Disclaimer: The top ranking articles for “ways to make money from home” would never tell you what I’m about to tell you. 

To really make money online, you will have to unlearn the pillars of your informal digital education. Use your own knowledge and experience to build a business on your own instead. 

There are no limits to business building, and you can sell whatever you want. The more determination you have, the more money you’ll make online. It’s that simple. 

Skip the usual website tester gig and become a business owner. Use this article to discover a new online business idea you can turn into an exciting, profitable venture that’ll pay more than one dollar per survey. 

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25 ways to make money from home

Gone are the days of low-paying cash-back credit cards and stressful stock trading. If you want to make a lot of money from home, you’ll want to start a small business that pays you dividends over time. 

Here are the top home-based businesses you can start.

Sell custom products 

Product development isn’t the easiest route, but it’s often the most rewarding, and it may not be as hard as you expect. Making custom products is popular amongst jewelry brands, fashion brands, and home decor brands, yet it expands through virtually any industry where you make stuff from scratch. 

We recently turned to shoppers to ask about their post-pandemic shopping plans: What are they planning to buy once the pandemic is under control? The infographic below shows how they answered. Use these items to inspire your own custom product to sell online and make extra money. 

Some evergreen categories you could sell in are:

• Apparel and clothing. Clothing is one of those categories that seems to always be trendy. People look for clothes and accessories that match their style and personality, which can make fashion a fun and profitable space to sell in. The market is expected to rise above $3 trillion by  

• Home decor. Home decor is another popular sales category. People want to add personal touches to their space to make it feel cozy and enjoyable. You can sell home decor online to anyone, anywhere, at any time, while keeping overhead at a minimum. The home decor market is forecasted to reach $ billion in

• Health and beauty. The beauty and personal care industry is set to reach $ billion by You have many options in this category: you can sell skin care, cosmetics, hair care, fragrances, vegan products, and more. Grand View Research identified growing demand for men’s grooming products and anti-aging products that are expected to drive the market over the coming years. 

• Arts and entertainment. While movie box office revenue took a % dive last year, some interesting areas show impressive growth in this multitrillion-dollar industry. Digital newspaper revenue saw a 10% increase, video game revenue saw a % lift in sales, and consumer books saw a % increase. The esports industry continues to see healthy growth in this segment, forecasted to reach $37 billion by In short, there are a lot of innovative and exciting products you could sell in the arts and entertainment industry. 

• Food and beverages. The food and beverage industry will never die. Despite the COVID pandemic, the segment is projected to grow at a rate of % per year, reaching $ billion by It’s also poised for an ecommerce breakout, with up to 20% of food and beverage industry sales to be made online by , a 10 times increase from  

Evaluating market demand and following trends is a great place to start when finding popular things to make and sell. Once you have a product, you’ll want to start your business and set up a Shopify store with a free trial. And just like that, you’re ready to start selling! 

Free Webinar:

How to Find and Source a Winning Product to Sell

In less than 40 minutes, let us walk you through how to find product ideas, how to validate them, and how to sell the product once you have an idea you want to pursue.

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Create a print-on-demand business

Print on demand refers to working with a supplier to customize white-label products with your own designs, then selling them underneath your own brand. Businesses can create products like hats, t-shirts, tote bags, and more. 

The best part? You don’t have to pay for any products until after you make a sale. 

When you work with a print-on-demand company, everything from printing the item to shipping is handled by the supplier. Once you set up an online store with your designs, it takes a few minutes to fulfill an order after the customer checks out. 

Creating a print-on-demand business is a great way to make money from home because:

• You can create products fast. After you design a product, you can put it up for sale on your website in minutes.

• You don’t have to worry about shipping. Your supplier will handle the fulfillment process. You’re just responsible for providing good customer service after the sale.

• It’s low risk, low investment. It’s easy to add new products to your store and test ideas since you don’t hold any inventory. Your upfront business costs are minimal because you only need an online store to start. 

A print-on-demand business also gives creators many opportunities to connect with fans through nice products, especially products sought out for their aesthetic design. Take Boba Love, for example. 

For all its products, the retailer focuses on one theme: bubble tea (also referred to as “boba”), a drink that originated in Taiwan in the early s. Bubble tea has become extremely popular around the world and has a dedicated fan base.

Boba Love sells shirts, totes, blankets, hats, and stickers around the idea of the drink. When a shopper orders a product from the store, the supplier creates and ships it to the customer. 

Curious what types of products you can create? Read A Canvas For Creativity: Here Are 10 Print on Demand Products You Can Sell (Without Holding Inventory) to learn more. 

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Make a subscription box

A subscription business provides customers with products on a recurring basis. The subscription ecommerce market is expected to reach $ billion by , with more customers taking advantage of it each year. Research from McKinsey found that 15% of US consumers have signed up for one or more subscriptions to receive products regularly. 

The benefits of creating a subscription box include:

• Predictable revenue. Businesses know how much money is coming in each month and can plan growth initiatives accordingly.

• More cash on hand. Subscription businesses ask for full payment upfront at a discounted price, which creates regular cash flow. 

• Lower customer acquisition costs. Customers pay you on a regular basis, so you don’t need to convince them to make additional one-time purchases in your store. 

Running a subscription business from home is a proven winner. Our research shows that 63% of founders who sold subscriptions were satisfied with business performance, compared to 55% of founders who did not sell subscriptions. 

Two types of subscription businesses we found thrived in the past year were:

• Replenishment model, where subscribers receive the same or similar products each cycle. An example of this would be grooming brand Harry’s. A customer purchases the Harry’s starter set, containing a handle, shaving gel, and razor cartridges. They then receive automatic gel and blade refills monthly, based on their usage and preferences. 

• Membership model, where subscribers get access to exclusive products and perks in exchange for a monthly or yearly fee. Freelance writing community Peak Freelance runs on a membership model. Members pay a set fee and receive access to private Slack groups, on-demand tools and content, expert interviews, strategy sessions, and more.

Want to start a subscription box business from home? Read How to Start a Subscription Business: A Brief Guide to learn how, step by step.

Sell on marketplaces

Sell products on online marketplaces—but beware! Selling sites can be a great launchpad for many businesses, but the current marketplaces come with a Faustian bargain: you get access to customers if you build your business on someone else's land. Their land, their rules, and they’ll change them at any time. 

Popular marketplaces include: 

• Etsy
• Amazon
• eBay
• Handshake
• Mercado Libre
• Rakuten
• Facebook Marketplace 
• VarageSale 

Eventually, you’ll want to diversify your business by building your own site—you don’t have to choose one or the other. The big advantage is that the profit is yours: there are no fees to pay on sales and no rules to abide by but your own. 

Resources:

Sell digital products

Digital products are intangible assets or pieces of media that can be sold repeatedly online. They come in the form of streamable or downloadable files, such as PDFs, plug-ins, and templates. 

Digital assets are becoming more popular because they have high profit margins. Sure, it may take some time and money to develop them, but once the media or software is made, it’s not expensive to store or deliver to customers. 

There is no limit to how many products you can sell. Digital products help creators scale themselves by using their expertise to create kits, printables, files, and other assets professionals can benefit from. 

Started in , UX Kits sells wireflows, user personas, flowcharts, and other products to assist the design process. 

The brand has sold kits to over 10, designers, developers, and product managers in more than countries. It’s since expanded to sell three physical products but continues to drive sales from the digital assets created years ago. 

Digital products aren’t just for business professionals. Home fitness business Street Parking sells a variety of digital products—from workout plans to online courses—and membership subscriptions for people who need at-home workouts. 

Whatever you decide to create, figure out the needs of your target audience and work backward from there. Think about the kinds of assets they need/want and create products that are in demand. This will make it easier to sell and earn more money working from home. 

Sell your creative work

It’s easier than ever for creators to sell their work online. Whether it’s music, videos, digital art, photography, magazines, or podcasts, you can set up a digital shop and start selling with little limitation. 

While selling creative work sounds similar to digital products, the difference is that your products are more creative ventures. They are a way to express yourself online versus satisfying a buyer’s needs. Creators and artists who don’t have a network or connections with galleries and PR can now make money online doing something they love. 

What started as a cartoon on Instagram for Harry Hambley has grown into an international icon and ecommerce brand. As described in an interview with BBC, the Ketnipz creator skipped university to draw cartoons online. 

And Hambley’s strategy certainly paid off. The Ketnipz brand has over million followers on Instagram, sells clothing and accessories online, and can even be found on murals around the world. 

Using a combination of social media and an online store, you can make money online. Start building an active presence and engaging with your audience to establish your brand and find new customers. 

Resources:

Monetize an audience

Monetizing an audience is definitely a challenging endeavor, but the creator-to-commerce business model is becoming more successful in modern times. Bloggers and influencers today don’t need to be internet celebrities to make money from home online. All they have to do is find their people on one or two platforms and they can turn their audience into passive income.

Sonja Detrinidad, founder of Partly Sunny Projects, an online plant shop, turned one of her part-time pre-pandemic hobbies into a full-time business through TikTok marketing. She didn’t set out to become TikTok’s favorite plant mom, but discovered by accident the possibilities of monetizing an audience. 

Sonja processed over 1, orders in one month at the height of plant-shopping season last summer. She also increased her subscription box customers by more than four times since becoming a TikTok sensation, with over , followers on the platform.

Some ways you can monetize an audience are:

• Building your own website and selling online
• Through affiliate marketing commissions
• Using Instagram shoppable posts
• Starting a YouTube channel and running ads
• Adding Google AdSense to an active blog

Regardless of how you go about it, monetizing an audience is a legitimate way to make money from home. It may take some time to build a targeted audience, but the investment will be well worth your time in the long run. 

Related Content: How to make money with Youtube

Become a freelancer

One home business idea becoming more popular is offering freelance services to clients online. Almost any role a business would hire for is reasonable as a freelance service:

• Writing 
• Graphic design
• Marketing
• Data entry
• Illustration
• Transcription 
• Online tutoring
• Shopify store setup

Most of these services are best positioned toward business clients. Why? Because online businesses are the ones who are willing to spend. Freelancers can charge based on the outcome of their work versus the deliverable, which gives them leverage when it comes to pricing their services. 

“Every freelancer eventually learns that there are desired business outcomes tied to their work,” explains Elise Dopson, co-founder of Peak Freelance. “Freelance writers, for example, are not just blogging for a company. They are creating content that increases traffic, leads, and customers for a business. The sooner you learn that, and can deliver on it, the more money you’ll make freelancing from home.”

Elise has worked with brands such as ConversionXL, HubSpot, Privy, and other leading B2B software-as-a-service companies to produce incredible content that gets results, which is how she broke the six-figure-income ceiling by the age of  

If you have a passion for writing, designing, or organizing stuff, turn it into a freelance service. You won’t be disappointed with the results.

As more companies become completely remote, the opportunities to earn money from home freelancing will only become more abundant. It just takes a little know-how and determination to make it happen. 

Become a virtual assistant

With so many businesses moving online, the demand for virtual assistants is growing. Virtual assistants (VAs) are contracted workers who work with businesses and individuals on the jobs that you give them. 

Virtual assistants work from home and help with tasks such as:

• Time management and administrative tasks, like responding to emails
• Financial tasks, like bookkeeping and client invoicing 
• Team management tasks, like following up on deliverables, organizing training sessions, and creating task templates
• Social media and digital marketing tasks, like publishing and managing content
• Personal tasks, like managing investment properties, paying bills, and planning trips 
• Content tasks, like video or podcast editing

Each VA has their own speciality. I myself have worked with VAs for years in my writing business, many of whom make a full-time living as virtual assistants. 

Alexandra Froese, a VA specializing in systems and strategizes, works with clients to streamline redundant tasks and work more efficiently in their businesses. 

Alexandra helps entrepreneurs by doing the tasks herself or by developing workflows that makes a client’s business run smoother. 

You can make good money with a small number of clients, but once you stop working, the cash flow stops coming. VAs can start a blog, sell digital products, or coach other VAs to create new revenue streams and make more money from home. 

Become a reseller 

Don’t want to worry about creating new products or about minimum purchase quantities? Not a problem. You don’t need a revolutionary product idea to make money from home. Instead, you can become a reseller.

A reseller is a person who buys products from manufacturers, liquidators, and other retailers, then sells them to their own customers. A reseller permit lets your purchase certain products free of sales tax:

• Products to sell at wholesale 
• Products to sell at retail 
• Components to manufacture products 

You can find suppliers to purchase items from through a number of ways:

1. A dropshipping supplier like DSers or SaleHoo
2. Vintage boutiques 
3. Consignment shops
4. Facebook Marketplace

COAL N TERRY is one retailer that sells a vintage collection in its online store. The brand sells classic clothing alongside its own proprietary brand of hoodies and other apparel, giving shoppers a variety of products to browse and buy. 

A reselling business can be profitable if you have niche expertise, like beauty or fashion. You can launch an ecommerce store fast when you don’t have to go through product development or building an audience from scratch. 

Create and sell art 

Are you an independent artist looking for ways to make money from home? Artists can fund their craft and sell work directly to fans through online channels like an online store and non-fungible-token marketplaces. 

There are a number of other options for making sales off of one piece:

• Original art
• Limited or open edition prints
• Digital downloads
• Commissions 
• Merchandise like hats or enamel pins
• Repeat prints on fabric
• Licensing work to other brands or publications
• Collaborations 

To learn more about selling your art, read How to Sell Art Online: The Ultimate Guide.

Collect and sell vintage clothing 

Got a passion for second-hand fashion? Love the high of picking up a vintage dress at your local thrift store at a cheap price? You can turn that feeling into a business by selling vintage clothing from home. 

A $64 billion market, vintage shoppers depend on store owners to curate the best items around at the best condition. The rise in demand for vintage clothes has led to the success of brands like ThredUp and the increase of vintage clothing sellers on marketplaces like Etsy and eBay. It’s competitive, but that shouldn’t stop you from creating a cool brand and carving a space out for yourself in the vintage community. 

Naomi Bergknoff, founder of OMNIA, has been selling vintage clothing online since Combining her love for vintage clothes and her retail expertise, she’s defined a particular style away from marketplaces and close to home in Brooklyn.

Learn more by reading How to Sell Vintage Clothing Online: The Ultimate Guide.

Sell photos

The ability to make money from home as a photographer is about harnessing your creativity and monetizing it. It can seem challenging at first, but by finding your niche and building an audience, you can create multiple streams of income over time. 

Photographers have plenty of options to sell online:

• Stock marketplaces like Alamy, px, RF, and Stocksy

• Productssuch as prints, photo books, and physical goods like shirts and hats, using print-on-demand services 

• Services covering fashion shoots, product photography, events, or anything else you love to shoot

Sound interesting? Read How to Sell Photos Online: For Both Amateur and Pro Photographers to start selling your photography today. 

Rent your unused space

Most people don’t think about using their empty space to make money from home. Yet it’s one of the easiest sources of passive income. From bedrooms to parking areas, you may have some space people will happily pay you to rent. 

You have a wide range of options here:

• Bring on a housemate to rent a room in your house
• Rent a room on Airbnb
• Rent out storage space on SpareFoot
• Rent out your parking space
• Host a foreign exchange student
• Offer pet boarding

You don’t need tons of money or time to rent out your space. Rather than let unused space go to waste, offer it has a service to people who need it.

Start a pet business

Pet businesses are a fun way to make money from home (if you love animals, of course). There are many different ways to earn extra cash, like providing walking and grooming services, training, making and selling treats, or reselling products like bowls and chew toys.

You’re not limited to dogs and cats either. You could specialize in reptiles, fish, bunnies, whatever animals you enjoy being around. Pet owners alone spent over $ billion on their pets in , making this a profitable business opportunity for newcomers. 

Are pets your passion? Read How to Start a Pet Business (Plus Ideas and Examples from Top Brands) to turn it into a business today. 

Sell coffee 

Coffee sellers are always in demand as more and more coffee is consumed globally each year, according to the International Coffee Organization. If someone can’t get to their local café in the morning, they’re brewing beans at home while getting ready for the workday. 

Selling coffee can be a great way to earn money from home with a strong brand and marketing plan. Coffee is a commodity product, so it’s widely available. Customers tend to look for branding cues like design and bean origin to decide what to buy. By selling coffee, you’ll have a high volume of potential customers and many niching and expansion opportunities to take advantage of. 

Read Sell Coffee from Home: What Does it Take to Launch an Online Café to start your new coffee business. 

Build and sell woodworking projects 

If you’re a woodworker already, or curious about the craft, you can make money from home building and selling woodworking products. There are products to sell for all levels, from beginner to skilled woodworkers. You just need to figure out the best project for you!

Some fun woodworking projects that sell include:

1. Wooden signs
2. Kitchen products
3. Furniture
4. Surfboards
5. Boxes
6. Picture frames
7. Planters

If you’re ready to sell your wooden crafts online, read 12 Woodworking Projects and How to Sell Them Online to get started.

Try Computer numerical control (CNC) projects 

A CNC router is a computer-operated cutting tool that acts as a combination panel saw, spindle molder, and boring machine. It carves complex shapes out of materials like metal, wood, plastics, and glass. CNC routers use programmable automation, similar to 3D printing, to design complex parts at scale. 

Small CNC machines can cost from a few hundred dollars up to thousands, depending on the make and model. With them, you can create handcrafted, one-of-a-kind products for buyers across many markets, including:

• Home decor products
• Kitchen and barbeque tools
• Office supplies
• Custom signage 
• Toys and games
• Jewelry 

There are tons of resources available online to learn about using a CNC router. There’s a very low barrier to entry. And you can test, create, and sell products with minimal upfront costs. 

Interested in starting a CNC business? Read Putting the Pieces Together: 26 CNC Projects That Sell to learn more about this up-and-coming tactic. 

Make candles 

Looking for a fun way to make money from home? Start making and selling candles to people online. It takes a little know-how and hard work, but the upside is that you can customize candles and sell them anywhere. It’s also a low-cost business to start. Common costs include equipment to make the candles, like a double-boiler, pouring pots, and containers. 

A candle business can also be extremely profitable. The candle making industry is set to reach $ billion by , meaning there is no shortage of people buying candles they love. It’s also a good way to express your creativity and build a brand, like candle company Boy Smells, which broke traditional gender norms in fashion, home, and scent with its business in

Learn to build your candle making startup by reading Turn Scents Into Dollars: How to Start a Candle Business (Plus Examples From Top Brands).

Make soap 

Are you an avid DIYer and eager entrepreneur? You may enjoy making and selling soap from home. While soap doesn’t sound like the best income stream around, it’s an in-demand product customers need. 

Soap is a household product that everyone uses in some form, whether it’s to wash dirty hands, dishes, or laundry. The COVID pandemic also stimulated the industry, projected to reach $ billion by , creating huge demand for hygiene products to prevent infection. It’s a great way to get creative with different scents and types, with potential to expand your brand to other products like candles and fragrances. 

Want to get your hands dirty with this business idea? Read How to Make Soap: Turn a Household Necessity into a Homemade Business for more information.

Make bath bombs

Bath bombs are all the rage and a great way to make money from home. The US bath bomb market is expected to grow into a $ million industry by If you turn to Instagram, you’ll see there are millions of photos showing how these colorful balls explode when dropped in water. 

If you love DIY and have a knack for crafts, read How to Start a Bath Bomb Business from Home: A Step-by-Step Guide. You’ll learn how to source ingredients, make your bath bombs, market them, and grow a business people love.

Make skincare products 

Indie beauty brands are driving the growth of the $ billion global skin care market. If you love taking care of your skin and want to turn it into a business, now’s the time. Newcomers are jumping on trends like hybrid beauty (the combination of cosmetic and skin care), cannabis-based products, and clean beauty (products made without harming human health). 

The beauty of being a small brand is that you can tackle a specific problem for a specific audience. Find a market that’s underserved by current brands and create skin care products just for them. 

You’ll want to learn more about manufacturing and working with suppliers when running a profitable skin care business. Read all about it (and more) in our guide How to Start a Skincare Line: 11 Lessons From a Serial Beauty Entrepreneur.

Start a food business

Everyone’s got to eat, you can’t argue with that. Which is why starting a food business is a great idea if you want to make money from home. 

Outside of restaurants, there are endless high-profit-margin businesses you can run with low overhead and startup costs. The trick is cooking food you are passionate and curious about, regardless of your experience level. 

Some food business ideas to start include:

1. Food truck
2. Catering business 
3. Cooking classes
4. Meal kits 
5. Sauces
6. Pre-packaged snacks
7. Homemade jams and jellies
8. Wine, beer, and spirits

Want to see examples of other food businesses in action? Check out Selling Like Hotcakes: 13 Profitable Food Business Ideas for on the Shopify blog. 

Become a tutor

Are you an expert in math, art, or another subject? You can make money from home doing online tutoring. A prerequisite for most tutoring gigs is a bachelor’s degree in your subject, depending on where you apply for the job. You can find tutoring clients on websites like Skooli and www.oldyorkcellars.com

Only teach subjects that you have demonstrated expertise in. You’ll want to share skills and practical knowledge to create good learning experiences for your students. You can provide pre-recorded lectures and templates, plus meet students through Zoom. Tutoring is also inexpensive to start (if you already have that degree) and can easily earn you extra money. 

Offer child care

If you’re a stay-at-home parent or enjoy taking care of kids, you can easily start a child care business from home. You can offer all-day care (eight hours) for other parents while they are at work, or even just before and after school care (one to four hours). The choice is yours. 

Look at other day care businesses in your area and see what they charge. Choose your rates wisely. Don’t undercharge just to get more business. Then you’ll be taking care of too many kids and won’t be able to provide proper care. Start with an income goal for a day, then decide how many kids you can realistically watch throughout the day. Divide those two numbers to see how much to charge per kid, per day. 

Home jobs to avoid

Now that you have a good idea of different ways to make money from home, let’s look at some jobs to avoid.

Freelance marketplaces

Marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork might be a way to get your start, but quickly can turn into a price race to the bottom. You’re forced to compete on price and don't have a way to differentiate your services or offer something premium. Long term, this isn’t the way to go. You are better off creating a freelancer website and building a business that doesn’t rely on renting digital space in a marketplace.

Online survey sites 

The pay is very low from online survey sites, and you accrue no long-term value. You’re not building skills or building an asset, you’re just losing time. Trading time for extra cash is always a reasonable short-term side hustle, but if you can, it's better to think long term.

Online survey sites include:

• Swagbucks
• Survey Junkie
• InboxDollars

Building an app

Look at most websites promoting legit ways to make money online and they’ll tell you to build an app. All new ventures are hard and most fail, but consumer apps are hyper-competitive: the average person uses only nine apps on their phone per day, most developed by major companies. 

A better option? Grow your skill set by building useful, problem-solving apps for businesses via growing marketplaces like the Shopify App Store or Salesforce Appexchange.

Side gigs

If you want to make a quick buck, then side gig apps like Rover or UserTesting are good options. But similar to online survey sites, you aren’t building anything valuable in the long run.

You are better off learning skills in your spare time, like running Facebook ads or starting a dropshipping store, which can make you money repeatedly, versus a one-off cash gig from Craigslist.

Anything that’s pay-to-earn 

Real businesses require investment, but anything that operates in a pay-to-earn model should be treated with extreme caution. For example, sites that promise you can win money by spending money, or multi-level marketing groups that require money not for inventory or product, but just to join. 

Most gimmicks are scams in disguise: the simple but hard truth is that you need to sell something people want.

Learning how to make money from home

If you have an internet connection, you can make money from home online. Sure, the lure of fast and easy cash gigs may seem like a great idea, but it will only keep you on a hamster wheel of trading your time for cash—and time is our most valuable asset in life. 

Use your time wisely and invest in building a business that’s rewarding and will pay you a bigger salary than any tester or survey site. $ per day does sound nice, but what if I told you that an online business could net you $+ per day. Would you still choose finding side gigs on Craigslist?

A priority this year, for many people, will be figuring out how to make money online. It might be a side gig to supplement your job or a completely new venture. Whatever the reason, there are a wealth of available opportunities. For quite a few of them, all you’re going to need is access to a reliable internet connection and a smartphone.

How Can I Make Money Online?

If you want to earn extra money without breaking a sweat, keep scrolling. To save you time and hours of research, I’ve created this extensive list of online money-making ideas and gigs on the side. All you need to do is set aside some time to read through the list, and I’m pretty confident you’ll find one or two you quite like the sound of.

Build a Website and Earn an Affiliate Commission

One of the most popular ways to make real money online is through affiliate marketing. 81% of brands and 84% of publishers use the power of affiliate marketing and this statistic is likely to continue as affiliate marketing spending in the US increases every year.

Don’t know what affiliate marketing is? It’s a way of earning money by promoting various brands. You’re promoting products, services, apps, software, and more. In return, companies pay you a commission when a customer buys a product using your link.

You probably think the commission will be small, but that’s not strictly true. It can be but what makes a big difference is that you can be an affiliate for one, two, three, or considerably more different brands, and there’s no limit to the number of links you can include in each of your posts.

There’s also the potential for the commission to be 50% of a $1, product and for it to be a recurring commission every month.

How does it work? You advertise the brands via your website by writing blogs, creating infomercials, and other types of content. You include links for your affiliate brands and push traffic to their website.

To achieve any level of success, you have to learn to be persistent. The key to your success will be finding a niche that suits you and having the right strategy. Some of the niches you might want to consider include:

• Software
• Travel
• E-commerce
• Dating
• Loans
• Fitness

Once you’ve decided on a niche, you’ll need to work on designing a website and starting a blog. Starting a YouTube channel that runs alongside your blog is another option.

Level of expertise: Intermediate

Requirements: Content marketing expertise, know how to build a website

Time: From six months to several years before you start making any real profit

Tools: Domain, hosting

Income Potential: $ to $10,/day

Build and Sell Software

There are many benefits to building software and then selling it. Upfront costs, including the development of the software, can be pretty high. However, the cost of selling your product once you’ve made it is relatively low. Delivering the finished product to the customer costs very little.

One critical requirement is that you need to have a good grasp of the programming side of things. A friend or relative in the know would be a possible alternative, as long as they don’t want to charge too much for their services.

It’s also crucial that you create software that people want to buy. Ideally, it needs to be software that’s unique, better than anything else that’s currently available, or at the very least, much cheaper.

There’s already a massive amount of software out there, but there are still some niches you can explore and problems no one has found the answer for. Figure out what these are, and you could be on to a winner.

Bear in mind that it could take some time for the development side of your project, which makes it vital you do plenty of research beforehand to make sure there’s a market for your product.

