Looking to make some extra money with odd jobs?

The good news is there are lots of odd job apps that can help you earn money on a flexible schedule.

To come up with this list, I:

gathered feedback from the 50,000-member Side Hustle Nation community
cross-referenced the best-rated odd job apps in both the Apple and Google Play app stores
considered my own 15+ years of side hustle experience

With that in mind, here are our top picks.

Best Odd Job Apps for Local Jobs

1. Rover

When homeowners travel, it opens up an opportunity to come by and take care of their animals.

To set up shop, try Rover.com. Several Side Hustle Nation readers report earning $1000 a month watching other people’s pets!

This gig app is perfect for pet lovers who don’t mind some extra furry friends around.

2. TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is the original odd jobs app. You can create a profile specializing in:

running local errands
assembling furniture
local temp help
event staffing
cooking
photography
TV mounting
virtual support jobs
and lots more

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.

3. Thumbtack

Thumbtack has a range of services, including categories like:

home repair
wedding photography
lessons
and lots more

As a service provider, you can set your rates, but you do have to pay Thumbtack for every lead you get through the platform.

Respond to requests quickly, price competitively, and gather reviews to book jobs and boost your profile.

4. Angi Services

Earn up to $22 an hour as a cleaner or up to $45 as a handyperson through the Angi Services (formerly Handy) app.

According to their website, top pros are taking home more than $1000 a week. If you’re skilled in painting, plumbing, electrical work, or cleaning with a friendly service attitude, this is an interesting side hustle job app.

5. TaskEasy

TaskEasy is an app for lawn-care service providers.

You can sign up as a contractor for mowing, trimming, weeding, and more. The app takes care of all scheduling and payments — you pick your schedule and they line up the jobs.

6. YourMechanic

If you’re comfortable fixing cars, check out YourMechanic.com, which helps match you with customers in need of car repairs — and pays up to $70 an hour.

For example, Matt Bochnak of Chicago started fixing motorcycles in his garage to earn extra money. It was a good gig, but it became a great one when he started filming his repairs and putting the videos online.

Eventually, Matt turned this classic blue collar business idea into a $20k a month online business.

Apps for Pick Up and Delivery Jobs

7. Sharetown

Not many people know about Sharetown, but I’ve connected with side hustlers earning $3,000+ a month with this app.

Sharetown matches you up with gently-used mattress and 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.

But you can’t just download the app and get started. You have to apply first to make sure the company needs additional reps in your area.

Check out our full Sharetown review to learn more about how it works.

8. Delivery and Rideshare Apps

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:

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!

9. Dolly

If you have a truck or van — and a strong back — you can earn $50 an hour with Dolly’s peer-to-peer moving platform. (Or around $35 an hour if you’re not providing a vehicle.)

10. Bellhop

Bellhop is similar to Dolly, but sets earning expectations lower at $21 per hour. (Not including tips and bonuses.)

Still, nothing’s stopping you from joining both services to fill out your schedule to earn more money.

And like Dolly, you find and accept jobs that work for your time schedule. In other words: it’s an easy side hustle if you don’t mind a bit of heavy lifting.

Odd Job Apps for Local Shift Work

11. JobGet

JobGet is a well-rated user-friendly app to find jobs in:

retail
hospitality
healthcare
and more

After you upload your resume, you can apply to jobs in one click, chat with employers, and find nearby work.

Depending on the job, pay rates range from $15-40 an hour.

12. Upshift

Upshift is a staffing platform that partners with area businesses to provide employees to cover shift work.

Upshift is only available right now in 25 metro locations. 

Upshift provides shift workers in industries such as food service and events, fulfillment and distribution, hotels, education, and more.

To become a shifter, you fill out an application. Once approved you will be an employee of Upshift, and have benefits available.

To find out more, check out our Upshift Review.

13. Wonolo 

Wonolo is a popular temp work platform that connects you with immediate hourly or same-day gig jobs. Wonolo connects you with jobs in retail, logistics, manufacturing, and more. You can choose when you want to work, and how much you want to work.

With several different industries available, you can choose gigs you’re familiar with or try something new.

At press time, Wonolo was rated 4.4-stars in the Google Play store, with over 1M downloads.

