18 Realistic and Simple Ways to Make Money from Home in 2021


It literally only takes a laptop with an internet connection, and you can find a way to make money from home as a side income or even help you to quit the 9 to 5 rat race.

However, most people have the misconception that only people who are associated with the digital or ecommerce industry can earn from home.

Well, that’s so not the case.

From starting an online business to teaching, everything can be done from home.

To answer every concern, I have mentioned some legitimate and realistic ways that anyone can follow to make an extra $1000 by working from home.

Here I have mentioned 18 realistic ways that can help you to make money from home fast.

1- Start a Dropshipping Business from Home

2- Print on demand

3- Flipping products on ebay

4- Sell handmade products on Etsy

5- Sell Seconds Hand Clothes

6- Dropshipping from Amazon to eBay

7- Take surveys

8- Earn from freelance writing

9- Become a transcriber

10- Become a virtual assistant

11- Start blogging

12- Become an Instagram Influencer

13- Start a YouTube Channel

14- Amazon Mechanical Turk

15- Amazon Virtual Location

16- Merch by Amazon

17- User Testing

18- VIP Kid

In this post, I have divided these 18 ways into 6 categories for your ease.

So, let’s begin

i. Make Money from Home by Selling Online

Starting an ecommerce business from home seems like an ‘easier said than done’ job; however, some online selling methods are viable enough to start from home.

1- Start a Dropshipping Business

If you are following our website for a while, then you’d probably know how much we love the dropshipping business model. It is one of the accessible ways to start making money from home fast.

For those who are not familiar with this ecommerce business method, let me give a breif definition;

Dropshipping is ecommerce business model that allows the seller/retailer to sell the product online without keeping any stock.

The customer comes to the retailer site and purchase the product, then the order is directed to the supplier and the supplier delivers the product directly to the customer.

what is dropshipping

Sell the product on your store for at least 2 to 3 times the supplier’s rate to earn massive revenues.

What do you need to start a dropshipping business:

i- A laptop/computer with an internet connection

ii- An ecommerce platform (Shopify recommended)

iii- A specific niche (Learn to Find a Niche)

iv- Find a supplier (List Dropshipping Suppliers)

v- A trending product to sell (List of Trending Products)

vi- Social media marketing expertise (Learn Social Media Advertisement)

Let me be honest here; the most challenging part here is to get a profitable return on advertisement spend (ROAS).

Social media marketing is crucial to learn to get a visitor to your store and generate sales.

You can either learn social media advertisements yourself or hire an expert in this field.

Check out these 11 Facebook Audience insights hacks to generate sales in just 60 minutes.

Use These Useful Resources to Start your Dropshipping Business from Home:

2- Sell Print on Demand Products

Print on demand business is a branch of dropshipping business where the seller/retailers work with the print on demand service/supplier to customize and sell white-label products.

Numbers of print on demand companies offer several white label products such as t-shirts, mugs, doormat, shower curtain, etc.

You need to submit a design to be printed on these products and publish the product on your online store or ecommerce marketplace such as Etsy.

When a customer buys your product, the POD service customizes the product with your design and delivers it to the customer. You earn the artist’s price as profit.

print on demand pricing

You have a couple of options to start your print on demand business from home.

1st Option – Sell on Print on Demand Marketplace

In this method, the print on demand company offers a dedicated marketplace where you just need to customize the product and upload it on the marketplace. On each sale, you will receive the markup as a profit.

Almost all print on demand marketplace is free to join so you will earn money on each sale without investing anything.

2nd Option – Create a Print on Demand Dropshipping Store

Here is how it works:

  • Select a niche (e.g., coffee, fishing, etc.)
  • Create an online store (Shopify recommended)
  • Create a Design
  • Integrate a print on demand app (List of print on demand Shopify apps)
  • Upload the customized products
  • Market the products on social media

The process is much similar to the dropshipping business model. To start a full-fledged print on demand business from home, I would recommend the second option.

Check out These Helpful Resources to Start Print on Demand Business

3- Flipping Products on eBay

First, let me explain the concept of flipping.

