Can you really can get paid to be an online friend?

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is your odds of making consistent money as a generic online friend are pretty low.

In this post, we’ll explore:

how virtual friendships work
how to maximize your earning power
how to keep yourself safe online
the top alternatives to consider

As more and more elements of our lives shift online, paid virtual friends really isn’t much of a stretch. We’re more connected than ever before, but also more isolated.

If you’re a social person with a gift for interesting conversations, this may just be the side hustle for you.

Why Become an Online Friend?

Are you friendly, talkative, and empathetic? Are you interested in other people and what they have to say?

Being an online friend can provide relevant experience towards a career in caregiving, psychology, or life coaching. You might be motivated to help change someone’s life, or you might just need extra cash.

Whichever it is, being an online friend is worth looking into. After all, it can be rewarding both emotionally and financially.

What is a Virtual Friend? What Do Virtual Friends Do?

It’s simple: virtual friends offer friendship online. This can be through messaging, video calls, or even video games! It’s all platonic and doesn’t involve meeting face-to-face.

And, as it turns out, there are real websites and online platforms that set these connections up.

Virtual friends have to be available, willing to talk, listen, and express interest. This “job” may even involve offering advice or emotional support. Ultimately, your task is to be a real friend — just not in-person.

And it’s not that far-fetched: a recent study found that over 80% of Americans have met at least one person they consider a friend online.

Why Do People Hire Online Friends?

It might seem over the top to pay for a virtual friend. But the fact is, there are many people who really struggle to make friends “in real life.” Social anxiety, depression, agoraphobia, and just being an introvert are a few reasons why.

Loneliness is another reason, even with the connectivity of the Internet. Even people who are surrounded by friends and family can feel lonely. It can mean feeling misunderstood, like no one you know relates to your opinions and interests.

People might also hire virtual friends for life advice or emotional support. Sometimes because their current friends are not as available as they used to be.

Housebound disabled people are also likely to seek virtual companionship. And the same applies to seniors who have lost their partners.

1. Rent a Friend

If you want to get paid to be an online friend, RentAFriend is one of the most popular websites to sign up for.

The global platform is strictly for platonic friendships, and has over 600,000 members.

The site primarily caters to people looking for in-person friends to:

show them around a new city
attend events with
be a wingman/wingwoman

But they facilitate online friendships as well.

How it works is you’ll create your free Friend profile, complete with your personal details and interests. This allows you to be searched for by Members and get hired.

Profile pages look like this:

Friends on RentAFriend charge anywhere from $10-50 an hour, paid any way you choose. There are no fees for being hired, and setting up a profile is 100% free.

It’s between you and your new friend to sort out the payment. (Many users use Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal.)

The only requirements are being at least 18 years of age with no convicted felonies. Sex offenders are obviously not allowed.

It’s worth mentioning that Rent a Friend is used for in-person meet-ups as well as virtual friendship. So for strictly online interaction, make sure to state that on your profile.

How Does Rent a Friend Make Money?

Rent a Friend charges members — not friends — $24.95 a month to access their database. This unlocks the ability to message and hire friends.

Is Rent a Friend Safe?

Rent a Friend might not have the most professional-looking website in the world, but the service itself is legit. They’ve been around since 2009… and apparently haven’t redesigned their site since then.

Still, RentAFriend is widely used for face-to-face meet-ups so it’s important to take caution. And RentAFriend actually encourages its users to only meet for public social activities.

As an extra precaution, let others know where you’re going. Turn phone location tracking on, and carry pepper spray if it provides peace of mind.

If you just want to interact online, however, this is generally going to be safer.

2. Rent a Cyber Friend

RentaCyberFriend is another website where you can get paid to be a virtual friend.

And unlike RentAFriend, Rent a Cyber Friend operates fully online. There’s no meeting face-to-face.

RentaCyberFriend calls itself a community that connects people of similar interests.

Users can search for Cyber Friends from around the world who share the same hobbies or goals as they do. And once a Cyber Friend is found, they can start video chats.

Cyberfriends get paid by the minute. In browsing different profiles, I found rates from $0.10-$1.00 per minute. The platform charges a 20% fee, so a $1.00 per minute friend could earn $48 an hour after the fee.

As for requirements, you only have to be at least 18 years of age with a good Internet connection and camera.

When you complete your profile, be sure to include keywords people might search for, such as:

your location
hobbies
interests
skills

The more relevant keywords you can include — along with a fun profile picture — the more likely your profile is to get seen, and the more likely you are to book calls.