If you’re interested in reducing the amount of work, you might want to consider buying some software and making improvements or using open-source software. If you think this is a good option, make sure you check whether there are any restrictions. Spending a lot of time creating something you can’t sell would be devastating.

App development is another similar option. Creating games or apps can be a very lucrative idea.

One guy who made a great success of his SaaS business is Neil Patel. You can read his story here.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Know how to code or have a friend or relative who can do it for you, get clients to use the software

Time: More than one year to start making some money

Tools: Hosting, domain

Income Potential: $$,/month

Launch and Grow a Startup

Thanks to the internet, there are vast amounts of options if you think you’ve got what it takes to launch a startup business. As long as you’ve got a computer and a reliable internet connection, the sky’s the limit in what you can achieve.

You don’t need to be a technical whizz kid, as there are plenty of valuable tools that will help you build, launch and grow your business. You just need to put in the hard work, learning what you need.

Another great benefit of starting a new online business is that you do it from anywhere in the world. No one sets your schedule for you, which means you can work as little or as often as suits you. It depends on how fast or successful you want your business to be.

When it comes to capital requirements, you don’t need a lot. There are internet businesses you can get off the ground with no money simply because there are a wealth of free services to help the process.

Here are just a few ideas, some of which we’ll look at in more detail a little later.

• Custom furniture production
• Homemade beauty products
• Activity holidays
• E-commerce retailer
• Cleaning services
• Hand-made craft seller
• Tutoring or digital courses
• Start your own clothing line
• Publish a book

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: The right idea and customers for your product or service

Time: More than six months to start making money

Tools: Hosting, domain

Income Potential: $$,/month

Start an eCommerce Site and Sell Physical Products

In recent years, eCommerce sites have really taken off, and thanks to platforms such as WooCommerce and WordPress, building your site couldn’t get much easier. Because so many brick-and-mortar stores have had to close their doors due to COVID, the popularity of this option is likely to increase.

Online shopping is no longer the luxury it once was. More than a decade ago, eCommerce only accounted for % of total retail sales. Fast forward and in , online sales accounted for 21%. For millions of people, thanks to Covid,  it is now a necessity. For your eCommerce business to be successful in the long term, you’ll need a long-term vision and a product that brings real value to the market.

To run a successful eCommerce store, you need to create and sell a niche physical product to a specific audience or purchase trending products cheaply from an overseas manufacturer, repackage them and sell them at a markup.

The first option can be a little risky, but it also has the potential to be very successful. A certain amount of passion for your product or products is essential, and you’ll also need to be prepared to put in the graft when it comes to research, development of your product, and also testing.

There are some very successful eCommerce sites you can take inspiration from, such as Beardbrand, Ratio Coffee, and SkinnyMe Tea. All three of these companies show what incredible results are possible if you’re prepared to put in the work.

The second option is less risky, but you first have to source a product that’s already popular. One place to look is AliExpress. You buy the product in bulk, repackage it, and then sell it via your eCommerce store.

Aside from finding the right product, you’ll also need to think about how you’ll ship the orders. Handling it yourself is the obvious option, but something called drop shipping is another possibility. In this case, you take the orders, and the manufacturer handles the shipping on your behalf.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: The right idea and customers for your product

Time: You could be making money in a couple of months

Tools: Hosting, domain, products to sell

Income Potential: $$,/monthh=

Create Online Courses

You get them popping up on your Facebook news feed and in ads when you search online. It feels like online courses are everywhere you look nowadays, but it’s not too late to get in on the action. It is forecast that the online education market could reach $ billion by There is one requirement, however. You need knowledge that someone is willing to pay for. If you’ve got what it takes, online courses are a fantastic opportunity.

It’s not the end of the world if you don’t have the wherewithal to create your own course because there’s always the option of becoming an instructor. Pick the right platform and you’ll be able to pass on your experience and skills to a broad audience who might be interested in learning something new.

If you’re wondering what kind of topics sell, here are some examples:

• Personal development
• Photography
• Art
• Gardening
• Technology
• Languages (we’ll be looking at teaching English a little later)
• Cooking
• Marketing

An excellent place to start, if you have decided on a topic, is to poll your audience. You’ll discover what they want to learn and how much they’ll be willing to pay for it.

Level of expertise: Expert

Requirements: Knowledge or skill people want to pay for

Time: You could be earning an income in a couple of months

Tools: Online learning platforms such as Udemy and Kajabi, or a software product such as WooCommerce or WordPress, an online course platform like Thinkific.

Income Potential: $$10,/month

Write and Sell an eBook

If you know you’ve got a book in you but have been putting it off for years, publishing an eBook could be the opportunity you’re looking for. If you want to publish a book, you don’t have to approach a publishing house because self-publishing is an option. Absolutely anyone can publish a book, and it is possible to make a living.

The barrier for entry is set relatively low, so be ready for lots of competition. To stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to write the best eBook possible and satisfy the readers’ expectations.

Some of the things you need to consider before you put pen to paper, figuratively speaking, include:

• Choosing the right topic: Something you’re passionate or knowledgeable about.
• How long your eBook is going to be: There are no hard and fast rules.
• The title of your eBook: It needs to grab people’s attention and draw them in.
• Write unique content: Provide insights that no other eBook offers.
• Format: PDF is the best.
• Editing: Fill your eBook with grammatical errors, and it’s doomed to fail.
• Cover design: It’s not just about the content. An attractive cover is also key to success.

Once you’ve written your eBook, you need to sell it. Targeting everyone is not the best approach. You’re more likely to be successful if you can identify a market.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Idea for your eBook

Time: Your eBook could earn you an income within a couple of months

Tools: Editing tool, blog, or publishing platform

Income Potential: $$10,/ month

Sell Stuff on Amazon FBA

Amazon is one of the largest online stores. We’ve already looked at creating your eCommerce store, and this idea is kind of similar, but in this case, you’re using Amazon’s platform. It’s a cost-effective way of shipping your products and allows you to provide excellent customer service for a small fee.

An excellent approach is to determine which products sell well on the platform and look for cheaper versions you can rebrand and resell. The selling process couldn’t be more straightforward. You send your items to Amazon, and they’re stored in one of their fulfillment centers.

Potential customers can purchase your items via Amazon or another eCommerce platform. When things are sold, Amazon picks, packs, and ships the items. You can monitor everything via Amazon’s tracking system. Amazon provides excellent customer service and manages any returns.

Such a service isn’t free. The fulfillment fees are rather complicated, but there are plenty of online resources that explain how to calculate the costs.

What to Sell to Make Money on Amazon FBA

You can sell pretty much anything, from items you’ve got lying around your home to expensive, luxury jewelry, but some things sell better than others.

A definite no-no would be well-known brand-name products. Amazon customers tend to be looking for decent products that look like they tick all the boxes and are being sold at a low price.

However, for your items to catch buyers’ eyes, they have to be similar but better than all the rest. List it under your name, for example, and add something extra that other sellers don’t. Better overall service, faster shipping, or a product listing that catches the eye are just a few examples.

Here are some more criteria to bear in mind:

• Products should be niche-specific.
• Items between $10 and $15 tend to sell better.
• Products that are lightweight and small are easier to ship.
• Brand the products as your own.
• Avoid products that are seasonal.
• Your product should solve a problem or address a need.
• Look for quality products from reliable suppliers.
• Choose items in a popular category, for example:
  • Books
  • Baby
  • Beauty
  • Accessories and clothing
  • Electronics
  • Outdoors and gardening
  • Fitness
  • Kitchen and home
  • Health
  • Toys
  • Jewelry

Level of expertise: beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: products to sell, computer, and customers for your products

Time: You could earn an income within six months

Tools: Amazon account or your eCommerce site

Income Potential: $$,/month

Buy and Sell Domain Names

In the modern tech-centric world, domain names are big business. In some cases, they can change hands for millions of dollars. At the very least, you can expect a few hundred dollars if you find a solid domain name that’s up for sale.

Don’t expect to turn a profit for several months, as it can take a considerable amount of time to build a top-quality portfolio of domains. How much profit you make depends on how much work you’re prepared to put in. Buying and selling domain names involves trying to predict what’s going to be popular a few months or years down the line.

Another option is to purchase some domains that are already high profile and hang on to them for a while, hoping that their value will increase. There are lots of different tools you can use, such as Just Dropped, Namecheap, Flippa, GoDaddy. Once you’ve purchased the domain, you simply relist it and wait for someone to be interested so you can sell it to them for a profit.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Knowledge of domain names and what makes them attractive

Time: Anything from one month onwards

Tools: Account with a site that buys and sells domain names

Income Potential: $$1,/month

Freelance

Do you have a specific skill set? Is there something you can do that people would pay money for? There is currently a massive demand for freelancers. In a recent survey by PeoplePerHour, 60% of businesses who responded said they plan to use freelancers more this year. However, being your own boss is not as easy as it seems. Many sacrifices are required, and you have to put in a certain amount of effort when it comes to finding clients. All of which must be done before you can do the work.

There are also specific skills you’ll need to develop if you want to be successful. You’ll need to learn how to market yourself, pitch to potential clients, provide support, budget, and manage your time.

There’s also a tremendous amount of competition, which means you also need to think about a strategy. You’ll find plenty of resources to help you online, so don’t fret about it too much.

Let’s look at the steps you’ll need to take before moving on to the areas with the most potential.

Step 1: Choose your niche: something you’re passionate or knowledgeable about.

Step 2: Be specific about the services you provide.

Step 3: Build an impressive portfolio of your work.

Step 4: Define your customer base.

Step 5: Test the waters before you give up your day job.

Step 6: Hone your skills.

Step 7: Search for clients on popular freelance sites such as Upwork, Freelancer, Toptal, and Fiverr.

Be prepared to work harder than in your job, enjoy fewer vacations, work through holidays, and often into the night.

Now let’s look at some of the most popular niches for freelancers.

Web Development

Increasing demand for websites means jobs that revolve around this need are also on the rise. It’s a job that lends itself well to working from home because all you need is knowledge, a computer, and a reliable internet connection. The most popular jobs include front-end developing, back-end developing, and full-stack development.

Writing

Professional writers are highly sought after. This role involves writing content for clients’ websites that promotes their business and helps them stay relevant. How much money you make depends on the niche you choose and your skillset.

Graphic Design

Graphic design is a vast field so you’ll help potential customers by creating a portfolio, pitching to clients, and setting your rates according to your expertise. To hone your skills even further, consider taking certified courses and watching tutorials.

Digital Marketing

If you’ve got a creative mind, this might be the industry for you. Digital marketing plays a critical role in helping industries and brands stay relevant. There’s a variety of work available, even for the beginner. Opt for smaller projects such as social media posts and banners or more complex projects that require you to create a brand identity or manage a marketing campaign on social media.

Virtual Assistance

This is another area that’s becoming increasingly popular. Hiring one remote person to undertake a wide range of tasks such as receptionist, customer support, typist, admin, or email assistant saves money, especially for a small business with a tight budget. Work for several different companies, and you’ll be able to maximize your freelancing income.

Photography

Visuals have become equally important in the advertising industry and are considered to have as much influence as the written word. If you’re a photographer, you don’t have to limit yourself to covering weddings and events. It’s possible to earn money in food design and product photography disciplines, for example. You could also post your work on stock websites or sell editing presets.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Knowledge or skill that people are willing to pay for

Time: Instant

Tools: Your website or an account with a freelancing site

Income Potential: up to $80,/month

Teach English as a Virtual Tutor

It’s possible to teach English as a virtual tutor with no experience. However, you do have to be a fluent English speaker. Teaching English online has enjoyed rapid growth in demand and popularity. There are currently over a billion people currently learning English globally.

New online platforms and schools pop up regularly. Some require a bachelor’s degree, but others don’t. TEFL or ESL certification, however, is essential.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: No teaching experience is required, but you can earn more with a degree or teaching certification

Time: Instant

Tools: Account with an online teaching platform

Income Potential:  From $10/hour – $40/hour

Do Micro-Jobs on Amazon Mechanical Turk

You may not have heard of micro-jobs, but it’s a term used for straightforward jobs that generally require no technical skill. Amazon Mechanical Turk is an online platform where requesters (as they are known) post boring jobs that you can complete for minute sums of money.

The jobs are called HITs or Human Intelligence Tasks. These tasks tend to be things that algorithms or computers aren’t quite capable of doing or that humans do far more effectively.

You get to pick and choose which jobs you want to do and how much you do. The pay is anything from $ to $1 per HIT. HITs include:

• Transcription of audio recordings
• Researching data details
• Identification of objects in videos or photos
• Data deduplication

Unfortunately, there is a considerable amount of competition, and if you want to get your fair share of the work, you’ll need to use browser extensions and a suite of tools to lap up the best-paying jobs quickly.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: No experience or knowledge is required

Time: Instant, although it can take a couple of weeks to build up a decent amount of cash

Tools: Software that alerts you of the high-earning HITS

Income Potential: $ – $1,/month

Online Coaching

This is one opportunity that could eventually run itself if you wanted it to. Start a coaching program, and you’re creating a solid base for a business. One significant benefit of online coaching is that you can make good money very quickly. People tend to be more willing to pay a higher price for one-on-one or personalized programs.

Successful online coaches include Shana Recker, Tiffany Napper, and Christina Sambak.

You do, however, need to research your audience and understand what they want and need. Something else that’s very beneficial will be encouraging your clients to spread the word about your business.

A range of coaching platforms have sprung up, and they enable you to launch a highly scalable business model and not have to compromise on the effectiveness of your coaching.

The most popular coaching platforms include:

• Satori: This is an app that streamlines both the business management and coaching side of a business. It combines a business intelligence tool and CRM system, so you’ve got a 1-stop shop.
• CoachAccountable: This platform also covers essential administration tools to help with payments, scheduling sessions, coaching plans, and the sharing of documents.
• Nudge Coach: This platform’s focus is helping coaches keep their clients on track remotely and between sessions. It allows you to send clients the right message when needed and schedule notifications for the future.
• TrueCoach: Designed for fitness business and personal trainers who might want to launch remote training and coaching. It allows you to connect remotely with clients and share videos and workouts.
• Coach Catalyst: This platform is also for fitness businesses and personal trainers. It includes daily check-ins, which means clients are accountable between sessions. Coaches can monitor progress and offer additional motivation or attention if needed.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Knowledge or skill that people will be willing to pay for, technical knowledge for the platforms

Time: 6 months before you turn a profit

Tools: Coaching platform, website to market your services

Income Potential: $1, – $10,/month

Online Consultant

Individuals and businesses often reach out to consultants to help them reach their goals, especially when they have problems meeting in person because of a heavy schedule. Being a virtual consultant is a versatile career choice, and you could help your clients with a wide range of things, from marketing to searching for a job.

Consider what experience and skills you have and whether you’re able to deliver it online, and there will be people who want to pay for such a solution to their problems. Along with your experience, you’ll also need to do some research. This will allow you to focus on the right service to offer and how much you can expect your future clients to pay.

Once you’ve found a service, consider undertaking a beta group test. Use it as a learning experience, get feedback, and remember to ask for testimonials.

There’s a vast range of options when it comes to consulting. Check out the following options:

• PR consulting
• Marketing consultant
• Social media consulting
• Career coaching consultant
• Sustainability consultant
• Travel consulting
• Financial consultant
• Fitness/wellness consultant
• HR consulting
• IT/technology consultant
• Sales consultant
• Compliance consulting
• Legal consultant

If you’re not sure where to look for opportunities, try one of these legitimate websites:

• Clarity: This is a platform that concentrates mainly on start-ups. Any experts who want to offer their services here need to know business processes, entrepreneurship, or start-ups, for example.
• ExpertConnect: Based in New York, ExpertConnect is always looking for experts in healthcare, technology, life sciences, telecommunications, media, legal affairs, accounting, finance, real estate, retail, and consumer goods.
• Maven: According to Maven, it is the “Global Knowledge Marketplace” and has many experts from all industry fields and walks of life. Mavens, as the experts are known, include truck drivers, barbers, auto mechanics, farmers, and doctors.
• GLG: The clientele on this platform comes from many different industries, including technology, life sciences, investments, market research, and consumer goods. You’re able to set your rates depending on your experience, practice area, and designation.
• Zintro: You pay nothing to be a Zintro member, but you or your client must pay when you first connect via the platform. You don’t receive emails with consulting requests. Instead, you have to visit your Zintro inbox regularly.

Level of expertise: Intermediate, expert

Requirements: Experience and skills that people need and want to pay for

Time: At least a year before you make any profit

Tools: Consultancy platform, website to advertise your services

Income Potential: $ – $,/month

Join a Remote Company Part-Time (or Full-Time)

Perhaps you’d like a change of career, want to try something new, or would benefit from a scenery change. In such cases, working remotely can be a breath of fresh air as well as an excellent opportunity to earn some money on the side.

Many companies are looking for remote employees, and it doesn’t matter where you work from. According to Upwork, 22% of the American workforce will be working remotely by That’s an 87% increase compared to before the pandemic.  Start on a part-time basis, and you might like it so much you want to work full-time.

Look for possible options by checking out online career listings, or visit one of the following websites:

• SolidGigs
• Flexjobs
• Remote
• We Work Remotely

The types of remote jobs available vary considerably. Such positions might include being a designer or working in customer support.

It’s a simple case of finding a job you like and applying for it.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: The right skill for the job you’re applying for

Time: Instant

Tools: Knowledge and experience to help you secure the job

Income Potential: $20, – $,

Narrate Audiobooks to Make Money Online

The audiobook industry has experienced dramatic growth in recent years, which means there’s a significant demand for audiobook narrators. The popularity of audiobooks doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of % from to

There are no special qualifications for this online role, but you will need a great speaking voice and enjoy reading.

One of the quickest and easiest ways of starting your narrating career is to sign up with a platform connecting authors with audiobook narrators. Here are some examples of where to look:

• ACX
• Voices
• Audible
• Brilliance Audio
• www.oldyorkcellars.com

You’re going to need to invest in some good recording software and a top-quality microphone. Start by creating some samples so that potential clients can hear your voice.

Another good place to look for work is Upwork. This freelancing website will help you expand your reach.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Love of reading and a great voice

Time: Instant

Tools: Recording software, a good quality microphone, somewhere quiet to make the recordings

Income Potential: $ – $/finished hour

Make Money with Online Surveys

This option will not make you rich, but it is a way of earning prizes or fast cash and not worrying about learning a new skill. You can do this job in your spare time. The work is effortless, and most online survey sites require little or no skill or education.

Some survey websites pay more than you might expect, but even so, don’t expect your earnings to be in anything more than double figures.

You have to sign up at an online survey site and provide certain information, including your interests and background. With that information, the platforms can match you up with the most appropriate surveys.

The most popular survey sites online include:

• Swagbucks
• I-say
• Pinecone Research
• Pro Opinion
• SendEarnings

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate

Requirements: None

Time: Instant

Tools: Smartphone

Income Potential: $1 – $20/hour

Test Websites

Website testing is an invaluable resource for companies that might have invested vast amounts in their company website design. On average, the upfront cost of launching and designing a website is $12, to $,To test a website, you have to access, use, and analyze the website. You then have to provide feedback on the experience, how the website functioned and whether it was appealing or not.

A company’s website plays an integral part in its success. Websites are a very effective way of reaching, engaging, and converting online customers. It’s no wonder companies take website testing so seriously.

The amount of money you can potentially earn is not really large enough for this to be a full-time career. However, it’s a good way of supplementing your current income.

You sign up with a testing platform, and you’ll be informed when opportunities are available, either by email or by visiting the online platform. If you’re interested in taking part in any of the tests, you have to claim them and wait to be given access. Other users will be competing for the opportunities, and for the more popular company websites, competition could be fierce.

There are many online platforms you can use to look for testing tasks. The more popular ones include:

• UserTesting
• IntelliZoomPanel
• Userlytics
• Enroll
• TryMyUI

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate

Requirements: Good eye for website design

Time: Instant

Tools: Website testing platform

Income Potential: $10/hour with the occasional opportunity to make more

Make Money Writing on Sites

Do you like the sound of getting paid to write from home? You don’t need a vast amount of experience, but you do need to be able to string words together if you want to get paid for your efforts. There’s an abundance of websites and blogs that will pay you to follow guidelines and deliver good quality content.

There are many benefits to writing online. No upfront investment is required, and there are no start-up fees. You can expect to be paid relatively quickly, and there’s no shortage of writing gigs.

You might find yourself writing reviews, tutorials, how-to articles, or lists, and the subject matter could be anything, from travel and web design to parenting, health, and wellness.

Some blogs and websites pay writers on a revenue-share model, but that’s not the case in the following list. You can expect to receive an agreed-upon fee in exchange for every article you write that is accepted. This is a small selection of the sites that pay you to write.

• Textbroker
• iWriter
• Writer Access
• Upwork
• Problogger
• www.oldyorkcellars.com
• Fiverr
• WordAgents
• Verblio
• Writers Domain
• People per Hour

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Good English language skills, knowledge of grammar and punctuation

Time: Instant

Tools: Writing software such as Google Docs or Microsoft Office, grammar checking tool

Income Potential: $10 – $/article

Make Money Typing

Gone are the days of rooms full of typists tip-tapping away. There’s no longer a need for such services because most people are half-decent typists themselves. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a need for experiences and better than decent typists. Thanks to the internet, it’s now a job you can do anywhere.

You don’t need lots of equipment, and the only requirement is that you complete assignments on time. Another benefit is that you can start making money instantly, whenever you’ve got the free time, or make it into a full-time career.

A range of typing jobs are available, but the majority fall into the following categories:

• Transcription: With this type of work, you’ll be typing audio recordings. It might be lectures, dictation, phone messages, conference calls, workshops, speeches, podcasts, interviews, webinars, or videos. Within this category, there are specializations such as legal transcription and corporate/financial transcription.
• Medical transcription: This role requires specialist training and certification as it involves transcribing dictation made by physicians or medical practitioners.
• Captioning: A captioner works off live video rather than recorded audio. Fast typing speeds are a requirement and accuracy and stenography equipment.

Level of expertise: Intermediate, expert

Requirements: Excellent spelling, punctuation, grammar, and typing skills,

Time: Instant

Tools: Sign up with a typing website, computer with a large monitor, headphones, foot pedal

Income Potential: $7 – $50/hour

Sell Your Art and Designs

A very popular way to make money online is to sell your art and designs. If you’ve got a good eye for design or consider yourself an artist, it’s possible to sell what you create online and also make money.

There are lots of websites that specialize in this kind of product. You’ll get help creating your shop on the platform, uploading your art or designs, marketing your products, along selling and shipping orders.

Where you decide to sell your designs and art online depends on what you want to sell. A wide range of platforms is available for selling everything from drawings and paintings to woodworking and crafts.

Here are some of the best we’ve found:

• Etsy: This site has a massive following, making it a great place to sell your art. You have to pay listing fees, and the competition is intense, but it’s worth checking out. To make your art stand out, you’ll need to include high-quality images.
• Artfinder: This online marketplace is where independent artists sell their work. You can sell paintings, sculptures, photographs, and much more. The site is aimed at high-end collectors, but that does mean you can charge more for your art. You have to apply to Artfinder if you want to sell your art. Applications are reviewed for originality and quality.
• Big Cartel: Big Cartel charges a flat monthly fee and doesn’t take a percentage from your sales.
• Storeenvy: This platform is entirely free, which makes it a great starting point.
• ArtPal: No upfront fees have to be paid. Instead, ArtPal takes 5% from any sales you make.
• Artmajeur: This site is based in France but sells art globally. Commission rates are a little steep, but you can list various items, including sculptures, drawings, multimedia, paintings, and photography.
• Society6: You can use this site to sell reproductions of art or get your designs or art printed on various items. Simply upload your photography or artwork, and you can have it printed onto everything from iPhone cases to art prints.

You can also use Facebook, Instagram, Patreon, or Shopify.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Artistic flare or a good eye for design

Time: Up to 12 months to make a liveable profit

Tools: Arts and crafts materials

Income Potential: $50 – $10,/month

Become a YouTuber and Make Money From It

When people are looking for entertaining, informative, or fun videos, millions of people around the world turn to YouTube. As well as being one of the largest search engines globally, YouTube is also a way to make money online.

The first step is to get an audience for your YouTube channel. The bigger, the better. A larger following can earn you some serious cash. Your audience, the better chance you have of making some serious cash. There are several ways you can monetize your YouTube channel.

• Become a Partner and Earn Cash From Ads
• Sell Merchandise or products
• Crowdfund
• Fan Funding
• License Your Channel’s Content
• Work as an Affiliate or Influencer

The two types of YouTube channels that achieve the best following are:

• Educational content: Think of these as “How to” videos. You can make this type of video if you’ve got information or valuable skills that will interest others.
• Entertaining content: This style of the video includes pranks, reviews, comedy videos, game walkthroughs, and much more.

Level of expertise: Intermediate, expert

Requirements: YouTube channel with lots of followers/subscribers

Time: It can take at least 12 months to realize a profit

Tools: Monetized YouTube account

Income Potential: $5 – $5,/YouTube video

Become an Influencer on Instagram

Instagram has been around for more than a decade. From very humble beginnings, it has grown into being one of the biggest social media platforms. In the third quarter of , it was estimated that there were billion Instagram users. One of the main reasons it’s become so popular is that it’s completely free.

It’s possible to make money from Instagram quite easily, but you will need a large enough following. There are companies out there that are willing to pay Instagrammers money. It might be for showcasing a product or making a post.

How much you’ll get paid for a post kind of depends on how engaged your followers are and how many of them there are. Remuneration ranges from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand, just for one post.

To be able to charge a few thousand for a post will take a certain amount of time, patience, and dedication. First, you’ve got to build up a sizable audience. It shouldn’t be a problem if you enjoy taking photographs, however. You’ll also need to spend lots of time using your phone and be a dedicated Instagrammer. If you can tick all these boxes, it’s got to be worth trying.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: Understanding of posting on Instagram

Time: 12 months or more to gain a good following, longer to make a profit

Tools: Smartphone with a good camera

Income Potential: $50 – $5,/post

Make Money with Apps

There’s a good selection of apps that pay you money, whether you’re looking for a side hustle, something to fill your free time with, or part-time employment. However, even the best-paying ones out there aren’t likely to make you rich. That being said, they can provide a sizable secondary income.

Not every app will suit everyone, but if you’re interested, there’s sure to be one that gives you what you want. The process is very simple. You simply download the app, create a profile, possibly provide additional information, wait for verification, and then off you go.

