We are going to list over 60 ways that you can make money without a traditional job.
We are going to start with online opportunities, then we'll cover options for making money without a job, offline.
1- Take online surveys
Taking surveys for money is bay far the best way for most people to make a little side income in their free time.
It doesn't require any experience or investment.
It's totally free to join any legit survey site.
These sites conduct online surveys on behalf of companies and manufacturers who use the feedback you provide to improve or develop new products.
In return for your time and input, you are rewarded with cash, gift cards, and other prizes.
It's not unheard of to make a few hundred dollars a month with surveys.
The way to do that is by joining a few dozen legit panels so you can have access to a lot of paid survey opportunities.
If you only want cash, there are survey sites that pay cash (via PayPal.)
Sites to use:
2- Get cash from Class Action Lawsuits
Yes, you can get free money from the hundreds and thousands of class action lawsuits that are brought on companies every year.
But how do you find these lawsuits, and what if you don't even have a proof that you have used the said company's product or service which qualifies you for the settlement?
Good news is that there are sites out there dedicated to listing all the class action lawsuits that are still open.
And the better news is that many of these cases don't require a proof of purchase. For example, if you have ever drank RedBull, you get up to $15 through a class action lawsuit brought on the company because of their slogan RedBull Gives You Wings .
Sites to use:
3- Sell old books
I have personally done this many times.
The beauty of this method is that most of us already have lots of books that we no longer need or use. Selling them can be a great sources of extra income.
And if you want to take a step further, you could hit your local thrift shops, buy used books for pennies, then sell them for $5, $10, and even up to $100 or more depending on the book.
What makes this process even easier is the existence of sites and apps like BookScouter.
Simply install their app, then scan any book's ISBN with it, you will instantly be given the highest prices you can sell that book for online. BookScouter searches over 40 buy-back-book sites to find you the highest price.
Sites to use:
4- Get paid to test websites
User testing is a real thing!
In order to test the functionality and user-friendliness of their website, many businesses pay people to simply visit their site and test the various functionalities of it.
Of course finding clients on your own is almost impossible, which is why sites like Usertesting are there.
You can sign up for free, then whenever they have a new site to be tested, you will be notified.
You visit the said site, then report back with your experience.
The pay differs from site to site, but Usertesting pays $10 flat for every site review you complete.
Sites to use:
5- Participate in mock trials
There are websites that conduct mock trials on behalf of their clients, which are mostly lawyers.
These lawyers want to know how their case might go when they are in the actual courtroom facing the judge and the jury.
So, to get a sense for it, and adjust their strategy accordingly, they use mock trial sites to present their case in front of an online jury.
You can get paid to become a jury in such trials.
Sites to use:
6- Start a blog
For those of you who don't know, blogging is when you write for your own website, usually posting articles, recipes, reviews, or commentary (with the website itself being the blog. )
Think of it like writing articles for a newspaper that you're the sole proprietor of.
Believe it or not, blogging is actually a very strong opportunity for making money, as we mentioned up above regarding the top bloggers.
In the past, the primary obstacle for hosting a blog would have been obtaining a domain to host the blog, but now there are platforms dedicated solely to blogging, like WordPress, which make it easier than ever to get into the game and start a money-making blog in no time.
Blogging is a great investment in terms of time and money because an article you wrote for 4 hours will be up and available for viewing for as long as your site lives.
Furthermore, it requires essentially no money to keep going but has the potential to make you plenty of money.
There is too much to say about blogging to fit into this article, but if you like the sound of it, definitely do some searches and read up on it.
Even if you're not comfortable with the idea of running a blog, you can still get paid to write for someone else's.
Sites to use:
Note: These are free blagging platforms that allow you to build a site quickly and for free. Start with these, get a feel for how this whole blogging thing works, then you can move on and buy your own domain name and hosting. At that point, I would suggest you build your blog using WordPress (this is the. org version of it which is for self-hosted sites).
7- Be an affiliate marketer
If you're not familiar with affiliate marketing, it means that you'll advertise something in return for a commission on the sales. This is essentially a sales job that can be done by the introverted and the extroverted alike, since it doesn't require that you actually interface with people on a personal basis.