3. FriendPC

Think of Friend PC like RentaCyberFriend, except that it doesn’t just involve video calls.

Friend PC allows users to find Virtual Friends who share interests and hobbies. They can then interact via text, online messaging, phone calls, video calls, and even video games.

As a result, people seeking friendship use this platform for various reasons. This includes emotional support, life advice, online gaming, and general conversation.

What’s good about Friend PC is that Virtual Friends can be booked for several days or weeks. Availability calendars are also displayed on each Virtual Friend profile.

You can get paid to be a Virtual Friend on Friend PC by signing up (for free). Fill out your profile and make yourself available for different services like:

messaging
calls
gaming
life coaching
tourism advice
and more

You get to set your own rates, with payments easily withdrawn from the FriendPC dashboard. Friends on this platform typically charge between $5-50/hr.

You can also pay a monthly membership to enjoy extra perks—like getting featured on the homepage.

4. Outschool

Unlike the sites above that focus on relationships between adults, Outschool is actually aimed at creating a safe online environment for kids.

The site allows you to create virtual group classes on any topic — academic or not. I’ve connected with Outschool teachers with writing classes, virtual reading hangout time, and just social hours to discuss the latest books, games, or movies.

One of my favorite examples is Devyn Ricks, who goes by Miss Devyn on Outschool. She hosts a variety of video game classes for kids and reported earning up to $4,000 a month part-time.

5. Preply

Another angle to get paid to be an online friend is to help people learn and practice English. Preply is a popular site that language learners use to practice their conversation skills.

As a Preply tutor, you can earn $15-25 an hour with no special certifications or teaching experience required.

6. Fiverr Friendship

Many lists of ways to make money as an online friend include Fiverr, the popular freelancing platform.

And while it’s true you can list you online friendship services on the site, there doesn’t appear to be a huge demand. (Based on the low number of ratings the top gigs have.)

Still, it’s free to set up your Fiverr profile and offer gigs around:

advice
relationships
emotional support
conversation
life coaching
online friendships
general chat

Like most of the other online friendship services on this list, Fiverr allows you to set your own rates, starting at $5. The company takes a 20% fee on whatever you earn.

You can also get rated up to 5 stars on Fiverr, helping you gain exposure and earn more clients. After you get paid, you can withdraw to PayPal or your bank.

7. RentALocalFriend.com

Rent a Local Friend focuses on travel and tourism. It connects travelers with locals (like you!) who can share insights and activities about your hometown.

In other words, Local Friends on RentaLocalFriend are tour guides or travel buddies. They can provide companionship, local information, translation, photography, and more.

Despite that, Rent a Local Friend can be used virtually. And as a Virtual Friend, you’ll simply provide the client with local travel tips online. I found rates between $10-$40 per hour.

You’ll need to set up a Friend profile with all your details, which will allow you to be searched for and hired. You set your rates and then get paid through PayPal.

8. Get Paid to Chat

For women comfortable with more adult-centered online relationships, there are a number of sites that can help you make money.

Among those is Chat Recruit, which claims to have paid out over $30 million to members. The company specializes in phone and webcam chat jobs, and allows you to set your own rates.

Tips to Earn Money as an Online Friend

The best tip to earn money as an online friend is to simply be the best friend that you can for those who choose to hire you. This means treating them like any of your real-life friends.

But to be hired as an online friend in the first place, you need to make yourself approachable. Be transparent with your personal details, interests, photos, and what you offer friendship-wise.

This will result in more people with similar interests being drawn to you. It can also lead to genuine friendships that will help you earn money without feeling like work.

Sign Up to Multiple Virtual Friend Websites

Another tip to earn money as a virtual friend is to sign up to multiple virtual friend websites. The more virtual friend websites that you sign up for, the more chance you have of being chosen as a virtual friend.

Get Paid to Be an Online Friend: Safety Tips

If you’ve been thinking about safety while reading this article, you wouldn’t be alone. Presenting yourself online and talking to strangers comes with risks like:

catfishing
data misuse
scams

This makes it important to be careful with any online interaction with strangers. Here are a few must-know safety tips.

Only Sign Up for Trusted Friend Websites

The most important safety tip is to only sign up for trusted online friend websites. The above websites are good examples. These sites have terms and conditions, and privacy policies that all users need to follow.

It’s also recommended to maintain online communication on the website itself or on trusted messaging/video chat platforms. Avoid using messaging services or apps that you are unfamiliar with, even if it’s described to you as safe.

