid, you (the client) own it entirely, forever, as if you made it yourself.”

This means no reusing, no reselling, no posting it in your portfolio without permission. Total transfer.

Licensing Contracts

A licensing agreement is what separates broke freelancers from sustainable ones. You’re not selling the art (illustration, photo, copy, template etc), you’re renting the rights to use it.

You can define the license by:

• Duration (e.g. 1 year, 3 years)

• Territory (EU only vs. worldwide)

• Media (print, digital, merch, etc.)

• Exclusivity (exclusive or non-exclusive)

Each of these is an upsell opportunity.
You’re not adding extra work, you’re adding extra value.

NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements)

Clients sometimes ask for NDAs, especially if you’re working on pre-launch projects or internal materials.
Always read the fine print NDAs should protect both sides, not just silence you forever.

And yes, even an NDA can be an upsell.
It’s called a “loss of opportunity” fee — because if you can’t share or promote the work publicly, you’re losing marketing value. Clients know this, and many expect to pay a little extra for that confidentiality.

So next time a client says, “We’ll need you to sign an NDA,” you can confidently say,

“Of course! Just note that NDAs include a small confidentiality fee since I won’t be able to use the work for my portfolio.”

Professional. Polite. Profitable. 💅

How This Impacts Pricing

Here’s the magic formula:

Price = Usage × Exposure × Ownership

You can make more money just by asking, “How do you plan to use this?”

Example:

• Personal use illustration → $200

• Social media use → $500

• Global campaign with print rights → $1500+

Same asset. Different rights. Different income bracket.

Most freelancers undercharge because they give away rights they didn’t know they could charge for.

How Upwork and Fiverr Handle IP

Read more

Another quarter down, and here are the numbers. I made a little under $24,000 working part-time hours, without burning out, hustling 24/7, or doing anything that remotely looks like “grind culture.” Freelance power!

Yep, that’s a solid quarter’s income without being chained to a laptop. And it’s proof of something I’ve been trying to show for a while: you can make a sustainable income and be seen as a true professional on freelance platforms.

illustration by Adriana Danaila

I know a lot of you love monthly income breakdowns and, true, they’re useful. But if you want to truly understand how your business is doing, you need to zoom out.

Looking at your finances quarterly, semesterly, or yearly is a far more mature way to track progress. Freelance income will always fluctuate, and that’s not failure, that’s the default setting. Zooming out smooths the noise and shows the real story of your growth.

Where the Money Came From

Here’s how my Q3 income (July–September) breaks down:

• Fiverr: $12,028

• Upwork: $4,165

• Mural (local, Bucharest): $4,600 (full story here)

• Direct Client: $3,000

• Substack subscription: $8 (and I haven’t even launched the official paid tier yet, which makes this the most exciting part of Q3 for me!)

Total: ~$23,800

Fiverr

Upwork

Stripe

The Power of Micro-Gigs

One of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve had in the last two-three years is this: small gigs are not small money.

Read more

illustration by Adriana Danaila

I know, I know… it’s nearly September. But hey, I was on vacation. So let’s rewind and talk about July’s income.

July was one of those “yey” months. I crossed the $10K mark as a freelancer, my first five-figure month this year.

But here’s the twist: the part I’m most proud of isn’t the $10K.
You’ll see why next.

Where Did It All Come From?

Total: $10,200

• Fiverr: $4,000 (8 orders, between $320–$800 each)

• Upwork: $1,600 (4 projects, between $270–$700 each)

• Mural (local, Bucharest): $5,800 invoiced → $4,600 revenue
  (20m² —> art direction + illustration + execution, minus $1,200 for materials + assistant)

That’s 12 projects on Fiverr + Upwork. Done in 12 working days, ~4–5 hours per day. Even without the mural, that’s $5,600 in part-time hours. That’s the real system at work.

The Energy of a Peak Month

The mural was a fun wild card — what I call a “whale client.” It made the month look extra shiny. But whales are rare, heavy, and stressful.

Truth bomb: it was my first mural ever. To say it was stressful is an understatement. The only thing I could think about the whole month leading up to execution… was the mural. Add impostor syndrome + premium fees + two 10-hour execution days = not exactly “peace of mind.”

