17 Types of Online Work at Home Jobs that Really Pay Off - LifeHack (2023)

Some of us prefer the stability and certainty of a nine-to-five office job. However, increasingly more people choose the flexibility of freelancing and online work over fixed office hours. ^[1]

It’s understandable why so many people want an online job. Picking your own hours, being your own boss, and gaining self-motivating skills are some of the perks. Furthermore, online jobs from home have the potential of paying more than a typical office job.

Have you decided to change the dull office scenery to an alternative workplace? Are you a work-at-home mom looking for a profitable side job? Or do you merely feel that it’s time for a career change?

You are in luck – today switching to working from home is easier than ever. In this list of 17 types of online work at home jobs you are sure to find at least several suitable and fun jobs you can start doing today. And earn some good money while you are at it:

Starting Your Online Business

If you have chosen to work at home instead of having a regular office job, chances are you’ll prefer to be your own boss while doing online work as well.

These online jobs will let you manage your own time, realize your potential, and, in many cases, earn good money.

1. Creator (Selling Your Art Online)

If you are talented in any crafts or design, there is definitely a market for your art.

Surely, you can sell your creations in offline events like crafts fairs or Christmas markets.

However, selling online will probably be more profitable and may even turn into full-time online work. Especially if some of your art is digital.

Some great platforms for selling your work online:

• Facebook is the most obvious place to start.Create a page for your product or brand, invite all your contacts to join and come up with a contest with free giveaways. This way you will spread the word about your product and get your first fan base. You can also add a shop to your Facebook page or join Facebook Marketplace that enables buying and selling right in the app.
• Etsy is the most famous platform for showcasing handmade items. But even if your artwork is digital, you can sell it here. Some examples are wedding invitation templates, digital posters, journals, goal planners and to do lists, design maps, etc.
• If your art is less tangible, you can create your online store with Sellfy. Creative entrepreneurs use this tool to sell digital products like video or photo presets, e-books or copywriting templates, animations, jingles, beats, or even knitting patterns. Get inspired by this list of25 Things to Sell to Make a Lot of Money.
• Sell T-shirts, posters, mugs, hats, or even bags with your design or beautiful quotes.Dropshipping services like Printful handle all the printing, packaging, branding and even sending in your place. You just have to upload designs, attract buyers and then receive your profit. Some users have reported earning over $1,200 in three weeks with this service.^[2]

2. Affiliate Marketer

Alternatively, if you have nothing to create, you can turn online work at home by selling other people’s products or services. Affiliate marketing is precisely that, allowing people to sell products or services on behalf of the business. This is all done through a unique link that’s used on the company’s end to identify who the affiliate is.

When you sign up for a company’s affiliate platform, you’ll receive your unique link or links, which are used to identify you so the company can pay you properly. The payment is going to vary based on the commission – and what the company wants you to do. Some are happy with generating traffic while others want people to land and buy products.

Nevertheless, it has the potential to expand significantly and this online job has multiple approaches to it.

For example, you don’t even need a blog page to do these types of online work.

If you’ve established yourself on Reddit, Quora or on any social media site, you can start including these affiliate links in your posts, directing people to these products.

Beyond this, many bloggers use affiliate marketing as one of the many online work at home jobs to earn money from their writing.

The biggest bonus of affiliate marketing is that it frees you from the responsibilities of traditional sales models, like having a product, website or sales engine.

Most people work with more than one affiliate marketing site as well to get their products and services. You can use an affiliate marketing network to search for offers to promote.

Shareasale, CJ Affiliate, and Amazon Associates are some of the most popular affiliate networks today.

3. Product Reviewer on YouTube

Most of us have checked a product review on YouTube before making a purchase. Why not try being on the other side of the screen and offering your own product review videos?

The good news is that you can review products in your favorite niche – be it tech, beauty, home decor, fitness or any other.

Here are some ways to be finding online work by placing product reviews on YouTube:

• YouTube ads – if you get a lot of views, advertising can be a good source of income.
• Affiliate marketing – place an affiliate link in the video description and get a percentage of the sale.
• Get paid to produce sponsored reviews – get hired by brands to do specific product reviews. Websites like Famebit and Grapevine are good places to search for paid sponsorships.

With time, you can grow your audience, gain influence and work out more deals reviewing products that you love.

4. Blogger

A blogger is a sort of foundational online job in that a blogger can be multiple things. You already know they can be an affiliate marketer, however, there is more versatility to it. Bloggers can theoretically take on online jobs from home without selling any products or services on a company’s behalf.

