14 Easy Ways to Make Money as A Teenager in 2023
One of the biggest advantages of being a teen is that you don’t have a lot of responsibilities. Most of your basic needs are taken care of by your parents or guardians.
Even with the basic needs provided, however, it’s still a good idea to make your own money. This way, you don’t have to keep borrowing money whenever you need to go out with your friends, or even buy that gaming console you’ve always wanted.
With your own money, you can even start investing in your teens and set yourself up for life. People like Warren Buffet started investing while in their teens, and today he’s one of the richest people in the world.
If making your own money as a teenager sounds exciting, you might be wondering what your options are. Fortunately, in 2022, there’s no shortage of ways through which teenagers can easily make their own money.
To get your started, we have compiled for you a list of 25 easy ways you can use to start making money in as little as a couple of hours.
Let’s dive in!
Best Ways To Make Money As A Teenager
1. Earn Money With Online Surveys
Making money with online survey sites is top on our list because it is one of the easiest ways of making money online. All you need to do is sign up on a reliable online survey site, and within a few minutes, you’ll be taking surveys and earning money.
Here’s the best part. You can do them while on the bus to school, while waiting for friends at the mall, while in bed waiting to fall asleep, or any other place where you have some time on your hands.
While online surveys provide an easy way to make money, I’ll also be honest with you. Don’t expect to make a lot of money from online surveys. Most online survey sites only pay a couple of cents per survey.
Others allow you to earn points that you can redeem for cash or gift cards, but they also require lots of time before you can make any significant amount of money.
It’s also good to keep in mind that there are lots of scams associated with online survey sites, so you should be very careful when signing up to these sites.
That said, if you’re interested in making money from online surveys, there are several legitimate online survey sites that you can join and start making some money today. Below are a few of these legitimate online survey sites…
- Survey Junkie: This is one of the most reputable and high paying online survey sites. Survey Junkie is open to anyone over the age of 13, and has a low minimum cash out of just $5.
- Swagbucks: Swagbucks gives you access to online surveys, as well as several other activities that you can do for money. To join, you have to be 13 years and older. Swagbucks has a $5 signup bonus, and a minimum withdrawal of just $1.
- Cointiply: Cointiply allows you to earn money from paid online surveys, as well as other activities, such as watching videos and ads, and playing games. Cointiply offers a signup bonus of $5, and has a minimum payout of $5. The site is open to anyone above the age of 13. The unique thing about Cointiply is that payouts are made through cryptocurrency.
- Surveytime: This online survey site is open to anyone in the world, regardless of age, and has an earning potential of $1 – $2 per hour, on average. You can withdraw a minimum of $0.1. You also get multiple payout options, including gift cards and cryptocurrency.
- PaidViewPoint: With PaidViewPoint, you can earn from taking surveys, as well as referring your friends to the site. PaidViewPoint is open to anyone above the age of 13. You also get a $1 bonus on signup. The minimum payout is $15.
2. Become A High-End Blogger
A decade ago, most people getting into blogging were doing so as a hobby. Today, however, blogging is a serious activity that can put money in your bank account, and if you work hard enough, it could even turn you into a millionaire before your 20th birthday.
The best thing about making money through blogging is that it doesn’t require much investment to get started. You only need a couple of dollars for domain registration and hosting, an internet connection, and a passion for writing.
To start making money as a high-end blogger while still in your teens, here are the 5 steps you need to follow…
1) Pick A Suitable Niche
One mistake a lot of teens make when starting their blogs is trying to blog about everything that crosses their minds. The problem with this approach is that you’ll have a hard time building a loyal audience. After all, a rolling stone gathers no moss.
What you should do instead is focus on one specific niche or topic that you are highly passionate about.
The good thing with blogging is that you can blog just about anything and find an audience. If you are passionate about something, there’s a high chance there are other teens who are passionate about the same thing.
Examples of niches you can blog about include…
- Pop culture
- Dating and relationships
- Technology
- Gaming
- Fashion
- Social issues
- Finances education for teens
- Sports
Just pick a topic you love talking or writing about, and one where you’ll have enough content to keep the blog running for several years.
2) Come Up With A Suitable Name For Your Blog
Now that you know what you are going to blog about, the next step is to come up with a name for your blog. This is what will form the foundation of your online brand.
