10 Best Side Hustles To Start in 2026 (Easiest to Most Profitable)
What is the best most profitable side hustle for you to start in 2024?
Not all side hustles were created equal! Some will pay you just pennies for your time.
Others can become a passive income stream that pays extremely well after you’ve put the work in to building it.
What’s great about side hustles is you build them flexibly in your own time, and once you scale them it can help you achieve the freedom to spend more time doing the stuff you love and less time working.
I have been trying and testing side hustles for the last five years since I was made redundant. I have managed to turn one of my side hustles into a full time job and others continue to bring me in hundreds of pounds every single month.
What are the best side hustles – Ranked from least to most profitable
Some of these side hustles will bring you money right away but won’t make you a huge amount of money!
After researching and trying side hustles over the last five years, these are the 10 best side hustles, ranked from easiest and least profitable to best and most profitable.
- Survey sites and tasking apps
- Mystery shopping and focus groups
- Selling other people’s stuff
- Dropshipping and print on demand
- Etsy seller
- Freelancing
- Influencer
- Blogger and YouTubing
- Substack newsletter
- Online Coach
Best side hustles
Let’s take a closer look at those side hustles, including how realistic they are as a money-making prospect and how much they can actually make for you.
Survey sites and tasking apps
Survey sites and apps will ask you for your opinion on a variety of things or information about your lifestyle.
Tasking apps will ask you to carry out odd jobs – usually connected to market and consumer research – for cash. You may be asked to visit certain shops and restaurant then provide pictures and feedback.
There are lots to choose from and making money quickly is easy.
The big downside is how much they actually pay you, which is not a lot. We’re talking about maybe one or two pounds an hour.
You can do it in your own time and if you sign up to lots you can earn more money.
Some of my faves are YouGov, Swagbucks, Ipsos iSay and Prolific.
But you’ll never get rich doing this. A couple of hundred pounds a month is realistic.
Mystery shopping/focus groups
Mystery shopping involves testing out customer service and reporting back.
Focus groups are typically done by companies or organisations to carry out research.
That could be for a new product or service they’re launching. Your earnings from focus groups could be £50 for an hour to as much as £250, so it could be more than survey sites.
But you’re unlikely to get invited to them regularly, or get invited to enough to make a full time income.
Selling other people’s stuff
Having a clear out and selling your own stuff is a good way to make money as a one off. But you could make a regular income by selling other people’s unwanted stuff.
This may involve listing items for sale online on behalf of people having a clear out because they don’t have the time to do it. Or it could be that you spot bargains in charity shops or online that have been underpriced and you can flip them for a profit.
I read about one lady who started selling preloved clothes on Depop and has made £800,000 since launching her business.
Dropshipping and print on demand
I’m going to be honest and say I don’t LOVE these two side hustles. I think it’s because I see so many dropshipping bros online promising it’s a really easy zero effort business and can make you millions overnight. Nothing is that simple!
However I do think the concept of both still has legs if you get the right products and build an online store that appeals to customers.
With dropshipping you sell products that are then shipped by a third party, so you’re only providing the online shopfront to market those items.
With print on demand you create products using your own designs. Say for example you are an illustrator and create beautiful floral illustrations to place on the front of sweaters.
You then get a print on demand company such as Shopify to create those products with your design.
You can connect a print on demand biz to Etsy so that could be where your shopfront actually lives.
People online imply these two side hustles are easy. I don’t think they are, and this writer from Vice tried dropshipping and didn’t make a single sale.
I think it takes work and care to create and identify products people love and will buy. However I do think you can still make money with these types of side hustles.
Etsy seller
There are lots of different things that sell well on Etsy.
That includes:
- Printables
- Planners
- Journals
- Invitations
- Craft supplies
- Jewellery
- Personalised clothing
- Baby onesies
- Seeds
Starting an Etsy store is easy and free, and the costs for listing is pretty minimal.
I love Etsy, but the average Etsy seller makes less than $300 a month. However for those that make it work they are earning tens of thousands of dollars a month creating products they love.
Freelancing with your skills
This is my top pick for the most reliable side hustle to make money. You can start right away, the start up costs are likely to be minimal and it’s scalable.
The types of freelancing you could do includes:
- Bookkeeping
- Writing
- Photography
- Graphic design
- Tutoring
- Website design
- Website troubleshooting
Building up a freelance business – something that uses your skills or inspires you to learn new ones so you can work in an area that you love – is a great way of gaining flexibility in your work.
Some freelance side hustles are more profitable than others and the type of companies you freelance for may also influence what you earn.
However you could earn as much as £50 to £70+ an hour from freelancing.
Influencer
An influencer is an individual with an engaged online audience on one or more social media platforms – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, etc.
They make money through selling products and being paid to produce sponsored content advertising products or services.
The top paid influencers will get paid thousands per post.
However your mid or low level influencers can still command fees of £500+ per post.
The downsides of this side hustle are it can take a long time and a lot of effort to build an engaged audience and see any financial rewards for your efforts. It’s a long game.
Blogger/YouTuber
This one is my favourite because there is so much potential here and it’s great if you are passionate and knowledgeable about a particular topic.
I know of people earning seven figures a year from their own websites which they run from their own home.
Profitable blog niches include travel, food and home interiors. Bloggers make money through advertising on their sites, sponsored posts, affiliate marketing and selling their own products.
Many people have a blog and a YouTube channel, some have one or the other.
With YouTube you can also make money from ads and selling products.
The downside of these is I don’t think it’s realistic to expect to make real money for the first one year to 18 months.
Read more about how to make money from YouTube here.
Substack newsletter
Substack is probably the newest type of side hustle on this list but I think it is a really interesting emerging market and one to watch!
The website looks a little like a social media platform, in that Substack writers have a profile and they share posts.
However it’s a newsletter platform, where writers and creators upload their video, audio and written content.
People subscribe to a creator and the creator’s posts are emailed to subscribers.
Many Substack creators operate on a part paid part free basis, where they give free subscribers some content but exclusive content is unlocked for paying subscribers.
It is big money. Substack’s top 10 writers make a combined $22m a year.
There’s so many different types of Substacks. I have one where I write about the news and current affairs. There are also food and interior design Substacks, royal family focused Substacks and Substacks about starting and nurturing a business.
Basically it works for any niche you can think of. If you have a topic you can teach or shed light on, it’s well worth considering giving this a go.
However of course this takes time to build an audience and scale it up to earnings that are worthwhile for the time you’ll be putting in. It helps if you already have an audience somewhere else on another social media platform that you can direct to Substack.
With newsletters you can also earn money through ads placed in your newsletter.
Online coaching
My top pick for the most profitable side hustle is online coaching.
An online coach provides their expertise through a course, ebooks and/or online membership.
There are a variety of areas they may be offering their expertise in, from cooking, to handling money, to running a successful business.
Successful online coaches build an audience and then sell exclusive access to their knowledge base.
Some coaches charge thousands of dollars to access their services.
Now this can be a difficult business to build up to as you need to be a recognised and established expert in what you are coaching and to already have an engaged audience.
However the potential rewards are huge and if you’re selling access to your online course then it’s passive income, once it’s written you’re just selling the rights to check out your course.
Final thoughts
I hope you’ve found some inspiration for side hustles to start in 2024! You may also like my ultimate list of side hustle ideas and these side hustles for mums.