Some other ways to earn as a blogger (besides affiliate marketing):

• Placing ads on your blog, and getting paid every time a visitor clicks on them. Similar to Youtube, this will be ideal if the blogger can generate a lot of views to their website.
• Writing reviews about other companies’ products or services. Make sure they are relevant to your audience and that they are not your only content.
• Offering additional paid content within your articles (e.g., downloadable e-book, online consultations or related products).
• Allowing your audience to support your work directly through pledges on Patreon or Ko-fi.
• Doing content marketing for your customers. You can either write articles for your client’s blog or pitch guest posts to reputable platforms including links to your client’s site. Your customer will pay you for spreading the word about their services and improving their ranking in search engines.
• Writing for other blogs and media outlets that pay guest contributors.

The most significant benefit of blogging is that you don’t need any budget to start it – only good writing skills and expertise in a niche topic or some sort of unique experience.

5. Online Course Tutor

Online learning is a booming market projected to reach $240 billion by 2023,^[3]so there’s a lot of money to make for anyone who has skills to share. This means it’s one of the most ideal online jobs from home.

If you are knowledgeable in design, photography, health and fitness, business, personal development, music, fashion, technology, writing or another topic, thousands of students may be waiting, eager to learn from your course.

You can start by applying as a tutor in popular online course platforms like Skillshare and Udemy. This is ideal for beginners as these sites have an established audience you can tap into.

Also, make sure you create a trustworthy LinkedIn profile and offer a free intro video to your course. If you’ve got a blog you can also use it as a platform to advertise your course too.

There are teachers making over $30K a year on Skillshare^[4] while Udemy’s top 10 tutors managed to earn $17 million in one year.^[5]

Even if these numbers are probably hard to reach for a beginning teacher, you can aspire to earn between $100 and $1000 from your first relevant lesson. ^[6]

6. Reseller

Reselling means finding low-cost items that you can sell for more. This can be a feasible online work if you have special skills or knowledge that lets you find products that are less accessible to other people. Thus they would be happy to pay more to have these products brought to them by you.

For example, you may be a guru in finding specialty items, great garage sales or antiquities. Or, you may be an intermediary between states or countries – finding something cheap in one place and selling it to another audience.

You can even start by selling the items you have at home and no longer want. For reselling, you can either create your own online store or sell items on sites like eBay.

7. Photographer

Leaning more into freelancing work, photography is a skill that’s not going to be replaced. As long as there is content, there will be a demand for various pictures creators will need to get people to click. If you love taking photos, you can quickly turn this hobby into a source of income. Here are some ways photographers can earn money online:

• Teach photography.Share valuable tips and techniques that aspiring photographers would love to hear about.
• Sell your photos on stock websites. ShutterStock, iStock, and BigStock are the most famous photo databases. The quantity paid for each download is generally low, so you should bet on quantity and upload new batches of photos regularly. The key to getting noticed on stock websites is adding many relevant keywords that people would search for.
• Sell your photographs on your own website. That’ll be tougher unless you have a growing audience, but it is possible if you feel your pictures should be worth more.
• Offer your photography and photo editing skills on freelancer platforms (see the following section about Finding online work on freelancer platforms)

8. Website Tester

Many websites lose money due to a poor user interface, lousy navigation, unclear copy or bad design. Therefore, companies search for people to test and review their site before launching it.

In most cases, you’ll need to speak your thoughts out loud and record your screen actions as you browse the website. Usually, tests take between 5-25 minutes to complete, and the pay is an average of $10 per test.

It’s decent online work if you’re the type who doesn’t mind doing this, but for this to pay out big, you’ll need to put in the hours.

Here’s a list of platforms that unite website owners and testers and can offer good online work to do on the side.

Finding Online Work on Freelancer Platforms

If you aren’t ready to venture into your own online business, offering your services on freelancer platforms is a good place to start online work. Some of the most popular freelancer platforms include Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer. ^[7]

Generally, Upwork gathers more professional freelancers and has a broader earning potential than Fiverr. But, even if the majority of Fiverr users make under $100 a month,^[8] 30% manage to earn between $100 and $499, and above. And why shouldn’t you be among the top earners?

Besides joining these platforms, there are other ways to find your first customers. For example, via your friends and professional contacts; by sharing your portfolio on your social media; or by reaching out to companies directly (e.g., offering a copywriting service to a website with poor copy).

But first, define your skill and make it your profession.

9. Copywriter, Translator or Proofreader

If writing is your strength, you can easily turn it into a source of income. You’ve seen that a little with the online work that bloggers do.

As a result, it’s not too much of a stretch that bloggers also take up freelance writing as a copywriter, translator or proofreader.

You might be taking good writing for granted – everyone can write, right? In fact, many people are not skilled in crafting sales messages, comprehensive descriptions or even social media posts. That or they don’t have the time for these tasks. Ultimately, there’s a large audience happy to outsource such tasks, making them excellent online jobs from home.

Similarly, many entrepreneurs write their own website texts or blog articles that just need editing and proofreading, or translation for other markets. All you need to do to capture that clientele is offer them your skills and experience.