Apps pay in several different ways. Some pay with rewards, payment vouchers, gifts, money-off, cashback, or coupons. A large number of them pay via PayPal, so you’ll need to have a PayPal account.

The earning potential of money-making apps depends on the amount of effort you put in. Do you, for example, want to earn some extra bucks when you’re lounging around at home or relaxing in your local coffee shop? Are you prepared to drive around, visit stores, meet people in person, or do manual labor?

What Apps Pay You Real Money?

If you’re looking for an app that pays real money, check out the following list:

• Ibotta: earn real money on online or in-store purchases in one of over 1, retail chains and brands. Offers are retailer or product-specific, some of which are applied automatically. Products you can buy include entertainment, clothing, pet supplies, groceries, and more.
• Rakuten: With this app, you’re rewarded with as much as 40% cash-back when you make purchases from well-known restaurants, food delivery services, and retailers. To increase your earnings, you can link a debit or credit card and earn cashback when you buy in-store instead of online.
• Swagbucks: Earn your Swagbucks shopping, playing games, watching videos, and any number of other tasks. You can redeem the points you earn for cash into a PayPal account.
• Cointiply: This is a micro-task website where you sign up and receive free bitcoins in exchange for various tasks. These might be installing apps, filling in surveys, viewing apps, playing games, or much more.
• Doordash: if you’ve got a bike or vehicle, Doordash pays you for delivering food. More than , restaurants located in over cities use this app for providing food to customers.
• Shipt: This app is similar to DoorDash, but you are paid for delivering groceries in this case.
• Shopkick: To earn money from this app, you’ll need to pick from various tasks that tend to revolve around visiting a store and shopping. It’s also a mystery shopping app that pays you for visiting stores and checking whether specific products are in stock.
• Mercari: Choose Mercari if you’ve got loads of stuff you want to sell. It’s an online marketplace for new and used items for sale across the US.
• Poshmark: Poshmark is an app for anyone with clothing to sell. Millions of users visit the platform, and listing your items is free.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate

Requirements: PayPal account for receiving payments

Time: Instant

Tools: An account with one or more money-making apps

Income Potential: $5 – $/week

Make Money on Your Phone

You don’t need a fancy computer to make money. You can make upward of 3k just by using your smartphone. What’s even better is that you won’t need to leave home to do it. The internet has made it super easy, and with smartphones having enough computer power to run a small country, there are numerous ways you can make money from home.

Lots of the options will bring in small amounts of cash, which we’ve already looked at. In this short section, you’ll find out about the more lucrative ways.

• Make a profit from flipping stuff: If you’re the kind of person who has an eye for hidden treasures and deals at garage sales or thrift stores, this could be the option for you. When you flip things, you’re selling items you got free or discounted for profit.
• Make smart investments with Acorns: If you’re interested in making money by investing, Acorns is a fantastic option, especially for beginners. When you buy something with your credit or debit card, Acorn rounds it up and invests the difference. It’s just a small change, but you’ll be surprised at how quickly it adds up.
• Sell books online: There’s a massive market for used books and textbooks. Sites such as  Bookscouter help you sell any books you’ve got or books you buy cheaply, for real cash.
• Play games and get paid: If you enjoy passing the time playing games, check out Dabbl. Play fun and simple interactive games and earn money. We’ll look at some other ways to make money playing games in the next section.
• Rover: Get paid to play with dogs, pet-sit, walk dogs, and more. Use your phone to set your rates and plan your schedule.

Level of expertise: Beginner

Requirements: Smartphone

Time: Instant

Tools: Sign up with the app

Income Potential: Up to $3, annually

Make Money Playing Games

Would you believe me if I told you that making money playing games is possible? It might sound like a sketchy idea, but it is possible. It’s not something that’s going to make you rich, but you could easily earn an extra k if you’ve got the time and inclination.

Can You Really Make Money Playing Games on Your Phone?

Yes, you can, and there are dozens of apps that reward you when you play games. There are a few games-for-cash sites that are sketchy, so you have to be careful. However, some are totally worth it.

Here is a list of the top games apps that hand out real money.

• Coin Pop: Collect points when you try out and play different games. The longer you play, the more points you earn. Redeem your points for Amazon vouchers or cash.
• MistPlay: Earn credits for playing selected games. You earn more the longer you play and bonus units when you reach higher levels or play at specific times. You cash out for a Mastercard or Visa payment, Amazon payments, or some other gift card.
• Fit Play: Once you’ve downloaded the app, you’ll get a list of games you can play for points. Build up your points and then redeem them for gift cards or cash into PayPal.
• Qmee: Primarily, Qmee is a survey app, but there is a section where you can earn money by playing games.
• Make Money – iOS: Lots of tasks available, some of which include playing a game you’ve downloaded to a certain level.
• Ysense: Earn cash rewards for trying different games. You need to meet certain conditions to receive your rewards, such as collecting a specified number of points or reaching a certain level.
• InstaGC: The payment threshold is really low, so you could cash out earnings as small as $1.
• Earnably: Play games for free and get paid to do it. Cashout is speedy via gift card or PayPal.

Level of expertise: Beginners

Requirements: Smartphone

Time: Instant

Tools: Sign up with the app

Income Potential: Up to $k annually

Sell Stock Photos to Make Money Online

Is your passion for taking pictures? Why not make some money at the same time? There are several different sites where you can upload your photos. The benefit of using these sites is that their user base is massive. Every time someone operates and licenses the images, you’re paid for the privilege.

Many people start selling their stock photos only to fall after a couple of months because they’re not earning enough. To make a consistent amount of money, you must upload images of the highest quality, research what sells, and then create the pictures you know people will buy. It also helps if you upload images as often as you can. The more extensive your portfolio, the better chance you have of success.

Some of the most well-known stock photography sites include:

How to Make Money Selling Photos of Yourself

Did you know all those selfies you’re taking could make you some cash? Agencies and companies are willing to pay top dollar for them because they can significantly impact businesses and brands.

If you can take good shots of yourself and know the best places to sell them, it is possible to make money. Options for selling your selfies online include the usual stock websites, via a website of your own, via a blog, or by running a contest or giveaway.

Some of the best websites for selling images of yourself include:

• Scoopshot
• Stylinity
• Foap
• Pay Your Selfie
• SmugMug

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate

Requirements: A good eye for taking a quality photograph

Time: A few months for people to find your images

Tools: Smartphone or digital camera, editing software

Income Potential: $ – $/month

Watch Videos and Get Paid

Wouldn’t it be great to get paid for watching videos? Well, the good news is that you can. It’s also a lot easier than you think.

There are loads of options. Here is just a small selection:

• Write film subtitles on a freelance basis, and if you speak another language, you could charge extra for your services.
• Become a TV and film reviewer – There are even opportunities to make this a full-time career. It’s a very competitive business, so you might need to charge low rates to start.
• Watch movie trailers and ads for money – Sites such as iRazoo, InboxDollars, and  Vindale Research pay you for completing elementary tasks, such as answering surveys and playing games. You can also get paid for watching cooking tutorials, short films, app adverts, and movie trailers.
• Get paid for watching ads on SuccessBux – The minimum payout is a mere $1, and it is paid via PayPal. Other options if you like the sound of watching ads include Swagbucks, ibotta, and Nielsen TV Ratings.
• Sign up with TV-TWO, and you can get paid in cryptocurrency – You’re paid for watching videos, but in this case, you have to earn a massive amount of credits, 50,, before you’re able to ask for a payout.
• Charge companies for promoting their videos – It helps if you’ve got a good following, but it’s not essential.

Level of expertise: Beginner

Requirements: Laptop or mobile device for watching the videos

Time: Instant

Tools: Sign up with the relevant app

Income Potential: $50 – $/month

Rent Your Home or Room on Airbnb

Do you own your own home? Is there a room in your home you don’t currently use? A great way to earn a passive income is to rent out your spare room. Thanks to a platform known as Airbnb, an increasing number of people are doing just that. Some people choose to rent their whole house. According to recent data analysis, there are million Airbnb hosts worldwide.

Airbnb is a very flexible option because you’re given the freedom to choose when and how often you rent out your space. The rental rules are also your responsibility, as is the daily rental rate.

Source

Renting a room or your house to strangers may leave you feeling a little uneasy. Airbnb, however, does provide insurance should anything occur. If you need additional reassurance, AirBnB does operate a renter’s rating system. Check out a person’s AirBnB reputation before you let them stay.

Level of expertise: Intermediate, Expert

Requirements: A room or a property that’s suitable to rent

Time: Instant

Tools: Register with AirBnB and follow the host standards

Income Potential: an average of $/month

Look After Other People’s Pets

Believe it or not, there is a massive demand for responsible and reliable pet sitters. One essential thing is that you have to love pets. Typically, it would be cats and dogs you’d be caring for, but potentially, it could be anything from a parrot to tropical fish.

Pet sitting is very similar to babysitting, but you’ll be looking after a beloved pet rather than a child in this case. It depends on the job, but you could look after the pet in your own home or the home of the owner.

If you don’t think you’ll be able to commit to caring for a pet over several days or longer, other options are possible. Perhaps you could be a dog walker or keep a pet company while their owner works.

There are several pet sitting websites where you can look for work, for example:

• www.oldyorkcellars.com
• Tailster
• Cat in a Flat
• Rover
• Pawshake
• Trusted Housesitters

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: You have to be an animal lover, be patient, and be empathic for animals

Time: Work on getting a good reputation, and you could turn a profit in a couple of months

Tools: Certification will help you get better-paid jobs, insurance should anything go wrong

Income Potential: $10 – $25/hour

Make Money Online with Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a program that lets you run ads on your website, YouTube videos, or blog. You are paid when someone clicks on the ad. Businesses using the Google AdWords program generate the ads, and you feed them by using an AdSense code.

If your website or blog is new, Google AdSense is one of the quickest ways to generate an income.

The program is free, and the eligibility requirements are simple. You get a wide range of ad options to choose from, some of which you’re able to customize to complement the feel and look of your site.

Payments made to you by Google are made by direct deposit every month. You’re not limited to running ads on just one website, and you can also run ads on RSS feeds and mobile devices. You have to meet specific Google requirements to include the ads on your website, blog, or YouTube channel.

Your website, for example, has to have at least 30 pages of content that’s unique, is three months old, and generates traffic. The better the traffic, the higher your potential for earning.

Level of expertise: Intermediate, expert

Requirements: Website, blog, or YouTube channel that meets Google requirements, some technical knowledge

Time: You can start earning as soon as your site is approved

Tools: It’s easier to display ads if you use a platform such as WordPress

Income Potential: $ – $15/click

Hobbies That Make Money Online

If you’ve got a hobby or two, did you realize you could be making money doing something you love? You may not have got into your hobby with the intention of making money, but some have the potential to become money streams if you’re serious enough.

Want to know what the most lucrative hobbies are? Keep reading for the ultimate list.

• Writing: Besides earning you money, publishing and writing online is also a great way to further your career or become an established expert. Freelance on sites like Fiverr or Upwork or write your blog.
• Design and illustration: this creative hobby can also make you money on a freelance basis. There are always potential clients on Fiverr, for example. Another option is to put your illustrations or designs on items like posts, canvases, or t-shirts. Choose a print-on-demand service, and you don’t need money upfront for an inventory.
• Cooking: Start a foodie blog to showcase your creations. Create a YouTube channel and teach people how to cook. Dive headfirst into your food hobby by creating cooking products or food.
• Music: Record and sell your albums or songs. Platforms like SoundCloud are good places to sell what you record. Creating beats or samples is another money-making musical hobby.
• DIY crafts: Crafting can be a very profitable hobby. There is an endless number of things you could make and sell. For example, jewelry, bath bombs, soap, wooden puzzles, candles, and many more.
• Gardening: With more people spending time at home, gardening has seen a significant increase in popularity. As well as making you healthier and happier, this hobby could also make you richer.
• Photography: You could become a freelance photographer, but for a side hustle that’s more scalable, why not sell your photos as prints or stock images?.
• Comedy: If you’ve got a good sense of humor and enjoy making people laugh, have you thought about using this talent to make money? It’s possible to amass large audiences by curating viral videos, memes, or tapping into a humorous niche.

Level of expertise: Beginner, intermediate, expert

Requirements: an interest or hobby with the potential to monetize

Time: Once you’ve made the items, you could be selling for a profit within a few weeks

Tools: These will depend on the hobby

Income Potential: $10, – $,/annum

How to Make Money Online for Beginners

You’ve probably all heard the stories of people making it big by traveling around the world. The laptop lifestyle, as it has become known, is a dream for many people. And it could be for you if you’ve got an internet connection and good cell reception.

There is an endless number of legitimate ways to make money online. However, if you’re just starting, you need to set your sites in certain areas. If you’re a complete beginner, here are some possibilities you might want to explore.

Selling Your Old Stuff

Have you heard people talking about the latest minimalist movement? The goal is to declutter not only your home but your mind and your life. It’s also an excellent opportunity to earn some extra cash. If you really can’t bear to part with some of your belongings, there’s always the option to rent them out instead.

Paid for searching the web

There is an endless number of companies that will happily pay you to use the internet. Ask Wonder, for example, is a company that pays a flat fee for the answer to a burning question. The answer must be thoroughly researched.

Review websites & apps for cash

This is a very similar gig to completing surveys, but in this case, you’re testing websites, apps, and other types of software. You have to actively participate in using the products you’re reviewing, pay attention, and provide continuous feedback.

Become a ‘Clickworker’

There are many ways you can become a clickworker. The company is always looking for people who can correct or create texts, search or categorize data, or take part in surveys.

Review music for money

Did you realize you could get paid for listening to music and writing a review? Sign up to one of several websites, and review music from upcoming songwriters and singers. All you have to do is listen and then give your opinion. The more music you review, the bigger the reward. Musicxray, Playlist Push, and www.oldyorkcellars.com are just a few possible sites.

Become a Twitch Streamer

Twitch is the streaming channel of choice for millions of gamers. Become an influencer on this platform, and you can earn income in various ways, but the best way to start is by becoming a Twitch Affiliate. To move things up to another level, you’ll need to work on improving your streaming skills and building a following.

Become an Extreme Couponer

When you use one or two coupons every week, it helps you save a small amount of money. Become an extreme couponer, on the other hand, and you could save a whole lot more. To become an extreme couponer, you’ll need to diligently scour magazines, newspapers, and online sites for as many coupons as you can find.

Match these coupons up with promotions and sales to maximize the amount you save. If you get good at it, you could even get some products for free.

Become a TikTok Consultant

TikTok has gained a lot of interest recently, with some people going viral overnight. With a concept that’s still in the early days of its success, there are many opportunities for monetizing. Become a pro on TikTok, and you could turn your hand to consulting. By leveraging your expertise, you’ll be able to help people who are looking for TikTok fame.

Data Entry

An online role in data entry will involve inputting information into a spreadsheet or scanning documents into an online program. No specialist knowledge is required, and it’s an easy way to make money online and from your home.

Level of expertise: Beginner

Requirements: None

Time: Instant

Tools: A laptop or a smartphone

Income Potential: $ – $,/month

FAQs

What are some fast ways to make money?

If you need to make some cash in a short space of time, there are many options. Answer questions in online surveys, get paid for searching the web, or review apps and websites for cash.

How can I make $ a week?

It might sound like a lot, but an extra $ a week is a negligible amount to earn. Become a virtual assistant, try freelance writing, sell on Etsy or Amazon FBA, sell in Fiverr, or become an Uber driver.

How can I make $ a day?

You will have to put in some effort to earn this amount of money, but it is doable. Here are a few examples: take part in research, get paid for completing surveys, become a shopper, teach kids online, or drive people around.

How can I make 1 dollar a day?

$1 a day might not sound like much, but add that up over one year and that’s an extra $ in your pocket. Luckily, there are heaps of legitimate ways to earn that one dollar, and they should take a tremendous amount of time. Survey sites, such as SwagBucks, Zap Surveys, and Branded Surveys, are just a few examples.

How can you get free money?

In our digital age, there are a ton of ways to earn free money. Free money includes rewards or cash bonuses. It’s free because you don’t have to trade hours of labor in exchange.

How can I get money without a job?

All the opportunities in this article are possible without a job. All it takes is a certain amount of effort, and it won’t be long before you’re earning some cash. After a while, you may find the work so interesting that you want to do it full-time and become a freelancer.

What will make money in the future? [What’s the next big money maker?]

Here are a few ideas:

• Start a blog
• Sell your products online
• Become an app developer
• Start a membership site
• Invest across all markets
• Peer-to-peer lending

Conclusion

Whether you want to make a few extra bucks as a sideline, discover a way to escape your 9 to 5, or start your own business, there are endless opportunities when it comes to making money online.

You can start with little or no investment or use your savings to get things off the ground. In the list, there are possibilities for the complete beginner right through to expert.

There really is something for everyone.

Regardless of whether you're looking for full-time income or just some extra money on the side, there are plenty of ways to make money while working from home. There are many benefits to making money from home, such as having the flexibility to make your own schedule and enjoy a strong work-life balance.

Reviewing ideas for how to make money at home can help you determine which you're most interested in pursuing. In this article, we discuss 95 ideas on how to make money at home.

How to make money at home

Here are 20 ideas that you may want to consider for how to make money at home:

1. Become a virtual assistant

A virtual assistant is someone who provides administrative services to clients from a remote location, such as a home office. Virtual assistants handle a variety of different responsibilities for their clients, including making travel plans, performing online research and checking emails.

Read more:How To Become a Virtual Assistant

2. Pet sitting

If you enjoy animals, then you may want to consider pet sitting. This is a good way to earn money directly from your own home. You will need to invest in marketing and commercial insurance. You may also want to speak with an accountant or bookkeeper as well as a lawyer to discuss liability.

3. Sell your own items online

Survey your home and look for items that you no longer use. You can then list those items on different e-commerce sites to find buyers. To get the best sales, it's important to take clear, high-resolution photos of your pieces. Perform research online to find how much similar items are being sold for and then price your own items competitively.

4. Tutor students online

Leverage your experience in specific subjects or your SAT or ACT knowledge to offer online tutoring to students. Promote your services in area schools and find students who have a need for your services. You can only apply to work for established online tutoring services.

Read more:Learn About Being a Tutor

5. Start a blog

If there's a topic that you're particularly interested in, you could start a blog and promote it on social media to attract an audience who wants to learn about that topic. If you draw a large enough audience with your blog, you can make money from advertising.

Read more:How To Start a Blog

6. Sell services online

There are lots of online sites where specialists can offer their services on a contract or per-project basis. Some different types of services you could offer are graphic design, website design, link building, programming, animation or video creation.

7. Create sales funnels

Many businesses use automated sales funnels to promote and sell their products and services. That said, many other business owners are unaware of how sales funnels could help grow their business. Consider starting your own business selling sales funnels. There are a lot of tools you could use to build them at a low cost.

8. Sell consulting services

Another way to make money online while working from home is through consulting. If you're particularly skilled in a certain field, you may be able to find people who would pay you to offer them advice on their business or personal goals. One way to show others how much knowledge you have to offer is to launch and promote your own blog.

You can use social media to promote your content for a low cost or even for free. After gaining a few clients, you may be able to rapidly grow your business through word-of-mouth marketing. You can meet with clients virtually and schedule those appointments at times that meet your own needs.

9. Launch an online store

E-commerce is very popular right now. While major e-commerce retailers have the majority of the market share, consumers are also looking for great deals online. Consider launching a sales funnel for yourself to drive traffic and buyers to your products and services.

Sell your expertise by offering webinars

Webinars are a great way to sell your products, as they are highly effective and follow a specific format and template. Once you learn how to deliver effective webinars, you can achieve great success in this space, delivering enormous value for your attendees and demonstrating how much additional value they would receive if they purchased your product or service.

Manage the social media accounts of small businesses

Small businesses often need help managing their social media profiles and many prefer to pay someone to help for only a few hours per week, as opposed to having someone managing social media full time.

Learn about the different social media sites and identify one or two that you want to specialize in. Then identify a specific industry that you want to work in. Finally, reach out to different businesses in your area who you recognize you can most help.

Create online courses

If you have a marketable skill that others would be interested in mastering for themselves, then consider making your own online course. There are many sites that you can use to build your course. However, once it's created and launched, online courses can be a great source of passive income.

Sell affiliate marketing offers

Affiliate marketing is an easy way to earn income by selling the products and services that other people create, particularly if you have a website with a large amount of quality traffic already. There are a number of websites available that promote affiliate offers. Take the time to understand your audience and what they're most interested in and then search to identify the right offer and present it to your audience.

Launch a podcast

A podcast is another great method for sharing your expertise with an audience. The key to success with a podcast is to find a specific niche and then providing them with great content to grow your audience. Once you have built a large audience and are receiving a large number of downloads per episode, you can then look for ways to monetize your podcast, such as selling advertisements.

While you may have to do some research in order to learn how to create, edit and promote a podcast, if you are an expert on a particular topic, it's an idea that's worth considering.

Get a babysitting job

Babysitting is another great option for making money from home. Word-of-mouth referrals are a great way to get started babysitting, although there are also a number of websites that you can use to promote your babysitting services for free. To make yourself more appealing to families, you may want to consider getting relevant certifications, such as a CPR certification.

Test websites

Another way to make money from home is by using sites that pay you for your insight into how well a specific website worked. In most cases, you have to pass a test to be accepted and then you will be paid for each test you perform. You may even have the option of earning additional compensation to participate in a video discussion with the customer after completing the test.

Perform data entry

If you have quick and accurate typing skills, then you may want to consider taking an online data entry job. These positions can usually be performed easily online and can offer consistent income.

Work as a freelance writer

Companies are often aiming for high-quality content to boost their ranking in search engines. If you have strong writing skills, this may be a path that you want to consider. If you don't have an online portfolio with published writing already, you may want to consider offering to write a few pieces for free in order to build a portfolio

Offer proofreading services

If you enjoy reading, you may want to consider a job as a freelance proofreader. Depending on whether you have a degree currently, you may want to consider investing in a proofreading course to earn credibility with potential clients. You could offer your services to independent clients or even search for companies hiring full-time proofreaders.

Rent out a room in your home

Listing a spare bedroom on a vacation rental website can provide easy income that you can make at home. It is important to spend time keeping your property and home clean. To ensure you maintain % occupancy, consider renting your home on multiple different sites.

Make sure the rooms are fully furnished and include the cost of utilities and perhaps even breakfast in the rental price. You may also want to consider upgrading your internet service to offer the fastest possible internet speed for guests.

Other ideas for how to make money at home

Here are 65 other ideas that you may want to consider as you look for ways to make money at home:

1. Build and then monetize an online community through a membership or product sales

2. Participate in online surveys

3. Sign up for free gift cards online

4. Rate pizzas online

5. Review products

6. Create a website, generate traffic and collect leads to sell to other companies or individuals

7. Work for online retailers

8. Earn commissions as an online travel agent

9. Sell lesson plans

10. Rent your clothes online

11. Offer calligraphy services for wedding invitations, cards and other stationery

12. Play games online and compete for rewards

13. Participate in an online focus group

14. Sell your used books online

15. Write and sell a book

16. Sell social media posts or ads on social media accounts or a blog

17. Evaluate search engines by performing searches, analyzing the results and giving feedback to the search engines based on the relevance of the search results

18. Create videos and earn money through advertising

19. Offer at-home daycare

20. Provide transcriptionist services

21. Rent your music equipment or studio space

22. Sell baked goods

23. Rent your parking space

24. Buy items from a flea market or yard sale, restore them and sell them online

25. Sell your old cell phone

26. Shop online and earn cash for your purchases

27. Sell your troubleshooting skills

28. Sell your own photography on stock photo sites

29. Fill out online surveys

30. Start a dog walking business

31. Launch a virtual bookkeeping business

32. Offer political advocacy services

33. Sell translation services on freelance platforms

34. Sell your crafts online

35. Obtain a remote technical support role

36. Start an at-home alteration of custom sewing business

37. Sell your unused space as storage space for people who want to pay less than the cost of a storage unit

38. Rent out a room in your home

39. Rent out your car to travelers or people who don't own their own vehicle

40. Rent your driveway, parking space or street slot

41. Sell your gently used clothing

42. Trade in electronics for cash

43. Sell unused gift cards

44. Test mobile applications

45. Become a social media influencer

46. Sign up as an online mystery shopper

47. Work virtually for a company

48. Grow and sell your own produce

49. Become a voice-over artist

50. Create your own mobile application

51. Teach online music lessons

52. Design and sell t-shirts online

53. Create video reviews

54. Pursue a medical coding and billing position

55. Manage a website

56. Offer online or social media advertising services

57. Offer search engine optimization services

58. Start a mini salon in your home

59. Invest in real estate

60. Participate in online market research

61. Create and sell woodworking projects

62. Fix search engine mistakes

63. Sell your junk mail

64. Cook for special occasions

65. Create an audiobook

66. Get paid to exercise

67. Perform meal preparation for others

68. Create a dropshipping business

69. Create and sell access to an online course

70. Teach yoga online

71. Online market trading

72. Review music for money

73. Sell your notes

74. Buy and sell domain names

75. Work as a charity collector

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, millions of office-based Americans abruptly transitioned to full-time work-from-home arrangements, ostensibly on a temporary basis.

But according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, more than half of those who began working from home during the pandemic actually prefer remote employment. More than three-quarters have adequate workspaces and at-home business technology, according to Pew, and more than half enjoy flexible scheduling that allows them to stop and start work at their discretion.

Even before the pandemic, employers were offering ever more flexible work arrangements in a bid to attract younger workers who prefer the freedom to perform their duties from just about anywhere. COVID pushed remote employment into the mainstream, hard. But these days, you don&#;t even have to have a traditional 9-to-5 job to take advantage of the work-from-home trend.

Whether your goal is to build a sustainable passive income stream or simply earn a few extra bucks to complement your part- or full-time income, all you need to work from home is a computer, a quiet space, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to follow these tips for working from home more efficiently.

Legitimate Work-From-Home Opportunities (How to Make Money Working from Home)

The following are a variety of legitimate ways to earn extra income, get a second job, launch a full-time solo career, or start your own small business — all from the comfort of your own home.

Some of these opportunities build upon hobbies that you might already pursue without economic gain. Just take care to avoid distressingly common work-from-home scams that can actually cost you money.

1. Financial Empowerment Apps: Find New Income Streams

Whether you already have an at-home side hustle (or full-fledged business) or you&#;re still exploring ways to earn more on your own time, you need Steady — a financial empowerment app that connects you with opportunities to increase and diversity your income.

