Having options to earn income on your own schedule is especially valuable. So is staying healthy in the face of a pandemic. With the right online side hustles, you can address your need to boost your earnings while minimizing risks related to COVID-19 exposure.
While the idea of online side hustles is simple, finding an opportunity that aligns with your skills, goals and needs can be more complicated. This article serves as your guide to some of the most popular options currently available, giving you some practical insight into this diverse range of opportunities.
What is an online side hustle, exactly?
Understanding exactly what an online side hustle is can help you find a rewarding and effective one.
"Side hustle" is another way to refer to a second job or earning opportunity that someone takes in addition to their primary job. Because the concept assumes someone with a side hustle already has a traditional job, likely with a set schedule and a significant time commitment, this type of additional employment is often freelance or flexible in nature. You might agree to take on a specific project or work for a set amount of time on a given day, but there often aren’t long-term requirements in terms of specific hours or schedules.
You may also hear online side hustles referred to as gigs, as in the gig economy — the world of work-at-will companies that provide services such as ridesharing and food delivery. This is a simple way to understand the commitments involved. Gigs last as long as they need to and don’t involve continuing requirements for pay or participation beyond the specific work involved.
An online side hustle is a side hustle that you can complete substantially or completely through digital means. It covers a wide array of work options. You may produce your own art, jewelry and similar items and sell them through an online storefront. You could utilize your graphic design or computer coding skills and offer them through a digital marketplace service. While there may be a physical component to the side hustle, there is limited or no direct contact with customers, service providers you may partner with or the people hiring you for a given job.
Getting started
Determining your interests
An online side hustle can be more enjoyable and sustainable when you have some sort of interest in the work you plan to do. Consider what you like to do in your free time and what parts of your primary job you find to be especially rewarding or engaging.
While you may not find a perfect match, you can look for opportunities that align in some way with your areas of interest. And, over time, working in the gig economy can help you identify areas where you might develop new interests. Making and selling your own jewelry could lead to designing and marketing your own clothes or accessories. A coding project might introduce you to a new programming language or workflow in which you decide to build experience.
Mapping your skills
Everyone has certain talents and abilities that go beyond average, and you can likely name a few right now. You can also look to both your personal life and your career to identify skills that may not be so evident at first glance. Whether or not you apply your talents in graphic design or social media to your day job, you can put them to use in your online side hustle.
Your skills help you stand out from the pack. They can also offer a place to draw on past experience, work examples and references to help convince the person or business employing you in a side hustle capacity that you have the necessary talents.
An important note: Don’t let your established skills get in the way of trying new and exciting opportunities. There are many potential online side hustles available, and the relatively low stakes of work either offered on a piecemeal basis or produced only when you feel like it allows you to explore emerging areas of interest as well.
Just keep in mind that the primary goal of a side hustle is to bring in additional income, as opposed to honing skills or gaining experience. You may want to develop a certain level of familiarity or expertise by treating your interest as a hobby for a while, before turning to it as a way to generate income.
Assessing progress
An online side hustle is ultimately about earning money, but not all options provide a guaranteed return. In some situations, you may do everything in your power to market products or services and still not attract enough clients to make your investment of time and money worth the effort.
Occasionally reviewing your progress with side hustle options that don’t offer guaranteed income is vital. You may want to set certain goals at the start of your side hustle, such as earning enough income to cover the operating costs. Calculating your take-home pay on an hourly basis can also help. Take the cost of needs like supplies, equipment, time spent building client-related relationships and marketing into account — don’t only compare income to the hours you spend directly completing work. If you find that you are barely breaking even or losing money after a significant amount of time, it may be time to move on and try another type of work.
That does not mean you have to stop engaging in a given online side hustle entirely. If you have a genuine interest, you can shift to viewing it as a hobby, at least for the time being. Then, you can review your options for earning money outside your main employer and try a new approach.
Leading options for building your online side hustle
With an understanding of key factors that can help you find more sustainable side hustles, you can consider some of the top online options for finding gigs.
These examples all have something in common: They minimize or eliminate the need for close, prolonged human contact when completing the required work. Taking this approach helps you balance the needs to earn additional money and protect your health.
Passive income
Passive income can come from a variety of sources, with the common factor being the lack of a need for regular investment of time and effort to generate that value.
One common example of passive income is renting out a property. While this isn’t always possible, in the short term due to current public health restrictions and in general due to the need to own and maintain a property for renting, there are plenty of areas where short-term rental services are actively operating. Similarly, entering into a contract with a long-term renter is still possible nearly everywhere in the country. If you happen to own a piece of property that offers the necessary amenities for habitation, you can list it for short- or long-term stays. And if you leverage lockboxes for keys, cleaning services and digital property tours, you can greatly limit potential contact with your renters.
