33 Best Ways to Make Money Online in 2024

Wondering how to make money online in 2024? 

There are a lot of ways to earn money online, but not all of them work for everyone. It can be overwhelming just to decide where to start.

I have spent the last 15 years making money online. I made a lot of mistakes before I found out what works.

I created this guide to break down the best ways to make money online, so you can choose the method that works for you. You will learn to not only make extra money online but also make passive income and get rich in the process. 

Remember there are no easy ways to make money online. Most methods here will help you make money online without paying anything. But every method here requires you to invest your time. 

Be careful of get-rich-quick schemes that you see elsewhere on the internet. They never work as advertised. You can definitely make money online from home and become filthy rich. But it is going to take time and effort. 

Let’s dive into the best ways to make money online in 2024. 

Best Ways to Make Money Online

Here are the most realistic ways to make money online we will cover in this post:

Content Creation Model

In this business model, you make money by creating content and building an audience. Most methods in this business model will help you make money online for free. You will only be trading your time to build a passive income stream. This is one of the most real ways to build a business online.

1. Blogging

When you do a Google search, you are likely to find what you are looking for in a blog post. Blogging has been the best way to make money online since the early days of the internet.  

How it works

1. Write articles and post them on your website. 
2. Do search engine optimization (SEO) and get people to read it. 
3. Make money through ads, affiliate marketing, or by selling courses and e-books. 

Potential Earnings: Lindsay made $95,197/month from her recipe blog. A niche website with 100 blog posts, monetized only with ads, can make $2815 per month. Earnings depend on the number of articles published and the total page views received. You can make more money if you monetize with affiliate marketing, your own courses, and books. Check out the video below to learn more:

Pros & Cons: The money you make will be passive, but writing the articles (if not outsourced) requires a lot of time.

Effort Required: Time required to write 100 articles.

Startup Cost: $3 per month for hosting a website. Around 1.5 cents per word (if the article is outsourced). 

Payback Period: Typically 12 to 24 months

How to get started: Check out our guide on how to start a blog to get started. You can also use our guides on: 

• How to make a website
• SEO Guide

2. YouTube Channel

Creating a YouTube channel and posting videos is a profitable way to make money online from home. You can easily get started with a smartphone camera or webcam. If you are camera shy, create a PowerPoint or keynote presentation and record your screen. If you spend a lot of time watching videos on YouTube, you will know the type of content that works.

How it works

1. Create videos around a topic
2. Upload it to YouTube. 
3. Monetize with youtube ads, sponsorship, affiliate marketing, or by selling digital products and merchandise. 

Potential Earnings: Most YouTubers only talk about their ad revenue. If you believe that you are missing the big picture. The ad revenue is around $3 to $5 per 1000 video views. You can make $1000 per month from YouTube ads if your channel gets 200,000 views per month.

7-year-old YouTuber Ryan made $22 million in 2018.

But the YouTube ad revenue is just the tip of the iceberg. 

You must use affiliate marketing or sell digital products if you want to tap into the true power of YouTube. 

You need 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours before YouTube ads start showing. But with affiliate marketing, you can start from Day 1. 

Catherine Manning made $23,324.16/month with her YouTube channel. Only 25% (or $5731.43) of her earnings came from YouTube ads. The remaining 75% (or $17,592.73) came from affiliate marketing and selling digital products. Check out the video below to learn more:

Pros & Cons: You can make passive income without posting new content. But to truly tap into the full potential of YouTube, you need to regularly post new videos and get new views.

Effort Required: Time required to create at least one video per week.

Startup Cost: Start for free with a smartphone camera or screen recording software. 

Payback Period: 6 to 12 months depending on how consistently you post. 

How to get started: Create a YouTube channel and start recording with your smartphone camera to get started.

3. Affiliate Marketing

In affiliate marketing, you promote other people’s products. An affiliate marketer gets paid when someone clicks your affiliate link and buys. You can pair affiliate marketing with almost every other method. It will greatly increase your earnings.

How it works

1. Create an account on an affiliate network like Impact. You can also directly sign up for affiliate programs like Amazon Associates.
2. Promote the affiliate product to your audience using your affiliate link. 
3. A tracking cookie is placed in their browser when someone clicks your affiliate link. 
4. You make a commission from the sale if they buy before the cookie expires. The cookie expires usually after 30 days.

Potential Earnings

The commissions paid by affiliate marketing programs can vary from 2% to 100% of the product cost. For some programs the commission is recurring. For example, Active Campaign pays a 30% recurring commission. Electronics brands like Lenovo pay 4% to 10% commission.