Flipping products means buying an item for a good/cheap price and sell it on higher profits. On eBay, this method of earning has more potential than any other ecommerce platform.

Since eBay works on a bidding price model, it becomes easier for the eBay seller to find out some unique products at a cheap rate and sell it for a much higher rate on eBay.

Most flipper finds items on thrift shops (mostly vintage items, brand-name clothes, or furniture) and lists them on eBay. Many flippers started this as part-time home jobs and ended up leaving thier day time jobs.

Hairy Tornado, a YouTuber as well as an eBay flipper, manage to sell a used Ralph Lauren shorts for $100 on eBay that he bought for $1.25 from a thrift store.

So, assign a day or two in a week, check the thrift shops or garage sales, and find some unique items to sell on eBay for higher profits.

Check out These Helpful Resources to Start eBay Flipping:

4- Sell Handmade Products on  Etsy

Etsy is a perfect place for creative people and artisans to make serious money from home. It is the best marketplace to sell handmade and DIY products. Many Etsy sellers have managed to create thier own brand store by working from home.

etsy-brand-store

If you love crafting, then you can easily find a relevant audience for your product on Etsy.

Here are some popular ideas that you can try to sell on Etsy from home.

  • Handmade jewelry
  • Scented candle
  • Crochet items
  • Organic skincare products (scrub, soap, etc.)

Are you interested in trying to sell on Etsy? Then do check out these useful resources.

5- Sell Second-Hand/Used Clothes

Second-hand clothing business is booming online and is expected to become a $51 billion industry by 2023—the majority of women who shop online prefer to buy used clothes than the new one.

So, if you have a closet full of unused clothes, then it is time to declutter. Clothes are one of the most purchased items online; you can easily find a potential customer for your used clothes so that you can make some extra money from home for free.

You would not find it difficult to sell out the used clothes if you know the right place to approach.

Best Places to Sell Used Clothes:

1- Thred Up

2- Plato’s Closet

3- Style Tribune

4- Leprix

5- Material World

6- eBay

All of these platform are free to join for selling.

Useful Resources:

6- Dropshipping from Amazon to eBay

This is a trick to make money from home fast. Here is what you need to do in simple words:

Look a product that is cheaper on Amazon →  list it on eBay → a customer orders the product from the eBay store → order the product from Amazon and enters the eBay’s customer information → earn the markup money as profit.

This is a legal dropshipping method, but it is risky. Ecommerce marketplaces do not prefer this method, but it is one of the easiest ways to make money from home fast and legally.

However, the major question that arises here is; how can we hide the fact from customers that this product is not coming from Amazon?

Here is the catch.

Mark your Amazon order as a “gift,” so Amazon will send the product without any packaging or branding so they would not find out its real origin.

amazon-gift-shipping

That’s how you can make money from home fast!

Want to try out this method?

Check out this Useful Resource:

ii. Make Money from Home by Working Online

One of the best and the most conventional way to make money from home is to get online work. If you have a laptop, internet connection, and a payment gateway (e.g., Paypal), you can easily earn money from home.

7- Take Surveys

Become a part of a study and get paid.

I know you must have heard this method thousands of times, but you cannot ignore the fact that this is a legitimate way to earn extra money from home by working part-time.

Multiple platforms are available that genuinely pay money for completing a survey. I, myself, have tried some of these platform and get paid handsomely after completing small tasks.

These survey sites are an excellent platform for earning some side income by spending a few minutes a day.

Here are some legitimate survey to make a side-income from home.

Survey Junkie

Requirement: Minimum age of 13. Must be the resident of the USA, Canada, or Australia.

Answer some basic questions and set up your profile for free. You will receive the assignments/survey based on your expertise and answers that you provided. The survey could be conducted via phone interviews, questionnaires, product testing, or subjective responses.

Swag Bucks

Requirement: Minimum age of 13. Must be a resident of the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, or India.