Be Careful About Your Privacy

To have a better chance of being chosen, you need to be honest and open about who you are. However, this requires completing your profile with your personal information and photos.

To protect your privacy and make it harder for someone to reverse image search you, consider using a unique profile picture — one that you haven’t uploaded to Facebook or other sites.

If there’s an option, make your profile only visible to registered members of each site.

Be Clear and Firm with Your Boundaries

Like real-life friendships and relationships, boundaries are important. This means being upfront about expectations.

With the exception of the adult chat and webcam options, all the sites listed above are strictly platonic. Still, you may want to reiterate this each time you get picked as an online friend.

Other boundaries might include:

not meeting in person
conversation topics that are off-limits
offensive language
your available times to chat

Which Virtual Friend Websites Are Most Popular?

My big fear with this side hustle is that there are far more people looking to make money as an online friend than there are people wanting to hire them.

Even Rent a Friend, the most popular “online friend” site, doesn’t seem to have enough buyer traffic to support its 600,000+ friends.

And when you consider that a good chunk of their estimated 250,000 monthly visitors are people looking to get hired, and the majority of customers are looking for in-real-life companions, the odds of making any money as an online friend seem super low.

That’s not to say that online friends don’t provide a valuable service — they do. It’s just that the supply of available friends far outpaces the apparent demand.

The idea sounds cool, but success stories of people actually making money as a virtual friend are hard to come by.

So what other ways can you make money online?

Alternatives to Being an Online Friend

While it’s certainly possible to make money as a virtual friend, I don’t think it’s super likely. (Aside from a niche service offering like on Outschool, language learning, or adult chat.)

Here are some other ideas to make extra money with low startup costs.

In-Person Caregiving

It’s not entirely virtual, but the market for in-person caregiving, childcare, and companionship is booming.

Sites like Sittercity.com and Care.com are big platforms that help connect families with caregivers like you. You can create a free profile and take on jobs that fit your schedule.

The nationwide average rates are in the range of $14-20 an hour. If you love kids and you and have time to spare, babysitting would be a pretty easy side gig to consider.

Online Focus Groups

There are several sites that help match you with paid research studies online. Depending on your areas of expertise, these can pay $50-200 an hour.

My favorites are:

Respondent — Aimed at tech industry workers and other professionals. Check out my full Respondent review to learn more.
User Interviews — High-paying remote market research gigs in an easy-to-use interface. Here’s our full User Interviews review for more info.
Rare Patient Voice — For patients (and their caregivers) with rare and not-so-rare medical conditions. The average payout is $100 an hour.

Become a Virtual Assistant

Starting a remote service business is another way to make money online on your own terms. Virtual assistants provide administrative support for other companies, and often earn $20-40 an hour.

Or, you can check out FlexJobs, the leading resource for work from home jobs.

There’s a nominal fee to access their listings, but the site is legit and has thousands of flexible, part-time, and full-time options.

Create a Helpful Website

Finally, my favorite way to build an income online is to create a helpful resource. What are you interested in or curious about? What are you a relative expert in?

Could you turn around and help answer questions online about that topic on a website or YouTube channel?

For example, Raffaele Di Lallo turned his love of houseplants into a 6-figure online business. How cool is that!

Making Money as an Online Friend: Conclusion

Being an online friend can be an emotionally and financially rewarding side hustle, but it will be a challenge to stand out from the crowd.

My recommendation is to find a narrower niche — such as providing language practice or chess lessons.

Don’t expect to create a profile and have the cash automatically roll in. Like anything, building an online income takes patience, practice, and consistent effort.

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

It’s never been easier to make extra money on your own time and on your own terms.

Whether you’re looking for a side hustle to replace your day job income, or just for a way to make a few extra bucks, I’ve got you covered.

The ideas below were selected based on:

15+ years of side hustle experience
interviews with 100s of side hustlers
earning power and flexibility

Just a few of the ideas have helped me earn hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last decade. 

Ready? Let’s do it!

1. Online and In-Person Research Studies: Up to $140 an Hour

There are a couple online research companies everyone should sign up for.

User Interviews is a great resource for connecting with remote consumer research studies. I’ve made $105 in about an hour and a half so far — here’s my full User Interviews review.

Respondent is one of the best paying online survey companies I’ve found. Usually the surveys are one-on-one interviews either in-person or over the phone / video chat, and they pay an average of $140 an hour.

Rare Patient Voice pays patients and caregivers $120 an hour to assist with medical research. You can browse a full list of available studies on their site—nearly all of which are phone or webcam interviews.