To make it easier for people to remember your blog, go for a name that is relatively short and easy to spell.
You should also choose a name that makes it easy for people to understand what your blog is about. For instance, if your blog is about teaching personal finance to teenagers, you could go with a name like “Teen Finance.”
3) Set Up Your Blog
Having laid down the foundations of your blog, it’s now time to actually set up the blog and make it accessible over the internet.
The first part of setting up your blog is to register your domain name and find a host for your blog.
Your domain name is the address that your readers will type into their browsers in order to access your blog. Ideally, this should be the same as your blog name.
A web host, on the other hand, is a company that allows you to store your blog’s files on their servers, thus making your blog accessible over the internet.
All you need to do here is to find a reliable web hosting provider and pay for a suitable hosting package. We recommend hosting your blog on Bluehost.
When you’re just getting started, you can go with the lowest plan, then upgrade to a higher plan once your blog starts growing. Most web hosting providers will also give you a free domain name when you’re getting started.
Once you purchase your hosting plan, the next step is to install a content management system (CMS). This is a type of software that allows you to publish and manage content on your blog.
While there are many different content management systems to choose from, we recommend using WordPress, which powers over 455 million websites on the internet. Check out this article to learn how to install WordPress.
After installing WordPress, all you need to do is to install a nice WordPress theme, customize the theme to suit your blog’s style and feel, and your blog will now be ready for your first piece of content.
4) Create Content For Your Blog
Your blog is now all set up, so you can go ahead and start creating content for your blog. Think about topics around your niche that people would be interested in reading about, pick one of these topics, and write amazing content around it.
Once you start creating for your blog, it is a good idea to stick to a regular and consistent publishing schedule.
Don’t publish today, then go for two months without publishing. If you’ve decided to publish two blog posts every month, for instance, commit and stick to this schedule.
You also need to keep in mind that no one will read your blog posts if you don’t promote them. Therefore, every time you publish a new blog post, remember to promote it on social media, on your email list, on content curation sites, and so on.
5) Monetize Your Blog
Now comes the most important part – actually making money from your blog.
What we love about making money through blogging is that it provides you with passive income. Once your blog starts making money, you’ll earn money even while you sleep. Your blog will essentially become an automated money-making machine.
Once you have built significant traffic for your blog, you can start monetizing the blog through one or a combination of the following strategies…
- Selling ad space on your blog
- Promoting your freelance services
- Affiliate marketing
- Product reviews and sponsored posts
- Selling online courses
- Selling physical products, such as art, gadgets, and fashion items
- Selling digital products, such as music, photography, templates, and eBooks
- Hosting a job board for teens looking for work
- Selling exclusive membership
- Asking for donations
You just need to find a monetization strategy that works for you, and you could be making money from your blog in as little as 2 months.
3. Make Money As A Freelancer
The gig economy has grown rapidly over the last decade, and today, lots of companies are opting to work with freelancers instead of hiring full-time employees.
According to a report by Zippia, freelancers in the US earned $1.2 billion in 2020. By getting into freelancing, you get a chance to a share of these billions.
The beauty of freelancing is that there are lots of skills that offer as a freelancer. You don’t even need a college degree to start selling your freelance skills, which makes freelancing a great way for teenagers to easily make some money.
So, how can you get started with freelancing to make some money of your own?
Making money as a freelancer involves two steps – identifying your freelance skill, and signing up on a reputable freelancing platform to put yourself in front of potential clients.
1) Identify Your Freelance Skill
For clients to hire you as a freelancer, you need to have a skill or offer a service that is in high demand. Fortunately, there are dozens of skills that you can offer as a freelancer. Some of these include…
- Writing
- Graphic design
- Web design
- Virtual assistance
- Mobile app development
- Programming
- Ethical hacking
- Data analysis
- User experience design
- Accounting
- Video editing
- Illustration
The list is endless. What’s more, you don’t need any certifications to start selling these skills as a freelancer. Provided you have the skills, no one cares if you’re a teenager.
If you have a skill that you’re more skilled at than the average person, you can use this skill to make money as a freelancer. Even if you don’t have any skill at the moment, you can learn one of these skills by yourself and start making money within a few months.
