How they do so cheaply.

I need some digital cartoonist for some of my firm in a long term basis. I thought Fiverr may be a little bit expensive. Though most of the artist charge little in case of a single portrait art. But if you go for a big project something like to do some comic book art or illustrative art, they charge huge. That's why I went for odesk and freelancer to hire some Cartoonist. But I almost screwed up with their rate. Because they are asking even more than Fiverr. I then asked a few bidders. Why are you asking so huge. 2/3 of them told me that Fiverr sellers are using script or specialized software to do these type of work. That's why it cheap. Are they true. Really such specialized software are available. Confused & Little curious....

I have an idea why you've gotten expensive bids on freelancer.
I do a lot of work with freelancer and elance, it took me a while to learn that instead of bidding you should
browse freelancer by set of skills, look for a lot of past reviews and pick the best candidates yourself. Once you do that,
create a job/project and invite the favorites to bid on it, as soon as you do that you'll have the right to message them,
then you can negotiate even before they bid and you can make a deal with them, resulting in you paying 50% less.

I say this from experience, the best freelancers (not outsourcing companies) rarely browse projects to bid on, simply because they are too busy.
Instead they get invited or they get work from past employers.

So to get the best quality employee (for less) from freelancer/elance you would have to find it yourself.

Recently, I ended up paying 1000$ for a perfectly good Windows GUI software which a russian company offered to do for 27K$...

Just remember, don't let the invited freelancer bid, go on to negotiations from the moment you invite him/her.

EDIT: While creating the custom project, specify that only candidates you invite can bid on it.

Fiverr sellers usually give you shit. Atleast, that's my experience with Fiverr.

i agree with Vpnarea, he suggested the best way to get your job done, even you can hire them as well for monthly basis too

There are few reasons why Fivver gigs are more cheaper then on some other freelance website.

1. Quality is lower on Fivver

2. On Fivver you choose designer, while on freelance site designer must spend few hours in searching a job, bidding, writing proposal,
and on 10 jobs he'll get 1.

3. On freelance sites it's expected from designer to make few mockup versions, until client is satisfied, while on fiver you're limited to one version, and maybe one revision.