(I wrote a whole Substack piece just about this project if you want to read more)

That’s why my real pride sits with the Fiverr and Upwork income.

Those $300–$800 micro gigs are my bread-and-butter. They wrap up quickly, keep momentum going, and give me flexibility. That’s what makes freelancing sustainable.

Lessons for Beginners

1. Track time, not just money.
   I worked ~60 hours (12 days × 4–5 hours) on Fiverr + Upwork and made $5,600. That’s about $93/hour. Most beginners forget to calculate their effective hourly rate, but it’s the clearest way to see which gigs are truly worth your energy.

2. Stress has a price tag.
   The mural looked glamorous at $5,800, but the stress and brain space it consumed was huge. Money is only part of the equation — peace of mind matters too. Learn which projects give you energy versus drain you, and price (or decline) accordingly.

3. Diversify your income streams.
   July was a mix: Fiverr, Upwork, and a local client. Relying on one platform or client is risky. Even if one source slows down, others keep you afloat. And because Fiverr and Upwork are so low-maintenance, they’re the perfect plug-in strategy to any freelance business: no social media, no cold DMs, no ads, no networking. Just a profile that quietly works for you in the background.

Takeaway Tip

Don’t aim for $10K right away. Aim to create one repeatable $300 gig you can sell again and again. That’s the engine.

Think about it: one $300 gig per day, 4–5 hours, 22 working days a month = $6,600 income. Totally doable.

And as you level up, that same system scales. A $500 daily gig? That’s $11,000 a month.

The mural made July flashy, but even without it, Fiverr + Upwork brought in $5,600 from 12 days of work.

And that’s the real point: we become freelancers to earn more time and build sustainable, simple systems. You don’t need a whale client to start — just one repeatable gig and the courage to put it out there. The rest builds from there.

Next time I’m thinking of going deeper with a “Behind the Numbers” section where I share exactly what type of work I did, for what kind of client, and on what budget.

Would that be interesting for you? Let me know in the comments.

Leave a comment

If you’re anything like me, you don’t secretly dream of becoming an Instagram influencer or a LinkedIn thought leader just to pay your bills.

You just want to make decent money without selling your soul, your weekends, and your personality to an algorithm.

So here’s my unpopular opinion: freelancing platforms are not the enemy.

Yes, you’ve heard all the myths:

• “It’s a race to the bottom.”
• “Only $5 clients.”
• “Full of scammers.”

And sure, a lot of people do race to the bottom. They underprice, overdeliver, panic at every bad review and then decide the platform is broken.

That’s not a platform problem. That’s a positioning problem.

Which is actually good news. Because it means that if you’re willing to price properly, build real offers, and stand your ground, you suddenly stop competing with everyone.

Fun fact: it took me ten years to cross my first $24k year.
And when I finally did, I didn’t crawl to $30k. I jumped straight to $100k. (Full story here).

That jump had nothing to do with being “better at my craft”. It was a mindset shift — the moment I stopped behaving like a grateful employee and started acting like a business owner.

And then something even stranger happened: I chose to slow down. For the last five years I’ve comfortably sat around $50k–60k.

Not because I can’t earn more. But because I don’t want my identity glued to my career. I want a life worth living, not a job I brag about at dinner parties. So yes, I’d happily trade a $100k full-time grind for a calm $60k part-time rhythm that leaves room for hobbies, family, friends… and even a little boredom.

I’m not here to sell you overnight $10k months. I’m here for something better: consistent, low-drama gigs, with global clients, that don’t turn you into a zombie in your real life.

If that sounds like your kind of ambition, you’re in the right place.

Here I’ll share what’s actually happening behind the scenes of my freelance business — the money, the mistakes, the uncomfortable decisions, the mindset shifts — so you can decide for yourself what kind of freelancer human you want to become.

Expect profile reviews, monthly strategies, income stories, private Q&As, tools and frameworks — everything I wish I had when I was quietly panicking at $10k years while telling myself “at least I’m not an employee.”

I’m honestly surprised I didn’t quit during those first ten years.

So please, don’t give up on freelancing before you try this with me.

I trust you can make this work,
Adriana 🤍

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But also in the middle of it. When things are actually going well. Or when they are on top of their game.