Affiliate marketing is usually a way that people prefer to advertise their product because it feels more organic, and people are more likely to purchase something that they don't feel has been explicitly advertised to them.
Affiliate marketing is usually tied to blogging, as a blog is an ideal place to do something like write a review of a product and provide a link to the product at the end.
Some affiliate marketers are paid simply to drive traffic and don't need to make sales, but as a rule of thumb, you should be trying to drive sales in the least advertisey way possible.
Sites to use:
8- Work as a VA (Virtual Assistant)
Working as a virtual assistant, explained simply, is like being a secretary from your house.
A variety of people will be wanting assistance for whatever they do, whether they write research articles or run an online business, and that's where you come in as a virtual assistant.
You should expect to be doing administrative work as a virtual assistant, so be prepared to employ skills like email response, data entry, examination of facts and organization of information.
It's as simple as being, well, of assistance to your employer, but you'll almost definitely need some customer service skills. Keep that in mind if you'd prefer a more back of the house position.
Sites to use:
9- Telecommute
Despite the fancy name, telecommuting is as simple as it comes. A telecommuter is simply someone who does what would be done in a normal office job, but they do it from home.
It can be in a variety of industries, advertising or administration or anything else.
What jobs can be done via telecommuting are more about what companies are offering telecommuting jobs than about what can be done at a distance.
In the internet age, virtually every job can be done from home.
Whether you're coding software, coming up with advertising, if you're an artist or a writer or a manager, it can likely be done from home. Even board meetings can be done via communications software like Skype.
Do a quick Google search for Telecommuting jobs and you're sure to find some websites that will help you get going.
Sites to use:
10- Design and sell shirts
Personally, I still can't believe how easy this option is.
There are a wealth of websites that are dedicated to t-shirt design, which is an emerging internet industry.
Here's how it works…
First, you sign up for the site (which is always free.)
Then you can use their design interface to design a T-shirt.
It'll have a variety of options, like choosing the cut of the shirt (crew, women's, v-neck, etc,) choosing a font, font size, font color, shirt color.
You can usually take images from your computer and put them on the shirt, and you can usually design a front and a back for the shirt.
Different companies have different limitations for what you can and can't do.
Either way, when you're finished designing the shirt you'll set a sales goal and a sales price, both of which will affect how much the company will pay you per shirt sold.
Then you go out, and advertise the shirt and try to get people to buy it. If you reach your sales goal, the shirts will be printed, distributed, and you will be paid for your work.
It costs NOTHING to design the shirts; the companies make enough money from the sales to pay you for the work and still keep a tidy profit.
The only obstacle is the actual advertising and sales.
Past that, it's all profit for little work.
So, if you've got the skills to drive purchases and advertise in an unobtrusive way, you should seriously check this out.
Sites to use:
11- Sell your talent (even the bizarre and crazy ones!)
Fiverr is a service where you offer your skill for a flat rate of $5.
Something like, I'll do a 30-second recording in an Australian accent.
The person contacts you, you do the work, and you get paid ($4 per job, actually, because the site keeps $1.)
This is a good option, but only if you have a skill that you are capable of doing in mass.
You might want to consider doing this if you're trying to build a portfolio for something so that you can move up eventually and charge more for your services.
For those in western countries, the income from Fiverr might not be quite enough. But if you live somewhere with a lower cost of living, and you can do a high volume of business, then the money from this site can add up to something pretty significant.
Sites to use:
12- Get paid for expert advice
Are you someone with a high level of knowledge about a certain topic?
There are a variety of websites that are willing to pay you for your expertise.
The general format is that a question will be posed to an expert, and you'll provide your answer. If the asker approves your answer, they'll pay out, and the site will give you your cut after intermediary fees.
You could be looking at making $10-$20 per accepted answer, so the money can definitely add up.
However, they're pretty serious about the idea of an expert. So you're going to need to go through an application process to join their ranks, and they might require details like thorough work history, college degrees, etc. But if you're capable of providing proof of expertise, this is a great way to make some side money.
Sites to use:
AllExperts (Update: they are no longer paying their experts. You can, however, answer questions as a volunteer.) JustAnswer Ether
13- Write for cash
As you might imagine, being a writer is a dream job for many people.
