It feels like we have plenty of avenues to make money these days — the gig economy is booming and having a side hustle has never been easier. Whether you’re a full-time gig worker or someone just trying to make a little extra cash on the side, there are options a-plenty.
But what if you don’t have a car for Uber or DoorDash? What if you want to stay home during the colder months and still make extra income? We’ve got good news — there are plenty of ways to make money from home, for free.
Ready to learn more? Let’s dive in.
The top 24 ways to make money from home
If you want to start stacking some cash from the comfort of your own home, here are 24 different options to explore.
1. Host furry friends as a pet sitter
Do you love animals? Are you happy to open up your home to a revolving cast of dogs and cats? Consider pet sitting — apps like Wag and Rover make it easy for you to connect with pet owners in need of a place to board their pets.
The signup process is easy — all prospective sitters need to do is provide their information, pass a background check, and take a quiz that gauges pet knowledge. Afterwards, you’ll be able to create a profile to promote your boarding services, add any stipulations you might have regarding what animals you can and cannot look after, and ultimately, book pets to stay at your home.
If you’re an animal lover with enough room and experience, working as a pet sitter and boarder can be an awesome experience and an excellent way to make money at home.
2. Take online surveys
Did you know that you can participate in surveys to make money online — at any time, anywhere? You can make a few bucks for giving your opinions on surveys online, and you can do it all from home. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to fund the purchase of a Rolls-Royce by taking surveys alone, but they can definitely put a little cash in your pocket.
Survey sites like Swagbucks, SurveyJunkie, and OpinionOutpost offer cash and gift cards for taking surveys, playing games, and more. The more surveys you take, the more points you accumulate, and the more points you accumulate, the higher your payout.
For anyone taking a multi-pronged approach to side hustling, taking online surveys during your down-time is a great way to bring in extra income — you can even do it from your phone in bed!
3. Sell your art online
Did you know that humans aren’t the only species capable of creating art? From “Pigcasso” in South Africa to Congolese chimpanzees, there are quite a few fascinating examples of animals creating amazing visual art! Humans, however, are the only species that have created a market for the purchase of art — here’s how to make money selling yours.
There are tons of e-commerce platforms right now for artists to sell their creations. Whether you’re a painter, sculptor, or photographer, you can create an account on Etsy, Shopify, or Amazon and build a virtual storefront.
While you might need to leave your home to ship your creations to buyers, the majority of the work can be done right at home — express yourself creatively, set your price, list your creations, and make that money!
4. Develop a mobile app
If you’re someone with a tech background proficient in app development and coding, creating your own app can be a fast-track to making extra money — without having to leave the home. The app that you create (and how you create it) is up to you, but it can be a great way to make some extra scratch on the side — and who knows, maybe you’ll create the next big thing!
Be sure to write out an objective and plan for every step, research your competition, build your minimum viable product, beta test it amongst some friends, and get ready to launch!
5. Monetize social media
Are you an influencer? Do you have a substantial base of followers on your social media channel(s)? Whether you’re big on Instagram, TikTok, or have your own YouTube channels, you can find ways to make extra money by using your platform on social media to promote brands to your followers. There are tons of different avenues to make money using your social media, so you can try a few things!
One of the most popular methods of monetizing your online presence is through brand partnerships — you can offer sponsored posts for clothing, beverages, workout products — you name it!
You can offer a link in your bio to the product, called an affiliate link, which should give you a cut of sales that you directly impact. You can also monetize your Instagram account by gaining subscribers — more on that here.
6. Work as a virtual assistant
Got a high-speed internet connection, a space to work at home, and a knack for organization? You’ve checked all the boxes to become a virtual assistant!
For those unfamiliar, companies will often hire independent contractors to remotely assist with administrative, creative, or technical aspects of day-to-day business operations. You won’t get benefits or stock options, but it’s a great gig for making money on the side, all from the comfort of home (or a cool coffee shop).