How much you make varies depending on the niche and the traffic you drive to the program. So it is not unusual to see bloggers like Pat Flynn make $61,689.56 in a single month from affiliate marketing.

Pros & Cons: You can earn more with affiliate marketing than with ads. But not all niches have relevant affiliate programs. Also, affiliate marketing won’t help you build a customer base like digital products.

Effort Required: The same effort or time required to build a blog, YouTube channel, or podcast.

Startup Cost: There is no cost to start. 

Payback Period: Nothing is stopping you from making money from your first day. 

How to get started: Start a blog or YouTube Channel to get started with affiliate marketing.

4. Podcasting

Podcasting is like having your very own radio show. But instead of tuning in to a particular broadcast, your subscribers download the podcast file to their phone or computer. 

Blogging and YouTube share information in written and video formats. Podcasts do the same thing in audio format. Consider podcasting only if you listen to a lot of podcasts yourself.

How it works

1. Record your content and create your audio file in Audacity.
2. Upload your audio file to a platform like Podbean.
3. Monetize through sponsorships and affiliate marketing. 

Potential Earnings: If you add a 60-second ad to your podcast, you can make $25 to $30 for every 1000 downloads. You can double your earnings if you have two ads in your podcast instead of one. You can also monetize with affiliate marketing, Patreon donations, and sponsorships. Entrepreneurs on fire podcast made $219,387/month. 

You can charge more as your reach increases. Best-selling author Tim Ferriss gets over a million downloads for his episodes allowing him to charge $50,000 to $100,000 per episode in The Tim Ferriss Show.

Pros & Cons: Compared to YouTube videos, podcasts are much easier to produce. But the reach of podcasts is much smaller than YouTube & blogging. Podcasts do not rank in search engines. So it is harder to organically grow your show.

Effort Required: Time taken to create podcasts, promote and grow your podcast.

Startup Cost: Start for free. Invest in equipment as you grow. 

Payback Period: Expect 12 months or more for your podcast to get traction. 

How to get started: Record audio with audacity and upload it to Podbean to get started. 

5. Social Media Influencers

Influencers build a relationship with their audience. They use their authority, knowledge, or expertise in a particular topic to do it. 

Blogging and YouTube covered earlier are the best platforms to be an influencer. In this section, we will cover social media like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

How it works

1. You create & post social media posts, videos, reels & stories. 
2. Monetize with sponsorship deals, affiliate products, or your own products. 

Potential Earnings
An average Instagram influencer with 2k to 10k followers made $121 per post. How much money you make depends on your followers, engagement, and the advertiser you are working with. Which country your audience is from also determines your income from sponsorship. 

You can also monetize your social media following in other ways. Kylie Jenner built a billion-dollar cosmetic brand called Kylie Cosmetics with her social media following.

Pros & Cons: Once you have a decent following of over 100K subscribers, you can make a lot of money for a few minutes of work. But there is a lot of work involved in maintaining your account. You need to post A LOT. If you don’t post regularly, your engagement will disappear. So this income source is not passive even if you amass a million followers. 

Also, be aware that you are building a business on shallow ground. If the platform decides to ban you or if they change the rules, your business will be gone overnight. 

Effort Required: You need to constantly be posting even if you have a million followers. When you stop posting, your audience will become disengaged and forget you. 

Startup Cost: Free to start

Payback Period: 6 to 12 months. 

How to get started: Post daily on your favorite social media platform. 

6. Sell Ad Space

Ad space is for blogs same as YouTube ads are for videos. Once your website gets enough traffic, you can start showing ads on your website. In niches where there aren’t that many affiliate products, you can simply sell ad space and make money. 

How it works

1. You build traffic to your website. 
2. Place ads on your website

Potential Earnings
If you use Adthrive as your ad network, you can make $12.43 for every 1000 impressions. As the number of pages on your website increases, your earnings can rack up pretty quickly. Pinch of yum made $52,313.13/month from Adthrive.

Pros & Cons: Can monetize all types of informational websites. But ads can make your website look spammy. 

Effort Required: You focus on creating content in your blog. The more content you create, the more your earnings will increase. 

Startup Cost: No cost to sell ad space on your blog. 

Payback Period: Time taken to build traffic to your blog. 

How to get started: Focus on blogging and, when you reach a traffic threshold, upgrade your ad network.

To start advertising on your blog, you can sign up for an ad network like Ezoic (they pay more than Google Adsense). When your blog starts getting more than 100,000 page views a month you can monetize with Adthrive.