If you suffer from any sort of medical condition (even if it’s not super rare), this one is worth a look.

The site is open to residents of United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.

2. Online Surveys: $1 a Day

No list of money-making ideas would be complete without an old favorite: online surveys. Power users of these apps earn $30 a month or more.

Here are some of Side Hustle Nation’s favorite options:

Don’t expect to earn an amazing hourly rate with these options, but you can earn gift cards, cash, and other rewards by answering surveys, watching videos, playing games, and shopping online.

3. Find a Virtual Job

FlexJobs is the leading work from home jobs site. With over 50 career categories, FlexJobs has jobs ranging from entry-level to executive and freelance to full-time.

There is a nominal monthly fee to access their listings, but you’ll earn that back (and then some!) with one job.

4. Resell Flea Market Finds: Up to $5000 per Flip

My buddy Rob Stephenson is “the Flea Market Flipper” and makes a great living finding odd items to resell. He told me the story of finding a prosthetic leg for $40 and turning around and selling it on eBay the next day for $1000.

The pioneering auction site is still going strong and can be a good place to get your products in front of 130+ million potential buyers.

There are profitable deals everywhere!

Rob and his wife Melissa consistently earn thousands of dollars a month doing this part-time. They put together a free training on how you can get started and make your first sales as fast as 2 weeks.

5. Make Extra Money Playing Online Games

Rewarded Play (Android)

With over 170,000 reviews and a 4.3-star rating in the Google Play store, Rewarded Play is another free, legit, and fun, “get paid to play” app.

Rewarded Play is your one-stop app for casual games like Solitaire, Mahjong, Wheel of Fortune, Yahtzee, and more. As you play, choose your rewards and get your gift cards within 48 hours.

Bingo Cash

The popular Bingo Cash game app turns classic bingo from a game of luck into a game of speed and skill. Each game only takes about 2 minutes to play, and you can earn real-world rewards and cash prizes (except in AR, IA, LA, SC, and WA).

At press time, the app has a 4.7-star rating on the iOS App Store from 97,000+ reviews, with players calling it legit, fun, and addicting.

As with all gaming apps, practice for free first. Then, never put more money at risk than you can afford to lose.

6. Rental Properties

Rental real estate is one of the oldest side hustles in the books, and is still viable today.

If your local market is too expensive, take a look at Arrived, a cool online marketplace built for busy investors. For as little as $100, you can buy shares of cash-flowing rental properties.

My friend Dustin Heiner built up his rental portfolio and was able to retire before 40 on the cash flow.

7. Commercial Real Estate

Fundrise allows you to invest in a portfolio of commercial properties all around the country. I’ve been a Fundrise investor for years and they’ve consistently paid quarterly dividends in the 5-10% yield range.

(Disclosure: when you sign up, I earn a commission. All opinions are my own.)

Plus, you can get started with as little as $10.

8. Start an Online Business

This probably isn’t the right path if you need to make extra money quickly, but can build into a full-time income stream over time.

My primary revenue stream is affiliate marketing, but website creators can make money in lots of different ways, including:

selling your own products and services
advertising
live events
reader donations
and more

Click here to check out my free video course on how to start a blog.

9. Virtual Bookkeeping: Up to $70/hr

Remote bookkeepers can earn $20-70 an hour and up for their work. This is a great option for people with accounting experience from school or your day job.

Here’s a free training on how to get started.

10. Resell Furniture Returns

As a part-time Sharetown rep, you’ll pick up gently-used furniture returns from direct-to-consumer brands.

Since the items aren’t new, the companies can’t really take them back and resell them — but you can. The Sharetown reps I’ve connected with report earning $150-250 per item.

And the cool part is the inventory doesn’t cost you anything until it sells.

Check out our full Sharetown review to learn more.

11. Self-Publish on Amazon

Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle platform, you can publish your work and tap into a massive audience of book buyers.

Self-publishing is one of my favorite and longest-running side hustles. I remember my first royalty payment from Amazon of something like $42 and being thrilled, thinking “I did it! I’m a professional author!”

Since then I’ve earned over $75,000 in author royalties, and I think books are a pretty awesome way to both build authority in your niche and earn passive income along the way.

Related: My Amazon author profile and book listings

12. Become a Mystery Shopper

Field Agent presents a list of tasks you can do based on your location. If you happen to be running errands nearby, just accept the task and start earning money.

Most of these gigs involve evaluating product displays or checking on inventory. They typically pay $3-10 apiece, depending on complexity and the time involved.

