Earning money online Interest in quick ways to generate money online from the comfort of our own homes has grown in recent years.
The web is a strong sales channel, marketing network, and community hub all in one—and so much more. Aside from filling out surveys and selling old products on marketplaces, there are several imaginative ways to get money fast online.
Some side hustles, though, are better suited to the laptop lifestyle than others. In this thought guide, we’ll go over the advantages and disadvantages of 30 of the most top online money-making opportunities.
We’ll look at several essential variables to help you choose the best ways to make money online:
- Business type: whether the idea is product-based, service-based, or audience-driven.
Effort: the amount of time, talent, or expertise required to implement the idea. - Leverage: how well placed you are to turn the idea into a profitable one that grows in value without requiring your direct attention. A high-leverage idea is not a 1:1 time-for-money exchange.
Startup costs: the money you’ll need to get your idea off the ground.
Profit potential: the amount of profit you may expect to make from your idea each year.
Table of Contents
1) Sell items online
Selling items online is one of the top money-making options for quick income. You can, for example, sell clothes, furniture, and purses from your home, or you can buy and resale higher-value items such as laptops, televisions, or phones. You may buy these products online through sites such as AliExpress or at local garage sales and thrift stores—a terrific way to make money quickly and earn extra income.
Instead of just one platform or marketplace, try to sell your products on others. The more places your products are found, the more probable it is that people will find them. There are hundreds of online selling platforms, each with its own specialization and commission rates. Here are a few examples:
- Facebook Marketplace
- eBay
- Mercado Libre
- VarageSale
- You have your own online store.
If you enjoy this method, you can sell a genuine reseller business selling anything from vintage apparel to refurbished gadgets.
Time to get started: a few hours.
Start-up effort: Medium.
Time to first payment: varies according to the marketplace where you sell your products.
What you should know:
The more places people can buy your products, the more likely they are to find them.
There are hundreds of online selling sites, each with its particular speciality.
Each marketplace has its own set of regulations and costs. Before you join up for a marketplace, make sure you understand them.
Requirements:
2) On-demand printing
Print on demand enables retailers to customize white label products with their own designs and sell them only after a client purchases them, removing the need to stock inventory (which is what makes it a subset of dropshipping). A print-on-demand provider will apply your design to the product, fulfill the order, and mail it to the customer once a consumer places an order.
The most major advantage of print on demand versus dropshipping is that you have complete control over the look of your products—a critical differentiator for product categories where design is the distinguishing factor, such as t-shirts or fan gear.
When it comes to making money online, print-on-demand services can also be used to:
Without the risk of purchasing inventory, you can test online business ideas or new product lines.
Profit from an existing following, whether it’s on YouTube, social media, or a personal blog.
Sell t-shirts, books, shoes, purses, mugs, phone covers, laptop skins, wall art, and other items.
Sell photos online by putting your images on actual products that your fans can sell.
Overall, print on demand allows you to swiftly produce personalized products. Shipping and fulfillment are handled by your suppliers, so you don’t have to bother about them. And, because you don’t have to worry about inventory, it’s a low-risk, low-investment way to make money online.
Startup time: a few hours to set up an ecommerce platform, followed by however much time it takes to produce your designs.
Start-up effort: Very simple with little ecommerce understanding.
Time to first payment: This varies depending on when your first transaction occurs and whatever ecommerce platform you choose, however Shopify’s pay periods are five business days.
What you should know:
You can open accounts with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, which incorporate logistics in their services.
Payments will differ based on how much you sell and your profit margins.
The pay period for Shopify Payments is five days plus the number of days before your payout date.
Requirements:
The majority of ecommerce systems require that you be at least 18 years old. If you are under the age of 18, your parents can open one for you.
State requirements differ, but you must have licenses or permissions to sell anything online.
3) Begin freelancing
Offering freelancing services to clients online is a growing home business idea. Freelance writing, graphic design, data entry, digital marketing—virtually every position that an online business would hire for may be done as a freelance service. I’ve spent years at Shopify working with writers, illustrators, and designers, the majority of whom make a full-time living from freelancing rather than doing it part-ti
Almost all of these services are best suited to business clients for the same reason that business software is a desirable product: business clients are ready to spend. Most freelancers quickly discover that when they pitch their labor as results rather than deliveries, they have more negotiating power over the amount they can charge.