Steady Members earn more than $5, extra each year, according to the app, and Steady has already paid more than $10 million in cash incentives. It&#;s helped Members earn at least $4 million in emergency cash assistance too.

Steady&#;s income opportunities are flexible and personalized. After answering a few questions about yourself and completing your personal profile, you&#;ll receive a regular stream of customized income recommendations and insights from the growing Steady Member community.

Plus, Steady partners with reputable third parties that offer real cash incentives — Income Boosters — when you make smarter financial decisions. And you can keep tabs on how much other Steady members earn in your area — and how much local employers pay too — with detailed community-driven data.

According to Steady, users earn over $5, more each year, on average, with the Steady app. That&#;s serious money. And Steady has paid out over $10 million in cash incentives while facilitating another $4 million in emergency cash assistance (and counting).

Sign Up For Steady

2. Online Surveys and Focus Groups: Sell Your Opinions

Your opinions are more valuable than you might think. Countless companies pay handsome sums to learn more about their target audiences&#; motivations and preferences.

Online Surveys

You can take online surveys in the comfort of your home whenever you please: during working hours, over lunch or dinner, when you have a free moment in the evening, or in the sleepless wee hours.

Time Investment

Although your answers must be honest and make sense, you don&#;t need to devote your full attention to online surveys. That&#;s no doubt music to multitaskers&#; ears. And you can invest as much or as little time as you like. Individual surveys can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to 20 or 30 minutes to complete, and you can do as many or as few as you want in one sitting.

Earning Potential

Online surveys will help you make money online, but they won&#;t make you rich. If you sign up with multiple survey companies and diligently complete your allotted tasks, you can earn a bit more than minimum wage — perhaps $10 an hour. But that&#;s nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you&#;re able to accomplish other tasks while you&#;re logged into your survey accounts.

Reputable Online Survey Options

The online survey landscape is pretty crowded. These are among the most reputable and potentially lucrative opportunities for U.S.-based consumers:

• Branded Surveys. Branded Surveys specializes in consumer surveys from major brands — names you probably encounter in your day-to-day anyway. Its surveys are easy to complete in your spare time, and compensation is fair, delivered via cash and gift cards. With over 2 million existing members, they&#;ve paid out more than $17 million since Plus, they have a Trustpilot score with 40,+ reviews.
• Survey Junkie.Survey Junkie is a popular online survey site with lots of survey-taking opportunities. You&#;ll earn points for each successfully completed survey and can cash out your account balance once it reaches 1, points ($10). Learn more about Survey Junkie in our Survey Junkie review.
• American Consumer Opinion.American Consumer Opinion sends users one screening survey per month and roughly one full-length survey per quarter. Screening surveys pay less than full-length surveys — no more than $ apiece. Full-length surveys can pay up to $50 apiece.
• Opinion Outpost. Compared with American Consumer Opinion, there are generally more opportunities onOpinion Outpost. However, the overall earning rate is lower.
• Swagbucks.Swagbucks offers multiple opportunities to earn extra income online, including paid surveys. Narrowly targeted, time-intensive surveys can pay pretty well, but some of the more basic opportunities — which take only a minute or two to complete — pay next to nothing. Learn more about Swagbucks in our Swagbucks review.

Other opportunities abound, but be sure to do your due diligence before signing up. Be wary of companies that require you to pay to join their panels.

Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups are closely related to online surveys, and in some cases, the same companies administer them.

Like in-person focus groups, online focus groups require more time and concentration than online surveys. Configurations vary, but you generally have to join a panel and engage on a certain number of issues per week or month. Online focus groups are often more selective than online surveys — if you don&#;t meet specific demographic or income criteria, you may not qualify.

The upshot: The pay is much better, as are the opportunities for prizes and free stuff. With effort, you can earn $ and possibly more per month in cash or in-kind awards.

3. Blogging: Sell Your Insights

Blogs aren&#;t just venues for bored people to share their thoughts about anything and everything. They can also be a legitimate source of income for aspiring bloggers keen to make money online.

Your blogging journey begins with an idea. This is an early make-or-break decision for your blog — if it&#;s not entirely unique, your idea must at least be sharper and more compelling than your competitors&#;.

You should know your blog&#;s subject matter cold — ideally from personal experience or formal training — and have no trouble writing fluently about it. Over time, you&#;ll tighten up your writing process and produce great content in less time.

Next come the nuts and bolts: choosing and buying a Web domain, hosting and designing your site, and planning content. While this is a lot of work to put in before publishing your first post, resist the temptation to cut corners. You&#;re laying the foundation, hopefully, for a long-term endeavor.

Once you&#;ve created a quality site and built a following, there are plenty of ways to make money from your blog.

Pro tip: Aspiring bloggers can purchase hosting throughBluehost for less than $5 per month and receive a free domain for the first year.

4. Virtual Tutoring: Sell Your Expertise

Virtual tutoring is a more personal way to earn money by sharing your subject matter expertise. Unlike online courses, which are available to dozens or even hundreds of paying customers at a time, tutoring sessions are usually one-on-one affairs. However, you can have as many students as your schedule allows.

As with online teaching, to maximize your chances of success as an online tutor, stick to subjects you know well. Use a reputable and high-visibility venue, structure your sessions sensibly, price your services in line with the market, follow scheduling best practices, and promote yourself enthusiastically (or choose a platform that does so on your behalf).

The best places to find online tutoring jobs are platforms that focus specifically on tutoring, such asEducation First, and Chegg. Both pay set hourly or per-session rates based on tutors&#; chosen subjects — for instance, computer science tutors generally earn more than English tutors. Chegg starts tutors at $20 per hour and claims prolific tutors can earn upward of $1, per month.

Before you sign up, make sure your computer meets your chosen platform&#;s system requirements — you&#;ll need a reasonably fast processor and real-time video-chatting capabilities. In most cases, if you’re teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) online, you&#;ll also need to earn a TEFL certification; we recommendPremier TEFL.

Do you have an underutilized garage, shed, basement, or attic? Are you willing to clean it up? Then you&#;re a good fit forwww.oldyorkcellars.com, a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform that connects folks who need extra storage space with those who have it in spades and aren&#;t using it.

www.oldyorkcellars.com advertises rental rates at 50% of the going rate for self-storage units, although you&#;ll earn a bit less than that after the platform takes its cut. Still, that&#;s quite a bit of passive income for doing basically nothing at all.

Sign Up For www.oldyorkcellars.com

6. P2P Lending: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 1)

The sharing economy has created new opportunities for regular people to put their excess capital to work. Two opportunities are worth calling out here:

• Real Estate Crowdfunding. Real estate crowdfunding websites likeGroundfloor allow everyday investors to lend money for real estate projects. Loans return anywhere from 5% to 25%, depending on their risk level. If you&#;re looking for other ways to invest indirectly in real estate consider a platform like Crowdstreet.
• P2P Lending. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms such as Prosper are reputable outlets for nonaccredited individuals seeking above-average returns on investment — anywhere from 4% to more than 10% annually, after accounting for nonperforming loans and the platforms&#; service charges.

A word of warning: Unlike high-yield savings accounts and CDs, P2P loans and real estate crowdfunding opportunities are not FDIC-insured or SIPC-protected. That means they present the very real risk of loss of principal. Don&#;t lend any funds you can&#;t afford to lose, and thoroughly read platforms&#; prospectuses and disclaimers before participating.

Sign Up For Groundfloor

Sign Up For Crowdstreet

7. Investing: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 2)

Although certain types of securities accounts are SIPC-protected, investing in stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) isn&#;t without risk. While you should never invest money that you can&#;t afford to lose, putting your excess capital to work in the market is a great way to beat persistently low savings account interest rates.

Tilt the odds in your favor by consuming as much proprietary research and analytics as you can manage. If you&#;re not sure where to start, Seeking Alpha is a great resource for beginners and pros alike.

When you&#;re ready, get started by checking out our roundup of the best brokerage account promotions — Robinhood&#;s free stock offer is particularly compelling right now.

8. Downsize and Declutter: Sell Your Unwanted Stuff

Before you roll up your sleeves and monetize your personal or professional skills, why not earn some money by cleaning up your space? Selling your unwanted stuff is a great way to downsize and declutter your life while earning some income on the side.

If you&#;re transitioning to full-time work-at-home status, that income and newfound space could help you create a proper home office or allow you to maintain your lifestyle during lean times.

When it comes to at-home income, selling your unwanted stuff is the definition of low-hanging fruit. Even if you&#;re intentional in your purchasing habits, you likely have possessions you can do without.

Examples include old kids&#; clothing and toys, sporting goods you no longer use, out-of-fashion wardrobe accessories, electronics, watches and jewelry, old furniture, dusty tools and outdoor equipment, and perhaps even big-ticket items like a motorcycle or second car.

There are several ways you can sell your unwanted stuff.

Most prolific sellers rely on digital marketplaces. The most popular online platforms for professional and semi-professional sellers are eBay and Amazon. Both offer an array of tools and capabilities for merchants, though you do have to pay for them — commissions come in at around 10% of the sales price on eBay and between about 6% and 20% of the sales price on Amazon.

Craigslist is a better (and cheaper) fit for occasional sellers, while marketplaces like SellCell,Gazelle, Decluttr, and MaxBack are strong choices for high-margin electronics sellers.

If you prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, you can always sell whatever you can&#;t or don&#;t want to offload online from your driveway instead. Follow these tips for a successful garage sale.

9. Freelance Writing: Sell Your Words

Countless Americans, from high school and college students to retirees, earn extra income from freelance writing. If you have a way with words, writing blog articles and Web copy is an easy and fun way to pad your full-time income.

Getting your foot in the door as a freelance writer is difficult but doable. Freelance writing jobs abound at the lower end of the pay scale, both on general-purpose freelance platforms like Upwork and writing-only portals such as Textbroker.

While the writing opportunities on these platforms are often monotonous (lots of product descriptions, ad copy, and press releases) and doesn’t pay well at all, it’ll help you learn what editors expect from freelance writers and sharpen your writing skills in the process.

As you gain experience (and confidence) in the freelance writing trenches, stretch out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to ratchet up your freelance writing rates, draft freelance contracts to protect yourself from unscrupulous clients, and send queries to the sorts of publications where you’d be proud to see your byline.

Rejection is a fact of the freelance writing game, no matter how talented you are — but if you’re persistent, you’ll hear “yes” more often than you expect.

Freelance Editing and Proofreading: Sell Your Grammatical Skills

Freelance editing and proofreading naturally follow from freelance writing. Although not every writer is a born editor or proofreader, the skills often go hand in hand.

Freelance Editing

Once you&#;ve worked with a few different editors, you&#;ll likely get a sense of the skills and duties required for the job. Then, it&#;s just a matter of finding the right editing gigs.

As a new editor, start small. Look for part-time or project-based copy editing jobs. If possible, leverage existing freelance writing arrangements. For instance, if you know one of your freelance clients uses contract editors to clean up writers&#; work, approach them about taking on those responsibilities directly.

Once you&#;ve outgrown your existing client base, look to online job boards such as Upwork, as well as media-specific platforms such as Mediabistro. Common types of online editing jobs include:

• Copy Editor. Copy editors ensure written copy is polished before their bosses hit &#;publish&#; and often serve as the main point of contact with contributing writers. Although it&#;s not exceptionally well-paid, copy editing is often a springboard to more lucrative editing or production opportunities.
• Assistant Editor. Assistant editors supervise copy editors, photo editors, writers, and other support staff involved in producing digital publications. Larger blogs and online-print hybrids generally have at least one assistant editor on staff. These gigs can be part- or full-time. They&#;re typically intermediate between copy editing and managing editing jobs.
• Managing Editor. Managing editors supervise and direct editorial teams, including lower-level editors. These jobs are harder to come by and require more of your time, but temporary arrangements look great on your resume. If you lack much formal editing experience, start with smaller blogs and niche publications with modest budgets and limited content needs. Some publications don&#;t have enough work for a full-time editor, making it feasible to string together a handful of part-time editing gigs or try out a single position to see how it suits you.
• Photo Editor/Web Editor. Photo and Web editors create or edit visuals that appear on websites and other digital media, such as white papers and corporate reports. This line of work is a great way to exercise your visual skills and become more familiar with layout and editing programs such as WordPress and Photoshop. These gigs often require basic to intermediate coding skills, so they&#;re great for freelancers who want to expand their expertise beyond the written word.
• Manuscript Editor. Looking for a longer-term engagement? The self-publishing boom has created an unprecedented demand for manuscript editors — specialists who help writers organize and sharpen book-length works before publication. Depending on your clients&#; budgets, manuscript editing can be lucrative, although it&#;ll likely take time to build your reputation to the point that you&#;re working with accomplished writers. Entry-level opportunities abound on reputable freelance platforms and with niche publishing houses.

The prerequisites and best practices that make freelance editors successful are broadly similar to those freelance writers need. A suitable home office is important, as is aggressive networking, a strong work ethic, a clear understanding of your value, and a hunger for self-improvement.

Freelance Proofreading

Freelance proofreaders draw on the same skills and competencies as freelance writers and editors, but their career paths are distinct.

The best way for someone new to the freelance proofreading game to get started (even with prior writing or editing experience) is to invest in a proofreading course to establish credibility with potential employers.Proofread Anywhere is a great example. With free introductory modules, there&#;s no obligation if you decide the gig isn&#;t for you.

Although the niche is surprisingly varied, proofreading jobs generally fall into two broad categories: general proofreading and technical proofreading. The former covers nontechnical, relatively unspecialized media like blogs and books. The latter covers transcripts and other technical materials; court reporters, for instance, are seasoned technical proofreaders.

Which you choose depends on your innate strengths as a proofreader and what you&#;re hoping to get out of the job. Technical proofreading is harder to break into but typically pays better; general proofreading is more competitive but easier to launch.

Pet Sitting: Start a Doggy Day Care in Your Home

Fun and rewarding as it can be, pet sitting is a business like any other. Successful pet sitters — those operating legit doggy day cares out of their homes — invest in local marketing, commercial insurance, formal accounting, organized recordkeeping, and perhaps even legal services to manage contracts and reduce liability.

You can juggle all these obligations yourself, or you can outsource much of the heavy lifting to a pet sitting platform likeRover. Think of Rover as the Airbnb of pet sitting — a platform that handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes work of running a profitable home-based enterprise without micromanaging your work.

Rover claims its pet sitters earn up to $1, per month, although actual earnings vary by client volume and the amount of time you put into the business.

Remote Accounting: Launch a Virtual Bookkeeping Business

If you prefer clients who won&#;t shed all over your house and you have an affinity for spreadsheets, a virtual bookkeeping business could be just what you need to earn a stable income without leaving the house.

Because bookkeeping is a competitive industry that rewards skilled professionals with solid reputations, the surest way to break into the business is to invest in a credentialing course.

For instance,Bookkeepers offers three different tracks (&#;communities&#;) for bookkeepers at various stages of learning the trade and building their businesses. Learn the ropes with Bookkeeper Launch, then progress to Bookkeeper Lab and Bookkeeper Elite — if you have what it takes.

Retail Arbitrage: Learn How to Buy Low and Sell High

&#;Buy low, sell high&#; is an expression more commonly heard in the noisy bullpen of an investment bank or brokerage house than the relative quiet of one&#;s home office. But there&#;s one type of arbitrage — the art of selling assets for more than you paid without adding value — that&#;s perfect for at-home workers.

That would be retail arbitrage, one of the top careers for self-employed introverts.

Practitioners of retail arbitrage buy products for pennies on the dollar at auctions, from online retailers, even at garage and yard sales, and then sell them online at sometimes-substantial markups. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is the most popular platform for U.S. sellers, but other options work too. Learn the FBA ropes with this low-cost Udemy course.

E-books and Audiobooks: Take Your Writing (or Acting) Career to the Next Level

Even the most diligent freelance writers get bored and disillusioned after a while. If you&#;re tired of writing Web content or blog posts on a contract basis, or you simply want to expand your horizons, consider tackling long-form projects that exercise your creative muscles and carry substantial passive income potential.

Although seeing and hearing your name in print is a worthy accomplishment in and of itself, selling audiobooks probably won&#;t make you rich. In most cases, your royalty-sharing arrangement will amount to just a few dollars per download.

A lot depends on the extent to which you promote your audiobook and how visible it is on platforms such as Audible and iTunes. If you&#;re lucky, a successful audiobook can generate a five-figure annual income stream. More obscure titles might earn just a few hundred bucks per year.

You can make money with audiobooks in a couple of different ways:

Recording Your Work

If you&#;ve already written a book, you can leverage an entirely new revenue stream by turning it into an audiobook. It doesn&#;t have to be your voice on the recording. In fact, unless you have voice acting or radio experience, it&#;s better to hire a trained voice actor.

Reputable platforms like ACX typically have low production costs and innovative royalty-sharing arrangements that maximize rights-holders&#; (writers&#;) income potential. Check Publishers Weekly for a list of platform options.

Recording Others&#; Work

If you&#;re a trained voice actor or narrator, or you think you have what it takes to break into the niche, you can use ACX and other outlets to find audiobook recording jobs. You&#;ll need to audition for each role, but once you land a gig, you&#;ll earn money two ways: at an agreed per-hour rate for the actual job and a shared royalty arrangement with the rights-holder and others involved in the production.

If you&#;re a union actor (SAG-AFTRA), you&#;re required to charge a minimum fee (variable, but above $) per finished hour (roughly two studio hours). On a hour audiobook, that&#;s a minimum payday of $2, before royalties.

Political Advocacy: Sell Your Passion for the Issues

Maybe you&#;re committed to making the world a better place. Maybe you just love a good argument. Either way, you can work as a political organizer and advocate from the comfort of your home.

Advocacy organizations such as DDC Public Affairs recruit and pay outgoing, communications-savvy team members to raise support around political issues championed by their clients — private companies, nonprofits, trade organizations, and lobbying groups. The types of work involved include:

• Coordinating phone and email outreach to constituents
• Organizing letter-writing and call-in campaigns
• Galvanizing responses to public comment periods
• Activating small- and midsized-business constituents

Advocacy organizations generally have full-time core teams that work on-site in state capitals or Washington, D.C. At-home opportunities are typically project-based and may require substantial time commitments — up to and perhaps more than 40 hours per week.

Depending on the nature of the job, the pay can be modest — $10 to $20 per hour. However, if you&#;re looking to launch a career in political organizing, these gigs can get your foot in the door. Note that they involve advocating for a wide range of causes, so they can potentially put people with deeply held beliefs in awkward positions.

Classes and Webinars: Sell Education

Online surveys and focus groups are great for regular folks who want to share their opinions and influence companies&#; decision-making processes. But what about folks who have bona fide subject matter expertise — or, at least, above-average skills in a sought-after discipline?

You don&#;t have to snag an adjunct professorship at your local university to share your knowledge with students and earn some cash in the process. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can cut out the middleman and teach classes directly to lifelong learners without leaving the house.

Here&#;s what you should keep in mind to begin and maintain a successful at-home teaching enterprise:

Credibility

Selling your expertise works best when you have some credibility. In many verticals, formal credentials are a near-necessity. Students signing up for a class on online tax preparation want to learn from a CPA. Entrepreneurs looking for the inside track on small-business law want to hear from a lawyer or serial entrepreneur.

Venue

When you&#;re first starting out, choose reputable, high-visibility venues for your classes. Don&#;t expect students to find their way to your personal or professional website before you&#;ve built a reputation for yourself.

Udemy is a great option for budding at-home teachers looking to earn real money from their work. YouTube is another viable option, although you can&#;t directly charge people to watch your YouTube videos. You&#;ll need to monetize them indirectly.

Topic and Structure

It&#;s not enough to select a popular vertical. You need a compelling topic and a tight structure for each class. After all, everyone wants to learn how to code, but you can&#;t teach every popular program language in an hour.

Build your curriculum around interesting, high-demand topics within your niche. Use real-life examples, hands-on exercises, and attractive graphics (whiteboards work well) whenever possible.

Pricing and Deals

As with any professional pursuit, you need to know how much your teaching skills are worth and price them accordingly.

Unfortunately, at-home teaching is a competitive business, so you&#;re likely to find someone who charges less for similar work. Ways to get around this include multicourse discounts, package deals, and complimentary products or information for early sign-ups.

Promotion

You don&#;t need to buy digital ads to promote your classes, but it&#;s definitely worth your while to drum up support by email — sending out targeted blasts to your professional and personal networks — and social media accounts.

As you gain students, reputable platforms like Udemy will boost your visibility, doing some of the hard promotional work for you. However, you must opt into its extensive course marketing network.

Question Marketplaces: Sell Answers to People’s Questions

The Internet is full of questions. If you&#;re knowledgeable and unbiased, you could earn money by answering them.

Online question marketplaces pay verified experts to answer questions posed by community members. If you&#;re particularly knowledgeable about a specific subject or discipline, you could earn a respectable side income simply by sharing your factual insights.

One of the most reputable and lucrative online question marketplaces is JustAnswer. JustAnswer&#;s verticals include health, home improvement, cars, law, business, tech, pets, and homework. For most verticals, you need relevant official credentials, such as a law or accounting degree.

Pay varies by vertical but seems to be pretty generous. JustAnswer says you can earn $2, to $7, per month, depending on your subject of expertise.

Your work volume depends on the quality of your answers and the volume of questions users are asking, so you may not find as much work as you expect at first. Still, JustAnswer is ripe for multitasking, making it a perfect work-from-home opportunity.

Other options include Wonder, which doesn&#;t require formal credentials. Wonder is cagey about how much it pays, but client pricing starts at about $40 per completed query, so it&#;s likely contributors see at least half that figure. However, Wonder appears to have lower question volumes than JustAnswer, limiting your income potential.

Paid Search: Sell Your Search Queries

You could earn small but meaningful sums from the same online searches you no doubt conduct every day, thanks to a slew of websites and plug-ins that track your searches and pay you for each completed query.

Paid search queries aren&#;t nearly as lucrative as expert-answer platforms such as JustAnswer. It&#;s rare to get more than a few cents for a single search. However, because you can complete hundreds of searches in an hour, the income potential is real. Popular, reputable options include:

• InboxDollars.InboxDollars is one of the Internet&#;s first legitimate at-home money-making websites. Paid search is just one of the many ways to earn a few extra bucks on the side with this site. And InboxDollars pays hard cash, a major advantage over some competitors. Learn more about InboxDollars by reading our InboxDollars review.
• Swagbucks. Swagbucks is an InboxDollars competitor with a slew of online money-making opportunities, including paid search. Searches earn Swagbucks, an on-site loyalty currency you can redeem for gift cards and other items.
• Qmee. Qmee is a browser plug-in that pays you to search for specific partner brands. You get even more via cash-back rebates when you buy stuff from these brands, but there&#;s no obligation to spend any money.

Paid Social Posts: Get Paid to Tweet, Post, Pin, and Share

You don&#;t need millions of followers to become a social media influencer. You just need to follow the basic rules of social media etiquette and find a reputable platform that pays you to share sponsored content from its clients or promote affiliate products.

If you&#;re serious about making real, sustainable money on social media, try either of these strategies:

YouTube Partner Program

The YouTube Partner program empowers YouTube channel operators to monetize certain types of videos.

Finding paying advertisers is hard work, and you need a sizable following before you can find companies willing to pay for direct or indirect promotion. Plus, your videos must meet YouTube&#;s monetization criteria, which ban explicit or copied content.

Pay potential is directly proportional to the size of your channel following and, to a lesser extent, audience demographics.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog or website, but it can also generate income from your social media properties. Many affiliate marketers do both.

ClickBank is a good place to start. Pay is directly proportional to your follower count and audience demographics.

Software and Game Reviews: Get Paid to Test Video Games

Getting paid to test new video games and consoles sounds like a dream come true for gamers. But video game testing is a job like any other. It requires significant time and energy commitments. It&#;s not something you can do with a few spare minutes or with less than your undivided attention.

To get started as a game tester, sign up with a reputable network such as Keywords Studio, whose Global Beta Test Network (GBTN) helps game developers push their products to the limit and ensure they go to market with as few bugs as possible.

GBTN&#;s tests typically involve dozens to hundreds of testers around the world running simultaneous tests on different aspects of clients&#; games. Most tests are time-limited, project-based affairs.

Pay varies but typically ranges from $20 to $50 per hour. Diligent, skilled testers who work part-time can earn $10, to $20, per year; testers who work at or near full-time can easily exceed $50, per year.

Successful game testers have certain capabilities and personality traits in common:

• A Professional-Grade Gaming Setup. If you&#;re an avid gamer, you probably have this covered. If not, the cost of upgrading your setup in the hopes you&#;ll be hired as a tester could be prohibitive.
• Unwavering Attention to Detail. Video game testing isn&#;t like regular gameplay. The whole point is to prod for any bugs and defects that could potentially impact play, no matter how small or unlikely. Your eyes must be peeled for any deviance from expected results.
• Flexible Schedules With Long Blocks of Uninterrupted Time. Simultaneous game tests typically occur at the client&#;s convenience. If your game&#;s developer is based overseas, that could mean testing in the middle of the night. For night owls, that&#;s not a big deal, but 9-to-5 workers may struggle. Also, tests typically take several hours, so this isn&#;t something you can do for 20 minutes at a time and move on.

Website and Product Testing: Sell Your Feedback

Websites and products need testing too. Here&#;s what to know about each type of gig.

Website Testing

If you&#;re not much of a gamer, or you can&#;t spare the long blocks of time and unwavering attention required of professional game testers, consider signing up with UserTesting to try out new websites and mobile apps.

UserTesting&#;s website testing gigs do require focus and rigor, but they&#;re far shorter and don&#;t need to happen simultaneously, making them much easier to fit into your schedule. They don&#;t pay quite as well as game testing, though.

If you&#;re diligent, you can reliably earn $20 per hour, although the overall work volume is sometimes thin. You need a decent, relatively new computer or smartphone to complete tests.

Product Testing

If you prefer hands-on testing, consider signing up to test products withToluna, a leading market research firm. You&#;ll have the opportunity to try real product prototypes and beta versions before they&#;re released to the general public, and your feedback could meaningfully influence their development.

Cash Back and Coupons: Earn When You Shop

Cash back isn&#;t technically income because you need to buy something to earn it. It&#;s more like a discount. But when you earn cash back for purchases you&#;d make anyway, it&#;s a great way to make a little extra money.

The most common way to earn cash back on purchases is with a cash-back credit card.

But while a credit card is a great tool for building credit, there are many legitimate arguments against using one. If your spotty credit or personal preferences preclude you from applying for a credit card, don&#;t sweat it. You have plenty of other opportunities to earn cash back on purchases made in the comfort of your own home.