14. Jobble

Jobble is another app that allows you to find local gig work. You can use it to find open shifts, part-time, or even full-time work. You can choose the hours and days you want to work, and there is no long-term commitment if you want to try something new.

Once the hiring manager confirms your hours, you get paid immediately to your bank account. If you need money quickly, this could be a great option.

15. Instawork

Instawork is a gig app with jobs in hospitality, warehousing, and more. You pick your own schedule and have the option to pick up last-minute shifts.

They also offer several benefits including:

instant payment after eligible shifts
cash bonuses
5% back on gas
and more

Instawork says their jobs average $20/hr.

16. Indeed Flex

Indeed Flex allows “flexers” to find short or long-term temporary work.

Powered by Indeed, “the #1 job site in the world,” Indeed Flex allows you to pick up shifts when and where you want.

Indeed Flex pays out weekly, which means you’ll see your money fairly quickly.

There is also a same-day pay option, but that requires more hoops to jump through. Indeed Flex also has benefit options including:

medical
dental
short-term disability

Gig Economy Apps

17. Steady

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.

18. AppJobs 

AppJobs is similar to Steady, in that it aggregates a bunch of side hustle jobs in one place.

Filter by city and then by the type of work you’re interested in (delivery, freelance, cleaning, handyman, etc.) to see opportunities. Many opportunities are offered through third-party sites.

19. Field Agent

Field Agent presents a list of tasks you can do based on your location.

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.

No purchase is necessary, unless specified in the task, in which case Field Agent will reimburse you. This is a great gig app for when you are already out and about doing other things.

For more, check out my full Field Agent review.

20. WeGoLook

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. Some gigs require professional licenses, but there are options with no requirements as well. 

21. Craigslist Gigs

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

Best Online Odd Jobs Apps

22. Fiverr

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.

23. FlexJobs

FlexJobs is better for finding a legit, longer-term, work from home job, but is still worth mentioning here.

The site has more than 50 career categories and thousands of pre-vetted listings. 

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

24. Remotasks

Remotasks doesn’t have a mobile app, but is a unique way to earn money from home in your spare time. How it works is you provide feedback on AI responses, based on how well they answered the prompt.

The onboarding process was a bit tedious and confusing, but I earned $15 an hour after I made it through.

Check out our full Remotasks review to learn more.

Babysitting, Child Care, and Caregiving Apps

25. Care

Care is another good way to earn extra income — especially during school breaks or over the summer —by providing babysitting, child care, or even elder care.

The work hours are flexible and with the nationwide average rates are in the range of $12-15 an hour.

If you love kids and you and have time to spare, babysitting would be a pretty easy side gig to consider.

26. Sittercity

Sittercity is a huge marketplace for child care, with parents posting jobs every 2 minutes and rates usually in the $15-25/hour range.

A teacher friend of mine actually ended up connecting with a celebrity client in New York through Sittercity. You never know!

27. UrbanSitter

If you love kids, UrbanSitter could be the perfect side hustle job. Set your own babysitting rates, availability, and geographic area you cover. Because UrbanSitter charges parents a monthly membership fee to access the directory, you keep 100% of your earnings.

28. Helpr

An interesting new family support app, Helpr aims to connect parents and sitters — but employers sometimes subsidize the care. According to the site, the average rate is $27/hour.

Helpr allows you to set your own hours and they pay within 4 days of completed bookings.

They have an extensive resources library to help you be successful with their platform.

Odd Job Apps Alternatives

Paid Market Research

There are a few 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.

Test Mobile Games

KashKick is a newer app that pays you to answer surveys, test new games (up to $150 each!), and redeem money-saving offers.

With the slogan “get paid to have fun,” KashKick is rated 4.2-stars in the Google Play store.

Donate Plasma

As long as needles don’t bother you, you can earn $20-60 per plasma donation.

Odd Job Apps: Your Turn

Finding odd jobs can be a great side hustle to start.

Many odd jobs are flexible and allow you to complete the work when it works best for you.

With lots of apps to choose from, start with the ones that match up to your skills and interests. Signing up on multiple apps will allow you to broaden your reach.

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

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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.

When you hear “college admissions essay consultant,” you might imagine some dull, overly formal academic type.