State your areas of expertise in your resume and share examples of your work – this way you’ll stand out from the competition.

10. Web or Graphic Designer

In our digital era, graphic design works are more demanded than ever.

If you have some design skills and experience, these are just some types of online work you can do:

• Website & landing page design
• Logo design
• Mobile app design
• Business cards & corporate souvenirs
• Ads, banners and marketing materials
• Leaflets, brochures, e-books
• Packaging design
• Presentation design
• Diverse illustrations

Besides freelancer platforms, there are other reliable ways to make some extra money with your design work. ^[9]

For example, try adding your designs on illustration databases, 99Designs platform or Creative Market where designers set their own price for their artwork.

11. Language Tutor

People have been eager to learn new languages since ancient times. Luckily, it’s much easier to master a new language today than it was centuries or even decades ago.

Doesn’t matter if your mother tongue is English or any of the world’s 7000 languages.^[10] You are sure to find students willing to learn or practice with you.

Even better if you already have some teaching experience. If you don’t, add a distinctive element to your resume.

For example, you may include some cultural facts in your course, or make your classes extra fun, informal, or flexible for any hour of the day – whatever is your thing.

12. Voiceover

Numerous businesses are searching for male or female voices to narrate their marketing or explainer videos.

Furthermore, audiobooks, podcast intros, TV/Radio commercials, tutorials and even voicemail all require professional voiceovers.

If you have excellent vocal skills in your native language, there’s a vast opportunity for you to earn money with them. The best part – this job is easy to do as all you need is a computer, a good microphone and a room with decent acoustics.

13. Customer Support Representative

Many companies are looking to outsource customer support – especially if their client base is global and they cannot provide round-the-clock support with their own team.

If you are into helping people or would like to build experience in this area, offering your services will make for great freelancing work.

Email, social media and chat support as well as lead generation are the most common tasks of an outsourced customer service representative.

However, the wider the range of services you offer, the higher your chance of getting hired is. For example, you can add data entry jobs, social media management, report preparation and other responsibilities to your resume to make you stand out.

On the other side, you can work as a mystery shopper evaluating the customer service quality of other online shops and websites. Mind that to have this as a serious online job, you’ll need to do quite a bit of mystery shopping.

14. Consultant, Advisor or Coach

If you are an expert in literally any area, there are people who want to hear your opinion and learn from your experience.

These are just some examples of different areas you can consult on:

• Business & Entrepreneurship
• Marketing & sales
• Freelancing
• Relationships
• Health & Fitness
• Fashion & Style
• Parenting
• Interior design
• Writing

Explore the categories on freelancer platforms and offer your advice in the ones relevant to your profession or experience. For example, if you have managed a small business, offer your consultations under Business or Marketing categories.

15. Accountant (Bookkeeper)

Budgeting and finances are the nightmares of many entrepreneurs; no wonder countless businesses are looking for ways to outsource these complex tasks.

If you are good with numbers and have some accounting experience to show, your clientele is surely out there. Best of all, you don’t need a designation to handle the companies books.

In many cases, companies are happy for you to be a standard bookkeeper. Though naturally with a designation, you’re able to demand higher pay for additional tasks that only a Certified Public Accountant can do.

Even bookkeepers can ask for more by offering more services. For example, having legal knowledge of setting up a business, preparing contracts or registering your trademark, can be a big benefit. This may be a skill relevant in your location, but still highly demanded.

16. Virtual Assistant

The functions of a virtual assistant can range from simple tasks like data entry or transcribing conversations to more complex web research and analysis, lead generation, Photoshop edits, travel planning, in-depth LinkedIn search and bookkeeping. This is great online work at home for people who love to have other people’s days organized.

Start by defining your expertise and offering it on one of the freelancer sites mentioned above. The wider your skillset and the better your reviews, the more likely you are to make a living from this type of online work. On average, virtual assistants in the United States earn $15.57 per hour. ^[11]

17. Social Media Manager

This job is sometimes listed under virtual assistant. However, as social media management is a highly demanded skill, employers often search for it separately.

If you are a connoisseur of social media, you can create service packages that businesses could buy from you.

A basic social media management monthly package could include:

• Setting up a social media profile (if necessary)
• Monitoring 3-5 social media platforms, by answering comments and messages
• Creating content and posting several times per week
• Adding relevant hashtags, images and links

Social media management is a well-paid type of online work that is in high demand. It is also a very flexible job as you can schedule the posts anytime and anywhere.

If you choose this path, consider working with several customers at the same time to maximize your income.

The Online Work of Your Dreams Is Waiting

Being a pro at online work starts with determination.

Once you promise yourself to work for your own benefit and growth, you should organize your life in a way that fosters productivity and efficiency. There are also numerous apps and resources for freelancers that will help you to achieve more by working less.

Featured photo credit: LinkedIn Sales Navigator via unsplash.com