It still sneaks up on you.

It happened to me this month.
I’ve been a graphic designer for almost 15 years, and a full-time illustrator since the pandemic. And yet, I was this close to telling a client they didn’t need to pay me. I had already sent the invoice, and I was thinking about reversing it. Just giving the money back.

Portrait of the artist, questioning her life choices.

Why?
Because I thought the work I delivered wasn’t good enough.
Because I didn’t feel like I deserved to be paid.

The project was a mural. My first ever. I’d taken an online course on mural painting last year, and when the opportunity came, I said “yes” before I really knew what I was saying yes to. I didn’t know how big the wall was, what type of illustration they wanted, or how I’d actually execute it.

But I said yes anyway.

And instead of undercharging like most people do when they’re doing something new, I did the opposite. I charged a premium rate. I always do that when something is outside of my comfort zone.

Not because I’m overconfident, but because I know I’ll overdeliver. I pour extra thought, care, and customization into every step. From the way I write the proposal to the way I shape the concept. Especially when the project is new and unfamiliar.

And to be honest, charging more also stimulates me to do better work. It lights a fire under me, not out of fear, but out of commitment. It helps me show up fully.

Don’t wait to charge more after you’ve leveled up your work. Charge more so you can level up your work.

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That mindset has shaped the way I approach every stretch project and it hasn’t failed me yet.

This wasn’t just “paint something nice on a wall” — it was meant to be a piece that sparked conversation. Something that would transform a boring, sterile wall into something meaningful for the team. Something that made people stop, smile, or connect.

So I spent a lot of time in the concept phase. Probably the most time.
It’s always the scariest part. The blank canvas.
And because I don’t really have one specific illustration style, the possibilities felt endless and overwhelming. The direction could’ve gone in a million ways.

To make up for my lack of mural experience, I brought in another artist to assist. Well, really, I was assisting them. I’m used to the precision of digital work: smooth lines, perfect color fills. Mural work is… messier. It has texture. Imperfections. Life.

And that’s what made it hard.
When I looked at the final result, all I could see were the flaws.

Digital illustration vs Real-Life mural

The uneven lines, the bits that didn’t quite match what I had in my head. I felt embarrassed. I couldn’t believe I had charged that much for work that, to me, felt unfinished or just… not good enough.

Everyone I asked said it looked amazing, funny, intriguing, full of personality.
But I didn’t believe them.
I was convinced the client would see through it and realize I had no idea what I was doing.

And so I thought about writing them an email":
”Don’t worry about the invoice. Consider this a gift.”

Even though I had already spent time and money on spray paints, brushes, a borrowed projector and VR goggles, not to mention paying the other artist for their time.

Looking back, I realize that voice in my head wasn’t telling the truth.
It was fear. It was imposter syndrome.
That sneaky voice that shows up whenever we do something new, or big, or meaningful. The one that says we’re not enough, no matter how much experience we have.

It didn’t matter that I worked hard or gave it my all.
It didn’t matter that the client was happy.
I still felt like a fraud.

And that’s the part I wanted to share. Not the mural, not the end result, but this moment. Because I know I’m not the only one.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re faking it, or like you should refund a project just because you’re new to it, or because it doesn’t feel “perfect”, I hope you remember this:

You’re not alone.
You’re not a fraud.
You’re just human.
And you’re probably doing better than you think :)

— Adriana

P.S. Can you spot the mistake in the real-life version vs the digital version?

Here’s how it looks for me.

Let’s rewind to 2024.
I called it my semi-sabbatical. Sounds nice, right? In reality, I was deep in renovation hell—finally working on my apartment, which drained me emotionally, physically, and financially. I barely worked. I basically disappeared from the freelance world for months.

Then came January 2025.
New year, new... what the hell is going on.
AI was exploding. Freelance platforms were changing. The economy was shaky.
Suddenly, everything I knew felt unfamiliar. Like someone had rearranged the furniture in my career while I was gone.

But I came into this year with one very clear, possibly delusional, goal:
Make $100K. Work part-time. Actually enjoy life.

Not hustle harder. Not “scale.” Not go viral.
Just earn well, live slow, and do work that felt like me again.