Look into these options:

• Capital One Shopping.Capital One Shopping is a browser extension that helps folks find a lower price on thousands of products when shopping online. Use it whenever you need to buy something without leaving the house.
• GetUpside. GetUpside is a coupon-free cash back app that pays users back for purchases at participating gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants. Online grocery and takeout orders are eligible for cash back where available, making GetUpside a profitable spending aid for at-home hustlers.
• Rakuten.Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is a wildly popular coupon site that offers multiple ways to save online. Cash back accrues immediately, so there&#;s no need to go through an extra redemption process. You can choose from thousands of partner merchants.
• TopCashback.TopCashback leverages affiliate arrangements with thousands of merchants to deliver a slew of instant discount and cash-back opportunities for U.S.-based shoppers. There&#;s some friction involved, as you need to click through to specific offers from TopCashback&#;s website, but the depth of the savings makes this extra step worthwhile.
• Piggy. Piggy is an intelligent coupon plug-in that works in the background as you browse and automatically serves you with the most relevant, up-to-date coupons on your favorite shopping websites. With thousands of merchants in the network, virtually every major brand is here. Savings opportunities range up to 70%.
• Qmee. As a low-friction plug-in, Qmee gives you the option to act on or ignore shopping discount offers. You can cash out in virtually any amount, so it&#;s worth using even if you&#;re only a sporadic online shopper.
• Giving Assistant. Giving Assistant puts a charitable spin on online shopping discounts. Functionally, it&#;s similar to Qmee and Piggy, but users have the option to donate their earnings to their favorite charities. Of course, those who prefer to pocket their cash still can. You can reliably earn 5% cash back with Giving Assistant and more at select merchants.

Translation: Sell Your Language Skills

Translation software is getting better all the time, and translator jobs are widely considered vulnerable to automation and artificial intelligence. However, there&#;s still a lively market for translators, particularly those with above-average wordsmithing skills or fluency in obscure languages.

You can find plenty of translation jobs on general freelance platforms like Upwork, but the quality of opportunities on nonspecialized platforms tends to be uneven.

Earning potential also varies widely. Entry-level, nonspecialized translation work often pays less than $10 per hour, while highly technical jobs can pay more than $50 per hour. Generally speaking, you&#;ll earn more as you gain experience, improve your fluency, and attain vertical-specific credentials.

To maximize your earning potential as an online translator, sign up with as many of the following as possible:

Gengo

Gengo is a beginner-friendly platform that covers a range of subjects and project types. Pay tends to be on the low side, but payment is frequent and predictable — it comes via PayPal twice per month.

Experienced and prolific translators can become Senior Translators, who command higher pay rates and are responsible for evaluating and editing entry-level translators&#; work.

ProTranslating

ProTranslating is a boutique agency with a sophisticated digital presence and an in-house marketing apparatus that adds value to its core services: translation and transcreation — adapting prose into a second language without altering its meaning.

ProTranslating focuses on expert-level content at the upper end of the market, so if you&#;re a professional translator with verifiable subject matter expertise, you can do very well. Beginners may want to start with Gengo or another entry-level platform before applying here.

One Hour Translation

One Hour Translation is a bulk translation service that&#;s great for entry-level translators. It pays by the word, with hourly rates working out to $10 to $20, depending on skill and speed. It&#;s a good option for beginners, and there&#;s ample room for advancement through the site&#;s elaborate hierarchy.

Unbabel

Unbabel is another entry-level option. Billed as an originator of &#;trustworthy large-scale translations,&#; it pays as little as $8 per hour, but the work is more plentiful and steady than on some competing platforms. If nothing else, it&#;s a good place to start.

Online Boutiques (Online Stores): Sell Your Crafts

The sky&#;s the limit for at-home crafters. Running a successful at-home crafts business no longer means schlepping your wares to flea markets every weekend or begging for space at your local art gallery. All you need is a reliable Internet connection, a decent camera, and a modest startup fund.

Legitimate places to sell your creations online include:

• Etsy. Selling on Etsy is a fantastic way to monetize your crafting hobby. And with a transaction fee of just %, it&#;s a lot cheaper than popular alternatives such as eBay and Amazon.
• E-Commerce Portals. The best way to improve your at-home crafts business&#;s visibility and credibility is to launch your own website. And the best way to monetize that website is with a turnkey e-commerce portal. Shopify is a relatively cost-effective, feature-rich option for serious sellers — you can build and maintain a decent store for $15 to $20 per month. Volusion and Squarespace are worthy, comparably priced competitors.
• Niche Websites. Depending on what you&#;re selling, niche websites could be cheaper and more effective than Etsy and on-site e-commerce portals. Check out Handmade Artists, which costs $5 per month or $50 per year and is for handmade goods only, and Zibbet, which costs $5 and up per month and has a handy feature that seamlessly transfers Etsy listing content.

Technical Support: Sell Your Troubleshooting Skills

Do you like chatting with people? Do you have above-average technical or troubleshooting skills or the willingness to learn?

If so, you could make a good technical support rep. While many customer service and technical support reps still work in centralized call centers, at-home workers have plenty of opportunities.

At Home Advisors

One of the biggest and best-known at-home tech support employers is Apple, whose At Home Advisor program employs thousands of people at competitive, experience-based salaries.

At Home Advisors are part- or full-time employees, not independent contractors, so there&#;s a measure of security here that&#;s often missing from work-at-home gigs. The benefits package, including Apple stock, is pretty nice too, and every At Home Advisor gets a free iMac.

The downside is that the hiring process is highly competitive, so you&#;ll likely need to demonstrate prior experience or make a great impression on the hiring manager.

If you&#;re hired, you&#;ll need to complete a paid training course that lasts five to seven weeks. And you&#;ll need to spring for a legit home office, which Apple describes as &#;a quiet, distraction-free room with a door that can close to keep out ambient noise &#; a desk, an ergonomic chair, and your own high-speed Internet connection from a reliable provider that meets the minimum requirements of 5 megabits per second download and 1 megabit per second upload.&#;

There are lots of tech support work-at-home opportunities out there. Before looking for at-home tech support jobs, however, keep a few cautions in mind:

Spotting Scams

Lots of at-home voice work is legitimate, but there are plenty of scam artists too. Don&#;t invest any money upfront without thoroughly checking your prospective employer&#;s credentials. Start with the Better Business Bureau and cross-reference with first-person testimonials at watchdog sites such as Ripoff Report and career boards such as Indeed.

Demands on Your Time and Energy

Tech support is a 24/7 business. You&#;ll likely have some freedom to set your schedule, but you&#;re virtually assured to have some work shifts that don&#;t jibe with your lifestyle. You&#;ll also likely be responsible for some holiday and weekend coverage, though how much varies by employer.

Finally, you&#;ll need to be &#;on&#; and personable at all times. If you don&#;t think you&#;re capable of maintaining a sunny disposition as you near the end of an eight-hour shift, this might not be the job for you.

Opportunities for Advancement

Entry-level tech support work usually pays between $10 and $20 per hour, though blue-chip employers like Apple can afford higher wages.

If you&#;d like to do this work long-term, look for gigs that offer opportunities for advancement into the ranks of lower and middle management — preferably without an attendant shift to on-site employment.

Remote Call Centers: Sell Your Voice

Not confident in your technical support skills or not sure you meet Apple&#;s stringent standards? If you&#;re a friendly, persuasive talker, you&#;ll find plenty of opportunities with remote call center operators.

Although they vary somewhat from company to company, remote call center operators&#; technical and equipment requirements are comparable to remote customer support companies&#;. You need a headset, a fast Internet connection, an above-average desktop or laptop computer, and any proprietary software necessary to do your job.

Remote call center opportunities are more varied than remote technical support gigs. Many call center companies serve as outside sales contractors for companies without internal sales teams of their own. As an at-home operator, you work as an independent contractor charged with selling on the client&#;s behalf.

If you&#;re personable, persuasive, and believe in what you&#;re selling, there&#;s real money to be made in this niche. However, since independent sales agents are usually commission-based, you may struggle to earn a respectable keep if you&#;re not a born salesperson.

Other common opportunities include insurance claims processing, roadside assistance routing, and customer assistance for health care consumers.

LiveOps packages all of these functions, plus a healthy dose of inbound sales, under a single roof. Keep in mind that there&#;s a modest startup cost involved — about $50 for a self-funded background check — and you&#;re not compensated for training. So LiveOps isn&#;t suitable for at-home workers who need cash immediately.

Virtual Assistant Services: Sell Your Organizational Skills

Busy professionals and small-business owners often lack the resources or office space to employ an on-site assistant. Many choose to hire virtual assistants (VAs) on a part-time or contract basis, getting all the benefits of a trusty assistant while saving the expense and regulatory headaches of a full-time employee.

Virtual assistant duties typically include:

• Screening calls, taking and responding to messages, and directing important information to the client
• Accepting, deflecting, and scheduling requests for the client&#;s time and attention and maintaining up-to-date calendars
• Basic clerical and organizational tasks
• Compiling and running reports
• Managing, scheduling, and producing content for social media, email marketing, and websites
• Managing e-commerce operations, including fulfillment

Necessary or recommended equipment includes:

• A comfortable desk and workspace
• A standardized and scalable electronic organization system
• A fast Internet connection
• A reliable telephone setup (either a landline or a cloud-based business phone system), preferably with a headset
• A secure means of invoicing and receiving payment, such as FreshBooks or PayPal
• A secure email suite
• Anti-malware protection
• A virtual private network (VPN) fromNordVPN, especially if anonymity is a consideration or you&#;re working with clients outside your home country
• Permissions and passwords for the principal accounts to which you&#;re allowed access, such as email and invoicing software

Virtual assistants can work as little as a few hours per week per client, either in a single block of time or spread evenly throughout. Work is plentiful, so it&#;s not hard to string together multiple gigs and create a full- or near-full-time job.

The virtual assistant workforce is global, which means two things. First, if you&#;re in the U.S. or another high-cost country, you&#;ll likely be undercut by English- and Spanish-speaking professionals in cheaper markets.

Second, you&#;ll need to either stick to clients in or near your time zone or be willing to work odd hours. A reasonable starting wage for North America-based VAs is $10 to $20 per hour, but competent VAs command much higher rates.

Start looking for virtual assistant gigs on general-purpose freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer, but consider launching your own website.

Pro tip: If you&#;re unsure how to get started, there are online courses available that can provide you with all the information you&#;ll need.

Watching Online Videos and TV: Sell Your Viewing Time

If you&#;re an avid consumer of online videos, TV programs, or both, you can turn your habit into a legitimate source of side income.

Some opportunities pay better and more reliably than others. Netflix reportedly pays &#;taggers,&#; who watch and categorize Netflix shows, at least $10 per hour. Individual shows or production companies occasionally advertise for similar positions, although these opportunities are becoming fewer and farther between. Competition is stiff when positions do open up.

Other opportunities are easier to get but not nearly as lucrative. Many market research companies have video-watching verticals through which participants can earn points for each view.Swagbucks andInboxDollars are two legitimate options that allow users to exchange points for gift cards and occasionally cash.

Hourly rates work out to less than minimum wage in most cases but aren&#;t bad for a few spare minutes of your time here and there.

Tailoring: Sell Your Fashion Skills

Tailoring isn&#;t exactly a fast track to riches, but it can serve as a valuable source of side income or even a full-fledged cottage industry sufficient to support a two-income family. According to the BLS, the average annual salary for tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers is about $36, That works out to more than $15 per hour.

The most common at-home sewing pursuit is clothing alterations, a high-volume niche that&#;s always in demand.

However, depending on your skills and interests, you can pour yourself into a slew of other opportunities: making custom curtains and draperies, repairing heirloom bedclothes and tapestries, assembling and repairing durable fabrics such as canvas bags and totes, or producing large-scale items such as boat covers.

Before you launch an at-home alteration or custom sewing business, consider the following:

Your Skills

This is a detail-oriented pursuit that requires patience and skill. You need to have above-average sewing skills, and confidence in those skills, to make your mark. Experience is strongly preferred as well.

Advertising and Promotion

You won&#;t have a huge budget to promote your at-home business, so use cost-effective outreach targeted to your most likely customers, such as fliers in local craft and clothing stores, a basic website (preferably with booking and payment portals), a referral network, and friends and family willing to sing your praises.

Also, consider joining the American Sewing Guild for $50 per year. It&#;s a reliable way to meet other enthusiasts and get your name out there.

Equipment Costs and Space

At a minimum, you&#;ll need a work table, a sewing machine, a rack, and storage space for raw materials. You can find a cheap but sturdy table for less than $20, and maybe for free if you&#;re fortunate.

Used sewing machines start at under $50, but that won&#;t cut it for a real at-home custom sewing business. You&#;ll need a heavy-duty piece of equipment, preferably new. Expect to pay $2, or more for this. Consider financing with a low-APR credit card if your creditworthiness allows.

Legalities

Confirm with local authorities that your neighborhood is zoned to allow at-home businesses. If it&#;s not, look into applying for a variance or otherwise coming into compliance. Even if this costs something upfront, it&#;s better than risking a fine or a cease-and-desist order down the road.

Medical Transcription: Sell Your Attention to Detail

If you&#;re a fast, accurate typist, you can earn significant sums as a medical transcriptionist by transcribing physicians&#; spoken notes into legible, accurate text.

Medical transcription is semiskilled work. While you don&#;t have to be a doctor or nurse, you do need to complete an intensive training course that can last a year or more and cost several thousand dollars. During periods of increased demand, some employers may be willing to finance your training course, or at least partially or fully reimburse you after the fact.

Once you&#;re employed, you can expect to earn about $16 per hour on average, according to PayScale.

To boost your attractiveness to employers, consider working as an on-site scribe at your local hospital or clinic. Although they pay less, most such jobs require less prior experience than full-fledged transcription jobs.

The upshot: Like reputable tech support jobs, legitimate medical transcription gigs usually don&#;t require much upfront investment, save for high-speed Internet and a cell or landline phone. Legitimate employers provide any software necessary to complete your duties, and some may even provide or finance the purchase of a business laptop or desktop.

Freelance Consulting: Sell Your Professional Acumen

At-home consulting is a great way for new parents who&#;ve scaled back their hours or sidelined their careers to keep their skills sharp and their names out there. It&#;s also a great side gig for professionals and digital artisans, like graphic design pros, who&#;ve grown stifled in their current roles but don&#;t yet have the confidence or client base to quit their 9-to-5s and strike out on their own.

With time, a consulting side business can easily turn into a full-time job, with all the freedom that entails.

Launching an at-home consulting business means getting comfortable with the idea of marketing yourself. Start by modifying your LinkedIn profile to emphasize your consulting services and relevant professional experience. Set up a website that describes your consulting work in more detail and features testimonials from former colleagues and clients. And create a blog that plays up your expertise.

Website Flipping: Buy, Fix, and Sell Undervalued Websites & Domains

Flipping a website is a lot like building and monetizing a personal blog. The key difference is that when you flip, you&#;re working toward the clearly defined short-term goal of selling the site for a tidy profit. You can and should earn money through advertising and affiliate relationships along the way, but you&#;re not looking to hold the site over the long term.

Every website flip carries its own unique caveats and considerations. For starters, there are two main types of website flips:

• Buying an unbuilt domain and creating your own website from scratch
• Buying an existing website and increasing its revenue potential

Successful website flippers typically hone in on a niche that’s popular with Internet users (as measured by search interest) and has ample potential to support informative, engaging content. They use low-cost domain warehouses like GoDaddy to find domains that don’t already exist, low-cost hosting services with built-in website building tools, and reasonably priced contract labor for help with site development and content creation.

Once they’ve reached their traffic and monetization goals, they use website brokers like Flippa (a flipper-oriented platform) or FE International (a higher-end agency for more valuable online businesses) to find buyers at the right price.

Before getting too far into the website flipping business, it helps to set your expectations. Every flip is different, and your success or failure will depend to a great degree on factors like your site&#;s niche and your goals. Plus, it takes a lot of hard work — not to mention a substantial amount of time — to pull off a successful flip.

Lodging: Rent Out Space in Your Home

Are you maximizing your home&#;s income potential? If you have an empty spare bedroom, mother-in-law suite, or duplex unit on the premises, the answer is likely no.

You don&#;t have to find a long-term tenant to earn income from your home&#;s unused square footage. Apps likeAirbnb,Vrbo, andHomeAway let you rent out your home to business and leisure travelers on a nightly or weekly basis.

Depending on prevailing rents in your local market and your space&#;s size, amenities, and privacy, you could earn anywhere from $40 or $50 to $ or more per night. It&#;s the ultimate passive income side hustle.

Short-term rental platforms handle most of the thorny logistical considerations that keep regular homeowners from becoming landlords, including payment processing and security deposits.

And after a string of highly public mishaps in their first few years, these platforms are increasingly safety-conscious, so the likelihood is high you&#;ll be able to verify the identity of every person who crashes at your place.

Not every home is rental-ready, of course. Before listing your place on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, consider these factors:

Stranger Danger

Most importantly, you need to determine whether you and your family members are comfortable with welcoming strangers into your home. If you have a second unit with a separate entrance, this is less of a sticking point, but it still begs careful consideration.

Local Regulations

Municipal governments are increasingly amenable to short-term rentals, but holdouts remain. Surprisingly, tourist towns are sometimes the most vehemently opposed. Keep abreast of regulations in your area. And if your city does allow short-term rentals, make sure you pay all applicable local and state hospitality taxes.

Pets

Dogs and cats complicate short-term rental arrangements. It&#;s hard to give a visitor free reign over your place when you&#;re worried about them inadvertently letting Fido or Fluffy out when they come home in the middle of the night.

At a minimum, you should disclose the fact that you have pets, lest an allergic tenant leaves a toxic review on your otherwise pristine online listing.

Cleaning and Damage

Online rental platforms let you charge cleaning fees so that you aren&#;t financially on the hook for the full cost of a post-tenant professional cleaning. Most cover the cost of renter-caused damage too, provided you properly document and report it.

But financial redress only goes so far. You still have to deal with the inevitable investment of time and energy to fix the damage or clean up the mess.

Hands-On Hosting

While you don&#;t have to serve as your visitors&#; personal tour guide, you do have to be reachable and willing to help if a problem arises.

If you&#;re not willing to drop what you&#;re doing — or at least pick up your phone — to help a tenant in need, short-term rental hosting might not be your best bet for at-home income.

Car Rentals: Rent Out Your Car

Don&#;t have a spare bedroom or second unit to rent out on a nightly basis? If you have a personal vehicle, you can rent it out to travelers and people who don&#;t own their own cars — without getting behind the wheel or even leaving your house.

Car rental apps abound. Before you choose one, read the fine print and make sure it has adequate liability insurance that protects you in the event of a serious accident involving injuries and property damage.

Getaround has a good reputation and a relatively long track record. According to its website, car owners in high-demand cities such as San Francisco can earn up to $10, per year.Turo, another reputable option, also advertises potential earnings north of $10, per year per car. That&#;s a pretty impressive passive income stream.

Parking Spot Rentals: Rent Out Your Driveway or Street Slot

Another vehicle-related passive income opportunity is your home&#;s parking space. In crowded cities like Chicago and Boston, parking spaces are valuable commodities. If you&#;re fortunate enough to own or have guaranteed access to an on- or off-street parking space, you can earn money by renting it out to folks visiting or passing through your neighborhood.

Check outwww.oldyorkcellars.com, an increasingly popular app that connects drivers and parking spot owners in the same way Airbnb connects travelers and homeowners. www.oldyorkcellars.com won&#;t make you rich overnight, but it could help you earn a few hundred bucks per month on an in-demand parking spot.

Meal Sharing: Sell Your Cooking Skills

Once upon a time, being a professional-grade cook meant squat without startup capital to open a restaurant or launch a food truck business.

Not anymore. Today, you can run a small-scale eatery — and earn a tidy profit in the process — without leaving your home. The secret: a rapidly multiplying cohort of meal-sharing startups that connect budding chefs with hungry diners willing to shell out money for authentic, restaurant-quality home cooking.

But first, a caveat: Meal sharing platforms operate in a legal gray area. The food service industry is heavily regulated, and many jurisdictions make it all but impossible for home cooks to profit from their passions.

At a minimum, you need to make sure you comply with all local health department directives and obtain all applicable licenses before you begin inviting diners into your home.

It&#;s also worth noting that meal sharing involves hosting strangers for dinner, which can be an even more intimate prospect than allowing them to sleep in your home while you&#;re away. Every app takes pains to protect host and diner safety, but if you&#;re reticent to invite people you&#;ve never met into your home, you may want to think twice.

If you&#;re comfortable having strangers in your home and confident you&#;re on the right side of the law, check out these popular meal sharing options. Depending on your platform choice, guest capacity, and local market, you can expect to rake in anywhere from $50 to several hundred dollars per meal after accounting for expenses. Hosting opportunities are more plentiful in major cities.

• Traveling Spoon. The appropriately named Traveling Spoon brokers cooking classes and communal meals in over countries. There are very few restrictions on what you can cook (or teach), and you&#;re free to set your own prices to ensure a full table — although you&#;ll want to charge enough to cover your costs and have something left over for yourself.
• ChefsFeed. ChefsFeed is geared toward aspiring and semi-established chefs. Many cooks use it to supplement income earned at real restaurants or food trucks or to break into extremely competitive culinary scenes in places like New York City and San Francisco.
• Eatwith. Eatwith, a European startup, stresses the communal aspect of meal sharing. The vetting process for new chefs is pretty rigorous, but there&#;s plenty of room for talented cooks to break in.

Tech Work: Invest in Your Future

Contrary to popular belief, not all high-paying jobs that don&#;t require a college degree are dangerous or grueling. Some can be done from the comfort of your home office, with nothing more than a fast Internet connection and a high-end laptop.

And the right skills, of course. Increase your earning potential in fields like UI/UX and data analytics — where full-time salaries for entry-level jobs easily exceed $50, per year — with a bootcamp from Springboard, a leading course provider for tech certifications.

Although Springboard isn&#;t free, it does offer a fallback: If you don&#;t land a job after actively searching for six months following your graduation, Springboard will refund your course fees. That&#;s not a bad deal for an investment that could literally alter the course of your career.

Codecademy&#;s money-back guarantee isn&#;t as generous, but its course database is far more expansive than Springboard&#;s. If you&#;re not sure where to start, take the quiz to learn how your existing skills fit into the wide (and often confusing) world of programming.

Final Word

Many of these work-at-home opportunities involve either passive income or spare-time endeavors — side hustles, really — that aren&#;t likely to turn into full-time pursuits. But some, such as freelance writing and editing, are readily scalable.

If you&#;re willing to pound the pavement in search of paying clients and can follow productivity tips for home workers, there&#;s nothing stopping you from turning your at-home side hustle into a full-fledged career.

Regardless of whether you're looking for full-time income or just some extra money on the side, there are plenty of ways to make money while working from home. There are many benefits to making money from home, such as having the flexibility to make your own schedule and enjoy a strong work-life balance.

Reviewing ideas for how to make money at home can help you determine which you're most interested in pursuing. In this article, we discuss 95 ideas on how to make money at home.

How to make money at home

Here are 20 ideas that you may want to consider for how to make money at home:

1. Become a virtual assistant

A virtual assistant is someone who provides administrative services to clients from a remote location, such as a home office. Virtual assistants handle a variety of different responsibilities for their clients, including making travel plans, performing online research and checking emails.

Read more:How To Become a Virtual Assistant

2. Pet sitting

If you enjoy animals, then you may want to consider pet sitting. This is a good way to earn money directly from your own home. You will need to invest in marketing and commercial insurance. You may also want to speak with an accountant or bookkeeper as well as a lawyer to discuss liability.

3. Sell your own items online

Survey your home and look for items that you no longer use. You can then list those items on different e-commerce sites to find buyers. To get the best sales, it's important to take clear, high-resolution photos of your pieces. Perform research online to find how much similar items are being sold for and then price your own items competitively.

4. Tutor students online

Leverage your experience in specific subjects or your SAT or ACT knowledge to offer online tutoring to students. Promote your services in area schools and find students who have a need for your services. You can only apply to work for established online tutoring services.

Read more:Learn About Being a Tutor

5. Start a blog

If there's a topic that you're particularly interested in, you could start a blog and promote it on social media to attract an audience who wants to learn about that topic. If you draw a large enough audience with your blog, you can make money from advertising.

Read more:How To Start a Blog

6. Sell services online

There are lots of online sites where specialists can offer their services on a contract or per-project basis. Some different types of services you could offer are graphic design, website design, link building, programming, animation or video creation.

7. Create sales funnels

Many businesses use automated sales funnels to promote and sell their products and services. That said, many other business owners are unaware of how sales funnels could help grow their business. Consider starting your own business selling sales funnels. There are a lot of tools you could use to build them at a low cost.

8. Sell consulting services

Another way to make money online while working from home is through consulting. If you're particularly skilled in a certain field, you may be able to find people who would pay you to offer them advice on their business or personal goals. One way to show others how much knowledge you have to offer is to launch and promote your own blog.

You can use social media to promote your content for a low cost or even for free. After gaining a few clients, you may be able to rapidly grow your business through word-of-mouth marketing. You can meet with clients virtually and schedule those appointments at times that meet your own needs.

9. Launch an online store

E-commerce is very popular right now. While major e-commerce retailers have the majority of the market share, consumers are also looking for great deals online. Consider launching a sales funnel for yourself to drive traffic and buyers to your products and services.

Sell your expertise by offering webinars

Webinars are a great way to sell your products, as they are highly effective and follow a specific format and template. Once you learn how to deliver effective webinars, you can achieve great success in this space, delivering enormous value for your attendees and demonstrating how much additional value they would receive if they purchased your product or service.

Manage the social media accounts of small businesses

Small businesses often need help managing their social media profiles and many prefer to pay someone to help for only a few hours per week, as opposed to having someone managing social media full time.

Learn about the different social media sites and identify one or two that you want to specialize in. Then identify a specific industry that you want to work in. Finally, reach out to different businesses in your area who you recognize you can most help.

Create online courses

If you have a marketable skill that others would be interested in mastering for themselves, then consider making your own online course. There are many sites that you can use to build your course. However, once it's created and launched, online courses can be a great source of passive income.

Sell affiliate marketing offers

Affiliate marketing is an easy way to earn income by selling the products and services that other people create, particularly if you have a website with a large amount of quality traffic already. There are a number of websites available that promote affiliate offers. Take the time to understand your audience and what they're most interested in and then search to identify the right offer and present it to your audience.

