Dip your hand in your purse or pocket. Nothing there? One if I told you that you can make money online without investment? Today, there are countless legitimate ways to make money from home thanks to the internet and gig and sharing economy. There are ways to earn money online without investment for students as well.
You can earn money online as a work from home employee, independent contractor, or freelancer. Many people, especially those who are new to the work-from home world, may not know that they do not have to spend money to make money online or offline.
While there are plenty of scams when it comes to making money online or working from home, there are also countless legit online jobs and businesses that let you make money online without investment.
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That said, some 100% legitimate online ways to make money may require you to invest some money upfront to get started.
For instance, creating a self-hosted blog requires a little bit of upfront capital investment. But, the truth is that there are plenty of ways to earn money online that do not require any upfront financial investment.
Today, I am going to share with you the best ways to make money online without investment.
How to Make Money Online Without Investment
You will need a computer (desktop or laptop), reliable internet connection, smartphone (for some jobs), and PayPal/Payoneer/Skrill/bank account, etc. to receive payments. Here is the best ways to make money online without investment.
#1 Get Paid To Complete Surveys Online
Taking online surveys for cash is one of the easiest ways to make money online without investment. You do not need any special skills to do them, just patience.
There are plenty of survey websites and apps that will pay you cool cash to complete surveys online. Depending on the survey site or app, you may earn physical or e-gift cards, or reward points that can be redeemed for cash or gift cards for completing surveys.
Check out these reputable survey sites that pay for doing online surveys:
The best survey site that I use is Survey Junkie. In fact, I have made over $1k a month doing surveys in my spare time. I developed a system that I use to maximize my survey earnings and you can read about it in this guide.
#2 Make Money from Blogging
If you have a knack for writing, and are knowledgeable about a particular topic, then start a blog to make money online without investment.
By using blogging platforms, like WordPress.com or Blogger you can create a free blog. But you do not have much control over a free blog when it comes to customizing your blog and making money from it.
I would highly recommend that you create a self-hosted blog by buying a domain name (URL of your blog) and hosting service from Blue Host. You can read my ultimate guide to starting a blog with Blue Host here.
It is easy to start your own blog even if you do not have any tech skills. You can set one up easily by following step by step instructions from your domain register and web host.
There are several ways you can make money with your blog! Recently, I made a couple hundred dollars doing a sponsored post and my blog was only 6 months old.
Ways to Make Money from Your Blog
Once your blog starts receiving some traffic using Pinterest, you can start making money with:
- Online ads
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored posts
- Selling products and/or services
- Accepting donations
… and more ways.
Many people earn thousands of dollars each month from their blogs. But, you will not be able to make money from your blog over night. It may take weeks or months before you see any money coming in from it.
How much you can earn will depend on your niche, monetization models, and how much effort and time you put into it. The best niches that do well on Pinterest, for instance are niches that cater to “mommy millennials” like organization, cleaning, parenting, cooking, decorating, weight loss, etc.
It is faster to get your blog traffic with Pinterest than Google, which can take 6 months or more to even index your site.
#3 Offer Your Services on Fiverr to Make Money Online Without Investment
If you have any marketable skill, then one of the best ways to make money online without investment is to create a seller account on Fiverr and get paid each time someone hires you directly to do a task.
Whether you have writing, marketing, graphic design, web design, SEO, social media, programming, video editing, animation, or any other marketable skills, you can sell your services on Fiverr to make money online.
Fiverr is an online marketplace where freelancers can advertise their skills and services by creating Gigs.
A Gig is the service that a freelancer sells on Fiverr. Once you create a Gig, buyers can then hire you directly if they need your services. You can price your Gig from $5 – $995.
You can offer the buyers three different packages at different price points for each in each Gig to choose from, but you can offer only one service type in each Gig.
Many people are earning full-time income on Fiverr!
#4 Make Money with Freelance and Work From Home Jobs
Whether you have writing, proofreading, editing, social media marketing, SEO, graphic design, web design, WordPress, accounting/bookkeeping, programming, or any other marketable skill, you can complete freelance and work from home jobs for companies and individuals to make money without investment.
Some of the reputable companies include:
Create a profile on these sites to advertise your skills and apply to jobs posted by clients from around the world.
When you are awarded a job or project by a client, you then complete and submit the work and get paid immediately after the client approves the work.
You can earn a flat or an hourly rate, depending on the project and client. Your rates will be determined by your experience, the job or project, and the client’s budget.
#5 Sell Online Courses to Make Money without Investment
Do you know a lot about a topic? Then, it is a good idea to create a course about it and sell it online to make money.