Here’s how that’s going.

Why I’m Sharing This

Because if you’re a freelancer, you’ve probably heard some of this:

“Fiverr is for cheap gigs.”
“You’ll never make real money on Upwork.”
“It’s a race to the bottom.”

Honestly, I believed some of it too. But I’ve also made over $350K on these platforms across the years, so... let’s just say I’ve collected enough receipts.

Everything I earned came from Fiverr and Upwork leads only. No fluff. No tricks. Just solid freelance work.

Here’s some platform breakdowns.

Fiverr

Quick financial context:
The numbers I’m sharing are after Fiverr’s fees:

• 20% service fee—so clients actually paid 20% more than what I received.

• Fiverr Seller Plus Standard, which increased from $19 to $25/month in June

• Fiverr Ads, which cost me anywhere between $10 and $70 per month, depending on how much visibility I wanted that month.

Upwork

Quick financial context:
The numbers I’m sharing are after Upwork’s fees:

• 10% service fee—so clients paid about 10% more than what I earned.

• Connects - I only purchased in January and February ($135).

• Freelancer Plus plan, which costs $19,99/month.

My Real Success Metric: Time Freedom

On most days, I work around 5 hours.
I only take on one major task per day—no overstuffed to-do lists.
I work when I actually feel like working, whether that’s in the morning or late at night.
No fancy tools or apps—I just use what’s already built into Fiverr and Upwork.
And yes, I nap in the afternoon without feeling guilty about it.

For me, success isn’t just about income, it’s also about time freedom and mental space.

Of course, not everything was smooth sailing. So let’s break it down—what actually worked… and what totally didn’t.

Illustration by Adriana Dănăilă

What Worked

1. Sticking to Fiverr & Upwork
Instead of spreading myself thin across new platforms or shiny social apps, I stayed focused. I refined what was already working. It wasn't glamorous, but it was effective. Buyers on these platforms are already looking to hire — you don’t have to convince them why your service matters, just that you’re the right person for the job.

2. Selling $300–$500 gigs that take 3–5 hours
This was a game-changer. Instead of aiming for huge, time-consuming projects, I focused on gigs I could deliver in 3-5 hours but still charge premium rates for. One solid gig per day could bring me to $7–10K/month, and it actually felt sustainable. No burnout, no need to hustle every hour.

3. Going bananas with the pricing
This part was scary. When I did take on bigger projects (outside of my micro gig strategy), I stopped trying to price things “fairly” and started experimenting with numbers that felt slightly absurd to me—though, apparently, not to clients.With a little courage (and some ChatGPT-assisted negotiation scripts), I realized that what feels expensive in my head is often totally reasonable to the right buyer.

Sure, I lost a few projects. But I also landed better ones. And with every “yes” to a higher price, I gained something way more valuable than just extra income: a serious confidence boost. Turns out, working less and earning more is possible—if you stop undercharging yourself.

4. Minimal project management: One high-quality gig/day
I’m allergic to complicated systems. So I simplified: one good gig per day. That’s it. I used only the tools on Fiverr and Upwork—no Asana, no Notion (okay maybe a little Notion, but not for this). This rhythm helped me avoid chaos and keep my brain intact.

5. Doubling down on my imperfect, hand-drawn style
This was probably the most me thing I did. I leaned into the “messy human” vibe: imperfect line art, pencil textures, doodle energy. The rise in demand for authenticity and anti-AI aesthetics played in my favor. People didn’t want sleek—they wanted soul. So I gave them that, and the orders followed.

6. Taking time off in June
This wasn’t part of the “plan,” especially after the adrenaline rush of May’s earnings—I was hyped and ready to ride the wave. But stepping back in June ended up being incredibly useful.

It gave me space to reflect, reset, and get clear on the direction I actually wanted to grow in. The dip in earnings was temporary—but the boost in energy and vision carried into July… which (little secret) might just turn into a +$10K month.

And now the uncomfortable talk:

What Didn’t Work

1. My Squarespace site
I spent $200 on a Squarespace subscription that turned out to be a glorified ego post. It looked nice but didn’t bring traffic, leads, or revenue. No funnel, no clear packages—just pretty illustrations sitting there in silence. I realized that without a real offer, no one cares about “just a portfolio.”