Passive income can also come from investments. Stocks that pay dividends and perform well will provide a payment simply from owning that asset. Placing money into a time deposit financial product, such as a certificate of deposit (CD), offers extremely strong potential for a clear, defined return. Additionally, CDs have their principal — the amount initially invested — protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to $250,000 per depositor, per FDIC-insured bank, per ownership category. This protection means that you face minimal risk of losing your initial investment.
While many types of passive income can only be generated if you leverage existing assets, there are plenty of avenues to explore. An online side hustle can take many forms, so don’t limit yourself to options that require you to actively complete some type of work for payment. Your assets can be just as capable of generating income in the right circumstances as your talents and abilities.
Online storefronts and sales
If you have talents in art, crafting or design, you can consider creating and selling a wide variety of products through marketplaces like Etsy® and many others. Even if your interests and skills rest in a totally different field, you may still find a way to earn money. There are successful online sellers who specialize in everything from exotic animal art to clothing sourced from thrift shops and second-hand stores.
Ecommerce platforms offer a variety of services that make it simple to start selling your wares, including web hosting for the store, images, product descriptions and streamlined payment processing workflow. The simple association with a recognized brand can also add a level of legitimacy that may not be perceived by potential customers visiting a standalone website.
It takes plenty of work to build up a customer base and turn an online store into a major source of income. However, if you want to invest the time and effort, this is one online side hustle that could lead to more success down the road. Starting small and earning some extra money is what gigs are all about. You do not need to worry about turning your store into a full-time job on day one — or ever, if your plan is to use this side hustle only for supplemental income.
It’s important to note that selling online requires initial spending and there isn’t a guarantee of immediately making a sale, or enough sales to cover the costs of operation or earn a profit. There are many examples of successful online storefronts, but this side hustle requires careful reviews of costs related to both money and time spent on sourcing, making and shipping your products. However, there are other types of online side hustles that don’t require as much up-front investment.
Freelancing
Freelance work generally involves completing a defined piece of work for a client and then moving on to the next project. While you will often have to follow specific guidelines, meet quality standards and complete the work in a defined timeframe, you are not employed on an ongoing basis by your client. That means more flexibility in terms of accepting work from a wide range of interested parties.
Some freelancers build strong relationships with a single or small group of clients, and may primarily or exclusively work for them. However, this is a matter of mutual trust, built off of past experiences, between the two parties and not a requirement for either side. Both the freelancer and the person or business offering the work are free to end the relationship at any time.
Freelancers might enjoy having a steady stream of work and familiar contacts or decide they like the variety that comes with accepting a broad range of projects. This is one of the major benefits of freelancing as an online side hustle: If you can establish yourself as a trustworthy provider who hits deadlines and produces quality work, you can pick and choose the tasks you decide to complete.
Another major advantage of freelancing is the many different services that are commonly provided through this arrangement. As a freelancer, you may work in graphic design, web development, coding, writing and editing, consulting, social media management, voiceover work, video production and many other areas where a specialized skill set is needed. You can apply your existing knowledge and abilities to freelancing as well as develop new talents that align with areas where you have recognized a consistent need.
Freelancing is dependent on securing clients, and not every freelancer can count on significant earnings from this type of work. You will likely have to develop a business website and a portfolio of past work examples. Depending on the specific area in which you decide to work, you may also need specialized tools, hardware or software to align with client expectations and produce high-quality work.
Additionally, you will need to spend time seeking out public requests for freelancers. Those freelance job postings may come from social media, classified ads, family and friends, and your own connections in the industry. That means an investment of time at the very least, although free web hosting services and similar options can keep costs low.
Despite the need to build recognition and position yourself as a competent and trustworthy provider, you likely won’t need to invest as much as someone making handcrafted items or sourcing inventory for an online storefront. Because you are offering your ability to complete work once you agree on the terms of a freelance job, as opposed to a finished product that must be ready for sale once it’s listed for sale, the costs can be lower.
As with any sort of work, whether it’s your full-time job or an online side hustle, you need to establish rates that are in step with the amount of time and effort you commit to each project. Offering low prices can attract more work, especially as you establish yourself as a freelancer. This makes it easier to not only start securing and completing jobs, but also to develop your portfolio with current, relevant examples of commissioned work. However, low prices also limit your earning ability. Carefully considering your general rates and the unique nature of each job offered — which may require additional effort and a related increase in price — can help you set prices that provide the compensation you feel is worth the investment of your time and abilities.