To get started, take a look at job boards like FlexJobs or Indeed, get your resume together, and start applying for jobs. Don’t fret if you don’t have any virtual assistant experience — if you’ve booked appointments, managed a calendar, made travel arrangements, or managed a social media account, you’ve got transferable skills.
7. Tutor online
Whether you’re a history buff who likes to nerd out over Napoleonic-era battles, a music aficionado who loves throwing a flat 6 into a chord progression, or someone who likes to do calculus for fun, there’s a huge market for you to teach your expertise — and get paid for it.
History, music, math, and even English can be taught virtually from home — organizations like Tutor.com make it easy to apply and find students. There are plenty of other online tutoring platforms to choose from, as well. Most organizations will have an interview process, where you’ll have to meet certain criteria — usually being available at least 5 hours a week and eligible to work in the United States. Certain organizations may also require a college degree.
8. Sell your music on Artlist
In a time where it’s notoriously difficult to make money as a musician, there are still options short of selling your soul at the crossroads. Surely that platinum record (and a swimming pool full of money) is waiting in the wings, but in the interim, consider selling some of your music to Artlist.io.
A royalty-free platform for video and multimedia creators to source music for ads, films, and more, Artlist accepts submissions from musicians and sound effect artists, for which you can generate revenue and get placements for your music. While the payout isn’t massive, you’re continually paid each time your songs are downloaded.
In order to apply, you must own 100% of the master rights for your tracks, submit a short bio, and answer a few genre-related questions about your music.
9. Become an Amazon affiliate
Consider partnering with Amazon through their affiliate program, which is also known as Amazon Associates. Sign up is easy, and the cost is nothing — and you can make extra money from home with minimal effort.
Website owners, mobile app owners, and even social media accounts are eligible to apply and work with the Amazon affiliate program. For websites, you must have at least 10 blog posts and be publicly available; for mobile apps, you must be available in all major app stores and not look or function like Amazon’s app; and for social media, you must have over 500 organic followers.
Once you apply, Amazon will give you your own unique ID, and you can generate links as an affiliate partner — offering you a percentage of any sales you help to make through your engagement.
10. Start your own website
There are plenty of avenues to make extra money from home by starting websites — some people have even been able to quit their jobs after starting one! While that’s the exception and not the rule, you can definitely expect to make a little extra.
Aside from the affiliate marketing opportunities we’ve discussed above, you can monetize your website in a number of other ways! Consider setting up banner ads via Google Adsense, where advertisers will compete for your ad space and pay you when a visitor clicks on the advertisem*nt.
You can also offer sponsored posts, create a membership program, review products, or sell goods with an online store — again, this all depends on the nature of your site. The big takeaway here is that there quite a few ways to make money by creating a website — get creative with it!
11. Rent out your space with Airbnb or Vrbo
Got a spare bedroom? Or maybe a few properties you’re not currently renting at the moment? Listing your property on homestay service sites like Airbnb or Vrbo can be a great way to make passive income. Depending on your involvement, location, and personal expertise, you can even offer unique experiences to traveling guests!
It’s free to sign up on Vrbo and Airbnb — you’ll need to upload your property and answer a few questions about your space and yourself. From there, you’ll need to get your space ready for guests — there are some handy checklists you can use to make sure you’ve got everything you need to keep your guests comfortable.
Get creative with your listings if you’d like to offer an experience — in addition to providing a memorable experience for your guests, you can also make a few extra bucks! Are you an expert in the history of your city? Consider acting as a tour guide. Do you have any culinary experience? A well-cooked meal consisting of local cuisine will be an experience your guests will never forget.
12. Sell on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace
Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace have sort of allowed us to have garage sales virtually, right? No matter what you’re selling, these two sites can more than likely connect you to a buyer. And the best? They’re totally free!
Take a look around your place — is there anything you can part with for a few extra bucks? Old books, records, clothing, sports equipment, Beanie Babies, or Pokémon cards? There’s surely a buyer.