For more info, please see my full Field Agent review.

13. Pet Sitting

Rover.com is “Airbnb for dogs,” and I’ve heard from several dog sitting hosts earning thousands of dollars a year through this site.

(Meowtel is leading platform for cat-sitting.)

14. Babysitting

Babysitting and child care was my original income stream as a teenager, and is still a viable way to make extra money.

Sites like Care.com and Sittercity can help match you up with families.

15. Knife Sharpening

Matt Rowell taught himself how to sharpen knives on YouTube, and turned it into a $250-1500 a month side business.

16. Online Tutoring: Up to $60/hr

Tutoring and test prep is more than a billion dollar a year industry. You can start your own tutoring business to earn extra cash and help students at the same time. Bonus points if you were a decent student or have some subject matter expertise!

Wyzant is a popular online and in-person tutoring platform that connects you with students in a wide variety of subjects and grade levels.

As a tutor, you set your own schedule and rates. For example, when I searched Wyzant for math tutors nearby, I found several tutors charging $40-60 an hour.

17. Create an Outschool Class

Outschool is a marketplace for online small group classes for kids. Jade Weatherington reported earning over $10,000 a month from her virtual writing classes.

18. Sell Lesson Plans and Material

Teachers Pay Teachers is a popular marketplace for lesson plans and other educational materials. One blogger I know began putting some of her content on this site and now earns $5000 a month part-time.

19. Sign Up for Free Rewards Apps: $150+ Per Year

Saving money is making money! And it’s actually even more effective since it goes straight to your bottom line — meaning you don’t have to pay taxes on it like you would with extra income.

For example, the Fetch Rewards app gives you cash back just for snapping a picture of your receipts.

You can then redeem points for gift cards to retailers like Best Buy, Sephora, Staples, Gap, and more. (I’ve been cashing in for Amazon gift cards.)

Rakuten has been giving online shoppers cash back for 20 years. A recent computer purchase from Dell netted me $160 cash back! (They were running a special offer.)

They’ll even give you a free $30 bonus when you create your account!

20. Sell Used Books

Use the free BookScouter app to find out what books are worth—either the ones you have collecting dust on your shelves or the ones you come across at garage sales or library book stores.

One Side Hustle Show guest reported earning up to $4000 a month flipping used books! (He recommended the faster ScoutIQ app.)

21. Sell Printables on Etsy

Selling printables on Etsy is a great way to make extra money if you have an eye for design and love researching new niches.

For example, Rachel Jones reported earning up to $10,000 a month without any inventory.

22. Amazon Arbitrage

Amazon FBA is “fulfillment by Amazon.” This is Amazon’s unique way of crowdsourcing inventory from individual sellers like you and me. As a seller, you can take advantage of Amazon’s world class logistics network—and tap into their huge audience of buyers.

The easiest way to get started is to source good deals locally and then selling them via Amazon. You can even do this all online — sourcing products from other e-commerce retailers!

23. Software Consulting

Is there a software that you’re a relative expert in?

One of my favorite angles is to piggyback on the popularity of a particular software tool, like Brad Rice did with Salesforce (earning over $200k a year part time!). As adoption of the software grows, so too does the demand for qualified support.

With platforms like Clarity.fm, you can get started very quickly and earn $60/hour and up.

24. Get Paid to Lose Weight: $500+

Before you start your next diet, you might want to check out HealthyWage. This cool service that lets you put a friendly wager on your weight loss.

If you meet your goal, you can cash in — to the tune of $500 or more! (Here’s our full HealthyWage review.)

Click here to see how much your prize might be.

25. Refinishing Furniture

Flipping furniture is a popular side hustle for people who like to work with their hands. Solid wood dressers are the easiest pieces to start with, and if you’re going for the “rustic farmhouse” look, your painting doesn’t need to be perfect.

Aim to buy used furniture for $50 or less, and resell it for $150-300 on Facebook Marketplace.

26. Become a Virtual Assistant: Up to $40/hr

Virtual assistants provide administrative support to clients from their home office.

To learn more about starting your own virtual assistant company, check out the free video training from my friend Abbey Ashley. She started her VA business on the side and shares:

Where to find thousands of potential clients.
How to make a full-time living working from home.
What clients are really looking for in a VA. (hint: it’s not prior VA experience)

Click here to learn more about becoming a virtual assistant.

27. Parking Lot Cleanup

Brian Winch started his parking lot clean-up business as a side hustle in 1981, and has since built it into a multi-six-figure business. He says you can still earn $30-50 an hour part-time targeting local property management companies.