7. Sponsored Blog Posts

You can get paid by brands to write a product review. You make money immediately after you post the paid review. Unlike affiliate marketing, your income is not dependent on conversion.

How it works: Usually the advertiser approaches you asking if you will write a sponsored post. Once you agree on the terms of the deal, you can write the post & get paid. Remember to add a disclaimer that the post is sponsored at the top.

Potential Earnings: Your website’s traffic and domain authority determines your rates. You can make anywhere from $250 to $10K per sponsored post depending on your traffic and domain. You can charge a $250 minimum even if your blog is new because it takes time to research, write and edit your post.

Sponsored Blog Posts Rate Card

The sponsorship amount is confidential & cannot be disclosed as per the contract terms. So you won’t see any income reports talking about this. 

Pros & Cons: Sponsored posts will give you a quick influx of cash. But it is hard to make consistent income with it because usually, the brands have to approach you.

Effort Required: Same effort is required to write a blog post.

Startup Cost: No extra cost

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Use the resource for blogging to build your blog. Have a contact page for brands to be able to contact you.

8. Twitch Streaming

If you are a serious gamer, you can make money streaming on Twitch.  You need to be consistent to make any real money with Twitch in the long run. If you are more of a casual gamer, then Twitch streaming might not be right for you.

How it works
The best way to make money with Twitch is to join the Twitch affiliate program and become a Twitch partner. Streamers also make money through donations, selling merchandise, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing.

Potential Earnings: Success in Twitch is based on the number of hours watched. Approximately 4000 streamers hold 75% of the total watch hours. There are 9 million monthly Twitch streamers, so the competition is pretty high. xQcOW reportedly made $1,595,167 from Twitch. 

Pros & Cons: If you want to make passive income online, then Twitch is probably not for you. You need to play games like it is a full-time job. But if you want to make extra income doing what you love, then you can give Twitch streaming a shot. 

Effort Required: Time required to play

Startup Cost: High-end PC that can stream to Twitch and play games at the same time.

Payback Period: 6 to 12 months

How to get started: Create an account on Twitch and OBS Studio. Optionally use Restream if you want to parallelly stream to YouTube. 

Digital Products Model

Once you create a digital product, you can sell it an infinite number of times to multiple customers. It is the most scalable way to make money online without paying anything. 

9. Online Courses

Creating online courses is one of the most passive income streams that you can build. Once you put in the work to create a course, you can make money from it for as long as the topic is relevant. 

How it works
Write a script and create a PowerPoint or keynote presentation. Record yourself going through the presentation, optionally with your video on. Host the course in a marketplace like Udemy or your own website. 

Potential Earnings
The first-ever course I created on Mental Math published on Udemy has made me over $20,218.07 so far. I make on average $323 per month from that single course. 

You can make a lot more money if you have your own audience, and email list and use a funnel. Dan Henry’s made over $3 Million from his Facebook course.

Pros & Cons
You can make evergreen passive income with no extra investment. But to make a job replacing income with your course, you need to build an email list and use a funnel. 

Effort Required: 1 to 3 months to create the course

Startup Cost: Free to start

Payback Period: Immediately after the course is published

How to get started: You can create an account on Teachable to record and start selling your online course.

10. Membership & Subscription Sites

You sell access to exclusive content for a recurring fee with a continuity program. The subscription system ensures you make recurring revenue. 

How it works
You create content similar to a course and place it inside your member’s area. The content can be drip fed so that new members are continuously fed with new content every month. There should also be a community element. Subscribers pay for ongoing access to the content. 

Potential Earnings
How much you make depends on the price of membership x the number of members. If you charge $20 per month and have 100 members, you will make $20 x 100 = $2000 per month. 

Nerd Fitness offer their courses in a subscription format called Nerd Fitness Prime where they charge a fixed price yearly to access their course and community. Even if they have only 1000 members, it’s a recurring income of $100,000 every year.

Pros & Cons
The recurring revenue model is what draws many to creating a membership website. But you need to constantly create new content to feed your membership site, unlike a course. It takes a lot more work and the churn rate and cancellations are very high. Most members will stay subscribed for an average of 3 months. 

Effort Required: Time required to create ongoing content apart from the main content. 

Startup Cost: $3 per month for website hosting + $100 for a membership plugin. 

Payback Period: One month

How to get started: You can create a membership website on a platform like Teachable.

11. Self Publish a Book

If you ever wanted to become an author, you can try to self-publish your own book. You can earn recurring royalties from your book sales every month. You can self-publish in both Kindle ebook and paperback format with Amazon KDP. You can also convert it into an audiobook using Amazon ACX.