The internet provides a lot of opportunities to be a paid writer, and a portion of those people are able to rise to prominence and make a solid living from the profession. But even if not, you can almost definitely make good side-money for being a writer.
This is related to blogging, but not strictly limited to it.
Writers can get paid for any type of writing, but sites like WritersDomain will often offer you a topic and a price and ask you to write an article with a certain word limit.
Sites like that are a good way to get started, but if you're looking to get more serious about writing, you should pursue a more long-term situation by finding clients through a site like oDesk or eLance.
It is recommended for anyone looking to be a full-time writer to manage multiple types of writing, like writing for clients, writing for a blog, and potentially using their writing skills to pursue affiliate marketing.
Sites to use:
14- Write an e-Book
Lots of people have begun putting out e-books for supplemental income (or in cases of great success, primary income!)
An e-book just refers to the idea that it is published through an electronic book vendor, like Amazon's Kindle and Nook services.
Many e-books are rushed out in absolutely terrible condition; they might contain factual errors, spelling errors, formatting errors, syntactical errors - the list goes on. You can set yourself above the rest by putting more work into the presentation of the book.
A good cover will help you out a lot, as will producing a work of quality rather than quantity. You can find plenty of bad e-books that are making a little bit of money, but if you want the big bucks, you should really buckle down, and maybe even consider hiring an editor.
Conversely, you may be able to find work on the freelancing sites where you can get paid to write people's e-books for them!
Sites to Use (to publish your e-books on):
15- Do Micro Freelancing
Although micro freelancing is a form of freelancing, I wanted to give it its own section since it has been growing tremendously in the last few years.
The main difference here is that tasks are normally very small and easy to complete. Accordingly, the pay, of course, is lower as well.
Sites to use:
16- Get paid to post on forums
This one is nice and simple.
People who are starting new forums online often need a way to build the notoriety of their website, and one way of doing this is to hire people to make quality posts on their forums to draw attention to them.
A good hub for this type of work is the aptly-named paidforumposting. com, who employ a select number of writers who are contracted out to websites to do the posting.
It is definitely a sort of side-income, but multiple types of side-income add up to primary income, so it's still worth looking into.
Sites to use:
17- Get paid to search
This is a very, very minor way to get rewards, but we'll still give it a mention.
There are sites, like Bing Rewards. that have rewards programs that will track points towards rewards for every search you make (there is a daily limit to the points to prevent spamming.)
The rewards are given in the form of gift cards and the like. So this won't be making you direct money, but it will offset some of the costs you may already have.
That's a roundabout way of getting money.
And even a roundabout way will help!
You can read my Swagbucks review here for more details.
Sites to use:
18- Get paid to surf the web
Using this method will be another VERY small-earner.
To me its waste of time, nonetheless, it's a legit opportunity.
The PTS (paid to surf) business model was more popular around the turn of the century than it is now, but there are still ways to get paid for it today.
A website like paymentsurf. com will gladly pay you for surfing the web, or more specifically, by visiting their sponsor's websites.
The business model is mostly a circular way for businesses to drive traffic to their site.
You can make around $1 in a day (that's the cap limit,) usually for around an hour of work.
The websites may ask you to buy into them to increase your earnings, but I would recommend that you simply make the money for surfing and leave it at that.
Sites to use:
19- Make videos
Virtually everyone everywhere is using YouTube on a regular basis.
Especially over the last few years, being a YouTuber has become a legitimate profession and one that earns money far and above a regular job if you can rise to prominence.
The top 10 channels on YouTube make at least $20,000 a month, and that's not even considering how much they are capable of making in merch sales, or under-the-table endorsement type deals.
The phenomenon of Let's Play, or videos of people playing video games while talking, has become massive and there are hundreds of thousands of people trying to break through on it.
The website TwitchTV is also an example of the rising prevalence of Let's Plays. It doesn't matter if you're playing video games, or music, or talking, as long as what you're doing is interesting and people want to watch it.
Let's be clear, though: becoming a successful YouTuber requires work, luck, and diligence, so the idea of being a full-time video maker is more of an exception than a rule. However, if you can make a few videos and get some subscribers, it can be a great secondary source of income.
You may also consider uploading to a site like Break, which offers a higher split of the advertising money (but has a much smaller audience.)
