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Best Sites to Make Money from Home
Branded Surveys
$0.50 – $5 on average per survey with bonus points ($1 sign up bonus)
Average survey length is 10-20 minutes and minimum payout is $5
Collect rewards in PayPal, Direct Deposit or gift cards (100+ brands)
Swagbucks
$0.50 to $1.50 per survey – earn up to $100 each month using Swagbucks
18 unique ways to earn money and free gift cards, plus $5 sign up bonus
Redeem e-gift cards from $1 or withdraw $5 minimum payment from PayPal
Survey Junkie
$0.50 – $3 per survey + extra ways to earn up to $100 with focus groups
Each survey time varies, but on average it takes 15 minutes to complete
Redeem rewards using PayPal, e-giftcards or bank transfer ($5 min)
17 Real Ways to Make Money From Home
Participate in Online Surveys
The simple and best answer to the question of how to make money online for free is to participate in online surveys.
Luckily, there are a lot of survey sites for money rewarding you for providing your honest opinion. Your answers will help businesses to understand consumer interests better and also to fine-tune their products and services.
Most surveys you’ll find online take only a few minutes to complete and would earn you up to $3 each.
Make sure to take a look at more than 200 platforms offering surveys for money.
Start Dropshipping
Starting dropshipping is one of the best ideas for making money online.
If you’re not sure what dropshipping is, it’s when you sell goods online, but you don’t have an inventory in advance. Instead, you’re paying for the product you’re selling only after a customer makes a purchase.
Once someone buys a product from your website, you should send their shipping info to the manufacturer. The manufacturer will send the product directly to your customer.
What’s in it for you?
A profit margin, which usually ranges from 15 to 20% per product.
Create & Sell an Online Course
Udemy Summary
- Wide target audience of learners
- Earn passive income from your courses
- Get your payments within 1 to 2 days
- Short minimum course duration (30 min)
Teachable Summary
- Low transaction fees from $1 + 10%
- Get paid instantly with Teachable payments
- Offer 3 different payment gateways
- Detailed transaction reports available
Skillshare Summary
- Earn over $100,000 per year as a teacher
- Large target audience of over 12 million
- Short class length of 30-40 minutes
- 2 ways to earn – royalties and referrals
One of the best legitimate ways to make money online is to create and sell an online course.
Regardless of the skill you have, you can create an online course around it. And the best part about selling an online course is that you record it once and can sell it unlimited times.
Selling an online course is actually one of the best passive income ideas.
Some of the best platforms through which you can sell your courses include Udemy, Teachable, and Skillshare.
Become an Online Tutor
Magic Ears Summary
- Work from the comfort of your home
- Constant support and assistance available
- No cancellation penalty
- No doctor’s note is required for a sick leave
Getting online tutoring jobs is a great way to make money from home, especially if you’re passionate about teaching.
Unlike creating and selling an online course, you’d be tutoring students via video call as an online tutor.
So choose a topic you’re good at – maybe it’s a certain language, mathematics, or physics – and look out for online tutoring jobs.
Magic Ears, Peerly, and Cambly are 3 of the best platforms where you can find online tutoring jobs and teach students from home.
Be aware that some platforms would require you to have specific certifications. For example, if you want to teach English, you may need a TEFL or TESOL certification.
Cambly is an example of a tutoring platform that would accept you even with no certification. What’s more, this platform even hires teens.
Find Freelance Jobs
Upwork Summary
- Earn up to $34 per hour as a freelancer
- Get 10 free Connects every month
- Get 40 extra Connects when you pass a test
- Time tracker ensures you get paid
Fiverr Summary
- Set your own prices for your services
- Choose from over 500 service categories
- 3 different options for cashing out
- Protection from fradulent chargebacks
Freelancing is one of the best and popular ways to make money at home. As a freelancer, you’re basically a location-independent person who completes projects for clients.
Based on your skills, you can find tons of freelancing jobs in a wide range of industries.
The table below shows some of the best freelance jobs you can consider:
| Freelance Job | Average Pay |
|---|---|
| Web Developer | $30 – $180 per hour |
| UX/UI Designer | $25 – $75 per hour |
| Copywriter | $50+ per hour |
| SEO Specialist | $33 per hour |
| Video Editor | $30 – $150 per hour |
| Graphic Designer | $27 per hour |
| Cybersecurity Specialist | $200 per hour |
| Digital Marketer | $50 – $100 per hour |
Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer are 3 of the most popular freelancing sites you should consider signing up for.
Pro tip: Build your presence on multiple freelancing platforms to diversify and maximize your earning potential.