How it works
You write your book in a word processor. You upload it to Kindle Direct Publishing. Promote the book and get royalties every month. 

Potential Earnings
The first book I self-published was Mental Math: Tricks to Become a Human Calculator. I took the transcript of my Udemy course and made it into a book. It has made me $36,469 in the last four years. That is $9162 per year from one book that is priced at $3. I continue to make royalties every month from this book. 

The success of your book will depend on the genre and the amount of promotion you do. If you build an audience before you write the book, then you can easily make six figures from a single book.

Pros & Cons
Writing a book can generate a lot of passive income in the form of royalties. But the success of your book has less to do with the actual content and more to do with the amount of promotion you do. 

Effort Required: Time taken to write the book and the promotion that follows.

Startup Cost: There is no cost to self-publish.

Payback Period: Immediately after publishing.

How to get started: Write your book in Google Docs and publish it through Amazon KDP.

12. Buying & Selling Websites

A website is like any other business that can be bought and sold. Like any other investment like a stock or real estate, there is a lot of profit to be made. Consider selling a website if it makes significant money but you no longer have the time to invest in it. 

How it works

1. Find a site with potential listed with a website broker.
2. Buy the website.
3. Improve the site.
4. Sell the website with the help of a website broker. Payment is made by the buyer to an escrow account. The website broker acts as an intermediary. 

Potential Earnings
Expect to make 10 times your yearly revenue. Jenn Leach made over $100,000 by flipping websites.

Pros & Cons
Make a lump sum of cash when you sell a website. All your processes and documentation have to be perfect for a smooth transition. Expect to handhold the buyer for a period of six months before you get paid the full amount. 

Effort Required: Six months worth of effort to sell your website.

Startup Cost: Cost to build a website.

Payback Period: Time taken to identify a buyer. 

How to get started: List your website with EmpireFlippers or FE International. There are many website brokers that cater to the low end market like Flippa.

13. Sell Domains

Buying and selling domains is a super competitive industry. Just like websites, you can sell domains if you can find buyers after listing them in a marketplace. If you have a lot of registered domains that you aren’t using, then you can consider selling them. 

How it works
You register a domain with a domain registrar like Namecheap. You then list the website in a domain broker like GoDaddy Auctions. 

Potential Earnings
How much you make selling a domain depends on the demand that exists. You will make a lot of money if you have a one-word domain name. 

Page Howe made $2.8 million selling two domain names. He purchased the domain name seniors.com for $100,000 and sold it for $1.8 million and he also sold guy.com for $1 million. The longest he held both domain names was for one month. 

Pros & Cons
You can quickly multiply your investments by flipping domains. However, it comes with a large amount of risk. If you don’t find a buyer on time, you will be sitting on the domain for a long time.  

Effort Required: Zero

Startup Cost: Money you spend on purchasing a domain. As low as $10.

Payback Period: Time taken to identify an interested buyer.

How to get started: Spend time on GoDaddy Auctions to understand what kinds of domains are popular. 

14. Sell Photography

You can sell photos online and earn more money by providing content to stock photography websites. Stock photography websites provide copyright-free images for commercial use. The images are sold many times to multiple people. So you can continue to earn royalties every month on your images. 

How it works

1. Take pictures with your camera.
2. Upload the images to stock photography websites.
3. Customer buys your picture from stock websites.
4. You get paid royalties depending on the number of sales.

Potential Earnings: You get paid 20% to 60% royalties. The price varies depending on the website, so your royalties might also vary. How many pictures you sell determines how much money you make. So you have to upload A LOT of images to build a viable income. Jarmo Piironen made $5325 in stock photography royalties in 2020.

Pros & Cons: Selling photography can provide a nice passive income stream. The popularity of your images will determine your income. 

Effort Required: Time spent capturing images

Startup Cost: None

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Upload the images you take to Shutterstock, iStockPhoto, and Getty Images via Flickr, Dreamstime, Foap, or 123RF.

15. Sell Your Designs

If you know how to do graphic or web design, then you will be able to sell your designs online. There are stock vector sites for you to sell your designs, just like stock photography sites. Also, check out print-on-demand and freelancing. 

How it works
Create your design in software like Adobe Illustrator. Upload it on royalty-free illustration and vector websites. Earn royalties depending on the number of sales your designs gets.

Potential Earnings
On most websites, the money you make depends on the number of sales your designs get. Most designers make $50 to $1000 every month on GraphicRiver. Websites like Freepik pay based on the number of downloads your design gets. Nicky Laatz has earned over $1,000,000 selling her work on Creative Market. You can watch her story below:

Pros & Cons: Good passive income source for designers. But you need to upload a lot of designs to make any significant income. 

Effort Required: Time taken to create designs. 

Startup Cost: None

Payback Period: Immediate 

How to get started: Become a contributor on GraphicRiver, Creative Market & Freepik

16. Develop an App

If you have an idea for an app, you can either build it yourself or hire a freelancer to do it for you. The amount of marketing you do to drive app downloads will determine your success. 

How it works
Create an app and publish it in Google Playstore and Apple App Store. Earn money through ads or in-app purchases. 

Potential Earnings
The average revenue per app download varies from $0.60 to $1.20. Earnings not only depend on the number of downloads but also the engagement inside the app. The top 800 apps make $3,500 per day. But the app market is extremely competitive, with 8.93 million mobile apps. 

Pros & Cons
A lot of money can be made with your app if you can drive downloads and engagement. But an ultra-competitive marketplace makes it hard to do that. 

Effort Required: 3 to 6 months of development effort based on the complexity of your app.

Startup Cost: $10,000 to $700,000

Payback Period: 24 months or more

How to get started: You can outsource your app development on Upwork. 

Physical Products Model

Ecommerce is now more accessible, making it easy for anyone to sell online. You can just focus on marketing and promotion. You can outsource manufacturing, storing inventory & shipping. 

17. Dropshipping

Dropshipping eliminates the need to buy, store or ship inventory in ecommerce. Your efforts are focused on the marketing aspect and driving traffic to your online store and selling.

How it works

1. You list a product from your supplier in your online store. 
2. When you make a sale, the ecommerce platform passes the order information to the supplier.
3. Your supplier ships the order directly to your customer. 
4. You pay the supplier only after you receive an order. You don’t have to purchase any inventory until you make a sale. 
5. Your time will be mainly spent on marketing and customer service. 

Potential Earnings
Return on your ad spend is not guaranteed. If you do everything right, expect to make $500 to $2000 in profit in your first month of dropshipping. Almost a year after Rito created his store CommonPanda, he was making a profit of  $7,584/month. 

It is difficult to profit from dropshipping low-ticket products. The margins are small (around $10 per sale). You have to spend thousands of dollars on ads before you find out what works. Once you do make a profit, it won’t be long before your ads become stale and stop working. 

It is easier to make a profit with high ticket dropshipping where the margins are $50 to $200 per sale. You can reinvest those profits into Facebook ads.

Pros & Cons
A dropshipping business is easy to start. But becoming profitable will take a lot of experimentation and work. You must spend money to purchase ads. You also need to handle customer service. A competitor can easily copy your business and eat into your margins. Margins are small compared to the other methods.   

Effort Required: One week to set up the store. 4 hours of ongoing maintenance. 

Startup Cost: $1,000 for ad spend

Payback Period: 0 to 2 months

How to get started: Create an account with Shopify and find suppliers in Oberlo.

18. Amazon FBA

FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon. Amazon FBA is similar to drop shipping where you don’t have to worry about shipping. Amazon will take care of most things. Since people are already shopping on Amazon, you can spend less money on marketing. 

How it works

You purchase in bulk from a supplier and ship it to Amazon. Customer purchases from Amazon. Amazon takes care of the inventory, order fulfillment, and customer service.

Potential Earnings

Most Amazon sellers make $1000 per month. The profit margin usually varies from 10% to 30%. Use the FBA calculator to check your profitability. Jessica Larrew who does Amazon FBA full time makes around $5000 in profit from Amazon. She makes 3 times more during the holiday season.

Pros & Cons

Customers are already shopping on Amazon, so this puts your product in front of them. Amazon also handles everything like customer service. In dropshipping, you have to handle customer service yourself. 

You need to buy inventory in bulk beforehand and ship it to an Amazon warehouse. 

All the extra work that Amazon does for you also comes at a cost. You have to pay FBA fees which may not be a lot if you compare it with doing it yourself. 

You are also listed in a marketplace where the competition is cutthroat. The competition will eat into your profit margins. There are 45 other sellers for this exact product below:

One way to differentiate your products from the competition is to sell private label products where the manufacturer sticks your brand name on the product.

Effort Required: One to two weeks to identify and source the product. Few hours of ongoing maintenance every week.

Startup Cost: $2000

Payback Period: 3 to 6 months

How to get started: Create an Amazon seller account to get started.

19. Ecommerce

Build a traditional ecommerce store if you don’t want to do dropshipping or sell on Amazon. You can outsource some elements like inventory and fulfillment or do that yourself. You can have custom products manufactured by your supplier with your brand labels. You will be able to build your brand this way. Competitors and other online retailers will find it difficult to copy your success. 

How it works

1. Source your products and optionally have them labeled with your brand. 
2. Store your inventory or have it managed by a fulfillment agency. 
3. List the products in your online store.
4. Fulfill the orders you receive, yourself or using a fulfillment agency. 
5. You also have to manage customer support and marketing. 

Potential Earnings
How much money you make depends on your ad spend and margins. The product profit margin is usually around 10% to 30%. If your ad cost exceeds your margin, you won’t even break even. Steve Chou made over $100,000 in profit in his first year as an ecommerce business owner of Bumblebee Linens.

Pros & Cons: Cutting out the middleman means more profit for ecommerce business owners. But doing everything yourself means more investment. The chances of things going wrong are also high. 

Effort Required: 3 to 6 months to set up. The ongoing effort to maintain.

Startup Cost: $10,000

Payback Period: 6 to 12 months

How to get started: Choose an ecommerce platform and create your ecommerce website. 

20. Print on Demand

In print-on-demand, the product is created (printed) only when the order is placed. You don’t have to buy inventory. Items that you can print include clothes, mugs, bags, bottles, and other merchandise. 

How it works: A customer places an order in your store. The order details are passed to the print-on-demand company. The company creates the product and ships it to the customer. 

Potential Earnings: $3 to $15 per product. Potential earnings will be around $500 to $1000 per month. Benny made $847/month with his print-on-demand business.

Pros & Cons: No inventory means no upfront cost. But to drive sales without investing in ads, you need an existing audience. 

Effort Required: Time taken to create and upload your designs.

Startup Cost: Zero

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Create an account with Printful, Teespring, or Merch by Amazon to get started. Build an audience with blogging or YouTube. 

21. Make & Sell Stuff

Etsy is one of the creative ways to make money online. If you are into arts and crafts, you can make handmade items & sell them on a site like Etsy.

How it works: List the product you want to sell. When a customer purchases you ship the product to them and Etsy takes 5% of the product price as fees.

Potential Earnings: If what you are selling is unique you can make thousands of dollars on Etsy. Dylan Jahrus has made over $1.5M in revenue and over $1M in profit from Etsy. Checkout the view below:

Pros & Cons: Great way to monetize your hobby. Difficult to scale and you are trading time for money. 

Effort Required: Time taken to create the item.

Startup Cost: Cost of the material. 

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Create an account on Etsy and open a store

22. Sell Used Items

If you have clothes or other items lying around that you haven’t used, you can make money by selling them for a quick buck. You can also sell unused gift cards that you got during Christmas. Just remember, you will get money for less than the value of the gift card. 

How it works: List what you want to sell in a marketplace. Once the sale happens, you ship the item and collect the cash. Remember to charge the buyer for shipping. Sarah made $2000 by selling her old stuff at home. 

Potential Earnings: Varies based on the cost of the item.

Pros & Cons: Helps you make cash without doing any work. Cannot be scaled. 

Effort Required: A few hours

Startup Cost: Zero

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: If you want to sell items in person use Facebook Groups or the Facebook Marketplace. You will find many other websites depending on your country. In the US:

• Sell used clothes in Tradesy, Poshmark, Swap, Thredup, and Refashioner. 
• Sell used electronics in Gazelle.
• Sell gift cards in CardSell.

Service Model

If you are in desperate need of cash and want to make money online fast, the methods in this section will help you. They are also some of the best ways to make money online for beginners. But the methods in this section will not help you make passive income.

23. Content Writing

I made my first $200 online in the 10th grade through freelance writing. If you can write grammatically correct English, then you will be able to become a content writer. This is the easiest way to make money fast.

How it works
You find writing jobs on freelancing websites. You research, write and submit the article. Once your submission is accepted, you get paid for the number of words you wrote. 

Potential Earnings
On average, you can get paid 1.5 cents per word. That is $15 for a 1000-word article. You can charge more if you have specialized knowledge on a topic like golf or credentials like a law degree. How much money you can make depends on how much time you can spend writing. Micheal Leonard made $20,050 in a month as a content writer. 

Pros & Cons: Make good money reliably. You will be trading time for money. You may be able to find other jobs that pay more. 

Effort Required: Minimum of two hours per article

Startup Cost: Zero

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: You can find writing jobs in Pro Blogger Jobs, Upwork, Fiverr, TextBroker and iWriter

24. Freelancing

Like content writing, you can offer services for any skill you are good at on freelancing sites. Popular freelance jobs include web development, graphic design, voice-over, video editing, translation, transcription, and virtual assistant. You can work from home and this is a great way to make extra money.

How it works
You find a job matching your skills on a freelancing website. Once you complete the job you get paid. The freelancing website acts as an intermediary in the remote work setup linking you to a potential client. 

On freelancing websites such as Upwork, you need to find jobs posted and apply. 

On Fiverr, you don’t have to spend time applying for jobs. You productize your service & clients directly buy your gig if interested.

Potential Earnings: How much you make depends on the project and the kind of work that you do. According to a survey of freelancers, the average freelancer’s pay is $21/hour.

Pros & Cons: Reliable income but you are trading time for money. Getting a full-time job might pay more. 

Effort Required: Time taken to do the job. 

Startup Cost: None

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Create an account with Upwork or Freelancer. Also, consider creating a gig on Fiverr to offer your service in a productized way. 

25. Online Agency

If you want to take freelancing to the next level you should consider building an online agency. In an online agency, you manage a team of freelancers to do the work. By leveraging other people’s time you can make a lot more money than you can on your own.

How it works

1. You build a team of freelancers who are good at different tasks. 
2. You spend your time finding clients and building systems and processes for your agency. 
3. When you receive projects, your team does the work and you get paid. 
4. You pay your team a fixed rate per project or a monthly salary. 

Potential Earnings
You charge more than a normal freelancer because you save your clients a lot of the work. You will be able to easily scale and take on more clients with this agency approach. Some types of agencies also charge monthly fees from their clients even though the ongoing effort is minimal. Here are the prices charged by an SEO Agency:

Pros & Cons: Unlike freelancing the agency model is easy to scale. But there are a lot of moving parts that can get overwhelming if you don’t put together proper systems in place. 

Effort Required: Full-time in the beginning. A few hours a day when you have systems in place.

Startup Cost: No upfront cost. 

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Find both freelancers and clients on Upwork.

26. Coaching

You can share your expertise at a more personal level with the help of coaching. When you work with clients one-on-one, you can often charge 5 to 10 times the price you charge for a course. 

How it works

1. Find coaching clients from your existing audience or run Facebook ads to your funnel.
2. Do one-on-one or group coaching sessions. 
3. Deliver the material in your courses in the form of a recording or over a live webinar. 
4. Spend dedicated time answering questions relevant to their unique situation.

Potential Earnings
Coaches charge anywhere between $5000 to $50,000 for a few months of coaching. One-on-one coaching is priced higher at $20,000+. Group coaching is priced between $5000 to $10,000.

Pros & Cons: Easy to make six and seven-figure income from coaching. Difficult to scale unless you find a way to hire and train new coaches. Brian Tracy who is a world-renowned coach himself leverages his time by hiring and training other personal coaches.

Effort Required: Minimum of 4 to 8 hours per week 

Startup Cost: Money spent on Facebook ads if you don’t have an existing audience. 

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Build an audience with blogging and YouTube. Then convert that audience into paying customers with a funnel. 

27. Consulting

If you are an expert in any particular field then you can be a consultant. It is easier to become a consultant if you have already built up authority in a particular field. Clients will typically approach you through your website or YouTube channel. 

How it works

1. Establish your personal brand by blogging or with YouTube. 
2. Tie up with an agency in case your clients want you to do the work apart from providing consulting. 
3. Decide if you want to get paid by the hour, by the month, or per project.
4. Help your customers get the results they desire and get paid.

Potential Earnings: Marketing consultants charge $160 per hour. How much you make will depend on your industry. Jayme Amos made seven figures in a year providing consulting services to dentists.

Pros & Cons: Good return on your time investment, but it is not easy to scale. 

Effort Required: Time required to build authority and an online presence. 

Startup Cost: Zero

Payback Period: 3 to 6 months after you create content

How to get started: Create a blog or YouTube channel to start building your authority. Sign up to websites like Clarity.fm to get paid to give advice. 

28. Online Tutor

If you are good at teaching then you can make money tutoring students online. You can get started with an online tutoring company that pairs you with students. You need to show proof of your credentials and certifications before you can start. If you are bilingual you can consider teaching another language. Online tutoring business is a popular way to make money quickly if you are qualified.

How it works: Sign up for an online tutoring website to get started. 

Potential Earnings: You can make $10 to $30 depending on what you are teaching and your education level. Depending on the time you invest you can make between $1000 to $3000 a month. Dave Trotter made $1921.69/month teaching another language.

Pros & Cons: Great way to monetize the skills you earned through school and college. But you will be trading time for money in a way that cannot be scaled. 

Effort Required: Time taken to tutor.