Once you’ve identified a skill you can use to make money as a freelancer, we recommend spending a few minutes to confirm whether there’s reasonable demand for the skill. You don’t want to focus on a skill where clients are few and far between.
An easy way to confirm whether there’s demand for your skill is to go to a freelancing platform like Upwork and search for jobs related to your skill. If you find lots of potential clients searching for freelancers with this skill, this is an indicator that you won’t have trouble finding clients.
Let’s say, for instance, you want to become a freelance writer. If you go to Upwork and search for writing jobs, you’ll find that there are over 21,000 jobs. This shows that writing is a skill in high demand.
Do the same for whatever freelance skill you have in mind, and you’ll quickly find out whether there’s a ready market for your skill.
2) Sign Up On Reputable Freelancing Platform
To start making money as a freelancer, you have to make potential customers aware of your freelance services. You can do this by cold pitching to potential clients, or advertising your services on your own website, but this takes a lot of time and effort.
An easier way is to reach out to clients who are already looking for the freelancer services you are offering. You’ll find such clients on freelancing platforms. The clients post their jobs on these platforms, while you as the freelancer get to pitch your services to the clients and convince the clients to hire you.
Here are some of the best freelancing platforms where you can find high quality clients and start making money…
- Upwork: This is the most popular freelancing platform in the world, and the best overall freelancing platform. The site is easy to use, even for a complete beginner, and gives you access to millions of clients.
- Flexjobs: If you are looking for high quality clients and premium jobs, Flexjobs is your best bet. All jobs are vetted before being posted on the site, so you don’t have to worry about scammers. However, Flexjobs charges a monthly subscription fee to access the jobs on this site.
- Fiverr: This platform uses a custom approach that allows you to categorize your services in different tiers, with the lowest tier starting at $5. However, you can charge much higher for premium freelance services. Note, however, that the commissions on Fiverr are quite high compared to other freelance platforms.
of your blog, it’s now time to actually set up the blog and make it accessible over the internet.
The first part of setting up your blog is to register your domain name and find a host for your blog.
Your domain name is the address that your readers will type into their browsers in order to access your blog. Ideally, this should be the same as your blog name.
A web host, on the other hand, is a company that allows you to store your blog’s files on their servers, thus making your blog accessible over the internet.
All you need to do here is to find a reliable web hosting provider and pay for a suitable hosting package. We recommend hosting your blog on Bluehost.
When you’re just getting started, you can go with the lowest plan, then upgrade to a higher plan once your blog starts growing. Most web hosting providers will also give you a free domain name when you’re getting started.
Once you purchase your hosting plan, the next step is to install a content management system (CMS). This is a type of software that allows you to publish and manage content on your blog.
While there are many different content management systems to choose from, we recommend using WordPress, which powers over 455 million websites on the internet. Check out this article to learn how to install WordPress.
After installing WordPress, all you need to do is to install a nice WordPress theme, customize the theme to suit your blog’s style and feel, and your blog will now be ready for your first piece of content.
4) Create Content For Your Blog
Your blog is now all set up, so you can go ahead and start creating content for your blog. Think about topics around your niche that people would be interested in reading about, pick one of these topics, and write amazing content around it.
Once you start creating for your blog, it is a good idea to stick to a regular and consistent publishing schedule.
Don’t publish today, then go for two months without publishing. If you’ve decided to publish two blog posts every month, for instance, commit and stick to this schedule.
You also need to keep in mind that no one will read your blog posts if you don’t promote them. Therefore, every time you publish a new blog post, remember to promote it on social media, on your email list, on content curation sites, and so on.
5) Monetize Your Blog
Now comes the most important part – actually making money from your blog.
What we love about making money through blogging is that it provides you with passive income. Once your blog starts making money, you’ll earn money even while you sleep. Your blog will essentially become an automated money-making machine.
Once you have built significant traffic for your blog, you can start monetizing the blog through one or a combination of the following strategies…
- Selling ad space on your blog
- Promoting your freelance services
- Affiliate marketing
- Product reviews and sponsored posts
- Selling online courses
- Selling physical products, such as art, gadgets, and fashion items
- Selling digital products, such as music, photography, templates, and eBooks
- Hosting a job board for teens looking for work
- Selling exclusive membership
- Asking for donations
You just need to find a monetization strategy that works for you, and you could be making money from your blog in as little as 2 months.