But Carter Osborne from carterosbornetutoring.com took a pretty unconventional path to dominating this niche business.

When he started providing tutoring services on the side, he was just a “broke, desperate graduate student” in need of some extra money.

Carter actually had no formal business training. His background was in political science and public administration—so not exactly the traditional entrepreneurial breeding grounds.

Not exactly the traditional path for an entrepreneur, right?

And yet, the untraditional route Carter took allowed him to build a unique $100k consulting business, with almost all the revenue coming in just half the year.

While Carter’s career path didn’t seem logical as a tutor, he was about to discover an untapped market niche that was waiting to be explored.

Tune in to Episode 601 of The Side Hustle Show to learn how to:

Come up with your lucrative side hustle offer
Get your first customers
Grow the business
Handle the delivery logistics as a solopreneur 

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Finding His Niche in the Essay Hustle

Carter started out tutoring different subjects as a side gig in grad school, from SAT/ACT prep to history and even pre-calculus.

But he enjoyed the actual writing and language arts side of things the most, especially helping students craft their college admissions essays.

“The college essays were my favorite part,” Carter said. “I always knew that was something that I wanted to invest more heavily in.”

So he looked at specializing his services and sacrificing clientele in the short term to focus entirely on college essays. It was a short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.

What made this a smart move was there was little competition from other tutors in the Seattle area for this very niche service.

Turning Competitors Into Collaborators

Of course, having a profitable niche idea is one thing, but getting paying clients is a whole other challenge—especially with no paid advertising or marketing budget (very surprising, right?)

This is where Carter’s first big breakthrough came: he started building strategic partnerships with the very people who could have been seen as competitors.

So he reached out to established, successful college admissions consultants and counselors in his local area. His pitch was simple: “Could I help you out? If you have some overflow clients who you can’t get to, maybe pass them my way.”

And it was a win-win partnership. If you think about it, these consultants were already fully booked anyway, and writing essays often wasn’t how they wanted to spend their time.

From there, the word-of-mouth referral engine started spinning. In Carter’s first year, he landed 3 clients and earned a few thousand dollars.

Gaining Momentum With Recurring Revenue

 

The next year, he tripled his client load to 14 students and broke 5 figures in sales. And from then on, Carter has reached the $100K+ mark working with around 25 to 30 students.

That was more than his income from his full-time corporate PR job—the tipping point that led Carter to quit and go all-in on his college essay consulting business.

A major key to Carter’s growth has been referrals. One benefit of specializing in college admissions support is the referrals.

Every year, a new batch of high school seniors needs help with their essays. And if families had good experiences working with Carter, they were highly likely to tell their friends and refer him to college-bound kids.

In fact, Carter said “it’s almost entirely word-of-mouth” driving new client acquisition at this point, adding:

“Mostly parents talking to their friends saying, ‘Oh yeah, last year we worked with Carter and he was great.’ That natural word of mouth through the client market, that’s really what’s driving my growth right now.”

And parents are motivated customers too. As Carter explained, families will happily pay a $3,000-$5,000 consulting fee if it improves their child’s chances of admission at top/competitive colleges—on top of the $100K+ costs of tuition.

Carter’s $225 per Hour Pricing Lesson

When he launched his essay coaching services, he undercharged at $75 per hour.

He explained his thought process at the time: “I remember thinking, okay, what am I worth? As a college admissions or as a college essay consultant, what do I think I’m worth? Well, I don’t have any experience.”

But Carter soon realized prospective clients might be skeptical of such a low price point for a specialized service. He raised his rates to a more appropriate $225 per hour eventually.

The pricing conversation now happens in the onboarding process, usually over the phone or video call.

Carter said, “That’s not the only way to go about it. And I do know consultants who do the more front facing, SEO-maximizing, sort of website-based way of marketing themselves. But for a lot of us, no, we kind of hang out in the background and count on that referral network to generate our leads for us.”

Tools and Tech to Run an Online Consulting Business

Although Carter has built a six-figure income stream, he admitted that he could improve on his operations and tech stack.

On the financial management side, Carter uses QuickBooks to handle invoicing and track revenue.

For his website and online presence, Carter opted for Squarespace as his hosting platform.