Listing is really easy — start by visiting either site and post an ad. Here’s where you can get creative — you’ll want to provide a headline of what it is you’re selling, add an accurate description of the item, and list a price point. In terms of pricing, it can be helpful to take a look at market value by searching for other similar items listed, and you can cross reference via eBay.
Take good photos of your items up for sale, list them, and monitor your email inbox and Facebook account. When you sell, agree to meet in a public place and insist on cash or Venmo/Cashapp.
13. List your music gear on Reverb
No matter if you’re a gigging musician with shoeboxes full of effects pedals or a would-be guitarist struggling to find the time to pick up that acoustic guitar you got for Christmas 8 years ago, Reverb offers you access to the foremost musical marketplace to offload your gear.
To list, simply make an account and then click “Sell Your Gear” — it will take you to a page where you can enter the information on the gear you want to sell, compare market value, add a description, and price point. You can also accept offers for your gear close to your price, if you so choose.
You can list your gear locally, but you can also consider shipping items to increase your buyer network. Unless you’ve got a moving team and unlimited funds to spend at FedEx, it’s recommended that you find a buyer locally for your Marshall Full Stack or great aunt Gertrude’s Hammond console organ.
Once you sell your gear, you can expect Reverb to take 8.2% out of the final sale price. Be sure to pack your sold items extremely well — you don’t want your buyer to send your cymbals back because they cracked in shipping!
14. Freelance on Fiverr
If graphic design, copywriting, or photography are right in your wheelhouse, consider leveraging Fiverr to sell your services and make some extra dough from home.
Fiverr is a veritable marketplace for all things freelance — connecting freelancers of all kinds with businesses in need of those services. No matter your skill set or the vertical in which you work, there’s probably something for you.
To get started, you need to sign up as a seller. You’ll pick your role — are you a blogger? A designer or developer? A musician or voiceover artist? A social media manager? A freelance writer?
Select your specialty, create a gig, and Fiverr will submit you for consideration to their global audience. Once you get hired and deliver awesome work, you can get paid out — which is immediately available for withdrawal once it clears.
15. Get in as a ghostwriter
If writing is your strong suit, you might be able to find remote work as a ghostwriter on a contract basis. While it’s often thought of as someone who helps a celebrity or public figure write an autobiography, there are actually tons of different ghostwriting gigs you can get — without having to help Charlie Sheen write a memoir.
The best tool you can have is a voracious appetite for reading, as you’ll want to be well-versed in tons of different topics. Also, you need to learn about different subjects and learn how to imitate different writers and their voices — the legendary Hunter S. Thompson even went as far as rewriting Hemingway character-for-character to understand how the latter wrote!
Once you develop a portfolio, start networking and look for gigs on online job boards, and then get writing!
16. Sell your clothes online
Are you a fashionista with an ever-changing wardrobe that gets updates every season? Even if you’re not importing Versace directly from Italy, chances are that you have some gently-worn clothing in your closet that’s not getting as many wears as it once did.
Aside from donating old clothing to a thrift store or local shelter, you can also sell your gently used garments and footwear online. Sites like Grailed, Poshmark, StockX, and Depop offer sellers a chance to offload their threads to a global network of buyers for a marginal user fee.
Whether you’re trying to flip your ultra-rare Off-White x Nike Jordan 1s or just get rid of some vintage, thrifted flannels, you can definitely make a few extra bucks through these online marketplaces.
17. Start an online business
Do you have any hobbies that you can monetize? Any crafts you can sell? Any knowledge you can charge money to create? Incorporate it!
Starting a small business online is a great way to legitimize your hobbies into a full-fledged moneymaker — you just need to build the site and get to work. No matter if you’re making candles, tie-dye socks, wooden tchotchkes, or even baked goods, sites like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace offer sites with ecommerce capabilities, allowing you to upload your stock, list your products, and sell them to people anywhere in the world.
No matter your idea, an online business can help you make extra money.
18. Become elite at selling on eBay
Want to feel old for a second? eBay was founded in late 1995 — it’s almost 30 years old! But we’re not ageist around here at Quicken, and we definitely would recommend eBay to anyone who wanted to make some extra money from home.