Launch a podcast

A podcast is another great method for sharing your expertise with an audience. The key to success with a podcast is to find a specific niche and then providing them with great content to grow your audience. Once you have built a large audience and are receiving a large number of downloads per episode, you can then look for ways to monetize your podcast, such as selling advertisements.

While you may have to do some research in order to learn how to create, edit and promote a podcast, if you are an expert on a particular topic, it's an idea that's worth considering.

Get a babysitting job

Babysitting is another great option for making money from home. Word-of-mouth referrals are a great way to get started babysitting, although there are also a number of websites that you can use to promote your babysitting services for free. To make yourself more appealing to families, you may want to consider getting relevant certifications, such as a CPR certification.

Test websites

Another way to make money from home is by using sites that pay you for your insight into how well a specific website worked. In most cases, you have to pass a test to be accepted and then you will be paid for each test you perform. You may even have the option of earning additional compensation to participate in a video discussion with the customer after completing the test.

Perform data entry

If you have quick and accurate typing skills, then you may want to consider taking an online data entry job. These positions can usually be performed easily online and can offer consistent income.

Work as a freelance writer

Companies are often aiming for high-quality content to boost their ranking in search engines. If you have strong writing skills, this may be a path that you want to consider. If you don't have an online portfolio with published writing already, you may want to consider offering to write a few pieces for free in order to build a portfolio

Offer proofreading services

If you enjoy reading, you may want to consider a job as a freelance proofreader. Depending on whether you have a degree currently, you may want to consider investing in a proofreading course to earn credibility with potential clients. You could offer your services to independent clients or even search for companies hiring full-time proofreaders.

Rent out a room in your home

Listing a spare bedroom on a vacation rental website can provide easy income that you can make at home. It is important to spend time keeping your property and home clean. To ensure you maintain % occupancy, consider renting your home on multiple different sites.

Make sure the rooms are fully furnished and include the cost of utilities and perhaps even breakfast in the rental price. You may also want to consider upgrading your internet service to offer the fastest possible internet speed for guests.

Other ideas for how to make money at home

Here are 65 other ideas that you may want to consider as you look for ways to make money at home:

1. Build and then monetize an online community through a membership or product sales

2. Participate in online surveys

3. Sign up for free gift cards online

4. Rate pizzas online

5. Review products

6. Create a website, generate traffic and collect leads to sell to other companies or individuals

7. Work for online retailers

8. Earn commissions as an online travel agent

9. Sell lesson plans

10. Rent your clothes online

11. Offer calligraphy services for wedding invitations, cards and other stationery

12. Play games online and compete for rewards

13. Participate in an online focus group

14. Sell your used books online

15. Write and sell a book

16. Sell social media posts or ads on social media accounts or a blog

17. Evaluate search engines by performing searches, analyzing the results and giving feedback to the search engines based on the relevance of the search results

18. Create videos and earn money through advertising

19. Offer at-home daycare

20. Provide transcriptionist services

21. Rent your music equipment or studio space

22. Sell baked goods

23. Rent your parking space

24. Buy items from a flea market or yard sale, restore them and sell them online

25. Sell your old cell phone

26. Shop online and earn cash for your purchases

27. Sell your troubleshooting skills

28. Sell your own photography on stock photo sites

29. Fill out online surveys

30. Start a dog walking business

31. Launch a virtual bookkeeping business

32. Offer political advocacy services

33. Sell translation services on freelance platforms

34. Sell your crafts online

35. Obtain a remote technical support role

36. Start an at-home alteration of custom sewing business

37. Sell your unused space as storage space for people who want to pay less than the cost of a storage unit

38. Rent out a room in your home

39. Rent out your car to travelers or people who don't own their own vehicle

40. Rent your driveway, parking space or street slot

41. Sell your gently used clothing

42. Trade in electronics for cash

43. Sell unused gift cards

44. Test mobile applications

45. Become a social media influencer

46. Sign up as an online mystery shopper

47. Work virtually for a company

48. Grow and sell your own produce

49. Become a voice-over artist

50. Create your own mobile application

51. Teach online music lessons

52. Design and sell t-shirts online

53. Create video reviews

54. Pursue a medical coding and billing position

55. Manage a website

56. Offer online or social media advertising services

57. Offer search engine optimization services

58. Start a mini salon in your home

59. Invest in real estate

60. Participate in online market research

61. Create and sell woodworking projects

62. Fix search engine mistakes

63. Sell your junk mail

64. Cook for special occasions

65. Create an audiobook

66. Get paid to exercise

67. Perform meal preparation for others

68. Create a dropshipping business

69. Create and sell access to an online course

70. Teach yoga online

71. Online market trading

72. Review music for money

73. Sell your notes

74. Buy and sell domain names

75. Work as a charity collector

Your new clothing store isn't going to start itself. It's time to take the first step.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, millions of office-based Americans abruptly transitioned to full-time work-from-home arrangements, ostensibly on a temporary basis.

But according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, more than half of those who began working from home during the pandemic actually prefer remote employment. More than three-quarters have adequate workspaces and at-home business technology, according to Pew, and more than half enjoy flexible scheduling that allows them to stop and start work at their discretion.

Even before the pandemic, employers were offering ever more flexible work arrangements in a bid to attract younger workers who prefer the freedom to perform their duties from just about anywhere. COVID pushed remote employment into the mainstream, hard. But these days, you don&#;t even have to have a traditional 9-to-5 job to take advantage of the work-from-home trend.

Whether your goal is to build a sustainable passive income stream or simply earn a few extra bucks to complement your part- or full-time income, all you need to work from home is a computer, a quiet space, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to follow these tips for working from home more efficiently.

Legitimate Work-From-Home Opportunities (How to Make Money Working from Home)

The following are a variety of legitimate ways to earn extra income, get a second job, launch a full-time solo career, or start your own small business — all from the comfort of your own home.

Some of these opportunities build upon hobbies that you might already pursue without economic gain. Just take care to avoid distressingly common work-from-home scams that can actually cost you money.

1. Financial Empowerment Apps: Find New Income Streams

Whether you already have an at-home side hustle (or full-fledged business) or you&#;re still exploring ways to earn more on your own time, you need Steady — a financial empowerment app that connects you with opportunities to increase and diversity your income.

Steady Members earn more than $5, extra each year, according to the app, and Steady has already paid more than $10 million in cash incentives. It&#;s helped Members earn at least $4 million in emergency cash assistance too.

Steady&#;s income opportunities are flexible and personalized. After answering a few questions about yourself and completing your personal profile, you&#;ll receive a regular stream of customized income recommendations and insights from the growing Steady Member community.

Plus, Steady partners with reputable third parties that offer real cash incentives — Income Boosters — when you make smarter financial decisions. And you can keep tabs on how much other Steady members earn in your area — and how much local employers pay too — with detailed community-driven data.

According to Steady, users earn over $5, more each year, on average, with the Steady app. That&#;s serious money. And Steady has paid out over $10 million in cash incentives while facilitating another $4 million in emergency cash assistance (and counting).

Sign Up For Steady

2. Online Surveys and Focus Groups: Sell Your Opinions

Your opinions are more valuable than you might think. Countless companies pay handsome sums to learn more about their target audiences&#; motivations and preferences.

Online Surveys

You can take online surveys in the comfort of your home whenever you please: during working hours, over lunch or dinner, when you have a free moment in the evening, or in the sleepless wee hours.

Time Investment

Although your answers must be honest and make sense, you don&#;t need to devote your full attention to online surveys. That&#;s no doubt music to multitaskers&#; ears. And you can invest as much or as little time as you like. Individual surveys can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to 20 or 30 minutes to complete, and you can do as many or as few as you want in one sitting.

Earning Potential

Online surveys will help you make money online, but they won&#;t make you rich. If you sign up with multiple survey companies and diligently complete your allotted tasks, you can earn a bit more than minimum wage — perhaps $10 an hour. But that&#;s nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you&#;re able to accomplish other tasks while you&#;re logged into your survey accounts.

Reputable Online Survey Options

The online survey landscape is pretty crowded. These are among the most reputable and potentially lucrative opportunities for U.S.-based consumers:

• Branded Surveys. Branded Surveys specializes in consumer surveys from major brands — names you probably encounter in your day-to-day anyway. Its surveys are easy to complete in your spare time, and compensation is fair, delivered via cash and gift cards. With over 2 million existing members, they&#;ve paid out more than $17 million since Plus, they have a Trustpilot score with 40,+ reviews.
• Survey Junkie.Survey Junkie is a popular online survey site with lots of survey-taking opportunities. You&#;ll earn points for each successfully completed survey and can cash out your account balance once it reaches 1, points ($10). Learn more about Survey Junkie in our Survey Junkie review.
• American Consumer Opinion.American Consumer Opinion sends users one screening survey per month and roughly one full-length survey per quarter. Screening surveys pay less than full-length surveys — no more than $ apiece. Full-length surveys can pay up to $50 apiece.
• Opinion Outpost. Compared with American Consumer Opinion, there are generally more opportunities onOpinion Outpost. However, the overall earning rate is lower.
• Swagbucks.Swagbucks offers multiple opportunities to earn extra income online, including paid surveys. Narrowly targeted, time-intensive surveys can pay pretty well, but some of the more basic opportunities — which take only a minute or two to complete — pay next to nothing. Learn more about Swagbucks in our Swagbucks review.

Other opportunities abound, but be sure to do your due diligence before signing up. Be wary of companies that require you to pay to join their panels.

Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups are closely related to online surveys, and in some cases, the same companies administer them.

Like in-person focus groups, online focus groups require more time and concentration than online surveys. Configurations vary, but you generally have to join a panel and engage on a certain number of issues per week or month. Online focus groups are often more selective than online surveys — if you don&#;t meet specific demographic or income criteria, you may not qualify.

The upshot: The pay is much better, as are the opportunities for prizes and free stuff. With effort, you can earn $ and possibly more per month in cash or in-kind awards.

3. Blogging: Sell Your Insights

Blogs aren&#;t just venues for bored people to share their thoughts about anything and everything. They can also be a legitimate source of income for aspiring bloggers keen to make money online.

Your blogging journey begins with an idea. This is an early make-or-break decision for your blog — if it&#;s not entirely unique, your idea must at least be sharper and more compelling than your competitors&#;.

You should know your blog&#;s subject matter cold — ideally from personal experience or formal training — and have no trouble writing fluently about it. Over time, you&#;ll tighten up your writing process and produce great content in less time.

Next come the nuts and bolts: choosing and buying a Web domain, hosting and designing your site, and planning content. While this is a lot of work to put in before publishing your first post, resist the temptation to cut corners. You&#;re laying the foundation, hopefully, for a long-term endeavor.

Once you&#;ve created a quality site and built a following, there are plenty of ways to make money from your blog.

Pro tip: Aspiring bloggers can purchase hosting throughBluehost for less than $5 per month and receive a free domain for the first year.

4. Virtual Tutoring: Sell Your Expertise

Virtual tutoring is a more personal way to earn money by sharing your subject matter expertise. Unlike online courses, which are available to dozens or even hundreds of paying customers at a time, tutoring sessions are usually one-on-one affairs. However, you can have as many students as your schedule allows.

As with online teaching, to maximize your chances of success as an online tutor, stick to subjects you know well. Use a reputable and high-visibility venue, structure your sessions sensibly, price your services in line with the market, follow scheduling best practices, and promote yourself enthusiastically (or choose a platform that does so on your behalf).

The best places to find online tutoring jobs are platforms that focus specifically on tutoring, such asEducation First, and Chegg. Both pay set hourly or per-session rates based on tutors&#; chosen subjects — for instance, computer science tutors generally earn more than English tutors. Chegg starts tutors at $20 per hour and claims prolific tutors can earn upward of $1, per month.

Before you sign up, make sure your computer meets your chosen platform&#;s system requirements — you&#;ll need a reasonably fast processor and real-time video-chatting capabilities. In most cases, if you’re teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) online, you&#;ll also need to earn a TEFL certification; we recommendPremier TEFL.

Do you have an underutilized garage, shed, basement, or attic? Are you willing to clean it up? Then you&#;re a good fit forwww.oldyorkcellars.com, a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform that connects folks who need extra storage space with those who have it in spades and aren&#;t using it.

www.oldyorkcellars.com advertises rental rates at 50% of the going rate for self-storage units, although you&#;ll earn a bit less than that after the platform takes its cut. Still, that&#;s quite a bit of passive income for doing basically nothing at all.

Sign Up For www.oldyorkcellars.com

6. P2P Lending: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 1)

The sharing economy has created new opportunities for regular people to put their excess capital to work. Two opportunities are worth calling out here:

• Real Estate Crowdfunding. Real estate crowdfunding websites likeGroundfloor allow everyday investors to lend money for real estate projects. Loans return anywhere from 5% to 25%, depending on their risk level. If you&#;re looking for other ways to invest indirectly in real estate consider a platform like Crowdstreet.
• P2P Lending. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms such as Prosper are reputable outlets for nonaccredited individuals seeking above-average returns on investment — anywhere from 4% to more than 10% annually, after accounting for nonperforming loans and the platforms&#; service charges.

A word of warning: Unlike high-yield savings accounts and CDs, P2P loans and real estate crowdfunding opportunities are not FDIC-insured or SIPC-protected. That means they present the very real risk of loss of principal. Don&#;t lend any funds you can&#;t afford to lose, and thoroughly read platforms&#; prospectuses and disclaimers before participating.

Sign Up For Groundfloor

Sign Up For Crowdstreet

7. Investing: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 2)

Although certain types of securities accounts are SIPC-protected, investing in stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) isn&#;t without risk. While you should never invest money that you can&#;t afford to lose, putting your excess capital to work in the market is a great way to beat persistently low savings account interest rates.

Tilt the odds in your favor by consuming as much proprietary research and analytics as you can manage. If you&#;re not sure where to start, Seeking Alpha is a great resource for beginners and pros alike.

When you&#;re ready, get started by checking out our roundup of the best brokerage account promotions — Robinhood&#;s free stock offer is particularly compelling right now.

8. Downsize and Declutter: Sell Your Unwanted Stuff

Before you roll up your sleeves and monetize your personal or professional skills, why not earn some money by cleaning up your space? Selling your unwanted stuff is a great way to downsize and declutter your life while earning some income on the side.

If you&#;re transitioning to full-time work-at-home status, that income and newfound space could help you create a proper home office or allow you to maintain your lifestyle during lean times.

When it comes to at-home income, selling your unwanted stuff is the definition of low-hanging fruit. Even if you&#;re intentional in your purchasing habits, you likely have possessions you can do without.

Examples include old kids&#; clothing and toys, sporting goods you no longer use, out-of-fashion wardrobe accessories, electronics, watches and jewelry, old furniture, dusty tools and outdoor equipment, and perhaps even big-ticket items like a motorcycle or second car.

There are several ways you can sell your unwanted stuff.

Most prolific sellers rely on digital marketplaces. The most popular online platforms for professional and semi-professional sellers are eBay and Amazon. Both offer an array of tools and capabilities for merchants, though you do have to pay for them — commissions come in at around 10% of the sales price on eBay and between about 6% and 20% of the sales price on Amazon.

Craigslist is a better (and cheaper) fit for occasional sellers, while marketplaces like SellCell,Gazelle, Decluttr, and MaxBack are strong choices for high-margin electronics sellers.

If you prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, you can always sell whatever you can&#;t or don&#;t want to offload online from your driveway instead. Follow these tips for a successful garage sale.

9. Freelance Writing: Sell Your Words

Countless Americans, from high school and college students to retirees, earn extra income from freelance writing. If you have a way with words, writing blog articles and Web copy is an easy and fun way to pad your full-time income.

Getting your foot in the door as a freelance writer is difficult but doable. Freelance writing jobs abound at the lower end of the pay scale, both on general-purpose freelance platforms like Upwork and writing-only portals such as Textbroker.

While the writing opportunities on these platforms are often monotonous (lots of product descriptions, ad copy, and press releases) and doesn’t pay well at all, it’ll help you learn what editors expect from freelance writers and sharpen your writing skills in the process.

As you gain experience (and confidence) in the freelance writing trenches, stretch out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to ratchet up your freelance writing rates, draft freelance contracts to protect yourself from unscrupulous clients, and send queries to the sorts of publications where you’d be proud to see your byline.

Rejection is a fact of the freelance writing game, no matter how talented you are — but if you’re persistent, you’ll hear “yes” more often than you expect.

Freelance Editing and Proofreading: Sell Your Grammatical Skills

Freelance editing and proofreading naturally follow from freelance writing. Although not every writer is a born editor or proofreader, the skills often go hand in hand.

Freelance Editing

Once you&#;ve worked with a few different editors, you&#;ll likely get a sense of the skills and duties required for the job. Then, it&#;s just a matter of finding the right editing gigs.

As a new editor, start small. Look for part-time or project-based copy editing jobs. If possible, leverage existing freelance writing arrangements. For instance, if you know one of your freelance clients uses contract editors to clean up writers&#; work, approach them about taking on those responsibilities directly.

Once you&#;ve outgrown your existing client base, look to online job boards such as Upwork, as well as media-specific platforms such as Mediabistro. Common types of online editing jobs include:

• Copy Editor. Copy editors ensure written copy is polished before their bosses hit &#;publish&#; and often serve as the main point of contact with contributing writers. Although it&#;s not exceptionally well-paid, copy editing is often a springboard to more lucrative editing or production opportunities.
• Assistant Editor. Assistant editors supervise copy editors, photo editors, writers, and other support staff involved in producing digital publications. Larger blogs and online-print hybrids generally have at least one assistant editor on staff. These gigs can be part- or full-time. They&#;re typically intermediate between copy editing and managing editing jobs.
• Managing Editor. Managing editors supervise and direct editorial teams, including lower-level editors. These jobs are harder to come by and require more of your time, but temporary arrangements look great on your resume. If you lack much formal editing experience, start with smaller blogs and niche publications with modest budgets and limited content needs. Some publications don&#;t have enough work for a full-time editor, making it feasible to string together a handful of part-time editing gigs or try out a single position to see how it suits you.
• Photo Editor/Web Editor. Photo and Web editors create or edit visuals that appear on websites and other digital media, such as white papers and corporate reports. This line of work is a great way to exercise your visual skills and become more familiar with layout and editing programs such as WordPress and Photoshop. These gigs often require basic to intermediate coding skills, so they&#;re great for freelancers who want to expand their expertise beyond the written word.
• Manuscript Editor. Looking for a longer-term engagement? The self-publishing boom has created an unprecedented demand for manuscript editors — specialists who help writers organize and sharpen book-length works before publication. Depending on your clients&#; budgets, manuscript editing can be lucrative, although it&#;ll likely take time to build your reputation to the point that you&#;re working with accomplished writers. Entry-level opportunities abound on reputable freelance platforms and with niche publishing houses.

The prerequisites and best practices that make freelance editors successful are broadly similar to those freelance writers need. A suitable home office is important, as is aggressive networking, a strong work ethic, a clear understanding of your value, and a hunger for self-improvement.

Freelance Proofreading

Freelance proofreaders draw on the same skills and competencies as freelance writers and editors, but their career paths are distinct.

The best way for someone new to the freelance proofreading game to get started (even with prior writing or editing experience) is to invest in a proofreading course to establish credibility with potential employers.Proofread Anywhere is a great example. With free introductory modules, there&#;s no obligation if you decide the gig isn&#;t for you.

Although the niche is surprisingly varied, proofreading jobs generally fall into two broad categories: general proofreading and technical proofreading. The former covers nontechnical, relatively unspecialized media like blogs and books. The latter covers transcripts and other technical materials; court reporters, for instance, are seasoned technical proofreaders.

Which you choose depends on your innate strengths as a proofreader and what you&#;re hoping to get out of the job. Technical proofreading is harder to break into but typically pays better; general proofreading is more competitive but easier to launch.

Pet Sitting: Start a Doggy Day Care in Your Home

Fun and rewarding as it can be, pet sitting is a business like any other. Successful pet sitters — those operating legit doggy day cares out of their homes — invest in local marketing, commercial insurance, formal accounting, organized recordkeeping, and perhaps even legal services to manage contracts and reduce liability.

You can juggle all these obligations yourself, or you can outsource much of the heavy lifting to a pet sitting platform likeRover. Think of Rover as the Airbnb of pet sitting — a platform that handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes work of running a profitable home-based enterprise without micromanaging your work.

Rover claims its pet sitters earn up to $1, per month, although actual earnings vary by client volume and the amount of time you put into the business.

Remote Accounting: Launch a Virtual Bookkeeping Business

If you prefer clients who won&#;t shed all over your house and you have an affinity for spreadsheets, a virtual bookkeeping business could be just what you need to earn a stable income without leaving the house.

Because bookkeeping is a competitive industry that rewards skilled professionals with solid reputations, the surest way to break into the business is to invest in a credentialing course.

For instance,Bookkeepers offers three different tracks (&#;communities&#;) for bookkeepers at various stages of learning the trade and building their businesses. Learn the ropes with Bookkeeper Launch, then progress to Bookkeeper Lab and Bookkeeper Elite — if you have what it takes.

Retail Arbitrage: Learn How to Buy Low and Sell High

&#;Buy low, sell high&#; is an expression more commonly heard in the noisy bullpen of an investment bank or brokerage house than the relative quiet of one&#;s home office. But there&#;s one type of arbitrage — the art of selling assets for more than you paid without adding value — that&#;s perfect for at-home workers.

That would be retail arbitrage, one of the top careers for self-employed introverts.

Practitioners of retail arbitrage buy products for pennies on the dollar at auctions, from online retailers, even at garage and yard sales, and then sell them online at sometimes-substantial markups. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is the most popular platform for U.S. sellers, but other options work too. Learn the FBA ropes with this low-cost Udemy course.

E-books and Audiobooks: Take Your Writing (or Acting) Career to the Next Level

Even the most diligent freelance writers get bored and disillusioned after a while. If you&#;re tired of writing Web content or blog posts on a contract basis, or you simply want to expand your horizons, consider tackling long-form projects that exercise your creative muscles and carry substantial passive income potential.

Although seeing and hearing your name in print is a worthy accomplishment in and of itself, selling audiobooks probably won&#;t make you rich. In most cases, your royalty-sharing arrangement will amount to just a few dollars per download.

A lot depends on the extent to which you promote your audiobook and how visible it is on platforms such as Audible and iTunes. If you&#;re lucky, a successful audiobook can generate a five-figure annual income stream. More obscure titles might earn just a few hundred bucks per year.

You can make money with audiobooks in a couple of different ways:

Recording Your Work

If you&#;ve already written a book, you can leverage an entirely new revenue stream by turning it into an audiobook. It doesn&#;t have to be your voice on the recording. In fact, unless you have voice acting or radio experience, it&#;s better to hire a trained voice actor.

Reputable platforms like ACX typically have low production costs and innovative royalty-sharing arrangements that maximize rights-holders&#; (writers&#;) income potential. Check Publishers Weekly for a list of platform options.

Recording Others&#; Work

If you&#;re a trained voice actor or narrator, or you think you have what it takes to break into the niche, you can use ACX and other outlets to find audiobook recording jobs. You&#;ll need to audition for each role, but once you land a gig, you&#;ll earn money two ways: at an agreed per-hour rate for the actual job and a shared royalty arrangement with the rights-holder and others involved in the production.

If you&#;re a union actor (SAG-AFTRA), you&#;re required to charge a minimum fee (variable, but above $) per finished hour (roughly two studio hours). On a hour audiobook, that&#;s a minimum payday of $2, before royalties.

Political Advocacy: Sell Your Passion for the Issues

Maybe you&#;re committed to making the world a better place. Maybe you just love a good argument. Either way, you can work as a political organizer and advocate from the comfort of your home.

Advocacy organizations such as DDC Public Affairs recruit and pay outgoing, communications-savvy team members to raise support around political issues championed by their clients — private companies, nonprofits, trade organizations, and lobbying groups. The types of work involved include:

• Coordinating phone and email outreach to constituents
• Organizing letter-writing and call-in campaigns
• Galvanizing responses to public comment periods
• Activating small- and midsized-business constituents

Advocacy organizations generally have full-time core teams that work on-site in state capitals or Washington, D.C. At-home opportunities are typically project-based and may require substantial time commitments — up to and perhaps more than 40 hours per week.

Depending on the nature of the job, the pay can be modest — $10 to $20 per hour. However, if you&#;re looking to launch a career in political organizing, these gigs can get your foot in the door. Note that they involve advocating for a wide range of causes, so they can potentially put people with deeply held beliefs in awkward positions.

Classes and Webinars: Sell Education

Online surveys and focus groups are great for regular folks who want to share their opinions and influence companies&#; decision-making processes. But what about folks who have bona fide subject matter expertise — or, at least, above-average skills in a sought-after discipline?

You don&#;t have to snag an adjunct professorship at your local university to share your knowledge with students and earn some cash in the process. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can cut out the middleman and teach classes directly to lifelong learners without leaving the house.

Here&#;s what you should keep in mind to begin and maintain a successful at-home teaching enterprise:

Credibility

Selling your expertise works best when you have some credibility. In many verticals, formal credentials are a near-necessity. Students signing up for a class on online tax preparation want to learn from a CPA. Entrepreneurs looking for the inside track on small-business law want to hear from a lawyer or serial entrepreneur.

Venue

When you&#;re first starting out, choose reputable, high-visibility venues for your classes. Don&#;t expect students to find their way to your personal or professional website before you&#;ve built a reputation for yourself.

Udemy is a great option for budding at-home teachers looking to earn real money from their work. YouTube is another viable option, although you can&#;t directly charge people to watch your YouTube videos. You&#;ll need to monetize them indirectly.

Topic and Structure

It&#;s not enough to select a popular vertical. You need a compelling topic and a tight structure for each class. After all, everyone wants to learn how to code, but you can&#;t teach every popular program language in an hour.

Build your curriculum around interesting, high-demand topics within your niche. Use real-life examples, hands-on exercises, and attractive graphics (whiteboards work well) whenever possible.

Pricing and Deals

As with any professional pursuit, you need to know how much your teaching skills are worth and price them accordingly.

Unfortunately, at-home teaching is a competitive business, so you&#;re likely to find someone who charges less for similar work. Ways to get around this include multicourse discounts, package deals, and complimentary products or information for early sign-ups.

Promotion

You don&#;t need to buy digital ads to promote your classes, but it&#;s definitely worth your while to drum up support by email — sending out targeted blasts to your professional and personal networks — and social media accounts.