If you have a following on your own blog or site, or social media, it will be easier to market your digital course to them. You can create digital courses in different formats like PDF and videos.
You can sell your courses online on your own blog or site if it has e-commerce functionality to receive payments from buyers, or sell them on a third-party online platform.
The best online platform to sell your course on is Teachable. I have taken several courses myself on Teachable and enjoy this user experience the most. With Teachable, you set the price for your online courses and can make text based or video courses.
#6 Write Content for Others
If you have a knack for writing and excellent command of the English language, you can write articles and blog posts about any topic to earn money online.
Why not write content for web pages (e.g., home page, services pages, etc.)? Making money by writing content online does not require any upfront financial investment.
You do not also need to have a journalism degree or experience to be able to make money by writing for others online.
It is easy to find and land freelance writing jobs online through many different types of websites such as freelance sites, article writing jobs sites, job search sites, online sites that pay upfront for writing articles for them, and more.
Pay Per Article Sites
There are plenty of websites and blogs that will pay you a flat fee per article, provided your article is accepted by them. Some websites hire writers to contribute articles to their sites regularly.
Freelance and Article Writing Jobs Sites
These are websites that list a wide variety of writing projects. On freelance websites, you can bid on the jobs that interest you, and if a client awards you a job and you complete the job, you will make money immediately after the client approves your work.
Article writing jobs websites typically have a job board that is updated every time a new job is posted to it by a client. You can pick the job that interests you without having to bid for it. You will have a set period of time, like 2 hours, 3 hours, 5 hours, etc., depending on the length of the article, and the site.
Here are some of the best sites to find writing jobs online:
Another option is to start your own blog or site to let the world know you are available for hire to write content. How much you can earn writing content online depends on your level of expertise, and how you find clients.
#7 Write, Publish and Sell an eBook
Do you have a knack for writing? Then writing and selling eBooks can be a great way to make money online without investment. You can write a book just about any topic. You can write it yourself or employ someone to write it for you.
You can then self-publish your e-book on Amazon or your own site or blog. If you want to sell it on your own blog, then add a shopping cart or PayPal “Buy Me” button to your site and create a downloadable PDF link.
When a buyer orders, make sure they get the downloadable link to download the eBook.
Amazon is the best place to sell your eBooks on because you can reach a huge market of ready buyers. Each time your eBook or one of your eBooks sells a copy, you can earn up to 70% royalty.
You can earn passive income from an eBook as it sells copies.
#8 Make Money as a Virtual Assistant
Generally small businesses, entrepreneurs, etc., hire virtual assistants to help them with certain administrative, creative and technical tasks done, depending on their needs.
If you have any marketable skill that can be used online you can consider becoming a virtual assistant.
What services you can provide as a virtual assistant will depend on your skill set. Clients will hire you if your skills match their needs. For example, if you are good at Pinterest, you can become a Pinterest VA.
If you offer admin VA services, clients can hire you to do tasks, like data entry, scheduling appointments, answering to emails, etc.
Check out these sites to find virtual assistant jobs to make money without paying anything:
You can make anywhere from $10 to $100 per hour as a VA depending on your experience, skills and who you work for.
#9 Make Money by Downloading This App on Your Phone
One of the easiest ways to make money online without investment is to install the Nielsen app on your phone. This app pays you to download and install it and enters you in a drawing to win $10k.
The Nielsen company is a reputable research company. You may have heard of “Nielsen TV Ratings”, which rate the best television shows. Now, they want to research cell phone use so are paying people to download their app.
This is a great way to make money online without investment.
#10 Make Money by Watching Trailers of Apps
An easy way to make money online is to watch trailers of the newest apps on your phone through an app called AppTrailers.
You will earn reward points for watching videos on the newest apps. You can also earn points by uploading videos and getting likes.
Reward points are redeemable for gift cards and PayPal cash.
#11 Make Money with Captcha Solving Jobs
A captcha is a verification test used by a lot of companies and individuals on their websites to make sure that users on their sites are real people and not bots. Captchas can include audio, images, letters, math solving, etc.
2captcha.com, Kolotibablo and VirtualBee are some of the well-known companies that offer captcha solving jobs. This job does not pay pay much. But it is also one of the easiest ways to make some extra cash online without paying anything.
#12 Make Money Online with Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online without paying anything.
It is when you promote other companies’ or people’s products or services online on your own site or blog, social media pages, or other channels online via affiliate links provided to you by them, and get a commission each time someone clicks through one of your affiliate links to buy anything on their website.
Depending on the affiliate program, you can also earn a commission if someone clicks through one of your affiliate links, or clicks through one of your affiliate links to sign up for a deal, fill out a form, or perform some other action.