3. Make Money As A Freelancer
The gig economy has grown rapidly over the last decade, and today, lots of companies are opting to work with freelancers instead of hiring full-time employees.
According to a report by Zippia, freelancers in the US earned $1.2 billion in 2020. By getting into freelancing, you get a chance to a share of these billions.
The beauty of freelancing is that there are lots of skills that offer as a freelancer. You don’t even need a college degree to start selling your freelance skills, which makes freelancing a great way for teenagers to easily make some money.
So, how can you get started with freelancing to make some money of your own?
Making money as a freelancer involves two steps – identifying your freelance skill, and signing up on a reputable freelancing platform to put yourself in front of potential clients.
1) Identify Your Freelance Skill
For clients to hire you as a freelancer, you need to have a skill or offer a service that is in high demand. Fortunately, there are dozens of skills that you can offer as a freelancer. Some of these include…
- Writing
- Graphic design
- Web design
- Virtual assistance
- Mobile app development
- Programming
- Ethical hacking
- Data analysis
- User experience design
- Accounting
- Video editing
- Illustration
The list is endless. What’s more, you don’t need any certifications to start selling these skills as a freelancer. Provided you have the skills, no one cares if you’re a teenager.
If you have a skill that you’re more skilled at than the average person, you can use this skill to make money as a freelancer. Even if you don’t have any skill at the moment, you can learn one of these skills by yourself and start making money within a few months.
Once you’ve identified a skill you can use to make money as a freelancer, we recommend spending a few minutes to confirm whether there’s reasonable demand for the skill. You don’t want to focus on a skill where clients are few and far between.
An easy way to confirm whether there’s demand for your skill is to go to a freelancing platform like Upwork and search for jobs related to your skill. If you find lots of potential clients searching for freelancers with this skill, this is an indicator that you won’t have trouble finding clients.
Let’s say, for instance, you want to become a freelance writer. If you go to Upwork and search for writing jobs, you’ll find that there are over 21,000 jobs. This shows that writing is a skill in high demand.
Do the same for whatever freelance skill you have in mind, and you’ll quickly find out whether there’s a ready market for your skill.
2) Sign Up On Reputable Freelancing Platform
To start making money as a freelancer, you have to make potential customers aware of your freelance services. You can do this by cold pitching to potential clients, or advertising your services on your own website, but this takes a lot of time and effort.
An easier way is to reach out to clients who are already looking for the freelancer services you are offering. You’ll find such clients on freelancing platforms. The clients post their jobs on these platforms, while you as the freelancer get to pitch your services to the clients and convince the clients to hire you.
Here are some of the best freelancing platforms where you can find high quality clients and start making money…
- Upwork: This is the most popular freelancing platform in the world, and the best overall freelancing platform. The site is easy to use, even for a complete beginner, and gives you access to millions of clients.
- Flexjobs: If you are looking for high quality clients and premium jobs, Flexjobs is your best bet. All jobs are vetted before being posted on the site, so you don’t have to worry about scammers. However, Flexjobs charges a monthly subscription fee to access the jobs on this site.
- Fiverr: This platform uses a custom approach that allows you to categorize your services in different tiers, with the lowest tier starting at $5. However, you can charge much higher for premium freelance services. Note, however, that the commissions on Fiverr are quite high compared to other freelance platforms.
4. Become A YouTube Influencer
As a teenager, you probably spend lots of time watching videos on YouTube, but have you ever thought about creating your own videos? You can make lots of money by creating and uploading your own YouTube videos to become a YouTube influencer.
There are already lots of kids under the age of 18 making money as YouTube influencers. Actually, the highest earning YouTuber last year was 10-year old Ryan Kaji. If a 10-year-old can do it, there’s no reason why you can’t.
To start your journey to becoming a YouTube influencer, you have to start by defining your niche.
If you look at all the highest earning YouTubers, you’ll notice that they all focus on a specific niche. Ryan Kaji focuses on toy reviews, Pew Die Pie on gaming, James Charles on makeup, and so on.
If you want to quickly gain traction on YouTube, you’ll need to follow a similar route. Fortunately, you can build a YouTube channel around any niche – gaming, technology, sports, dating for teens, music reviews, movie reviews, fashion, you name it.