As you gain students, reputable platforms like Udemy will boost your visibility, doing some of the hard promotional work for you. However, you must opt into its extensive course marketing network.

Question Marketplaces: Sell Answers to People’s Questions

The Internet is full of questions. If you&#;re knowledgeable and unbiased, you could earn money by answering them.

Online question marketplaces pay verified experts to answer questions posed by community members. If you&#;re particularly knowledgeable about a specific subject or discipline, you could earn a respectable side income simply by sharing your factual insights.

One of the most reputable and lucrative online question marketplaces is JustAnswer. JustAnswer&#;s verticals include health, home improvement, cars, law, business, tech, pets, and homework. For most verticals, you need relevant official credentials, such as a law or accounting degree.

Pay varies by vertical but seems to be pretty generous. JustAnswer says you can earn $2, to $7, per month, depending on your subject of expertise.

Your work volume depends on the quality of your answers and the volume of questions users are asking, so you may not find as much work as you expect at first. Still, JustAnswer is ripe for multitasking, making it a perfect work-from-home opportunity.

Other options include Wonder, which doesn&#;t require formal credentials. Wonder is cagey about how much it pays, but client pricing starts at about $40 per completed query, so it&#;s likely contributors see at least half that figure. However, Wonder appears to have lower question volumes than JustAnswer, limiting your income potential.

Paid Search: Sell Your Search Queries

You could earn small but meaningful sums from the same online searches you no doubt conduct every day, thanks to a slew of websites and plug-ins that track your searches and pay you for each completed query.

Paid search queries aren&#;t nearly as lucrative as expert-answer platforms such as JustAnswer. It&#;s rare to get more than a few cents for a single search. However, because you can complete hundreds of searches in an hour, the income potential is real. Popular, reputable options include:

• InboxDollars.InboxDollars is one of the Internet&#;s first legitimate at-home money-making websites. Paid search is just one of the many ways to earn a few extra bucks on the side with this site. And InboxDollars pays hard cash, a major advantage over some competitors. Learn more about InboxDollars by reading our InboxDollars review.
• Swagbucks. Swagbucks is an InboxDollars competitor with a slew of online money-making opportunities, including paid search. Searches earn Swagbucks, an on-site loyalty currency you can redeem for gift cards and other items.
• Qmee. Qmee is a browser plug-in that pays you to search for specific partner brands. You get even more via cash-back rebates when you buy stuff from these brands, but there&#;s no obligation to spend any money.

Paid Social Posts: Get Paid to Tweet, Post, Pin, and Share

You don&#;t need millions of followers to become a social media influencer. You just need to follow the basic rules of social media etiquette and find a reputable platform that pays you to share sponsored content from its clients or promote affiliate products.

If you&#;re serious about making real, sustainable money on social media, try either of these strategies:

YouTube Partner Program

The YouTube Partner program empowers YouTube channel operators to monetize certain types of videos.

Finding paying advertisers is hard work, and you need a sizable following before you can find companies willing to pay for direct or indirect promotion. Plus, your videos must meet YouTube&#;s monetization criteria, which ban explicit or copied content.

Pay potential is directly proportional to the size of your channel following and, to a lesser extent, audience demographics.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog or website, but it can also generate income from your social media properties. Many affiliate marketers do both.

ClickBank is a good place to start. Pay is directly proportional to your follower count and audience demographics.

Software and Game Reviews: Get Paid to Test Video Games

Getting paid to test new video games and consoles sounds like a dream come true for gamers. But video game testing is a job like any other. It requires significant time and energy commitments. It&#;s not something you can do with a few spare minutes or with less than your undivided attention.

To get started as a game tester, sign up with a reputable network such as Keywords Studio, whose Global Beta Test Network (GBTN) helps game developers push their products to the limit and ensure they go to market with as few bugs as possible.

GBTN&#;s tests typically involve dozens to hundreds of testers around the world running simultaneous tests on different aspects of clients&#; games. Most tests are time-limited, project-based affairs.

Pay varies but typically ranges from $20 to $50 per hour. Diligent, skilled testers who work part-time can earn $10, to $20, per year; testers who work at or near full-time can easily exceed $50, per year.

Successful game testers have certain capabilities and personality traits in common:

• A Professional-Grade Gaming Setup. If you&#;re an avid gamer, you probably have this covered. If not, the cost of upgrading your setup in the hopes you&#;ll be hired as a tester could be prohibitive.
• Unwavering Attention to Detail. Video game testing isn&#;t like regular gameplay. The whole point is to prod for any bugs and defects that could potentially impact play, no matter how small or unlikely. Your eyes must be peeled for any deviance from expected results.
• Flexible Schedules With Long Blocks of Uninterrupted Time. Simultaneous game tests typically occur at the client&#;s convenience. If your game&#;s developer is based overseas, that could mean testing in the middle of the night. For night owls, that&#;s not a big deal, but 9-to-5 workers may struggle. Also, tests typically take several hours, so this isn&#;t something you can do for 20 minutes at a time and move on.

Website and Product Testing: Sell Your Feedback

Websites and products need testing too. Here&#;s what to know about each type of gig.

Website Testing

If you&#;re not much of a gamer, or you can&#;t spare the long blocks of time and unwavering attention required of professional game testers, consider signing up with UserTesting to try out new websites and mobile apps.

UserTesting&#;s website testing gigs do require focus and rigor, but they&#;re far shorter and don&#;t need to happen simultaneously, making them much easier to fit into your schedule. They don&#;t pay quite as well as game testing, though.

If you&#;re diligent, you can reliably earn $20 per hour, although the overall work volume is sometimes thin. You need a decent, relatively new computer or smartphone to complete tests.

Product Testing

If you prefer hands-on testing, consider signing up to test products withToluna, a leading market research firm. You&#;ll have the opportunity to try real product prototypes and beta versions before they&#;re released to the general public, and your feedback could meaningfully influence their development.

Cash Back and Coupons: Earn When You Shop

Cash back isn&#;t technically income because you need to buy something to earn it. It&#;s more like a discount. But when you earn cash back for purchases you&#;d make anyway, it&#;s a great way to make a little extra money.

The most common way to earn cash back on purchases is with a cash-back credit card.

But while a credit card is a great tool for building credit, there are many legitimate arguments against using one. If your spotty credit or personal preferences preclude you from applying for a credit card, don&#;t sweat it. You have plenty of other opportunities to earn cash back on purchases made in the comfort of your own home.

Look into these options:

• Capital One Shopping.Capital One Shopping is a browser extension that helps folks find a lower price on thousands of products when shopping online. Use it whenever you need to buy something without leaving the house.
• GetUpside. GetUpside is a coupon-free cash back app that pays users back for purchases at participating gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants. Online grocery and takeout orders are eligible for cash back where available, making GetUpside a profitable spending aid for at-home hustlers.
• Rakuten.Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is a wildly popular coupon site that offers multiple ways to save online. Cash back accrues immediately, so there&#;s no need to go through an extra redemption process. You can choose from thousands of partner merchants.
• TopCashback.TopCashback leverages affiliate arrangements with thousands of merchants to deliver a slew of instant discount and cash-back opportunities for U.S.-based shoppers. There&#;s some friction involved, as you need to click through to specific offers from TopCashback&#;s website, but the depth of the savings makes this extra step worthwhile.
• Piggy. Piggy is an intelligent coupon plug-in that works in the background as you browse and automatically serves you with the most relevant, up-to-date coupons on your favorite shopping websites. With thousands of merchants in the network, virtually every major brand is here. Savings opportunities range up to 70%.
• Qmee. As a low-friction plug-in, Qmee gives you the option to act on or ignore shopping discount offers. You can cash out in virtually any amount, so it&#;s worth using even if you&#;re only a sporadic online shopper.
• Giving Assistant. Giving Assistant puts a charitable spin on online shopping discounts. Functionally, it&#;s similar to Qmee and Piggy, but users have the option to donate their earnings to their favorite charities. Of course, those who prefer to pocket their cash still can. You can reliably earn 5% cash back with Giving Assistant and more at select merchants.

Translation: Sell Your Language Skills

Translation software is getting better all the time, and translator jobs are widely considered vulnerable to automation and artificial intelligence. However, there&#;s still a lively market for translators, particularly those with above-average wordsmithing skills or fluency in obscure languages.

You can find plenty of translation jobs on general freelance platforms like Upwork, but the quality of opportunities on nonspecialized platforms tends to be uneven.

Earning potential also varies widely. Entry-level, nonspecialized translation work often pays less than $10 per hour, while highly technical jobs can pay more than $50 per hour. Generally speaking, you&#;ll earn more as you gain experience, improve your fluency, and attain vertical-specific credentials.

To maximize your earning potential as an online translator, sign up with as many of the following as possible:

Gengo

Gengo is a beginner-friendly platform that covers a range of subjects and project types. Pay tends to be on the low side, but payment is frequent and predictable — it comes via PayPal twice per month.

Experienced and prolific translators can become Senior Translators, who command higher pay rates and are responsible for evaluating and editing entry-level translators&#; work.

ProTranslating

ProTranslating is a boutique agency with a sophisticated digital presence and an in-house marketing apparatus that adds value to its core services: translation and transcreation — adapting prose into a second language without altering its meaning.

ProTranslating focuses on expert-level content at the upper end of the market, so if you&#;re a professional translator with verifiable subject matter expertise, you can do very well. Beginners may want to start with Gengo or another entry-level platform before applying here.

One Hour Translation

One Hour Translation is a bulk translation service that&#;s great for entry-level translators. It pays by the word, with hourly rates working out to $10 to $20, depending on skill and speed. It&#;s a good option for beginners, and there&#;s ample room for advancement through the site&#;s elaborate hierarchy.

Unbabel

Unbabel is another entry-level option. Billed as an originator of &#;trustworthy large-scale translations,&#; it pays as little as $8 per hour, but the work is more plentiful and steady than on some competing platforms. If nothing else, it&#;s a good place to start.

Online Boutiques (Online Stores): Sell Your Crafts

The sky&#;s the limit for at-home crafters. Running a successful at-home crafts business no longer means schlepping your wares to flea markets every weekend or begging for space at your local art gallery. All you need is a reliable Internet connection, a decent camera, and a modest startup fund.

Legitimate places to sell your creations online include:

• Etsy. Selling on Etsy is a fantastic way to monetize your crafting hobby. And with a transaction fee of just %, it&#;s a lot cheaper than popular alternatives such as eBay and Amazon.
• E-Commerce Portals. The best way to improve your at-home crafts business&#;s visibility and credibility is to launch your own website. And the best way to monetize that website is with a turnkey e-commerce portal. Shopify is a relatively cost-effective, feature-rich option for serious sellers — you can build and maintain a decent store for $15 to $20 per month. Volusion and Squarespace are worthy, comparably priced competitors.
• Niche Websites. Depending on what you&#;re selling, niche websites could be cheaper and more effective than Etsy and on-site e-commerce portals. Check out Handmade Artists, which costs $5 per month or $50 per year and is for handmade goods only, and Zibbet, which costs $5 and up per month and has a handy feature that seamlessly transfers Etsy listing content.

Technical Support: Sell Your Troubleshooting Skills

Do you like chatting with people? Do you have above-average technical or troubleshooting skills or the willingness to learn?

If so, you could make a good technical support rep. While many customer service and technical support reps still work in centralized call centers, at-home workers have plenty of opportunities.

At Home Advisors

One of the biggest and best-known at-home tech support employers is Apple, whose At Home Advisor program employs thousands of people at competitive, experience-based salaries.

At Home Advisors are part- or full-time employees, not independent contractors, so there&#;s a measure of security here that&#;s often missing from work-at-home gigs. The benefits package, including Apple stock, is pretty nice too, and every At Home Advisor gets a free iMac.

The downside is that the hiring process is highly competitive, so you&#;ll likely need to demonstrate prior experience or make a great impression on the hiring manager.

If you&#;re hired, you&#;ll need to complete a paid training course that lasts five to seven weeks. And you&#;ll need to spring for a legit home office, which Apple describes as &#;a quiet, distraction-free room with a door that can close to keep out ambient noise &#; a desk, an ergonomic chair, and your own high-speed Internet connection from a reliable provider that meets the minimum requirements of 5 megabits per second download and 1 megabit per second upload.&#;

There are lots of tech support work-at-home opportunities out there. Before looking for at-home tech support jobs, however, keep a few cautions in mind:

Spotting Scams

Lots of at-home voice work is legitimate, but there are plenty of scam artists too. Don&#;t invest any money upfront without thoroughly checking your prospective employer&#;s credentials. Start with the Better Business Bureau and cross-reference with first-person testimonials at watchdog sites such as Ripoff Report and career boards such as Indeed.

Demands on Your Time and Energy

Tech support is a 24/7 business. You&#;ll likely have some freedom to set your schedule, but you&#;re virtually assured to have some work shifts that don&#;t jibe with your lifestyle. You&#;ll also likely be responsible for some holiday and weekend coverage, though how much varies by employer.

Finally, you&#;ll need to be &#;on&#; and personable at all times. If you don&#;t think you&#;re capable of maintaining a sunny disposition as you near the end of an eight-hour shift, this might not be the job for you.

Opportunities for Advancement

Entry-level tech support work usually pays between $10 and $20 per hour, though blue-chip employers like Apple can afford higher wages.

If you&#;d like to do this work long-term, look for gigs that offer opportunities for advancement into the ranks of lower and middle management — preferably without an attendant shift to on-site employment.

Remote Call Centers: Sell Your Voice

Not confident in your technical support skills or not sure you meet Apple&#;s stringent standards? If you&#;re a friendly, persuasive talker, you&#;ll find plenty of opportunities with remote call center operators.

Although they vary somewhat from company to company, remote call center operators&#; technical and equipment requirements are comparable to remote customer support companies&#;. You need a headset, a fast Internet connection, an above-average desktop or laptop computer, and any proprietary software necessary to do your job.

Remote call center opportunities are more varied than remote technical support gigs. Many call center companies serve as outside sales contractors for companies without internal sales teams of their own. As an at-home operator, you work as an independent contractor charged with selling on the client&#;s behalf.

If you&#;re personable, persuasive, and believe in what you&#;re selling, there&#;s real money to be made in this niche. However, since independent sales agents are usually commission-based, you may struggle to earn a respectable keep if you&#;re not a born salesperson.

Other common opportunities include insurance claims processing, roadside assistance routing, and customer assistance for health care consumers.

LiveOps packages all of these functions, plus a healthy dose of inbound sales, under a single roof. Keep in mind that there&#;s a modest startup cost involved — about $50 for a self-funded background check — and you&#;re not compensated for training. So LiveOps isn&#;t suitable for at-home workers who need cash immediately.

Virtual Assistant Services: Sell Your Organizational Skills

Busy professionals and small-business owners often lack the resources or office space to employ an on-site assistant. Many choose to hire virtual assistants (VAs) on a part-time or contract basis, getting all the benefits of a trusty assistant while saving the expense and regulatory headaches of a full-time employee.

Virtual assistant duties typically include:

• Screening calls, taking and responding to messages, and directing important information to the client
• Accepting, deflecting, and scheduling requests for the client&#;s time and attention and maintaining up-to-date calendars
• Basic clerical and organizational tasks
• Compiling and running reports
• Managing, scheduling, and producing content for social media, email marketing, and websites
• Managing e-commerce operations, including fulfillment

Necessary or recommended equipment includes:

• A comfortable desk and workspace
• A standardized and scalable electronic organization system
• A fast Internet connection
• A reliable telephone setup (either a landline or a cloud-based business phone system), preferably with a headset
• A secure means of invoicing and receiving payment, such as FreshBooks or PayPal
• A secure email suite
• Anti-malware protection
• A virtual private network (VPN) fromNordVPN, especially if anonymity is a consideration or you&#;re working with clients outside your home country
• Permissions and passwords for the principal accounts to which you&#;re allowed access, such as email and invoicing software

Virtual assistants can work as little as a few hours per week per client, either in a single block of time or spread evenly throughout. Work is plentiful, so it&#;s not hard to string together multiple gigs and create a full- or near-full-time job.

The virtual assistant workforce is global, which means two things. First, if you&#;re in the U.S. or another high-cost country, you&#;ll likely be undercut by English- and Spanish-speaking professionals in cheaper markets.

Second, you&#;ll need to either stick to clients in or near your time zone or be willing to work odd hours. A reasonable starting wage for North America-based VAs is $10 to $20 per hour, but competent VAs command much higher rates.

Start looking for virtual assistant gigs on general-purpose freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer, but consider launching your own website.

Pro tip: If you&#;re unsure how to get started, there are online courses available that can provide you with all the information you&#;ll need.

Watching Online Videos and TV: Sell Your Viewing Time

If you&#;re an avid consumer of online videos, TV programs, or both, you can turn your habit into a legitimate source of side income.

Some opportunities pay better and more reliably than others. Netflix reportedly pays &#;taggers,&#; who watch and categorize Netflix shows, at least $10 per hour. Individual shows or production companies occasionally advertise for similar positions, although these opportunities are becoming fewer and farther between. Competition is stiff when positions do open up.

Other opportunities are easier to get but not nearly as lucrative. Many market research companies have video-watching verticals through which participants can earn points for each view.Swagbucks andInboxDollars are two legitimate options that allow users to exchange points for gift cards and occasionally cash.

Hourly rates work out to less than minimum wage in most cases but aren&#;t bad for a few spare minutes of your time here and there.

Tailoring: Sell Your Fashion Skills

Tailoring isn&#;t exactly a fast track to riches, but it can serve as a valuable source of side income or even a full-fledged cottage industry sufficient to support a two-income family. According to the BLS, the average annual salary for tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers is about $36, That works out to more than $15 per hour.

The most common at-home sewing pursuit is clothing alterations, a high-volume niche that&#;s always in demand.

However, depending on your skills and interests, you can pour yourself into a slew of other opportunities: making custom curtains and draperies, repairing heirloom bedclothes and tapestries, assembling and repairing durable fabrics such as canvas bags and totes, or producing large-scale items such as boat covers.

Before you launch an at-home alteration or custom sewing business, consider the following:

Your Skills

This is a detail-oriented pursuit that requires patience and skill. You need to have above-average sewing skills, and confidence in those skills, to make your mark. Experience is strongly preferred as well.

Advertising and Promotion

You won&#;t have a huge budget to promote your at-home business, so use cost-effective outreach targeted to your most likely customers, such as fliers in local craft and clothing stores, a basic website (preferably with booking and payment portals), a referral network, and friends and family willing to sing your praises.

Also, consider joining the American Sewing Guild for $50 per year. It&#;s a reliable way to meet other enthusiasts and get your name out there.

Equipment Costs and Space

At a minimum, you&#;ll need a work table, a sewing machine, a rack, and storage space for raw materials. You can find a cheap but sturdy table for less than $20, and maybe for free if you&#;re fortunate.

Used sewing machines start at under $50, but that won&#;t cut it for a real at-home custom sewing business. You&#;ll need a heavy-duty piece of equipment, preferably new. Expect to pay $2, or more for this. Consider financing with a low-APR credit card if your creditworthiness allows.

Legalities

Confirm with local authorities that your neighborhood is zoned to allow at-home businesses. If it&#;s not, look into applying for a variance or otherwise coming into compliance. Even if this costs something upfront, it&#;s better than risking a fine or a cease-and-desist order down the road.

Medical Transcription: Sell Your Attention to Detail

If you&#;re a fast, accurate typist, you can earn significant sums as a medical transcriptionist by transcribing physicians&#; spoken notes into legible, accurate text.

Medical transcription is semiskilled work. While you don&#;t have to be a doctor or nurse, you do need to complete an intensive training course that can last a year or more and cost several thousand dollars. During periods of increased demand, some employers may be willing to finance your training course, or at least partially or fully reimburse you after the fact.

Once you&#;re employed, you can expect to earn about $16 per hour on average, according to PayScale.

To boost your attractiveness to employers, consider working as an on-site scribe at your local hospital or clinic. Although they pay less, most such jobs require less prior experience than full-fledged transcription jobs.

The upshot: Like reputable tech support jobs, legitimate medical transcription gigs usually don&#;t require much upfront investment, save for high-speed Internet and a cell or landline phone. Legitimate employers provide any software necessary to complete your duties, and some may even provide or finance the purchase of a business laptop or desktop.

Freelance Consulting: Sell Your Professional Acumen

At-home consulting is a great way for new parents who&#;ve scaled back their hours or sidelined their careers to keep their skills sharp and their names out there. It&#;s also a great side gig for professionals and digital artisans, like graphic design pros, who&#;ve grown stifled in their current roles but don&#;t yet have the confidence or client base to quit their 9-to-5s and strike out on their own.

With time, a consulting side business can easily turn into a full-time job, with all the freedom that entails.

Launching an at-home consulting business means getting comfortable with the idea of marketing yourself. Start by modifying your LinkedIn profile to emphasize your consulting services and relevant professional experience. Set up a website that describes your consulting work in more detail and features testimonials from former colleagues and clients. And create a blog that plays up your expertise.

Website Flipping: Buy, Fix, and Sell Undervalued Websites & Domains

Flipping a website is a lot like building and monetizing a personal blog. The key difference is that when you flip, you&#;re working toward the clearly defined short-term goal of selling the site for a tidy profit. You can and should earn money through advertising and affiliate relationships along the way, but you&#;re not looking to hold the site over the long term.

Every website flip carries its own unique caveats and considerations. For starters, there are two main types of website flips:

• Buying an unbuilt domain and creating your own website from scratch
• Buying an existing website and increasing its revenue potential

Successful website flippers typically hone in on a niche that’s popular with Internet users (as measured by search interest) and has ample potential to support informative, engaging content. They use low-cost domain warehouses like GoDaddy to find domains that don’t already exist, low-cost hosting services with built-in website building tools, and reasonably priced contract labor for help with site development and content creation.

Once they’ve reached their traffic and monetization goals, they use website brokers like Flippa (a flipper-oriented platform) or FE International (a higher-end agency for more valuable online businesses) to find buyers at the right price.

Before getting too far into the website flipping business, it helps to set your expectations. Every flip is different, and your success or failure will depend to a great degree on factors like your site&#;s niche and your goals. Plus, it takes a lot of hard work — not to mention a substantial amount of time — to pull off a successful flip.

Lodging: Rent Out Space in Your Home

Are you maximizing your home&#;s income potential? If you have an empty spare bedroom, mother-in-law suite, or duplex unit on the premises, the answer is likely no.

You don&#;t have to find a long-term tenant to earn income from your home&#;s unused square footage. Apps likeAirbnb,Vrbo, andHomeAway let you rent out your home to business and leisure travelers on a nightly or weekly basis.

Depending on prevailing rents in your local market and your space&#;s size, amenities, and privacy, you could earn anywhere from $40 or $50 to $ or more per night. It&#;s the ultimate passive income side hustle.

Short-term rental platforms handle most of the thorny logistical considerations that keep regular homeowners from becoming landlords, including payment processing and security deposits.

And after a string of highly public mishaps in their first few years, these platforms are increasingly safety-conscious, so the likelihood is high you&#;ll be able to verify the identity of every person who crashes at your place.

Not every home is rental-ready, of course. Before listing your place on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, consider these factors:

Stranger Danger

Most importantly, you need to determine whether you and your family members are comfortable with welcoming strangers into your home. If you have a second unit with a separate entrance, this is less of a sticking point, but it still begs careful consideration.

Local Regulations

Municipal governments are increasingly amenable to short-term rentals, but holdouts remain. Surprisingly, tourist towns are sometimes the most vehemently opposed. Keep abreast of regulations in your area. And if your city does allow short-term rentals, make sure you pay all applicable local and state hospitality taxes.

Pets

Dogs and cats complicate short-term rental arrangements. It&#;s hard to give a visitor free reign over your place when you&#;re worried about them inadvertently letting Fido or Fluffy out when they come home in the middle of the night.

At a minimum, you should disclose the fact that you have pets, lest an allergic tenant leaves a toxic review on your otherwise pristine online listing.

Cleaning and Damage

Online rental platforms let you charge cleaning fees so that you aren&#;t financially on the hook for the full cost of a post-tenant professional cleaning. Most cover the cost of renter-caused damage too, provided you properly document and report it.

But financial redress only goes so far. You still have to deal with the inevitable investment of time and energy to fix the damage or clean up the mess.

Hands-On Hosting

While you don&#;t have to serve as your visitors&#; personal tour guide, you do have to be reachable and willing to help if a problem arises.

If you&#;re not willing to drop what you&#;re doing — or at least pick up your phone — to help a tenant in need, short-term rental hosting might not be your best bet for at-home income.

Car Rentals: Rent Out Your Car

Don&#;t have a spare bedroom or second unit to rent out on a nightly basis? If you have a personal vehicle, you can rent it out to travelers and people who don&#;t own their own cars — without getting behind the wheel or even leaving your house.

Car rental apps abound. Before you choose one, read the fine print and make sure it has adequate liability insurance that protects you in the event of a serious accident involving injuries and property damage.

Getaround has a good reputation and a relatively long track record. According to its website, car owners in high-demand cities such as San Francisco can earn up to $10, per year.Turo, another reputable option, also advertises potential earnings north of $10, per year per car. That&#;s a pretty impressive passive income stream.

Parking Spot Rentals: Rent Out Your Driveway or Street Slot

Another vehicle-related passive income opportunity is your home&#;s parking space. In crowded cities like Chicago and Boston, parking spaces are valuable commodities. If you&#;re fortunate enough to own or have guaranteed access to an on- or off-street parking space, you can earn money by renting it out to folks visiting or passing through your neighborhood.

Check outwww.oldyorkcellars.com, an increasingly popular app that connects drivers and parking spot owners in the same way Airbnb connects travelers and homeowners. www.oldyorkcellars.com won&#;t make you rich overnight, but it could help you earn a few hundred bucks per month on an in-demand parking spot.

Meal Sharing: Sell Your Cooking Skills

Once upon a time, being a professional-grade cook meant squat without startup capital to open a restaurant or launch a food truck business.

Not anymore. Today, you can run a small-scale eatery — and earn a tidy profit in the process — without leaving your home. The secret: a rapidly multiplying cohort of meal-sharing startups that connect budding chefs with hungry diners willing to shell out money for authentic, restaurant-quality home cooking.

But first, a caveat: Meal sharing platforms operate in a legal gray area. The food service industry is heavily regulated, and many jurisdictions make it all but impossible for home cooks to profit from their passions.

At a minimum, you need to make sure you comply with all local health department directives and obtain all applicable licenses before you begin inviting diners into your home.