Freelancing platforms
Freelancers don’t have to limit their efforts at self-promotion and identifying opportunities to channels like social media and classified ads. Purpose-built platforms that connect clients and freelancers are increasingly popular.
Platforms such as Fiverr and a variety of others have created specialized marketplaces that allow freelancers to list their services and potential clients to find a provider that aligns with their needs. In the case of Fiverr, freelancers provide a variety of information related to the type of work they complete, their rates, past work examples and similarly important topics. Fiverr then uses a standardized presentation to share these details with businesses and individuals seeking such services. A listing on a dedicated website can help you increase exposure, drawing more eyes to your freelance business.
Micro-jobs and task completion websites
When you create a profile on a freelance marketplace, it often means waiting until a potential client contacts you to begin working on your online side hustle and start earning. Micro-job and task completion websites offer an alternative arrangement: The companies and individuals that want work completed post these small tasks, and users search through them to find the ones they want to complete.
These services can allow you to start earning quickly. The available work is ready to be taken on, it is just up to you to complete it. If you are interested in the potential for fast earnings, whether as your primary online side hustle or while a slower-developing one takes shape, this can be an effective option.
One example of a micro-job website is Amazon Mechanical Turk®, which focuses on small tasks that can be more capably or speedily completed by people than computers. While the capabilities and processing power of modern software and hardware continue to grow at a tremendous rate, there are still many areas where a person can provide critical benefits in terms of speed, context and successful task completion.
Categorizing and otherwise processing photos and videos, cleaning and improving datasets, transcription and similar tasks are commonly offered through Mechanical Turk and similar services. They may also be used to collect responses to surveys and for a variety of research purposes.
Although this type of online side hustle doesn’t usually provide much room for creativity or the ability to leverage most skills, it is relatively simple and easy to start. Individual projects don’t provide large returns, as payment for them is often very small. However, users can complete as many tasks as they desire. Quick yet accurate work means more jobs finished and a better financial return.
The downside to many micro-job platforms is the low potential for large returns. With individual payouts for tasks often sitting below $1, it’s not a side hustle that has much room for growth or development. It also doesn’t lend itself to further development of your specific skills or creating paid work that can be placed into a portfolio as effective examples of prior projects. However, task completion websites can offer a steady yet modest return that may be attractive to those looking to earn a little extra money, make their free time more productive or eventually establish more than one type of online side hustle.
Food and other types of delivery
Delivery workers have more exposure to other people than any of the other options we have covered thus far. Yet, many of the top platforms for delivery have rules in place to help improve safety for workers. Options like contactless delivery reduce interactions between the platform’s customers and the drivers, bikers and others who bring orders to them.
One major advantage of food delivery is that work is often readily available where such services have an active presence and name recognition among customers. You do not need to make a long-term investment in building an individual page on a digital marketplace or create a business website that lists accomplishments, education and examples of past work. Instead, you can work during times that are convenient for you and choose to accept deliveries.
There are some basic requirements that come along with this type of online side hustle, however. In nearly all cases, you will need a road-worthy vehicle — often a car, but sometimes a bicycle, motorcycle or scooter — that allows you to complete the work and, in the case of automobiles, a valid license and insurance. Background checks are also common. Additionally, drivers will need a mobile device that is compatible with the app used by the company to organize and distribute deliveries.
Prepared food delivery and similar options, such as delivering groceries or packaged snacks, are focused on efficiency from a driver’s perspective. The more orders you complete, the more money you can earn. A strong knowledge of the roads in the area you plan to work can pay off, especially when a map and directions app doesn’t account for road closures, delays and similar issues.
Potential downsides to keep in mind include wear and tear on your vehicle, the price of fuel and similar costs related to driving. You will have to build these expenses into your budget when you determine how much you have earned. Additionally, drivers rely on tips for a significant portion of their income. No one can control how much a customer pays on top of the price of an order, so there will always be an element of uncertainty around tipping.
A trusted banking partner, no matter your online side hustle
While the options for online side hustles are broad, there is something that connects many of them: The need for a bank account in which you can deposit your earnings and manage your money in the long term. In some cases, a bank account is a requirement for receiving direct deposits from your clients and the services that offer you work as an independent contractor. In others, it is simply your best option for effective oversight and control of the money you have worked so hard to earn.
Comerica Bank offers secure, convenient and modern online banking, including web banking and bill pay services that make it easy to check in on your assets no matter where you are.
To learn more about the dependable personal banking services Comerica provides, get in touch with us today.