Simply pick a niche you are passionate about and start creating high quality and engaging YouTube videos around the niche.
So, how do you convert your YouTube channel into income?
The simplest way to start earning from your YouTube channel is to enroll on Google AdSense, which allows YouTube to show ads on your videos. With AdSense, you can earn anywhere between $1 – $20 for every 1,000 views.
Note that to sign up on Google AdSense, you have to be 18 years or older. However, if you’re yet to reach 18, you can use your parent’s AdSense account.
In addition to AdSense, there are several other ways to monetize your YouTube channel, including…
- Getting brands to sponsor your YouTube videos
- Advertising products on your videos
- Promoting affiliate products
- Selling your own digital or physical products
- Asking for donations
It’s good to note that becoming a YouTube influencer usually takes some time, so don’t be discouraged if your first few videos don’t attract lots of viewers. Keep creating more videos and promoting them, and with time, you’ll grow your following and start earning.
5. Test Websites And Provide Actionable Feedback
Testing websites is another very easy way for teenagers to make money, and the best part is that you don’t need to invest anything to start earning. You just need access to a computer and an internet connection.
So, how does this work?
Website owners want people to spend lots of time on their sites. If a website has a poor user experience, lousy navigation, or low quality content, however, most site visitors will not stick around for long. To avoid this, website owners have to make sure that their sites provide a good user experience.
There’s one problem, however. The site owner or developer cannot objectively evaluate the user experience on their website, since they are bound to be biased.
In addition, ordinary users will not always use the website as envisioned by the developer, which can result in user experience challenges.
To ensure that the website delivers an excellent user experience for ordinary users, most developers and site owners pay ordinary users to test the website and provide actionable feedback about their experience. This, in turn, helps the developer to improve the website and resolve any usability problems.
If you don’t mind spending some time browsing through websites and answering questions about your experience using these sites, testing websites can be a great way to earn yourself some money. And if you join the right sites, the income can be pretty decent.
So, which sites can you join to get website testing jobs? Here are some of the most reputable website testing platforms…
- Respondent: This is a GPT (Get Paid To) site that provides you with multiple ways of earning money, including testing websites. There are lots of website testing jobs on Respondent, and the pay can be pretty good. You can earn as much as $100 for a 60-minute test.
- UserTesting: This is one of the most popular website testing platforms. UserTesting has plenty of website testing jobs at all times. Tests usually take about 20 minutes, and will pay you between $10 – $20.
- UserFeel: Userfeel offers website testing jobs lasting between 10 – 20 minutes on average, with each test paying $10. With enough dedication, you can easily make between $100 – $200 every day.
- TryMyUI: This site offers both written and Skype website testing jobs, which is a great option for those who are not comfortable getting in front of the camera. Tests pay $10 on average. Before you start taking website testing jobs on TryMyUI, you’ll have to take a 5-minute qualification test.
- Testing Time: Most of the tests on Testing Time are conducted via Skype and can be quite lengthy, taking between 30 – 90 minutes. However, the pay is pretty good, with most tests paying north of $50.
6. Teach Your Skills In Online Courses
Do you have any knowledge or skills that other people would love to learn? If you answered yes, you can earn money passively by teaching others this knowledge through an online course.
Let’s say, for instance, you are good at playing the guitar. How many other teenagers do you think would love to learn to play like you? Why not create an online course teaching them how to play?
If packaging your knowledge and skills into online courses and making money from it sounds exciting, here’s what you need to do to get started…
1) Pick A Topic For Your Online Course
Before you can create an online course, you obviously have to choose a topic that the course will cover. You should note, however, that the success of your online course will depend largely on the chosen topic.
For instance, if you create an online course on how to juggle a football, you probably won’t make a lot of money. There might be people interested in learning this skill, but not enough to pay for it.
If, on the other hand, you create an online course teaching other teenagers how to build a successful blog, you’re more likely to attract a significant number of students.
When picking a topic for your course, therefore, think about topics that a lot of people are interested in, and topics that people are likely to pay for.
Of course, you’ll also need to pick a topic you’re good at, otherwise you won’t be able to teach your students effectively.