Here are a few ways you can promote affiliate products:
- Your own blog or site
- Social media sites, like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and more
- Third-party websites that allow you to post your affiliate links to their sites
- Your email list
First, you will need to find companies or individuals that offer affiliate programs you can sign up for. You can join the affiliate program of an individual company such as Amazon, or you can join an affiliate network to apply for affiliate programs offered by companies within the network.
Here are some of the most reputable sites to join an affiliate program or more:
You can make money online without investment with affiliate marketing. The key is to promoting products that are relevant to the theme of your blog or site, and that are beneficial to your audience.
A great online course that I have taken to help me improve my affiliate marketing is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing by Michelle of Making Sense of Cents. She makes over $50k a month by doing affiliate marketing on her own blog.
#13 Make Money Online without Investment with Rewards Sites
Rewards sites are a great way to earn some extra cash online without investing a dime. These are sites that pay you to perform a variety of simple tasks online, like:
- Searching the web
- Taking short surveys
- Watching videos
- Playing games
- Transcribing short audio files
- Data entry
- Referring your friends
Here are the best rewards sites I would recommend you to join:
Typically, you will earn only a few cents per task, but your earnings can add up quickly. Moreover, these tasks are simple to do and do not take much time to complete.
#14 Make Money without Any Investment by Evaluating Search Engine Results
If you are internet savvy, and have a good knowledge of the trending topics on the web, then you can get paid to evaluate search engine results.
Google and other search engines hire remote workers to evaluate search results to make sure they are accurate and relevant to the searchers’ intent. As a search engine evaluator, you will rate the search results for accuracy and relevancy based on user queries given to you.
Based on your feedback, the search engine then improves the search results to make sure their users get better results each and every time they enter a search query into a search engine.
Google and other search engines usually outsource these jobs to third-party companies that then hire remote workers to work as search engine evaluators.
Here are some companies or websites to find these remote jobs from home if you want to make money without paying anything:
- Appen
- Lionbridge
- iSoftStone
These jobs pay around $13-$15 per hour. If you are bilingual, you can find more make more money
#15 Sell Your Photos Online
Did you know that you can sell photos online to make money? If you love to take photos, then you can turn your passion into a money-making venture without paying anything. You do not have to buy an expensive digital camera to take and sell photos online. You do not have to be a professional photographer either.
If you already have a decent camera or a smartphone, you can take photos of people, buildings, landscapes, etc. Just make sure they are of high quality. There are many stock photo sites that will allow you to upload your photos on their sites, and each time someone downloads one of your photos, you get paid.
Check out these microstock photo websites to sell your pictures online:
Upload as many quality photos as possible to build a large bank of photos. The larger your portfolio the greater your chances to sell more photos. Also, you can earn money from a photo over and over again as long as it is online for sale, which means you can earn passive income from your photos.
#16 Start a Niche Website to Make Money Online
If you want to make money from a website, creating a niche website can be a profitable venture. People build niche websites to make money with either affiliate marketing or Google AdSense ads.
You can create a niche website easily. Here are the essential steps to get started:
- Get a domain for your website
- Get hosting service from a reputable web host
- Choose a professional-looking theme
- Write awesome content that is engaging to your audience
If you build a niche site around a product, then affiliate marketing is the best way to monetize your niche site. You can join the affiliate programs of Amazon, ClickBank, ShareASale, etc., depending on the products you are promoting.
If you want to create a Google AdSense niche website, you will earn money from your site via Google ads displayed on your site.
Creating a nice website is a great way to make money without paying anything.
#17 Make Money by Managing Blogs for Others
Do you know how to run a blog? If so, you can make money by managing blogs for others. There are many companies and individuals, especially busy professionals, like doctors, lawyers, technicians, and more who do not have the time or expertise to manage their blogs. They hire remote workers who are proficient in blog management to manage their blogs.
If you know the ins and outs of blogging platforms, like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, you can become a blog manager to make money without spending a dime.
Tasks you may perform can include:
- Updating blogging software, like WordPress
- Scheduling new blog posts
- Updating plugins
- Updating themes
- Customizing themes
- Installing plugins
- Responding to comments
- Running social media campaigns
Tasks you may perform can vary depending on your skills and your clients.
You can find blog management jobs on sites, like Fiverr, FlexJobs, and more.
#18 Make Money from YouTube Videos
YouTube is the largest video search engine and the second most visited site on the web. If you love to watch videos on YouTube, why not make money by making your own videos and uploading them to YouTube?