Startup Cost: None

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Get started by joining the following websites: TutorMe, Tutor.com, TutorHunt, VIPKid, Brainfuse, and Revolution Prep. If you are bilingual you can teach a language in iTalki.

Microwork Model

It is called microwork because you get micro pay. There are many small tasks you can complete online in your spare time to make a few extra bucks. The tasks are easy to complete and do not require any skill. But they can be extremely boring and repetitive. 

29. Get Paid to Do Tasks

Many websites pay you to do small tasks that require human intelligence. The money you make won’t be life-changing but it is extra cash that can buy you a coffee. The tasks can get repetitive and tedious. The money you make per hour won’t help justify doing this in the long run. 

How it works: Signup for a website that gives you tasks. Complete the task and get paid. 

Potential Earnings: Few dollars per hour. Kristy Milland made $100 per day from Amazon Mechanical Turk. 

Pros & Cons: Anyone can do it but the pay is incredibly low and the work is mind-numbing. 

Effort Required: Spending several hours doing these tasks will earn you a few dollars. 

Startup Cost: None

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Check out the following websites: Amazon Mechanical Turk, Swagbucks, Scribie, and Fancyhands.

30. Take Online Surveys

You can earn money to complete surveys on a survey site. The amount you make varies. Many surveys pay a dollar and take an hour to complete. This is not a quick way to make money.

How it works: Complete a survey and get paid. 

Potential Earnings: $1 to $20 per survey

Pros & Cons: Easy to do but not a good investment of your time.

Effort Required: Time taken to complete the survey. 

Startup Cost: Zero

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: Paid survey sites include: InboxDollars, ySense, i-Say, Opinion Outpost, PrizeRebel, Branded Surveys, Fetch Rewards, MyPoints, and MySurvey.

31. Test & Provide Feedback

Startups, developers, and site owners are looking for feedback on their apps and sites. They want to know how users feel about their user interface before they spend a lot of money advertising. You can offer to be a tester and get paid to test websites. 

How it works: Complete tasks, answer questions and provide feedback to get paid. 

Potential Earnings: Make approximately $10 for 20-minute tasks. Justin Houser made $30 per hour testing sites. 

Pros & Cons: Easy way to make money online but a low return on time. 

Effort Required: Time taken to test.

Startup Cost: None

Payback Period: Immediate

How to get started: There are many websites, but here are a few: User Testing, Test Birds, UserZoom, and TrymyUI. 

Investing Model

Investing is the ultimate passive income. If you have money, you can invest it to make more money. Everyone should invest to harness the power of compound interest. If your money compounds with a 7.5% interest rate, your money will automatically double every 10 years. 

32. Stock Investing

When you buy a stock you are buying a tiny share in a publicly traded company. As the company grows, so does the value of your stock. You can also earn dividends when the company distributes profits. 

How it works: Invest your money in stocks. Let your money grow and compound. 

Potential Earnings: Unlimited

Pros & Cons: Investing is the best way to grow your money. But if you get greedy and don’t know what you are doing, then you can lose all your money. 

Effort Required: None

Startup Cost: Money required to invest. 

Payback Period: Few days to several years. 

How to get started: If you don’t know where to invest, then follow Buffett’s advice and invest in a low-cost index fund. If you are in the US, create an account with Robinhood to start trading without paying any commission. 

33. Crypto Staking

Even though cryptocurrency is a highly volatile space, there is a lot of money to be made. Apart from trading crypto, you can also stake cryptocurrency to earn interest. The interest will be paid to you in the form of cryptocurrency. So if the value of your cryptocurrency goes up, so will the value of the interest you receive.

How it works: Buy cryptocurrency in exchange. Stake it in the exchange or in a wallet. 

Potential Earnings: 2% to 20% paid as staking rewards

Pros & Cons: Cryptocurrency is a highly volatile market. Expect to see returns and losses of over 50%.

Effort Required: None

Startup Cost: Money required to invest. 

Payback Period: Few days to several years. 

How to get started: Create your account with Binance to purchase your first cryptocurrency and stake it. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Below you will find some of the common questions about making money online. Click on the question to read the answer:

What Next?

These are some of the best ways to make money online from home, even if you are a complete beginner. You can pick any of the methods here to build an additional source of income. 

There is no such thing as easy money online. Everything requires your time. 

The biggest secret to making money online fast is to pick a single method and stick with it. Invest all your time in one method till you see tangible results.

Which of these methods are you going to use to earn money online? 

Are you considering blogging or a YouTube channel? 

Maybe you have already started to make money online with some method. 

Let me know in the comments section.