2. Random social posting
I dabbled on TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn—just kind of throwing content out there, hoping something would stick. Nothing did. No consistency, no real strategy, and honestly? Not enough energy to play the algorithm game. Social media hasn’t brought me any clients yet—definitely not income.

I’m still experimenting. And the irony? I should know better. I’ve been freelancing for over 10 years. I know it’s a long game. But I still get itchy feet when results don’t show up fast.

3. Said yes to a ‘quick’ $200 gig that turned into a scope disaster.
What started as a simple “black and white brushstroke cat illustration” turned into a request for color, shading, and texture—midway through. I tried to be helpful, thinking it would earn me a 5-star review. Instead, I got 3.7 stars. My flexibility was seen as a lack of skill, and my Fiverr rating dropped from 4.9 to 4.8. What I should’ve done: canceled early, lost the $200, and protected my profile.

One bad review won’t kill your business, but trying to please everyone just might.

Illustration by Adriana Dănăilă

How I Feel About All This (and What’s Next)

Honestly? I feel… proud. Not in a fireworks-and-confetti kind of way, but in that quiet, grounded, “I’m building something real” kind of way.

I came into this year after a long break—with zero momentum, no funnel, and a $925 January. And somehow, through trial, error, and a whole lot of learning, I’ve started to rebuild. Not just to where I was—but better.

There were frustrating clients, scope-creep disasters, and moments where I seriously questioned if I was even cut out for this anymore. But also? There were aligned projects, glowing reviews, dream clients—and days where I worked 90 minutes and made $500.
That’s the kind of freelance freedom I’ve been chasing.

I don’t have it all figured out (who does?). But here’s what I do know:
I have skills and knowledge worth paying for.
I can build my own version of success.
And when I focus, I can actually accomplish anything I put my mind to.

This is just the beginning. And I’m all in.

Image credit @jovanvasiljevic

Over to You

Here’s some stuff I’ve been thinking about diving into next:

• How to negotiate high fees (without second-guessing every word)

• Red flags I’ve learned to walk away from

• What to say when a client hits you with “I don’t have the budget”

• How to come across warm and professional without hopping on Zoom

• Freelance horror stories I’ve lived to tell

• Monthly workload breakdown: number of projects, types of projects, average pricing, hours worked.

Let me know what you’re curious about—I’ll make the next one all about that.

Thanks for reading, truly. If you’re freelancing (or thinking about it), I hope this reminded you:

You really don’t have to do it like everyone else.
You just have to do it your way.

Talk soon,
Adriana
Your one-step-ahead freelance friend

One of my biggest motivators is money.

illustration by Adriana Danaila

I know. As a younger version of myself—someone who was exploring art—I felt like even thinking about money was a betrayal of everything I was taught to believe. Because aren’t we supposed to be above that? Isn’t art supposed to be about passion and meaning, not profit?

But lately, I’ve been reading Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, and it’s reinforced something I always instinctively knew:

Money isn’t about greed. Money is about freedom and safety.

Especially as an artist. Especially as a woman.

One story in particular stuck with me. It’s about Fanny Hensel, who was a child prodigy in music. Her father told her:

“Music will perhaps become his [her brother Felix Mendelssohn’s] career, whilst for you it can and must only be an ornament.”

An ornament.

All those stories I read in high school—about women who had no say in who they’d marry or where they’d live—stuck with me. I wanted more than that. I didn’t want to be an ornament, something extra in someone else’s story. I wanted to stand on my own two feet, make my own choices, and create my own life.

And that’s why, for me, making money feels like a quiet rebellion. It’s not about chasing the next paycheck. It’s about saying: I get to choose. I get to decide who I am and what I do with my life.

That, I believe, is the purpose of artists and women in our times: to change the narrative, to shift the mindset, to make money so we can decide where that money goes—what causes and businesses it supports. That, to me, is the path to a more equal and better-built world.

In upcoming posts, I’ll share more about how I’m building a creative offscreen life through lucrative onscreen work—and how you might do the same. I’ll talk about the money side of art and freelancing, what I’ve learned, and the mistakes I’ve made—maybe they’ll help you, too.