It&#;s also worth noting that meal sharing involves hosting strangers for dinner, which can be an even more intimate prospect than allowing them to sleep in your home while you&#;re away. Every app takes pains to protect host and diner safety, but if you&#;re reticent to invite people you&#;ve never met into your home, you may want to think twice.

If you&#;re comfortable having strangers in your home and confident you&#;re on the right side of the law, check out these popular meal sharing options. Depending on your platform choice, guest capacity, and local market, you can expect to rake in anywhere from $50 to several hundred dollars per meal after accounting for expenses. Hosting opportunities are more plentiful in major cities.

• Traveling Spoon. The appropriately named Traveling Spoon brokers cooking classes and communal meals in over countries. There are very few restrictions on what you can cook (or teach), and you&#;re free to set your own prices to ensure a full table — although you&#;ll want to charge enough to cover your costs and have something left over for yourself.
• ChefsFeed. ChefsFeed is geared toward aspiring and semi-established chefs. Many cooks use it to supplement income earned at real restaurants or food trucks or to break into extremely competitive culinary scenes in places like New York City and San Francisco.
• Eatwith. Eatwith, a European startup, stresses the communal aspect of meal sharing. The vetting process for new chefs is pretty rigorous, but there&#;s plenty of room for talented cooks to break in.

Tech Work: Invest in Your Future

Contrary to popular belief, not all high-paying jobs that don&#;t require a college degree are dangerous or grueling. Some can be done from the comfort of your home office, with nothing more than a fast Internet connection and a high-end laptop.

And the right skills, of course. Increase your earning potential in fields like UI/UX and data analytics — where full-time salaries for entry-level jobs easily exceed $50, per year — with a bootcamp from Springboard, a leading course provider for tech certifications.

Although Springboard isn&#;t free, it does offer a fallback: If you don&#;t land a job after actively searching for six months following your graduation, Springboard will refund your course fees. That&#;s not a bad deal for an investment that could literally alter the course of your career.

Codecademy&#;s money-back guarantee isn&#;t as generous, but its course database is far more expansive than Springboard&#;s. If you&#;re not sure where to start, take the quiz to learn how your existing skills fit into the wide (and often confusing) world of programming.

Final Word

Many of these work-at-home opportunities involve either passive income or spare-time endeavors — side hustles, really — that aren&#;t likely to turn into full-time pursuits. But some, such as freelance writing and editing, are readily scalable.

If you&#;re willing to pound the pavement in search of paying clients and can follow productivity tips for home workers, there&#;s nothing stopping you from turning your at-home side hustle into a full-fledged career.

Disclaimer: The top ranking articles for “ways to make money from home” would never tell you what I’m about to tell you. 

To really make money online, you will have to unlearn the pillars of your informal digital education. Use your own knowledge and experience to build a business on your own instead. 

There are no limits to business building, and you can sell whatever you want. The more determination you have, the more money you’ll make online. It’s that simple. 

Skip the usual website tester gig and become a business owner. Use this article to discover a new online business idea you can turn into an exciting, profitable venture that’ll pay more than one dollar per survey. 

Free: The Big List of Business Ideas

To help you find the inspiration to start, we compiled a list of + in-demand business ideas, broken down into categories like fitness, apparel, and gaming.

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25 ways to make money from home

Gone are the days of low-paying cash-back credit cards and stressful stock trading. If you want to make a lot of money from home, you’ll want to start a small business that pays you dividends over time. 

Here are the top home-based businesses you can start.

Sell custom products 

Product development isn’t the easiest route, but it’s often the most rewarding, and it may not be as hard as you expect. Making custom products is popular amongst jewelry brands, fashion brands, and home decor brands, yet it expands through virtually any industry where you make stuff from scratch. 

We recently turned to shoppers to ask about their post-pandemic shopping plans: What are they planning to buy once the pandemic is under control? The infographic below shows how they answered. Use these items to inspire your own custom product to sell online and make extra money. 

Some evergreen categories you could sell in are:

• Apparel and clothing. Clothing is one of those categories that seems to always be trendy. People look for clothes and accessories that match their style and personality, which can make fashion a fun and profitable space to sell in. The market is expected to rise above $3 trillion by  

• Home decor. Home decor is another popular sales category. People want to add personal touches to their space to make it feel cozy and enjoyable. You can sell home decor online to anyone, anywhere, at any time, while keeping overhead at a minimum. The home decor market is forecasted to reach $ billion in

• Health and beauty. The beauty and personal care industry is set to reach $ billion by You have many options in this category: you can sell skin care, cosmetics, hair care, fragrances, vegan products, and more. Grand View Research identified growing demand for men’s grooming products and anti-aging products that are expected to drive the market over the coming years. 

• Arts and entertainment. While movie box office revenue took a % dive last year, some interesting areas show impressive growth in this multitrillion-dollar industry. Digital newspaper revenue saw a 10% increase, video game revenue saw a % lift in sales, and consumer books saw a % increase. The esports industry continues to see healthy growth in this segment, forecasted to reach $37 billion by In short, there are a lot of innovative and exciting products you could sell in the arts and entertainment industry. 

• Food and beverages. The food and beverage industry will never die. Despite the COVID pandemic, the segment is projected to grow at a rate of % per year, reaching $ billion by It’s also poised for an ecommerce breakout, with up to 20% of food and beverage industry sales to be made online by , a 10 times increase from  

Evaluating market demand and following trends is a great place to start when finding popular things to make and sell. Once you have a product, you’ll want to start your business and set up a Shopify store with a free trial. And just like that, you’re ready to start selling! 

Free Webinar:

How to Find and Source a Winning Product to Sell

In less than 40 minutes, let us walk you through how to find product ideas, how to validate them, and how to sell the product once you have an idea you want to pursue.

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Create a print-on-demand business

Print on demand refers to working with a supplier to customize white-label products with your own designs, then selling them underneath your own brand. Businesses can create products like hats, t-shirts, tote bags, and more. 

The best part? You don’t have to pay for any products until after you make a sale. 

When you work with a print-on-demand company, everything from printing the item to shipping is handled by the supplier. Once you set up an online store with your designs, it takes a few minutes to fulfill an order after the customer checks out. 

Creating a print-on-demand business is a great way to make money from home because:

• You can create products fast. After you design a product, you can put it up for sale on your website in minutes.

• You don’t have to worry about shipping. Your supplier will handle the fulfillment process. You’re just responsible for providing good customer service after the sale.

• It’s low risk, low investment. It’s easy to add new products to your store and test ideas since you don’t hold any inventory. Your upfront business costs are minimal because you only need an online store to start. 

A print-on-demand business also gives creators many opportunities to connect with fans through nice products, especially products sought out for their aesthetic design. Take Boba Love, for example. 

For all its products, the retailer focuses on one theme: bubble tea (also referred to as “boba”), a drink that originated in Taiwan in the early s. Bubble tea has become extremely popular around the world and has a dedicated fan base.

Boba Love sells shirts, totes, blankets, hats, and stickers around the idea of the drink. When a shopper orders a product from the store, the supplier creates and ships it to the customer. 

Curious what types of products you can create? Read A Canvas For Creativity: Here Are 10 Print on Demand Products You Can Sell (Without Holding Inventory) to learn more. 

Free Webinar:

How to Get Started with Dropshipping in

Learn how to find high-margin products, add them into your store, and start selling—fast.

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Make a subscription box

A subscription business provides customers with products on a recurring basis. The subscription ecommerce market is expected to reach $ billion by , with more customers taking advantage of it each year. Research from McKinsey found that 15% of US consumers have signed up for one or more subscriptions to receive products regularly. 

The benefits of creating a subscription box include:

• Predictable revenue. Businesses know how much money is coming in each month and can plan growth initiatives accordingly.

• More cash on hand. Subscription businesses ask for full payment upfront at a discounted price, which creates regular cash flow. 

• Lower customer acquisition costs. Customers pay you on a regular basis, so you don’t need to convince them to make additional one-time purchases in your store. 

Running a subscription business from home is a proven winner. Our research shows that 63% of founders who sold subscriptions were satisfied with business performance, compared to 55% of founders who did not sell subscriptions. 

Two types of subscription businesses we found thrived in the past year were:

• Replenishment model, where subscribers receive the same or similar products each cycle. An example of this would be grooming brand Harry’s. A customer purchases the Harry’s starter set, containing a handle, shaving gel, and razor cartridges. They then receive automatic gel and blade refills monthly, based on their usage and preferences. 

• Membership model, where subscribers get access to exclusive products and perks in exchange for a monthly or yearly fee. Freelance writing community Peak Freelance runs on a membership model. Members pay a set fee and receive access to private Slack groups, on-demand tools and content, expert interviews, strategy sessions, and more.

Want to start a subscription box business from home? Read How to Start a Subscription Business: A Brief Guide to learn how, step by step.

Sell on marketplaces

Sell products on online marketplaces—but beware! Selling sites can be a great launchpad for many businesses, but the current marketplaces come with a Faustian bargain: you get access to customers if you build your business on someone else's land. Their land, their rules, and they’ll change them at any time. 

Popular marketplaces include: 

• Etsy
• Amazon
• eBay
• Handshake
• Mercado Libre
• Rakuten
• Facebook Marketplace 
• VarageSale 

Eventually, you’ll want to diversify your business by building your own site—you don’t have to choose one or the other. The big advantage is that the profit is yours: there are no fees to pay on sales and no rules to abide by but your own. 

Resources:

Sell digital products

Digital products are intangible assets or pieces of media that can be sold repeatedly online. They come in the form of streamable or downloadable files, such as PDFs, plug-ins, and templates. 

Digital assets are becoming more popular because they have high profit margins. Sure, it may take some time and money to develop them, but once the media or software is made, it’s not expensive to store or deliver to customers. 

There is no limit to how many products you can sell. Digital products help creators scale themselves by using their expertise to create kits, printables, files, and other assets professionals can benefit from. 

Started in , UX Kits sells wireflows, user personas, flowcharts, and other products to assist the design process. 

The brand has sold kits to over 10, designers, developers, and product managers in more than countries. It’s since expanded to sell three physical products but continues to drive sales from the digital assets created years ago. 

Digital products aren’t just for business professionals. Home fitness business Street Parking sells a variety of digital products—from workout plans to online courses—and membership subscriptions for people who need at-home workouts. 

Whatever you decide to create, figure out the needs of your target audience and work backward from there. Think about the kinds of assets they need/want and create products that are in demand. This will make it easier to sell and earn more money working from home. 

Sell your creative work

It’s easier than ever for creators to sell their work online. Whether it’s music, videos, digital art, photography, magazines, or podcasts, you can set up a digital shop and start selling with little limitation. 

While selling creative work sounds similar to digital products, the difference is that your products are more creative ventures. They are a way to express yourself online versus satisfying a buyer’s needs. Creators and artists who don’t have a network or connections with galleries and PR can now make money online doing something they love. 

What started as a cartoon on Instagram for Harry Hambley has grown into an international icon and ecommerce brand. As described in an interview with BBC, the Ketnipz creator skipped university to draw cartoons online. 

And Hambley’s strategy certainly paid off. The Ketnipz brand has over million followers on Instagram, sells clothing and accessories online, and can even be found on murals around the world. 

Using a combination of social media and an online store, you can make money online. Start building an active presence and engaging with your audience to establish your brand and find new customers. 

Resources:

Monetize an audience

Monetizing an audience is definitely a challenging endeavor, but the creator-to-commerce business model is becoming more successful in modern times. Bloggers and influencers today don’t need to be internet celebrities to make money from home online. All they have to do is find their people on one or two platforms and they can turn their audience into passive income.

Sonja Detrinidad, founder of Partly Sunny Projects, an online plant shop, turned one of her part-time pre-pandemic hobbies into a full-time business through TikTok marketing. She didn’t set out to become TikTok’s favorite plant mom, but discovered by accident the possibilities of monetizing an audience. 

Sonja processed over 1, orders in one month at the height of plant-shopping season last summer. She also increased her subscription box customers by more than four times since becoming a TikTok sensation, with over , followers on the platform.

Some ways you can monetize an audience are:

• Building your own website and selling online
• Through affiliate marketing commissions
• Using Instagram shoppable posts
• Starting a YouTube channel and running ads
• Adding Google AdSense to an active blog

Regardless of how you go about it, monetizing an audience is a legitimate way to make money from home. It may take some time to build a targeted audience, but the investment will be well worth your time in the long run. 

Related Content: How to make money with Youtube

Become a freelancer

One home business idea becoming more popular is offering freelance services to clients online. Almost any role a business would hire for is reasonable as a freelance service:

• Writing 
• Graphic design
• Marketing
• Data entry
• Illustration
• Transcription 
• Online tutoring
• Shopify store setup

Most of these services are best positioned toward business clients. Why? Because online businesses are the ones who are willing to spend. Freelancers can charge based on the outcome of their work versus the deliverable, which gives them leverage when it comes to pricing their services. 

“Every freelancer eventually learns that there are desired business outcomes tied to their work,” explains Elise Dopson, co-founder of Peak Freelance. “Freelance writers, for example, are not just blogging for a company. They are creating content that increases traffic, leads, and customers for a business. The sooner you learn that, and can deliver on it, the more money you’ll make freelancing from home.”

Elise has worked with brands such as ConversionXL, HubSpot, Privy, and other leading B2B software-as-a-service companies to produce incredible content that gets results, which is how she broke the six-figure-income ceiling by the age of  

If you have a passion for writing, designing, or organizing stuff, turn it into a freelance service. You won’t be disappointed with the results.

As more companies become completely remote, the opportunities to earn money from home freelancing will only become more abundant. It just takes a little know-how and determination to make it happen. 

Become a virtual assistant

With so many businesses moving online, the demand for virtual assistants is growing. Virtual assistants (VAs) are contracted workers who work with businesses and individuals on the jobs that you give them. 

Virtual assistants work from home and help with tasks such as:

• Time management and administrative tasks, like responding to emails
• Financial tasks, like bookkeeping and client invoicing 
• Team management tasks, like following up on deliverables, organizing training sessions, and creating task templates
• Social media and digital marketing tasks, like publishing and managing content
• Personal tasks, like managing investment properties, paying bills, and planning trips 
• Content tasks, like video or podcast editing

Each VA has their own speciality. I myself have worked with VAs for years in my writing business, many of whom make a full-time living as virtual assistants. 

Alexandra Froese, a VA specializing in systems and strategizes, works with clients to streamline redundant tasks and work more efficiently in their businesses. 

Alexandra helps entrepreneurs by doing the tasks herself or by developing workflows that makes a client’s business run smoother. 

You can make good money with a small number of clients, but once you stop working, the cash flow stops coming. VAs can start a blog, sell digital products, or coach other VAs to create new revenue streams and make more money from home. 

Become a reseller 

Don’t want to worry about creating new products or about minimum purchase quantities? Not a problem. You don’t need a revolutionary product idea to make money from home. Instead, you can become a reseller.

A reseller is a person who buys products from manufacturers, liquidators, and other retailers, then sells them to their own customers. A reseller permit lets your purchase certain products free of sales tax:

• Products to sell at wholesale 
• Products to sell at retail 
• Components to manufacture products 

You can find suppliers to purchase items from through a number of ways:

1. A dropshipping supplier like DSers or SaleHoo
2. Vintage boutiques 
3. Consignment shops
4. Facebook Marketplace

COAL N TERRY is one retailer that sells a vintage collection in its online store. The brand sells classic clothing alongside its own proprietary brand of hoodies and other apparel, giving shoppers a variety of products to browse and buy. 

A reselling business can be profitable if you have niche expertise, like beauty or fashion. You can launch an ecommerce store fast when you don’t have to go through product development or building an audience from scratch. 

Create and sell art 

Are you an independent artist looking for ways to make money from home? Artists can fund their craft and sell work directly to fans through online channels like an online store and non-fungible-token marketplaces. 

There are a number of other options for making sales off of one piece:

• Original art
• Limited or open edition prints
• Digital downloads
• Commissions 
• Merchandise like hats or enamel pins
• Repeat prints on fabric
• Licensing work to other brands or publications
• Collaborations 

To learn more about selling your art, read How to Sell Art Online: The Ultimate Guide.

Collect and sell vintage clothing 

Got a passion for second-hand fashion? Love the high of picking up a vintage dress at your local thrift store at a cheap price? You can turn that feeling into a business by selling vintage clothing from home. 

A $64 billion market, vintage shoppers depend on store owners to curate the best items around at the best condition. The rise in demand for vintage clothes has led to the success of brands like ThredUp and the increase of vintage clothing sellers on marketplaces like Etsy and eBay. It’s competitive, but that shouldn’t stop you from creating a cool brand and carving a space out for yourself in the vintage community. 

Naomi Bergknoff, founder of OMNIA, has been selling vintage clothing online since Combining her love for vintage clothes and her retail expertise, she’s defined a particular style away from marketplaces and close to home in Brooklyn.

Learn more by reading How to Sell Vintage Clothing Online: The Ultimate Guide.

Sell photos

The ability to make money from home as a photographer is about harnessing your creativity and monetizing it. It can seem challenging at first, but by finding your niche and building an audience, you can create multiple streams of income over time. 

Photographers have plenty of options to sell online:

• Stock marketplaces like Alamy, px, RF, and Stocksy

• Productssuch as prints, photo books, and physical goods like shirts and hats, using print-on-demand services 

• Services covering fashion shoots, product photography, events, or anything else you love to shoot

Sound interesting? Read How to Sell Photos Online: For Both Amateur and Pro Photographers to start selling your photography today. 

Rent your unused space

Most people don’t think about using their empty space to make money from home. Yet it’s one of the easiest sources of passive income. From bedrooms to parking areas, you may have some space people will happily pay you to rent. 

You have a wide range of options here:

• Bring on a housemate to rent a room in your house
• Rent a room on Airbnb
• Rent out storage space on SpareFoot
• Rent out your parking space
• Host a foreign exchange student
• Offer pet boarding

You don’t need tons of money or time to rent out your space. Rather than let unused space go to waste, offer it has a service to people who need it.

Start a pet business

Pet businesses are a fun way to make money from home (if you love animals, of course). There are many different ways to earn extra cash, like providing walking and grooming services, training, making and selling treats, or reselling products like bowls and chew toys.

You’re not limited to dogs and cats either. You could specialize in reptiles, fish, bunnies, whatever animals you enjoy being around. Pet owners alone spent over $ billion on their pets in , making this a profitable business opportunity for newcomers. 

Are pets your passion? Read How to Start a Pet Business (Plus Ideas and Examples from Top Brands) to turn it into a business today. 

Sell coffee 

Coffee sellers are always in demand as more and more coffee is consumed globally each year, according to the International Coffee Organization. If someone can’t get to their local café in the morning, they’re brewing beans at home while getting ready for the workday. 

Selling coffee can be a great way to earn money from home with a strong brand and marketing plan. Coffee is a commodity product, so it’s widely available. Customers tend to look for branding cues like design and bean origin to decide what to buy. By selling coffee, you’ll have a high volume of potential customers and many niching and expansion opportunities to take advantage of. 

Read Sell Coffee from Home: What Does it Take to Launch an Online Café to start your new coffee business. 

Build and sell woodworking projects 

If you’re a woodworker already, or curious about the craft, you can make money from home building and selling woodworking products. There are products to sell for all levels, from beginner to skilled woodworkers. You just need to figure out the best project for you!

Some fun woodworking projects that sell include:

1. Wooden signs
2. Kitchen products
3. Furniture
4. Surfboards
5. Boxes
6. Picture frames
7. Planters

If you’re ready to sell your wooden crafts online, read 12 Woodworking Projects and How to Sell Them Online to get started.

Try Computer numerical control (CNC) projects 

A CNC router is a computer-operated cutting tool that acts as a combination panel saw, spindle molder, and boring machine. It carves complex shapes out of materials like metal, wood, plastics, and glass. CNC routers use programmable automation, similar to 3D printing, to design complex parts at scale. 

Small CNC machines can cost from a few hundred dollars up to thousands, depending on the make and model. With them, you can create handcrafted, one-of-a-kind products for buyers across many markets, including:

• Home decor products
• Kitchen and barbeque tools
• Office supplies
• Custom signage 
• Toys and games
• Jewelry 

There are tons of resources available online to learn about using a CNC router. There’s a very low barrier to entry. And you can test, create, and sell products with minimal upfront costs. 

Interested in starting a CNC business? Read Putting the Pieces Together: 26 CNC Projects That Sell to learn more about this up-and-coming tactic. 

Make candles 

Looking for a fun way to make money from home? Start making and selling candles to people online. It takes a little know-how and hard work, but the upside is that you can customize candles and sell them anywhere. It’s also a low-cost business to start. Common costs include equipment to make the candles, like a double-boiler, pouring pots, and containers. 

A candle business can also be extremely profitable. The candle making industry is set to reach $ billion by , meaning there is no shortage of people buying candles they love. It’s also a good way to express your creativity and build a brand, like candle company Boy Smells, which broke traditional gender norms in fashion, home, and scent with its business in

Learn to build your candle making startup by reading Turn Scents Into Dollars: How to Start a Candle Business (Plus Examples From Top Brands).

Make soap 

Are you an avid DIYer and eager entrepreneur? You may enjoy making and selling soap from home. While soap doesn’t sound like the best income stream around, it’s an in-demand product customers need. 

Soap is a household product that everyone uses in some form, whether it’s to wash dirty hands, dishes, or laundry. The COVID pandemic also stimulated the industry, projected to reach $ billion by , creating huge demand for hygiene products to prevent infection. It’s a great way to get creative with different scents and types, with potential to expand your brand to other products like candles and fragrances. 

Want to get your hands dirty with this business idea? Read How to Make Soap: Turn a Household Necessity into a Homemade Business for more information.

Make bath bombs

Bath bombs are all the rage and a great way to make money from home. The US bath bomb market is expected to grow into a $ million industry by If you turn to Instagram, you’ll see there are millions of photos showing how these colorful balls explode when dropped in water. 

If you love DIY and have a knack for crafts, read How to Start a Bath Bomb Business from Home: A Step-by-Step Guide. You’ll learn how to source ingredients, make your bath bombs, market them, and grow a business people love.

Make skincare products 

Indie beauty brands are driving the growth of the $ billion global skin care market. If you love taking care of your skin and want to turn it into a business, now’s the time. Newcomers are jumping on trends like hybrid beauty (the combination of cosmetic and skin care), cannabis-based products, and clean beauty (products made without harming human health). 

The beauty of being a small brand is that you can tackle a specific problem for a specific audience. Find a market that’s underserved by current brands and create skin care products just for them. 

You’ll want to learn more about manufacturing and working with suppliers when running a profitable skin care business. Read all about it (and more) in our guide How to Start a Skincare Line: 11 Lessons From a Serial Beauty Entrepreneur.

Start a food business

Everyone’s got to eat, you can’t argue with that. Which is why starting a food business is a great idea if you want to make money from home. 

Outside of restaurants, there are endless high-profit-margin businesses you can run with low overhead and startup costs. The trick is cooking food you are passionate and curious about, regardless of your experience level. 

Some food business ideas to start include:

1. Food truck
2. Catering business 
3. Cooking classes
4. Meal kits 
5. Sauces
6. Pre-packaged snacks
7. Homemade jams and jellies
8. Wine, beer, and spirits

Want to see examples of other food businesses in action? Check out Selling Like Hotcakes: 13 Profitable Food Business Ideas for on the Shopify blog. 

Become a tutor

Are you an expert in math, art, or another subject? You can make money from home doing online tutoring. A prerequisite for most tutoring gigs is a bachelor’s degree in your subject, depending on where you apply for the job. You can find tutoring clients on websites like Skooli and www.oldyorkcellars.com

Only teach subjects that you have demonstrated expertise in. You’ll want to share skills and practical knowledge to create good learning experiences for your students. You can provide pre-recorded lectures and templates, plus meet students through Zoom. Tutoring is also inexpensive to start (if you already have that degree) and can easily earn you extra money. 

Offer child care

If you’re a stay-at-home parent or enjoy taking care of kids, you can easily start a child care business from home. You can offer all-day care (eight hours) for other parents while they are at work, or even just before and after school care (one to four hours). The choice is yours. 

Look at other day care businesses in your area and see what they charge. Choose your rates wisely. Don’t undercharge just to get more business. Then you’ll be taking care of too many kids and won’t be able to provide proper care. Start with an income goal for a day, then decide how many kids you can realistically watch throughout the day. Divide those two numbers to see how much to charge per kid, per day. 

Home jobs to avoid

Now that you have a good idea of different ways to make money from home, let’s look at some jobs to avoid.

Freelance marketplaces

Marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork might be a way to get your start, but quickly can turn into a price race to the bottom. You’re forced to compete on price and don't have a way to differentiate your services or offer something premium. Long term, this isn’t the way to go. You are better off creating a freelancer website and building a business that doesn’t rely on renting digital space in a marketplace.

Online survey sites 

The pay is very low from online survey sites, and you accrue no long-term value. You’re not building skills or building an asset, you’re just losing time. Trading time for extra cash is always a reasonable short-term side hustle, but if you can, it's better to think long term.

Online survey sites include:

• Swagbucks
• Survey Junkie
• InboxDollars

Building an app

Look at most websites promoting legit ways to make money online and they’ll tell you to build an app. All new ventures are hard and most fail, but consumer apps are hyper-competitive: the average person uses only nine apps on their phone per day, most developed by major companies. 

A better option? Grow your skill set by building useful, problem-solving apps for businesses via growing marketplaces like the Shopify App Store or Salesforce Appexchange.

Side gigs

If you want to make a quick buck, then side gig apps like Rover or UserTesting are good options. But similar to online survey sites, you aren’t building anything valuable in the long run.

You are better off learning skills in your spare time, like running Facebook ads or starting a dropshipping store, which can make you money repeatedly, versus a one-off cash gig from Craigslist.

Anything that’s pay-to-earn 

Real businesses require investment, but anything that operates in a pay-to-earn model should be treated with extreme caution. For example, sites that promise you can win money by spending money, or multi-level marketing groups that require money not for inventory or product, but just to join. 

Most gimmicks are scams in disguise: the simple but hard truth is that you need to sell something people want.

Learning how to make money from home

If you have an internet connection, you can make money from home online. Sure, the lure of fast and easy cash gigs may seem like a great idea, but it will only keep you on a hamster wheel of trading your time for cash—and time is our most valuable asset in life. 

Use your time wisely and invest in building a business that’s rewarding and will pay you a bigger salary than any tester or survey site. $ per day does sound nice, but what if I told you that an online business could net you $+ per day. Would you still choose finding side gigs on Craigslist?