We tend to idealise them today but how were they truly accepted in the eyes of the public or the authorities that may have had to intervene? Also, the layperson is familiar with the big names like Socrates and Plato but a quick search will show that there were many many more who are not as popular. So would a philosopher's recognition only have come after popular analysis of his work which may have been after his death or would they have been able to experience the feedback to their work? Would they have been seen as a dime a dozen?
Philosophers were, as a general rule, widely accepted. Most philosophers were wealthy men, for only the wealthy could afford to spend time in idle study. As men of status, they tended to get along well with the authorities, if they weren't actually the authorities themselves.
Some were certainly eccentric, but for every Diogenes the Cynic (who supposedly lived in a barrel), there were many men like Cercidas of Megalopolis (a Cynic philosopher of the 2nd century BC who wrote philosophical poems criticizing the rich, but who was himself a wealthy man who hobnobbed with kings and generals). Only very rarely did the philosopher and the government find themselves opposed. Socrates is the most famous example, but he was arguably killed more because of his connections to rich and politically dangerous men, than for the practice of philosophy per se. There was also a tradition that philosophers should stand up to tyrants. So the philosopher Callisthenes who accompanied Alexander the Great on his conquests made Alexander his enemy by refusing to bow before him. In the late fourth century BC, the philosopher Anaxarchus spoke out against the Cyprian tyrant Nicocreon. Nicocreon executed him by grinding him up in a millstone. But once more, for all the philosophers who ran afoul of autocrats there were many more who worked with such men. Aristotle famously tutored Alexander the Great. The Stoic philosopher Persaeus of Citium was a friend of the Macedonian king Antigonus Gonatas, and acted as a garrison commander for him in Corinth.
There were many, many, philosophers, most of whose works have been lost. Of the works that survive, only the smallest fraction are commonly read today. Many of these philosophers do seem to have received recognition in their lifetimes. This recognition came mostly from other philosophers, who do seem to have read and criticized each others' work. But because a basic understanding of philosophy was considered an integral part of a gentleman's education, the audience for philosophical works was wider than one might expect. Indeed, a particularly bright (or well-connected) philosopher might even hope to receive the patronage of a king.