Some examples of topics you can teach on your online course include…
- Coding
- Graphic design
- Content writing
- 3D animation
- Video editing
- Digital marketing
- Web development
- App development
- Foreign languages
There’s literally no limit to what you can teach on your online course. When you pick a topic, it’s advisable to narrow it down to a single skill, rather than trying to teach everything. This will allow you to make your online course more actionable.
For instance, if you’re good at graphic design, don’t create an online course to teach everything there is about graphic design. Instead, you can focus on a narrower topic, such as Adobe Photoshop basics for beginners.
2) Pick An Online Course Platform
Once you create your online course, you’ll need a platform to host the course and make it accessible online. You can build your own website for this, but that is difficult and time consuming.
A better approach is to use an online course platform. These are platforms that handle the backend processes of hosting your online course and managing students. All you need to do is sign up on the platform, upload your course, and start taking on students.
There are dozens of online course platforms available in the market, so you’ll need to do some research and find the best one for you. Based on our experience, however, we recommend using Thinkific or Teachable.
3) Build Your Online Course
This is the step where you’ll take your online course from an idea into a product that people will buy. To build your online course, you’ll need to do the following…
- Research your chosen topic
- Define the learning outcomes of your course
- Come up with an outline for your online course
- Create the course content
- Film, record, and edit your lessons
- Upload your course to an online course platform
4) Market Your Online Course
You might spend weeks building your course, but if you don’t market the online course, no one will buy it. Once your online course is ready, therefore, don’t forget to put some effort into marketing it.
Some of the strategies you can use to market your online course include…
- Building an email list of prospective students
- Creating a blog to market your course
- Hosting webinars to market your course
- Promoting the course on social media
- Promoting the course on online groups and forums
If you want to learn more about how to make money teaching your skills in online courses, go through our detailed guide on how to create and sell a wildly successful online course.
7. Start An Online Store
How many times have you bought something online? The popularity of online shopping is growing rapidly, and it is estimated that by 2023 (one year from today), ecommerce sales will make up 22% of all retail sales.
This rapid growth of the ecommerce industry presents you with a great opportunity to make serious money by starting your own online shop.
There are two reasons that make starting an online shop a great way for you to earn money as a teenager. First, the barriers to entry are very low. You can start your online store with less than $20.
Second, starting an online store doesn’t require lots of time. You can start and build a profitable online store without affecting your studies at all. This business will not interfere with your school schedule.
The best part is that there is no limit to the amount of money you can make from your online store. For instance, at the age of just 17, Jonah started an online store that went from $0 to over $13,500 per month in less than one year.
So, how do you start and build a profitable online store as a teenager? Here’s what you need to do…
1) Choose Your Niche
When starting out, you might be tempted to start an online store that sells everything under the sun. However, building such a brand is no mean task, especially when you have limited resources.
A better approach is to build an online store that is focused on a specific niche. For instance, you can start an online store that only sells cartoon themed laptop stickers.
Since this is a unique niche, it will be much easier for you to quickly establish your brand and start making sales.
Note, however, that your chosen niche will greatly affect your chances of success, so this is a decision you need to make carefully. Ideally, you should go for niches that meet the following criteria…
- There should be no household brands dominating the niche
- You should be highly knowledgeable about the niche
- There should be significant demand for products within the niche
- The niche should have potential for repeat purchases by the same customer
2) Choose Your Business Model
There are two major business models that can be used to operate an online shop. You can either carry your own inventory, or use the dropshipping model.
Carrying your own inventory involves a lot of capital, since you have to buy the inventory upfront, lease a warehouse to store the inventory, and so on. As a result, this business model is not suitable for most teenagers.
The dropshipping model is the best option for teenagers looking to start their own online shop, since it doesn’t have any huge capital requirements
Under this model, you only need to list products on your online store, and whenever a customer makes a purchase, you’ll forward the order to your dropshipping supplier, who then packs and sends the product to the customer.
3) Choose A Business Name For Your Store
Before you start setting up your online store, you need to pick a name for the store. Your store name will act as the foundation of your brand, so you need to make sure you’re picking a good name.
Here are some tips on how to choose a good business name for your store…
- Pick a name that is easy to pronounce and spell
- Go for a simple name that people can remember easily
- Go for a name that is related to your niche
- Avoid names that could be confused for already established brands
- Check whether a .com domain is available for the name
4) Find Products To Sell
In step one, you picked a niche that your online store will focus on. Now, you need to find profitable products within that niche that you’re going to sell in your store.