28. House Cleaning

Anthony and Jhanilka Hartzog grew their Dallas-area residential cleaning service to $25k a month in revenue. And the best part? They hire other cleaners to do the work!

More and more homeowners outsource this chore, and the industry remains highly fragmented. Those factors spell an opportunity for you to win clients.

29. Pet Waste Removal

It’s not the most glamorous gig, but it can earn $50 an hour or more. In just a few months, Erica Krupin had landed 80 recurring weekly clients at around $15 apiece.

30. Pressure Washing

Pressure washers cost around $300, but you could clear more than that on a single busy spring weekend cleaning driveways, decks, and patios in your neighborhood. Here’s more on how to start a pressure washing business.

31. Delivery or Rideshare Gigs: $15-25/hr

You’ve heard of “driving for dollars” with services like Uber and Lyft, and it doesn’t get much simpler than this. One Lyft driver of mine on a recent trip put it this way: “When I want to make money, I turn on the app.”

In fact, these “gig economy” apps have helped create a multi-hundred billion dollar a year industry. Here are some options to get your piece of the pie.

Options include:

Instacart – Enjoy weekly payouts and a flexible schedule. Check out our full Instacart Shopper review here, with insights from a side hustler earning an extra $450-500 a week.
DoorDash – Earn up to $25 an hour as a food delivery driver for. For more, here’s our full DoorDash review.
Uber Eats – Make local takeout deliveries in your town with and earn up $25 an hour doing so.
Shipt – Drivers can earn up to $22 an hour shopping for and delivering fresh food and household essentials.

If you choose any of these driving-related side hustles, it might make sense to tack on an app like Hurdlr to automatically track your mileage, expenses, income streams, and tax deductions in real-time. On average, Hurdlr helps users find $5600 in deductions!

32. Drop Shipping

With drop shipping, you can sell physical products online without having to buy any inventory upfront. Instead, you work out deals with the manufacturers or distributors to ship the items directly to customers on your behalf.

On a popular episode of The Side Hustle Show, Ben Knegendorf shared his method of “high ticket dropshipping” that allowed him to quit his job as a forklift driver.

33. Loan Signing Agent: $100 per Appointment

Notary publics can make up to $100 an hour for completing loan signings for new home buyers on their own schedule.

Check out the resources at Loan Signing System to learn more.

34. Print on Demand Products

Merch by Amazon makes a great side hustle. Upload your t-shirt (and other product) designs, set your price, and then let Amazon do all the work of printing and shipping your orders.

Elaine Heney made over $50,000 doing this part-time and shared some of her tips on The Side Hustle Show. (My wife made over $2k in her first year doing this in her spare time too!)

35. Create a Local Experience

If you have a passion for your city and love meeting new people, a unique local tour could be a hit.

My friend Alex hosts hundreds of “urban hiking” tours a year on the side from her day job — at $49 apiece!

What unique experience can you offer travelers? It doesn’t even have to be a tour.

For example, Michele Mattix makes money hosting guided meditations through Airbnb Experiences. You can create your own experience, set your price, and Airbnb markets it to travelers.

36. Create a Fiverr Gig

For me, Fiverr has been a fun and eye-opening side hustle experiment. Since I started on the site, I’ve earned over $13,000, met some awesome people, and found an interesting “Buy Buttons” platform.

How it works is you come up with a base “gig” — and then add relevant upsells or packages to increase your order value. One of my most popular podcast episodes was with a Fiverr seller who used the platform to launch a 6-figure freelancing business.

37. Start a YouTube Channel

Creating content on YouTube is a fast-track side hustle, especially compared with blogging. It’s easier to “rank” videos for your target keywords, and once your channel reaches certain metrics, you can monetize with ads.

(You can also use YouTube in other creative ways, like to sell a digital product or service.)

38. Build an Email Newsletter

The newsletter business model is one I’m particularly excited about right now. It’s low overhead, simple to manage, and can scale to a significant income stream.

For example, the popular daily business newsletter Morning Brew sold for a reported $75 million!

39. TaskRabbit Gigs

TaskRabbit is one of the largest gig economy platforms. You can create a profile specializing in running local errands, assembling furniture, local temp help, and even virtual support jobs.

Rates vary widely based on what service you’re providing, but I’ve seen tasks anywhere from $15 an hour all the way up to $100+ for specialized skills.

40. Go Look at Stuff

Earn $18 to $200 to go look at stuff like eBay purchases, cars, rental properties, or even vacant lots with WeGoLook. Take pictures, verify information, and report back what you find.

41. Rent Out Your Car, RV, or Boat

If you have an underutilized car, HyreCar will help you rent it out.

Listing your car is free, and HyreCar owners report earning an average of $720 a month. The company does background checks on all their renters and also handles the insurance.

What else could you rent out?

For RVs, check out RVShare.com
Boats; GetMyBoat.com
Pools? Swimply.com
Baby Gear? BabyQuip.com

42. Donate Plasma

As long as needles don’t bother you, you can earn $20-50 per plasma donation.

43. Clinical Trials

The National Library of Medicine runs a nationwide database of studies you may qualify for. Alternatively, you can punch your zip code into this search engine to find paid clinical trials near you:

44. Earn $200 From a Bank

You’ve got to promise to use this strategy responsibly, but it’s earned my wife and I thousands of dollars.

Related: Credit Card Rewards 101: How to Earn Free Cash and Travel by Spending Smarter

45. Sell Dirt

Mark “The Land Geek” Podolsky calls this “the best passive income model,” and broke down how it works on The Side Hustle Show. Later, I caught up with a student of his who was earning $10k a month.

46. Sell Your Mobile Data: $20-60 Per Year

We give so much of our data away every day for free to companies like Facebook, but did you know you can actually get paid for your data?

For example, Nielsen rewards you for sharing internet usage behaviors. Simply download the non-intrusive app to your devices.

As they track your usage, you earn points to redeem for prizes and sweepstakes entries.

Mobilexpression is a market research panel that pays you for data from your mobile phone.

Download their app and allow it to work in the background recording your browsing habits while on your phone. In exchange, you’ll earn gift cards to popular retailers.

Realistically, this is probably worth around $20 a year in passive income. And you’ll earn a free $5 gift card after your first week.

47. Craigslist Gigs

There’s a section in the lower right side of Craigslist where companies and individuals post jobs and gigs.

48. Transcribe Audio

Transcribe interviews and lectures on Rev.com and earn $9 an hour and up. Fast freelance transcriptionists can earn more though; as this free mini-course explains.

49. Narrate Audiobooks

I think we can all agree that getting paid to talk is a pretty sweet gig, and Voices.com is the #1 marketplace for voice over talent.

Otherwise, ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange, is an interesting platform to connect authors with professional narrators to — like the name suggests — create an audiobook version of their book.

50. Help Companies Name Their Products

Companies post naming and branding contests on SquadHelp and you can win cash for coming up with the best name or slogan. On Namestation, a similar service, top contributors earn up to $300 a month part-time.

51. Cut Your Ongoing Expenses

If it’s been more than 2 years since you last shopped for car insurance, you’re paying too much.

Here’s the dirty secret of the car insurance industry: your cars are worth less every year due to depreciation, but you keep paying the same amount.

Check out Insurify for a quick and painless quote process to find the best rates for car and home insurance. It’ll take just a few minutes (you can even do it on your phone) and users save an average of $489 per year! 

Similarly, I recently switched to Mint Mobile for my cell phone service. It runs on the T-Mobile network and costs just $15 a month (when you pre-pay)!

I was able to keep my current phone and phone number. Making the switch from Verizon saved my wife and I over $800 a year.

52. Build an Online Course

With Udemy, you can create a video course in your area of expertise, and put it up for sale on their platform of more than 50 million students.

Since late 2014, I’ve earned over $20,000 on Udemy from a course I created about self-publishing.

What could you teach?

Related: The 101 Best Udemy Courses for Entrepreneurs, Freelancers, and Side Hustlers

53. Thrift for Profit

Apps like Poshmark can help you clear out your closet or make money from your latest thrift store finds.

54. Online Coaching

The Coach.me platform allows you to set up an online coaching practice in the areas of leadership, health, business, habits, and more. The site boasts more than 1 million users and you can earn $100 an hour or more working one-on-one with clients.

55. Yard Care Service

Both GreenPal and LawnGuru are building “the Uber for yardwork” and offer a cool new way for landscaping businesses to connect with customers.

The average GreenPal vendor makes around $55 per hour mowing lawns on its system.

56. Get Cooking

The United States Professional Chef Association put together this directory of personal chefs available for hire.

57. Photography Service

This is my wife’s side hustle of choice, which started as a hobby. She and her partner started out pricing low to build a portfolio, but now command around $4,000 per wedding.

58. Moving Service

If you have a truck or van — and a strong back — you can earn money with Dolly’s peer-to-peer moving platform. Help your neighbors pack and move across town. Similarly, GoShare will help you put your truck or cargo van to work and up to $61 an hour.

59. Sports Coaching

Channel your athletic glory days and help young athletes level up their game. You can set your own rate and CoachUp private coaches report earning an average of $45 an hour.

60. Personal Training

Connect with clients through your gym, NextDoor, or through a marketplace like FindYourTrainer.

61. One-on-One Language Lessons

With Verbling, you can set your own hourly rate for online language lessons. Most tutors appear to be in the $10-25 an hour range, and Verbling says some are earning a full-time living on the platform.

62. Storage Unit Auctions

The hype over Storage Wars has largely died down, which means profitable storage unit auctions may be easier to win today. You have to bid based on what you can see from the outside, and hope to find some treasures to flip for a profit.

63. Help Friends Get a Job

When your referral gets a new job through Hired.com, the site will pay you $1000.

And that sum pales in comparison to what you can make starting your own recruiting business. A typical placement fee is 20% of your candidate’s first year salary — meaning a single recruit could earn you $10-20k or more!

64. Mechanical Turk

Earn a small fee ($0.01 to $3) for each micro task you complete on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

It can be tedious work, but over the last few years, Mike Naab earned over $50,000 in his spare time completing surveys and other small jobs.

65. Earn More Interest

I’ve been earning 4.75% interest with my Betterment Cash Reserve account. Of course, rates are subject to change but this is a whole lot better than the pennies a year we earn on our checking account balance.

66. Proofreading and Editing

Editing for self-published authors was a side hustle for me a few years ago. ProofreadingServices.com is an online proofreading and tutoring service that pays $19 to 46 per hour.

To learn the necessary skills, Proofreading Academy may be worth a look. The online course offers a free trial and guaranteed work upon successful completion.

67. Rent Out Your Extra Space

You’ve heard of people renting their spare rooms on Airbnb, but what if you don’t want strangers in your house?

The Neighbor self-storage platform connects people with storage needs with those who have extra space. If you’ve got some excess storage capacity in your garage, driveway, or elsewhere, list your space here to fill it and get paid.

Top hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations. Here’s our full Neighbor review for more on how it works and how to get started.

68. Solve Interesting Problems

MindSumo is a cool service that asks for your input on certain questions on behalf of its corporate clients. The best and most creative answers earn rewards of $550-1600.

When I was browsing, I saw questions like “How would you improve the car buying experience?” and “How can we make laundry less of a hassle?”

Definitely an interesting way to get paid for your opinions and ideas.

69. Be a Movie Extra

Are there movie extra jobs near you? Background actors normally earn minimum wage, but you may get a meal out of the deal — and perhaps a brush with celebrity.

70. A Friend in Need

According to Rent a Friend, you can earn up to $50 an hour on this strictly platonic match-making site. You might get hired to accompany new “friends” to the movies, dinner, the gym, or whatever you include in your free profile.

71. Flexible Part-Time Work: Up to $25/hr

Steady is a cool app and website that consolidates all sorts of “gig economy” opportunities. For example, you can find work from home gigs, flexible “anytime” options, and even regular full- and part-time jobs.

Browsing through the listings, I found the usual array of delivery and rideshare gigs, but was pleasantly surprised by some of the other offerings. There were a number of local opportunities I’d never heard of in:

brand ambassadorship
political advocacy
mystery shopping
transcription
and more

Steady acts as a portal to all these gigs and gives you a convenient central location to browse. After you create your account, you’ll be able to see everything available online and in your local area.

Your Turn

I’m confident you can use at least ONE of these platforms to earn some job-free dollars!

Let me know which ones look the most compelling by leaving a comment below. Also feel free to chime in if I missed your favorite way to make extra money — I strive to keep this resource as up-to-date as possible.

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
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Frequently Asked Questions

How can I make extra money?

There have never been more ways to make extra money! For example, you can start freelancing, begin re-selling products, or even start your own blog or YouTube channel. Be sure to check the full list at Side Hustle Nation for the latest options.

How can I make money online?

The most common ways to money online are freelancing, selling advertising on content you create, or by selling physical or digital products. You can sell these through existing marketplaces like Amazon or set up your own store.

How can I make $200 fast?

If you need to make $200 fast, you have a couple options. The first is to provide some sort of freelance service, which could be anything from mowing lawns to babysitting to painting houses to dog walking to designing websites or managing Facebook ads. The second option is to sell something you already own. OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace are popular options to unload this unwanted inventory.