Swagbucks helps you make money by doing everyday things that most people already do online daily such as watching videos, playing video games, and filling out survey forms.  For each task, you will earn points that you can redeem in the way of gift cards of Amazon and Walmart or the form of cash from Paypal.

Repondant.io

Requirement: Minimum age of 18.  Must have a Paypal account.

This platform is ideal for professionals as well as students. You can find several research surveys from beginner to advance level. You need to apply for the research that seems best for you, and then the researcher will send you an invitation via email to set up time.

8- Earn from Freelance Writing

Writing is one of the highest-paid jobs globally, and the ideal job that can become a full-time career by working from home. Most people have a misconception that you have to be a born creative to become a professional writer.

That’s not at all true.

You only need expertise in some fields, and you can become an expert writer in a particular niche such as finance writer, medical writers, cryptocurrency writer, etc.

However, the question rises here on picking freelance writing gigs since the competition is pretty fierce.

Where to Find Writing Jobs

So, here I am mentioning some platform that can help you to land your first writing gigs easily.

Writing Job Boards

Twitters Account for Writing Jobs

Freelance Platforms 

Check out This Useful Resource to Become a Freelance Writer

9- Become a Transcriber

If you have good listening skills or understand multiple languages, then transcriber is the best way for you to make some extra money from home.

The transcriber job is to listen to an audio or video and convert it into text. This job does not need any qualification, just a good listening power to do the job faster.

However, converting the audio into text could cost alot of your time. Sometimes it takes hours to transcribe a 10-minute video.

Don’t worry. I have a hack that can help you to transcribe in a matter of minutes.
Use Otter.ai – It’s a web-based software that helps to generate notes from interviews and lectures. You can use this software to transcribe videos quickly. It offers a free plan that provides 600 minutes monthly that is more than enough.
otter-free-version
Just import the audio, and it will auto-generate the text. Then, you need to read the text while listening to the audio to make any possible corrections.
This practice will help you to complete more transcription jobs in lesser time. I do this practice for all my YouTube video subtitles, and it is really a lifesaver.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room – how can you get a transcribing job.
Well, getting a transcribing job is much easier than any other online job. There are multiple dedicated job boards for transcription jobs, and some of the best ones are mentioned below,
Sign up to these platform for free and take the work as per your preference.

10- Become a Virtual Assistant

This is one of the easiest ways to earn from home. You do not need any specific skills or qualifications to become a virtual assistant.

It simply means to help someone in thier daily task. It is a really high demand job in the ecommerce circuit. Online sellers are always in seek of someone who can help them in managing small tasks such as listing products and images on the store, handle social media accounts, dealing with a customer, manage sales sheets, etc.
The only requirements for becoming a virtual assistant are discipline and time management.
You can find tons of virtual assistant jobs on renowned freelancing websites such as Upwork and Fiverr.

iii. Make Money from Home with Content Creation

If you have a question about how do I make an extra $1000 in a month from home, then you’d better follow these methods.
All these following methods include some kind of content production.

11- Start Blogging

I know you must have heard about start blogging, but no one knows how to start and, most importantly, how to make money from blogging.
Most newbie bloggers and the content creator makes the mistake of getting into the general niche.
That’s not going to work.
Choose a Specific Blogging Niche
To rank your blog on Google SERP or create a dedicated social media community for your blog, you need to select a niche.
You need to choose a focused category and product around that niche. Let’s understand this with an example;
This website guineapig101.com is all about guinea pigs.
guinea pig 101
It is a hyper-specific website, but it managed to generate 50,000 page views per month and earn $1,200 per month by selling ebooks and affiliate products.
If you are about to start blogging, I would recommend choosing a focused niche and create valuable content for your audience.
Useful Resources:

12- Become an Instagram Influencer

The potential of earning from social media is massive. The followers on Instagram are a real asset. You can make up to $88-$200 for a single promotional post if you have 10,000 followers.
I know many people have inhibition to become an influencer because they thought they have to become a celebrity or model to generate a following on Instagram.
That’s not far from reality. It’s just a simple formula.
Find a niche → identify the niche’s problem → provide a solution.
You only need a ‘relevant’ audience to become a social media influencer. If you are good at something, you can become an influencer.
Even if you are good in English, you can create a massive following on Instagram.
Figure out a niche, post quality content persistently, and you can gather a relevant audience on your Insta account. Once you generate enough following, you get multiple options to monetize your Instagram page such as,
  • Publish promotional post/story
  • Promote affiliate products and apps
  • Sell your course
  • Sell your products
To Become an Instagram Influencer, Check out These Useful Resources

13- Start a YouTube Channel

Videos are the future of content. 72% of people like to know about products or services via video than any other form of content. So, if you are planning to become a content creator, then you must join YouTube.
YouTube channel
Since I have recently started posting video tutorials on within the flow’s channel, I can share some insights from my little experience.
If you want to grow a YouTube, then find a niche, create valuable content for your audience, and post persistently.
This is a proven method that gives some positive results on our YouTube channel.
YouTube Analytics

I know the stats are not huge, but our channel was dead. Since we started posting weekly, it quickly showed positive results and gained us, 52+ subscribers, in just 28 days, not bad, I guess!

However, to monetize YouTube channels, you must have at least 1000 subscribers with 4000 hours watch time.
But you can still make money with different monetization methods such as selling your merchandise, promoting affiliate products, product placement, or brand sponsorship.

iv. Make Money from Home by Working for Amazon 

Amazon is not limited to selling; you can find multiple opportunities to earn from Amazon by working from home.

14- Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mturk is a platform to outsource major work into micro tasks that can be performed by regular people virtually. Anyone can join this platform for free and apply for any job they see themselves fit in.
The tasks are post frequently on a daily basis, so it would not be tough for you to find any job to make money from home online.
amazon Mechanical Turk
You only need to sign up on Amazon Mechanical Turk and create a workers account to accept the task.

15- Amazon Virtual Location

This platform is dedicated to making money from home online. It is a sort of freelance platform of Amazon, where full-time, part-time, and seasonal jobs are posted from different fields.
Amazon virtual location
You can find all types of jobs here, including customer support, UX designer, mobile engineer, technical support, sales & marketing, etc.
Check out the current opening on this page.

16- Merch by Amazon

This is a print on demand service of Amazon. It is similar to print on demand marketplace where you only need to put a design on the merchandise and put it on sale on Amazon.
You earn royalties on each sale of your designed merch.
merch by amazon royalties
Check out the rate of royalties here.
Just select a product, put your design on it, and list it for sale.
join the Merch by Amazon
For joining, go to merch.amazon.com and request for invitation.

v. Make Money from Home by Testing Websites

17- User Testing

User testing is a platform to get human insights and feedback on a particular site. Here the candidate is assigned a task to follow the instruction and navigate the websites and give a commentary while doing so.
This practice tells if the website is easy to navigate or not.
usertesting earning method
You can earn up to $10 for each 20-minute recording and up to $120 for a live interview with the customer. The user needs to install a user testing app/extension to the computer to record the activity and comments.
To join user testing, sign up with your email, and complete the trail task.

vi. Make Money from Home by Teaching Online 

18- VIP Kid

If you are a native English speaker, then you can earn online by teaching on VIP Kid. This platform does not demand any qualification or degree. Anybody who can speak and understand English can make by teaching from home.
VIP Kid only asks a simple question before on-boarding a teacher.
VIP KID Teaching
You can earn $7-$9 per 25-minute class and, on average, $14-$22 per hour. You can easily make a good chunk of money by teaching a couple of hours from home.

Wrapping Up:

I hope you find this guide helpful and clear your thought about starting to make money from home quickly. If you are having trouble deciding the right way for you, then please mention your concern in the comments below and join our 5500+ community to share your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bilal Uddin

Bilal is a passionate content creator and digital marketing enthusiast who loves to find hacks and creative ways to produce prolific outcomes in strategizing content. Bilal is also an avid reader who loves to read mysteries in his free time.

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