Open Ecommerce Store
Shopify Summary
- Free 14 day trial period available
- Build a new website in under 2 hours
- Over 100 payment gateways supported
- Over 6000 apps to improve your store
Etsy Summary
- Easy to set up & maintain your store
- 45+ million active Etsy buyers
- List your first item for just $0.20
- Automatic deposits and secure transactions
Since more and more people buy stuff online, e-commerce is a booming industry. And setting up an e-commerce business doesn’t require you to leave your home anymore.
To compete with a vast number of already existing e-commerce stores out there, you’ll need to research the market and choose a niche you’d be targeting.
Shopify, WooCommerce, and Amazon FBA are 3 of the best platforms you can consider for building your e-commerce business.
If you’re more of a crafty person, you can sell your handmade items on Etsy.
Become a Social Media Influencer
If you like sharing your daily life and experiences through social media, becoming a social media influencer might be the best way to make money from home for you.
As a social media influencer, you’d be making money by partnering with brands and promoting their products or services. In exchange for spreading the word about their business, you’ll get paid.
How much you’ll earn per social media post depends on how many followers you have.
Here’s how much you can earn per post based on your follower count:
| Your Follower Count | Earning per Post |
|---|---|
| Up to 10,000 | $88 |
| 10,000 to 100,000 | $200 |
| 100,000 to 1,000,000 | $670 |
| 1,000,000+ | $3,000+ |
Start a Blog
Google AdSense Summary
- Multiple ad formats
- Monitoring process is available
- Offers real time tracking system
- Online support is available
A blog is a great way to make money from home. In fact, there are multiple ways you can make money through a blog.
Ways to monetize your blog:
- Promote affiliate products and get a commission of up to 30% out of each sale made through your link
- Partner with businesses and publish sponsored articles
- Sell advertising space on your website
- Sign up for Google AdSense and let Google place ads throughout your blog
Don’t know what to blog about? Think of what type of content you’d like to create regularly and what expertise you feel comfortable sharing.
Some of the most profitable blog niches include:
- Health – Weightwatchers
- Self-Improvement – Zenhabits
- Beauty – Lisa Eldridge
- Gadgets and Technology – Engadget
Create & Publish an eBook
If you enjoy writing books, you can now self-publish an ebook and sell it unlimited times.
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a program from Amazon that lets you self-publish your ebook.
Advantages of KDP:
- You don’t have to wait for a traditional publisher to review your work
- Your book won’t get rejected based on the biased opinion of a traditional publisher
- You won’t have to print out hundreds of copies of your book – you can sell an ebook or print on-demand when your hardcover sells
- You can get royalties of up to 70% each month
Try Print on Demand (POD)
Print on demand (POD) is a business model where you promote products with custom design on your website and only printing the products once you receive an order from a customer.
But what printed products can you sell anyway? Here’s the list:
- T-shirts, sweaters, and hoodies
- Shopper bags
- Caps
- Coffee mugs
- And more
POD eliminates the risk of not getting your products sold.
Where do you sell your POD products?
- Build a Shopify store
- Open an Etsy store
- Set up an Amazon FBA business
Sell Your Stuff Online
Craigslist Summary
- Posts are anonymous
- Quick and easy listing in a matter of minutes
- Little to no seller fees, most auctions are free
- Sell within your local area
eBay Summary
- High user traffic – over 187 million users
- No listing fees for small scale sellers
- Promote your listing from as little as 1%
- Quick processing time for payouts
Selling your stuff online is one of the easiest ways to make money from home. If you’re like most people, you probably have plenty of things at home collecting dust in your storage.
Simply collect things around your house that you’re not using anymore and list them on online platforms like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist.
You can sell literally any item – used clothes, CDs/DVDs, used sports equipment, camera gear, baby stuff, music instruments, tools, and more.
Invest Money
Compare to Other Investment Apps
Fundrise
Invest in real estate properties with a $10 minimum initial investment
Historical annual return varies from 8.8% to 12.4% (2019 – 9.47%)
Low annual fees: advisory – 0.15%; management fee – 0.85%
Public App
Manage your portfolio of stocks, ETFs, and crypto investments – all in one place
Over 5000 stocks and ETFs to choose from (dividend stocks available)
Follow other investors, see their portfolios, and exchange ideas
Acorns
Invest your spare change in a diversified portfolio built by experts
Expect up to 7.5% annually returns with plans starting from $3 a month
Earn bonus investments from 350+ Acorns Earn partners
Investing is one of the most profitable ways to generate passive income from home – it’s actually the way wealthy people get wealthier.
Some of the best assets you can invest your money include:
- Real estate
- Cryptocurrency
- Stocks
Review Apps & Websites
App and web developers usually need help testing their apps and websites before they launch them to the public. For you, it’s a great way to make money without leaving home.
To review apps and websites, you’ll be required to thoroughly test them out and provide your feedback to the developer.
For example, when you’re testing a website, you should visit all pages of the site and test all buttons to see how they work. If you find any bug or error, you should notify the developer about it.
The same goes for reviewing an app. You should download the app you’re testing and play around with it to discover any inconsistencies it may have.
Get Free Money with Sign Up Bonuses or Friend Referrals
Best Money Making Apps
Branded Surveys
$0.50 – $5 on average per survey with bonus points ($1 sign up bonus)
Average survey length is 10-20 minutes and minimum payout is $5
Collect rewards in PayPal, Direct Deposit or gift cards (100+ brands)
Swagbucks
$0.50 to $1.50 per survey – earn up to $100 each month using Swagbucks
18 unique ways to earn money and free gift cards, plus $5 sign up bonus
Redeem e-gift cards from $1 or withdraw $5 minimum payment from PayPal
Survey Junkie
$0.50 – $3 per survey + extra ways to earn up to $100 with focus groups
Each survey time varies, but on average it takes 15 minutes to complete
Redeem rewards using PayPal, e-giftcards or bank transfer ($5 min)
InboxDollars Summary
- $5 sign up bonus
- Referral program – 30% that referral makes
- Most of the surveys pay $0.01 to $2.50
- 13 different ways to earn money
Branded Surveys Summary
- $1 sign up bonus
- Earn $0.50-$5 on average per survey
- Most surveys are between 10-20 minutes
- Pays by bank transfer, PayPal & gift cards
Acorns Summary
- Low account fees from just $3 per month
- Get $5 in your account for referrals
- Low minimum starting investment amount
- High average return on investments of 7.5%
Many money-making online platforms offer welcome bonuses when you sign up and referral commission when your friend joins the platform through your referral.
And what can be easier to make money by just signing up for a platform or sending your friend an invite link?!
Here’s the list of a few platforms offering sign-up and referral bonuses:
| Platform | Type | Sign-up Bonus | Referral Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| InboxDollars | Online survey site | $5 | 30% of your friends’ earnings |
| Branded Surveys | Online survey site | $1 | $0.5 to $2 per friend |
| Acorns | Investment app | $5 |
Note that you may need to complete a few tasks to get a sign-up bonus. E.g., fill out your first survey or make an initial deposit.
Get Paid for Staying Healthy
Healthy Wage Summary
- Meet your weight loss goal and win cash
- Win up to $10,000 from challenges
- Low minimum wager amount of just $100
- Join up to 10 challenges at once
If you’re striving for a healthier lifestyle, then getting paid for staying active and meeting your healthy weight goals is a double win.
HealthyWage is one of the best apps that encourages you to achieve your weight loss goal by rewarding you with cash prizes and competitions.
When you first sign up to the platform, you’ll set your weight loss goal and track your daily activities afterward. While HealthyWage doesn’t pay you for completing activities daily, you have a chance to participate in competitions and win up to $10,000 when you meet your health goal.
Pet Sitting
Rover Summary
- 6 different ways to earn money available
- Get up to $25,000 pet care coverage
- You get to decide how much to charge
- 24/7 support, Including vet assistance
Wag Summary
- On average make around $17.50 per walk
- Set your own schedule and manage your services
- Dog owners can tip you via app
- Company donates meals to rescue dogs
If you’re obsessed with animals, pet sitting might be the best option to make money. Without leaving your home, you can do pet sitting at your own home.
As an at-home pet sitter, you’d be required to:
- Take care of the pet
- Feed the pet
- Groom the pet
- Play with the pet
Pro tip: To maximize your earnings, onboard multiple pets at a time if you can.
Rover and Wag are 2 of the most popular platforms to find pet parents who need help taking care of their pets when they’re busy.
Rent Your Things
You may have a bunch of stuff stacked up in your closet or storage that you may not be using anymore. So why not turn those stuff into some extra cash?
Here are some ideas of stuff you can rent out for money:
| Rental Item | Earning Potential | List On |
|---|---|---|
| Clothes | $30 – $150 per day | Style Lend |
| Camera Gear | $15 – $1,000 per day | KitSplit |
| House | $7,500 monthly | Airbnb |
| Storage Space (extra garage, attic, basement) | $250/month | Neighbor.com |
| Car | $36+/day | Turo.com |
| RVs & Campers | $50 – $275 per day | Outdoorsy |