Sites to use:
20- Become a beta tester
There are websites looking for people to give feedback on products, usually before they are finalized.
A site like SoftwareJudge will pay you to test software and then respond with a survey or written feedback about what you experienced.
If you're looking for something more in the way of beta testing, you can check out Erli Bird for beta testing jobs.
Erli Bird is a website that asks you to record your session with software and then submit a written request.
These beta tests can be for video games, apps, software, and other kinds of products.
These things will usually offer something like $10 per opportunity, which isn't bad considering it's only 30 minutes or an hour of work.
Sites to use:
21- Complete offers for cash
Well, this one is more of a method of mitigating loss than of making money, but it makes sense to take advantage of, as you'll see.
There are such things as GPT (get paid to) sites that will offer you money in return for taking advantage of opportunities that their sponsors offer.
Surely, there are some GPT tasks that don't require any purchase, you might be asked to subscribe to a newsletter or provide your traffic to a website. But you also might be asked to do something like try a trial of a service or purchase a month of something, and in that case, you'll need to put money towards the task. The GPT site will reimburse you in whatever form they compensate through.
This is a good method for something like getting a Netflix account. If you're going to get one, and don't have one, you might as well find a GPT site that gives you cash back for it, and recoup a little bit of the cost by taking advantage of it.
Sites to use:
22- Install software
Now, there are two ways to get money for installing software and they're totally different.
The one you're most likely to find opportunities for is a form of affiliate marketing, where you post the download link to the software on your website and get paid per person who installs it.
That's option one.
Option two is helping people who don't understand computers very well to install software. That one is obviously the preferable option, but it's a market that has been mostly cornered by services like the Geek Squad (and they're charging a fortune to do it!)
If you happen to come across anybody who needs this service, just charge less than the Geek Squad, and you'll still be able to make good money for very little work.
Sites to use:
23- Sell virtual property
Are you a gamer, perchance?
If you are, there is a way to make money, and good money at that, that is exclusive to just you!
There is a fortune to be made selling virtual properties.
If you've ever heard of the online game Second Life, it's something that people get incredibly invested in and treat as, well, a second life.
Ansche Chung is probably the most famous person to have ever benefited from this method, who became a millionaire by repeatedly selling land and houses on Second Life!
Yes, a millionaire from playing games, and that's no joke.
People have also been known to do this for characters on World of Warcraft and can make upwards of a few hundred thousand a year.
It's important to note these people created their own whole system for maximizing their ability to produce high-level characters/worthwhile properties.
There is a market for it, though, and if you're good with systems and repetitive tasks, this is something you can accomplish.
Sites to use:
24- Run a virtual storefront
Lots of people have become online entrepreneurs by hosting their sales business on a hub website, like Etsy.
If you have the ability to produce some type of tangible good, like clothes, accessories, art, then you can run a virtual storefront, too.
This is just a way to organize a business without having to start your own website, essentially.
After setting up the storefront and producing the products you're going to sell, all you have to do is drive traffic on over to it and make sure you keep a good relationship with your customers.
This is just classic business in virtual form.
Sites to use:
25- Share files
Now, this is admittedly a bit of a tight-lipped service, so I can't tell you the exact ins and outs of it all. But there does exist a whole market out there where you can get paid to upload files to file sharing services, and you'll get paid either per upload or per download.
The payout is usually $1 per down/upload, but some sites advertise the possibility of $5-$20 per.
It's hard to talk too much about it, because there is the possibility that the files that are uploaded and shared might be breaching some sort of copyright, and that's some dicey stuff to get into.
But if you're willing to look into it, you can find plenty of resources to read about it online.
Sites to use:
26- Work as a translator
In our rising global culture, there is more need than ever to have documents translated from one language to another. This isn't just limited to documents, of course; people are going to want audio, video, and even images to be translated.
If you are bilingual (the more languages you speak, the better) there is a wealth of work available for you online.
Freelancing sites like oDesk regularly see this type of work advertised, but Gengo is a website that specializes in employing translators.
Your abilities of translation are valuable, so don't be afraid to look around!
Once you build up some skills and experience, you can charge a pretty fair wage for this service.
Sites to use:
