13 Best Side Hustle Ideas To Start in 2022 (Side Gigs From Home)

Are you a self-starter? Check. Diligent and hard-worker? Double check. Looking to make money from home? Check, check, check! Sounds like you might have a promising opportunity starting a side hustle!

While there are many legit ways to make money online, the important thing is to find a side business idea that suits your lifestyle and passion, because the sad reality is that while starting a side business is the easiest it has ever been, 8 in 10 businesses fail within 18 months of starting, according to Forbes. But with the right mindset and determination, making money online from home can be a reality. 

Ready? Let's dive into some side business ideas that you can start to make money from home.

13 Best Side Business Ideas to Make Money Online From Home 

1. Start a Blog

Income Potential: $100 - $50,000+ per month

If you're of the opinion that starting a blog is no longer a viable source of income, these few pieces of statistics from Semrush should absolutely change your mind: 

"There are more than 500 million blogs out of 1.7 billion websites;

Over 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month;

25% of WordPress bloggers make a full-time living;

The food bloggers make a median monthly income of $9,169, while personal finance bloggers make $9,100."

And there is a lot more where those came from!

Sure, there has been a shift in the blogging scene over the years, such as changes in the key monetization strategies that now heavily include affiliate marketing — bloggers who make between $7,500 and $25,000 per month get 42.2% of their revenue through affiliates — but one thing is for sure: Blogging remains one of the best side business ideas in 2021. 

What's more, the fact that blogging has such a small startup and annual cost makes it a side hustle idea that you can get started with right away from the comfort of your home.

2. Write Medium Articles

Income Potential: $50 - $1000+ per article per month

You have heard it many times before: What's your niche?

In most cases, making money using online content limits you to one or two niche areas, but if you're looking for a place where you can write about anything and everything your heart desires, then look no further!

The beauty about Medium for writing enthusiasts is that you can write about kick-boxing one day and dropshipping the other, and make money from each of these.

So if you love writing and have many ideas you want us all to hear, you're in for a real treat! The point is to write catchy content with a unique perspective that will draw readers in and earn you money! 

What's more, you can start earning immediately and reach a new audience if you're already a blogger. About 6% of writers make about $100 a month, whereas one writer recently earned $49,705 in just one month!  

Dive deeper into this article by Girls Who Budget to learn even more about writing Medium articles. 

3. Freelance Creative Services 

Income Potential: $26+ per hour

If you are skilled in particular creative crafts such as graphic design, web design, or video editing, freelancing can offer lucrative boosts to your income. Get this: Skilled freelance workers earn more per hour than 70% of workers in the US! 

The growth of freelancers and freelancing services offered on sites such as Fiverr and Upwork are a testament to the increased demand for creative services across the globe. If you are skilled, self-driven, and organized, this might just be the cup of tea for you.

4. Become a Virtual Assistant

Income Potential: $15 - $75+ per hour

From social media management to admin work, website management, and bookkeeping, the opportunities for virtual assistant services are limitless. 

Running a VA side business allows you to leverage your unique skills to provide specialized paid services to businesses. There has been a growing demand for VAs from business owners across multiple industries. And with how the world is shaping up, the growth trajectory for VA jobs is onwards and upwards. 

Like with anything else, starting a VA business is the most difficult part, but there are now endless resources on getting started like this detailed article by Dollarsprout.

Pro tip: Join the multitudes of Facebook groups to connect with businesses looking to work with VAs.

5. Sell Online Courses

Income Potential: $250+ per month

Top side hustle ideas have one thing in common: they have a high demand. Put delicately, the online learning business has seen a massive growth in demand in the last few years — and especially as a result of the pandemic. As a result, many people are turning online for education, presenting an incredible opportunity for online courses as a side hustle idea. 

If you are skilled or knowledgeable on a subject, perhaps you can leverage these skills to create courses online. Whatever it is that you are an expert at, there is a  likelihood that there are people who would pay to become experts as well. You just need to identify your target audience and find a way to market directly to them. 

6. Amazon FBA Program

Income Potential: $1000+ per month

Selling products on Amazon can sound quite daunting — unless you didn't have to worry about picking, packing, storing or shipping any of your orders! Friend, let me introduce you to Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon).

FBA is a service offered by Amazon to help their third-party sellers to automate their order fulfillment and shipping. 

You can make money from home by finding products to sell on Amazon, shipping them to Amazon fulfillment centers and letting Amazon take care of the rest while you focus on promoting and selling your products online. 

Learn more about how to get started and the benefits and drawbacks of participating in the Amazon FBA program as a side hustle idea. 

7. Affiliate Marketing

Income Potential: $250+ per month

Affiliate marketing allows you to make money promoting brands that you love. The process looks some version of this: You market a product to an existing audience that trusts your recommendations -> some people in your audience like the product and purchase it -> you earn a commission from the purchase. It's a win-win for you and the company that you're promoting.

Studies show that an estimated 80% of brands have affiliate marketing programs. Not only that, affiliate marketing is here to stay. It is estimated that affiliate marketing spending is estimated to grow by 10% in the next couple of years alone! 

The key here is to focus on content marketing in a niche area to grow a loyal following, and to only market products that you personally believe in. Check out Michelle's, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, to learn how she went to earning $50,000+ in affiliate income per month!

8. Teaching English Remotely

Income Potential: $25 - $40+ per hour

Perhaps a lesser known opportunity, teaching Engligh as a foreign language is a great side business idea. There is a growing demand for online education as a supplement, or in some cases, a replacement for traditional education which presents a great opportunity for native English speakers.

Whereas accreditaton is highly recommended, it is possible to teach without accreditation via sites such as Remote.co and Learn4Good. 

What's more, this side hustle idea provides an opportunity to travel the world, should you choose to advance to teaching in-person to larger groups of students. 

9. Start a YouTube Channel

Income Potential: $3 to $5 per 1000 views

If you have a unique editing style, valuable content that entertains or educates, and/or a catchy personality, you might want to consider starting a YouTube channel.  

Consider this: The consumption of video has been and is projected to grow dramatically over the coming years, with an estimated almost 2.9 billion YouTube users by 2025! 

Source: Statista

Many YouTubers with value-driven content make millions from their accounts, so this side business idea has every potential to be a full-time income generating one.

10. Sell your Photos Online

Income Potential: $0.35 per image per month

Selling photos might just be one of the best passive income side hustle ideas. If you are particularly skilled at photography and photo editing, you could make passive income from your photos by uploading them on stock websites such as Shutterstock and Getty Images.

Like many other digital products, Photos can be sold any number of times allowing you to benefit from the returns long after you put in the hard work creating it. 

11. Proofreading

Income Potential: $18+ per hour

So, are you detail-oriented and often find yourself catching typos, spelling errors and formatting issues? Are you a master of the English language? Yes? Well, it sounds like you just might have a promising side hustle business as a proofreader! 

If you don't have an idea how proofreading freelancing gigs work, here is a breakdown from International Living: “Most agencies will pay around 25% of the price of a translated document to a proofreader. Agencies charge about $75 for the translation of a five-page standard business document, so proofing the same document—which takes about an hour—pays out about $18 to $20.”

12. Selling Printables & Digital Products on Etsy

Income Potential: $250+ per month

Etsy has quickly become a powerful marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods, but perhaps a lesser-known fact is that Etsy is similarly great for selling digital products and printables such as printable wedding invites, digital planners, and financial spreadsheets. 

With robust optimization functionality for your product listings, Etsy provides an incredible opportunity to target specific buyers and get organic exposure as soon as you publish your first item on your Etsy store. 

13. eBooks

Income Potential: $100+ per month

If you have a knack for writing, packaging your ideas and skills into an ebook can be one of the best side business ideas for you. With Amazon KDP, it’s never been easier to publish an ebook. 

Put in work towards promoting your ebook and brand through creating an attractive ebook cover and online and social media marketing.