You can make videos just about anything. For instance, you can create how-to, educational instructional, or entertaining videos. Your videos must be appealing to your target audience and optimized for YouTube and search engines if you want to increase your video views and get more subscribers to your youTube channel.
Once you have more than 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months, and more than 1,000 subscribers, you can apply for YouTube Partner Program to monetize your videos from Google ads. You will need a Google AdSense account to make money from YouTube Partner Program.
You can make money from your YouTube videos in many different ways, like:
- Ad income from YouTube Partner Program
- Driving traffic to your blog or website to
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling your own products or services
- Selling ads
- Getting sponsorships from brands or companies
Some people make a living through YouTube. Others make good part-time income from their YouTube videos.
#19 Make Money by Offering Social Media Management Services
If you know your way around various social media platforms, why not make some extra money online as a social media manager for others?
You may do tasks like creating and posting content to your clients’ social media pages, scheduling content for their pages, updating content, posting videos to their social media pages, or answering users’ questions on your clients’ social media accounts.
The specific tasks you may be responsible for performing as a social media manager will depend on your skills and clients.
Fiverr and FlexJobs are top sites for finding these social media management services jobs!
As a remote social media assistant or remote social media manager, you can earn anywhere from $15 to $50 per hour.
#20 Make Money by Offering Digital Marketing Services
If you know how to use the internet as a marketing tool to expand business for others, then can make money by offering digital marketing services to companies and individuals online.
Many businesses do not understand how the digital technology works, and are struggling to figure out how to use digital marketing services to grow their business. That is where you come in.
If you have social media marketing skills, are proficient in SEO, can build or manage blogs or websites, or have any other digital marketing skills, then you can make money as a digital marketer selling your services online to these businesses.
You can help them build and grow their presence online, connect with their customers online, and achieve other goals.
Check out sites, like Fiverr, FlexJobs and more to find digital marketing jobs.
#21 Make Money by Testing Websites and Apps
You can get paid to test apps and websites of other people. There are many websites that offer user testing jobs. Clients will give you instructions prior to testing their apps or websites.
You will perform specific tasks based on your client’s instructions while testing a website or app. You will then provide honest feedback on your experience (for instance, how easy or difficult it was to navigate the website, etc.) about the app or website to the client. It takes around 15-20 minutes to complete a user testing job.
Check out these websites sites to find website testing jobs:
You can also land website and app testing jobs by creating a seller account on Fiverr and offering your services.
These jobs pay anywhere from $5 to $15 per test, depending on the test and client/site. UserTesting pays $10 for each completed test and up to $60 to complete a test that involves a Live Conversation with a customer. Testing out websites and apps is a great way to make money online without investment.
BONUS #22 Perform Micro Jobs Online
One of the easiest ways to make money online is to perform a wide variety of small tasks through a number of microtasks sites. These small jobs typically do not require any special skills to do them.
Typical micro jobs include taking short surveys, transcribing short audio files, data entry, finding an object in a picture, categorizing images, searching the web, online research, and similar tasks.
Here are the top sites to find micro jobs online:
- Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)
- Clickworker
- OneSpace
- Microworkers
- ClixSense
- Field Agent
- Gigwalk
- EasyShift
Payments for these jobs vary from site to site. You can earn anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars, depending on the task and the micro job site.
More Ways to Make Money Online Without Investment?
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to make money without investing anything. Try one or more of these money-making options based on your skills, interests and schedule to make some extra money or even a living.
Check out this video for more ways!
Do you know of any more ways to make money online without investment? Let us know in the comments! 🙂
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Sabrina Akter says
Hi Becky, this is a nice post. It’s very informative for new freelancers. Your #12, #18 & #19 steps are an easy way to any freelancer. Thanks for your article.
Jaime says
Darn, the blog post is timely and relevant. Making money is one way to survive in a world where most places have a high cost of living. I know everyone would agree, some workers do not enjoy the average wage due to economic downfall and inconsistent market. However, making money is not only in investing of money to generate income. We can make money online in a legitimate way. You did it right Mombeach. You made me realize the value of time and money to support our financial aspects and family living.
Becky says
Thanks! I’m glad you found the post helpful!
Earnsweb says
I love to be a content writer but I’m not that educated that’s why I choose to be a blogger.
Thanks for the information
A. Simmons says
I think writing is amazing.But needs a positive mindset and persistence. Thanks a lot for the article.
besthyip24.com says
Your website is very nice and I like every post on your website
thank you very much
shishir acharya says
this is very much intresting and reliable
thanku very much
Cast says
Thank you for a huuuuuuuuge list of possibilities. I have been looking in to this topic and found some similar articles on medium, but this one actually caught my attention more
Becky says
Thanks! Glad you liked if!