No matter what you want to sell, eBay has a niche for it. Vintage beer cans? There’s a buyer. Garbage Pail Kids cards? Oh heck yeah. Antique hot sauce? You better believe it. For horological enthusiasts, eBay also operates a third-party expert authenticator process for high-end Swiss watches! Any sort of collectible commodity has a home on eBay — and a built-in audience with years of experience buying on the platform.
Even if you’re not into collectibles and just have some ordinary things to sell from around your house, there’s a market on eBay — they charge 13.25% of the final selling price plus $0.30.
19. Rent out your vehicle
Peer-to-peer car rental services allow you to rent out your car to people, which can help you make some extra money without having to leave your house. Services like Turo allow you to “host” your vehicle, much like Airbnb allows you to host guests in your home.
Sign up is easy — you simply login and update your personal details, information about your vehicle, and add when the vehicle is ready and available. Your car will then be leased to a renter via Turo, where it will be insured up to $75,000.
Hosts on average make close to $11,000 per car, which can make renting your vehicle a pretty lucrative avenue!
20. Sell your photography
While scientists have yet to agree unanimously, there have been studies that conclude as humans, vision is the strongest of the five senses! Think about it — commercials and advertisem*nts, album art, cartoons and films — we are immensely influenced by visual information we receive on a daily basis!
This is great news for photographers, who can leverage the corporate need for visual collateral by selling the photos they take. Many companies use sites like Unsplash and Shutterstock, which are royalty-free photo platforms — you can submit your work and get compensated by the platforms.
You can also find work shooting headshots for actors in the area, connect with employers on a freelance basis on Upwork, work shooting concerts and band promos, or even moonlight as a family/wedding photographer!
21. Get paid to test websites
Did you know that organizations will pay users to test their websites? Imagine, sitting at your kitchen table with your morning cup of coffee, testing the functionality of a brand new website, and getting paid to do it — not too bad, right?
Sites like UserTesting.com and UserPeak work as a middle man between companies who need to test their new websites for user experience and website testers. To get involved (and get paid!), you need to sign up and take a trial test to assess your critical abilities. If you pass, you’ll be able to test sites and get paid for your time!
22. Find a data entry gig
Hey, it ain’t glamorous, but it’s a surefire way to make side money at home! No matter if you’re an Excel whiz or you’ve just got some spare time on your hands, there are plenty of organizations out there who need a hand with data entry.
A clerical gig, data entry often involves entering names, numbers, addresses, or any other information into a database. This line of work is usually entry-level, can be part-time, and doesn’t require loads of experience — if any at all.
The schedule for a data entry job can sometimes be flexible, allowing you to work when you want — and can often be remote. To get started, look at job boards on LinkedIn, FlexJobs, or Indeed, and apply!
23. Work as a consultant
Do you have know-how that you can monetize professionally? Consulting is a-calling! It can be as typical as working as a hired gun for a business operations team to whip a department into shape, or as abstract as streaming on Twitch to help gamers crack that next level on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.
The first step is to hone your expertise and decide how you can leverage it. Think about your skills and decide where your experience can take you. The next step is to build your portfolio and network — knowing the right people and having the soft skills to sell yourself is worth its weight in gold.
Once you pitch yourself, be sure to lay out a game plan, develop metrics to track your goals, and make sure you deliver! If setting your own prices, working your own schedule, and using your experience to help others sounds good, then consulting is for you.
24. Find ways to monetize what you already do
This last point is a bit abstract and creative — and that’s the point! Put the “hustle” in side hustle and think good and hard about what you’re already doing on a daily basis. Now, how can you monetize it?
Whether you’re making beats in FL Studio, making hilarious memes, creating viral TikTok content, or creating art, think about finding a way to be compensated for that effort. Remember, when there’s a will, there’s a way!
Once you’ve got all that extra money coming in, you’ll need a way to track it and bake it into your budget — Quicken Simplifi can help you keep it organized, set up savings goals, track and categorize your spending, and more.