Carter is looking to make his scheduling process better because, up until this point, he’s still been manually coordinating all his tutoring sessions and sending calendar invites over email.

“I am still doing my scheduling by hand, which is terrible,” Carter admitted. “I need to get a calendar service going.”

Carter said he’s looking into adopting a client scheduling tool to streamline that process now that he’s operating his consulting business full-time.

(Our sponsor Practice might be worth a look.)

Aside from the scheduled meetings themselves, Carter conducts all his virtual tutoring sessions over Zoom. No surprises there, as Zoom has become the de facto video conferencing standard in recent years.

No Paid Advertising or Social Media

In fact, Carter’s consulting business has basically no public online presence at all.

Why? Carter said that the tutoring and college admissions world treats essay consulting like a luxury good.

“This industry is so odd in that people view it almost like a luxury good. It’s this sort of premier consultant, a premier tutor sort of thing. This is a special person. This is someone who’s almost hard to find because they’re so good and they don’t need to advertise themselves.”

In other words, maintaining an “air of exclusivity” reinforces the premium value proposition and Carter’s ability to command high rates. It’s quite counterintuitive in today’s world of extreme transparency, but it works for him and his niche.

You won’t find Carter on social media either. “I don’t have any personal social media myself,” he said. “I don’t enjoy it, so I don’t go out and advertise.”

Will AI Disrupt the Essay Tutoring Industry?

Carter admitted that AI and language models like ChatGPT are “a disruptive force” worth monitoring. But for now, he doesn’t believe these AI writing assistants are advanced enough to replace human guidance on high-stakes admissions essays.

“Please do not use these tools to write your college essays,” Carter warned. He advised that you can use them to brainstorm, to help generate ideas, but do not generate any significant amount of text that you’ll actually put into your essay.

Carter reasoned that AI-generated content still doesn’t have the personal narrative voice (aka the uniqueness) that college admission officers want to see.

As Carter sees it, his role is to help students dig deeper into their inner thoughts and experiences—and that’s a job best suited for human expertise and guidance.

Even when using tools like ChatGPT to brainstorm or edit content, the core creative concept must come from the student.

A Day in the Life of a Solopreneur Tutor

Photo from CNBC

The tutoring industry is “incredibly seasonal” with college application deadlines primarily falling in November and January each year.

That means his year follows a pattern—periods of intense work followed by months of much-needed downtime.

But come late summer and early fall, it’s the complete opposite story. Carter has to put his head down and grind.

It was especially difficult when he was still fully employed. During those peak admissions months, Carter’s calendar was fully booked.

His days started before sunrise with a couple of hours dedicated to reviewing student essays and providing feedback—all before logging into his day job.

It’s the feast-or-famine lifestyle he had to embrace as a solopreneur tutor, at least while still juggling his day job. Now that tutoring is his full-time focus, Carter has more flexibility to spread that workload out.

Mistakes and Surprises Along the Way

One of the biggest breakthroughs for Carter was realizing that the best college essays weren’t the ones where he imposed a strict formula or structure.

“What I’ve found is the best essays are the ones where the kid comes up with the idea, the kid generates their full draft, the kid works on a lot of their revisions,” he explained.

Carter’s role shifted to more of a supportive guide that helps students discover and refine their original stories and narratives.

It made the student’s unique voice and perspective shine through their essays—which is what admissions officers really want to see.

Using a formulaic structure usually had the opposite effect, producing generic essays that failed to differentiate the applicant.

Carter’s new coaching process provides guidelines, feedback, and creative prompts, but leaves the core brainstorming and writing to the students themselves.

What’s Next For Carter?

Now that Carter’s working for himself full-time, he has more flexibility to begin exploring ways to further diversify his services.

His current plan is to capitalize on other areas related to essay writing.

“I’m now working with students on professional coaching and consulting, folks who want to become tutors or even college essay specialists. I’m working with them to kind of talk about how to do it.”

Carter has also started working with students on competitive summer camp applications, which have started requiring essays as well.

He anticipates adding “one or two more” complementary service offerings each year to continue building out his business.

Carter’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Don’t let predisposed business notions keep you from getting started.”

Episode Links

carterosbornetutoring.com
QuickBooks
Squarespace
Zoom

Serious About Making Extra Money?

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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.