In other words, businesses pay freelance writers to develop content that promotes traffic and leads, not to hone their writing skills. Sell clients on the outcome and, where possible, back it up with customer evidence such as case studies and testimonials.
The final consideration for these firms is that they represent a direct exchange of time for money. You can make a lot of money with a small number of high-paying clients, but once you quit working, the cash flow stops. You might be able to transform a freelance business into more of an agency by hiring support to handle some client tasks.
- Startup time varies according to service.
- Start-up effort: Medium.
- The time it takes to get the first payment varies.
What you should know:
Gather customer evidence instances, studies, and testimonials to use in your job search.
Because freelancing is a direct money-for-time exchange, you may eventually want to expand your business model to include a separate asset.
Sell clients on the outcome you can provide, then demonstrate it.
Understand your worth. You have the authority to determine your own prices.
Requirements:
Ability to communicate with clients and meet deadlines.
A laptop and an internet connection are required.
To work on freelance marketplaces, you must be at least 18 years old.
4) Launch a dropshipping business.
Consider dropshipping—startup expenses are inexpensive, and it’s an increasingly popular option for novices and experts alike to make money online. Dropshipping is a business concept in which the products you sell are not kept in stock. When a consumer purchases something from your store, a third party fulfills and ships the order on your behalf
Dropshippers can sell from the latest trends by selling trending products, or they can choose from a variety of stable product categories that offer similar potential for success.
Time to get started: a few hours.
Start-up effort: Very simple with little ecommerce understanding.
Average time to first payment: two weeks to one month.
What you should know:
Clothing and accessories, jewelry, and home and garden are among the top performing categories on Shopify.
You may set up a Shopify store and test it out for free.
Using Shopify Payments, the pay period is five days plus the number of days before your payout day.
Requirements:
To open a Shopify store, you must be at least 18 years old. If you are under the age of 18, your parents can open one for you.
To sell online, you must have licenses or permits, which differ by state.
5) Create unique products
While the above choices offer the ease of not having to store pricey inventory, they also have some drawbacks, the most significant of which is that you don’t have complete control over the product you’re selling.
And when you think of most direct-to-consumer brands, this is what comes to mind: unique products that make on well-known items or add new nuances. I’ve bought a lot of messenger bags, but I’d never seen anything like the one produced by Vermilyea Pelle until it arrived at my door.
Making products by hand is common among jewelry, fashion, and home décor companies. It allows you complete control over the growth and quality of your items.
The only disadvantages are:
- It can take a long time.
- Scaling is challenging.
- The costs of manufacturing products by hand include the cost of supplies, storage of produced products, and labor.
Time to get started: A few hours to set up your ecommerce platform, followed by as long it takes to build your specific products.
Starting effort is medium, but maintaining it is difficult.
Time to first payment: With Shopify Payments, the pay period is five days plus the number of days until your payout day.
What you should know:
Sellers must pay the state tax in the state where their item is delivered.
When pricing your items, make to include the cost of packaging.
You can create and utilize a Shopify store for free.
Requirements:
The majority of ecommerce systems require that you be at least 18 years old. If you are under the age of 18, your parents can open one for you.
State requirements differ, but you must have licenses or permissions to sell anything online.
Requirements:
The majority of ecommerce systems require that you be at least 18 years old. If you are under the age of 18, your parents can open one for you.
State requirements differ, but you must have licenses or permissions to sell anything online.
10 additional ways to Earning Money Online
6) sell on Etsy.
Every online marketplace, from Etsy to Amazon, has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. The advantage is that you gain access to their network of shoppers—people visit these sites when they need to buy something, and putting up shop allows you to meet them ther
However, because these channels can work in tandem with your own website, they can be a good place to begin. At initially, new online producers can use Etsy to grow brand awareness. We’ve seen numerous businesses effectively transition to Shopify after making their first few sales on Etsy, for example.
If you already have an Etsy shop and don’t want to quit, you can run two stores concurrently. Use a free Shopify software like Etsy Marketplace Integration after you’ve set up your Shopify store. Both Shopify and Etsy make it simple to sync inventories, manage orders, and earn money online.
Time to get started: a few hours.
Starting out is simple, but maintaining it is difficult.
Time to first payment: For the first 90 days, your funds will be ready for deposit three days after a sale. They will then be available for deposit the next business day.
What you should know:
It costs $20 to post an item on Etsy every four months, or until the item sells.
Etsy levies a 5% transaction fee on top of your sale price (paid by the buyer) and a 3% + 25% payment processing fee every transaction when you sell an item (this is paid by the seller).
You may also be charged pattern fees, conversion fees, and a variety of ad fees, so make sure to study up on them and see whether they apply to you.
Requirements:
To sell on Etsy, sellers must be at least 18 years old. They may use Etsy under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian if they are between the ages of 13 and 18. Etsy does not allow children under the age of 13 to sell.
You must follow Etsy’s guidelines for what items to sell and how your items are represented.
7) sell a sale on Amazon
Amazon has evolved into a marketplace that encourages ecommerce businesses. It only takes a few minutes to create an account and a few more minutes to publish a product listing.
The platform boasts a large readership, a global marketplace, and is a popular location for product discovery and research. Listing optimization can help your products be identified and open up new doors. In-app promotions from Amazon can also boost your brand’s visibility among highly targeted customers.
However, several ecommerce businesses are skeptical of Amazon’s long-term viability. While the marketplace is wonderful for surfacing desirable products for customers, it can be difficult for sellers to get their business noticed. Amazon draws a large number of resellers of the same products you may offer.
Homesick Candles went from not being on Amazon two years ago to becoming the world’s number one scented candle company and number two candle brand. Amazon proved to be an excellent platform for selling its products online.
Homesick, despite its success, used Shopify to create an online store as its home base. This provided a platform for the fledgling ecommerce business to exhibit its brand, communicate with customers, and maintain control over its sales and promotions.
Startup time: a few hours, depending on the number of products listed.
Start-up effort: Medium.
Time to first payment: 14 days following the delivery of your first sale.
What you should know:
Unless you have a real business reason to register a second account and all of your accounts are in good standing, you can only have one seller central account for each location in which you sell.
Product detail pages are not owned by a single seller; rather, they are for the specific product.
You must only transport products listed on the product detail page. Any additional items supplied to the customer are forbidden and may result in your seller account being deactivated.
To get payment, you must confirm that you have dispatched the product with Amazon.
Requirements:
An Amazon account is required.
Amazon requires a product feed or the usage of its FBA program, which sends your products to an Amazon warehouse.
To open an Amazon seller account, you must be at least 18 years old.
Sell digital products.
Digital products have some of the highest profit margins of any product you can sell. The initial development expenses can be considerable, but the variable costs of selling digital products are relatively modest. It is not extremely expensive to send media or software to customers once it has been created.
A digital product, at its essence, is an intangible asset that can be sold repeatedly without refilling inventories. They are frequently sent as downloadable files such as a PDF, plug-in, or interactive document.
Many top professional influencers, bloggers, or public products have released digital products such as guides, ebooks, templates, research findings, plans, and tutorials because they have become such a solid source of passive revenue.
Many creators make digital products to supplement their main business, whether it’s consultancy, education, or memberships. To market your products and make sales, you may establish a presence on Twitter and LinkedIn or create an email subscriber list.
Startup time: varies according to the length of time it takes to generate your digital product.
Effort to begin: Significant initial effort is required to generate the digital products you wish to sell.
Time to first payment: This varies depending on the ecommerce platform, but platforms such as Shopify take five business days to pay out.
What you should know:
E-learning is becoming increasingly popular as a digital product in which people are spending.
Scalability is inherent in digital products. There is no limit to the number of products you can sell. There is no inventory. There are no manufacturers. There is no shipping or logistics. Simply market the products.
If you want to license your product or use licensed resources, you must understand licensing laws.
Requirements:
An online platform where you may sell your digital products.
Sell media.
Media is a broad phrase, but it’s the perfect description if you’re a creator looking to sell music, videos, digital art, paid newsletters, magazines, or podcasts. Media appears to be closely related to digital products, but the difference is that media is more focused toward creative endeavors, such as a writer launching a paid newsletter subscription or an artist learning how to sell paintings online.
The nicest aspect about selling media is that it allows people to express themselves online a lot of the time. Artists and artists who previously did not have access to networks, galleries, or public relations may now develop a brand, grow a following, and make money online doing what they love.
Startup time varies according to the length of time it takes to create your piece of media.
Starting effort: high.
The time it takes to receive your first payment varies depending on the ecommerce platform you use to sell your material.
What you should know:
If you want to license your work or utilize licensed work in your works, you must follow licensing requirements.
Requirements:
An online platform where you may sell your media.
8) start Blogging
You’ve most likely come across a business blog at some point in your life. Blogs are used by businesses to offer knowledge and insights, grow an audience, and generate more leads and sales. Blogging has numerous advantages, including as establishing thought leadership in an area and increasing a brand’s search engine presenc
Blogging for a living has evolved beyond small companies and side hustles. Anyone can now grow an audience and make a lot of money from their blog by putting out quality material. Bloggers, as opposed to acquiring information from a company blog, use a more personal approach that resonates with an intended audience.
People start blogs for a variety of reasons, including:
An outlet for them to express their ideas, passions, or life experiences
A platform to educate readers on a topic they are familiar with A channel to sell products or services
While blogging is a low-cost business idea, it can take some time to pay off. You are unlikely to find on Google’s first page of search results overnight. However, with the correct niche and perseverance, you’ll be well on your way to making money online through your blog.
Time to get started: a few hours.
Effort to start: Medium, but will start a lot of effort to maintain.
Time to first payment: This varies according to how you monetize your site.
What you should know:
It may take a lot of trial and error, as well as time, for you to begin seeing the monetization you desire.
You should study SEO and how to monetize your blog.
9) affiliate marketing
So, how do you make money with affiliate marketing? Publishers or individuals can essentially apply for affiliate programs wherever they are offered in order to be added as an official affiliate. Once accepted, you’ll be given a chance to share an affiliate link to the product or service you want to promote. (Remember to include a disclaime
If someone purchases the product after clicking your link, you’ll get credit for the referral as well as a commission. The amount of the compensation varies on the affiliate program and the product being sold—commodity items on Amazon.com won’t pay out much, while referring a high-ticket account could pay out hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Because affiliate marketing works best when you help a visitor understand why a particular product would be a good fit for them, you’ll frequently see it used on content-focused websites. Search engine optimization is particularly vital here, with everyone from small, local sites to large, worldwide recognized media fighting for terms like “best gaming laptops 2023.”
Time to get started: a few hours.
Start-up effort: Medium.
Time till the first payment: Depending on the performance of your affiliate marketing activities.
What you should know:
Affiliate marketing growth can be irregular at first, but if you persist with it and perfect your techniques, it can turn into a tremendous source of passive income.
The most critical aspect of affiliate marketing is to establish trust with your audience.
The FTC and most reputable affiliate programs require disclaimers.
Requirements:
As an affiliate, you should have a website or social media presence where you can advertise products.
Website traffic or a social media following.
Make online courses and workshops.
There’s a reason why online classes are so popular. With the exception of infrastructure, once a course is developed, it gains all of the benefits of any digital product: the costs to offer the product to more customers are basically negligible.
When you compare that to the need for all physical product firms to maintain inventory, you’ll find yourself dealing with less product-related difficulties as you scale.
There is also a desire for digital courses and continuous education. That is why sites like as Udemy and Skillshare exist. Your largest obstacle is the web itself, which has lots of wonderful materials available for free. And the content on every topic is improving by the day.
But keep in mind that, while there are countless themes on which to develop content, there are considerably fewer ones on which people are prepared to pay. Typically, the best-selling courses teach people an important skill that will help them advance in their careers or get more enjoyment out of a favorite hobby.
Startup time: varies based on the course, but can range from 25 to 100 hours.
Starting effort: Extremely high.
Time till the first payment: Depending on the payment structure of your course.
What you should know:
Your best buddy is feedback. After you’ve sold your first round of courses, don’t be hesitant to adjust and improve it based on consumer feedback.
Live components, such as a live Q&A or a live webinar, will make the value of your course and set it apart.
Creating an online course takes a significant lot of time and effort, but once completed, it will provide you with a source of passive income.
Requirement
A method for recording audio and video and combining portions for recorded lectures.