For instance, if you settled on the pets niche, examples of products you could sell include collars and leashes, feeding bowls, pet water bottles, pet backpacks, and so on.
When choosing products to sell in your store, don’t just make decisions based on what you find appealing, or what you think is a good product. Do some research to make sure all the products you intend to sell are profitable.
Some of the factors you’ll need to consider when choosing profitable products to sell include…
- Demand for the product: The higher the demand, the more profitable the product is likely to be.
- Gross margins: The higher the margins, the more profits you’ll make.
- Product availability: Make sure that you can source the product easily and consistently.
- Ease of shipping: Go for products that are easy and cheap to ship to your customers.
5) Set Up Your Online Store
Having found profitable products that you’re going to sell in your store, it’s now time to set up the actual store.
Here, you have two options. You can either build your own ecommerce website, or use an online store builder.
Building your own website from scratch takes time and will require advanced technical knowhow. The better approach is to use online store builders, such as Shopify.
Shopify makes the process of building an online store amazingly simple, even for a complete beginner. What’s more, you can customize your online store as you wish. Shopify even allows you to connect your online store to dropshipping suppliers.
Setting up your Shopify store is very easy . You can have your store up and running in as little as 15 minutes.
Simply sign up for your Shopify account, add your products, customize the look and feel of your store, set up your domain, and activate your payment processor, and you’re ready to go.
6) Market Your Store To Attract Customers
Once you’re done setting up your online store, all you need to do now is to drive traffic to the store and start making sales.
There are several different strategies you can use to market your online store, including…
- PPC advertising
- Content marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Setting up an affiliate program
Simply pick the marketing strategies that work for you and run with it. Done well, your online store can easily turn into a big brand that will keep earning money years down the line. To learn more about building an online store, check out our detailed guide on how to start a profitable online store.
8. Selling Your Designs On CafePress And Creative Market
If you have some graphic design skills, you can turn these skills into a passive source of income by creating unique designs and selling them on sites like CafePress and Creative Market.
CafePress is an online marketplace that sells print-on-demand items, such as mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, caps, tote bags, stickers, and so on. The products themselves are sold by CafePress, but CafePress allows designers to put their designs on these products.
For instance, if a customer wants a t-shirt, they can choose to have your design on the t-shirt. The customer pays for the price of the t-shirt plus the design.
CafePress then prints the t-shirt and sends it to the customer, and gives you a share of the sale price. With CafePress, you get paid every time someone buys an item with your design on it.
There are two ways to make money on CafePress. The first one is to simply upload your designs to CafePress. CafePress will decide which of their products go best with your designs, and then create customized products using these designs. Whenever they make a sale, you get a commission.
The other option is to set up your own CafePress shop. With this approach, you decide what items your designs will go on, as well as the price of the items.
For instance, if CafePress sells caps at $5, you can add your own markup. For instance, you could decide that caps using your designs will sell for $7, instead of $5. Whenever someone buys from your shop, CafePress takes their cut (the price of the item), while you get the rest.
Unlike CafePress, Creative Market does not sell print-on-demand items. Creative Market is a marketplace for downloadable digital products, such as illustrations, mockups, logos, templates, and so on.
To make money on Creative Market, you’ll need to set up your Creative Market shop, upload your designs, and determine the price for the different designs.
Whenever you make a sale, Creative Market gets their commission and remit the rest of the money to you.
9. Get A Part-Time Job
Getting a part-time job is another great way for teens to make money. The best part about getting a part time job is that you’ll get a guaranteed income once you get hired, and at the same time, you’ll get to learn skills that could come in handy later in life.
Some examples of part-time jobs you can do to make yourself some money include…
a) Become An Amateur Sports Referee
All sporting activities require a referee, but most amateur leagues do not have dedicated professional referees. This presents an opportunity for you to make some money by refereeing these sporting activities.
To make money as an amateur referee, you’ll need to be well versed with the rules and regulations of the sporting activity you want to referee. For instance, to get paid as a referee in a basketball game, you need to be well versed with basketball rules.
In some cases, sports associations might restrict this to teenagers who are 16 and older. Even if you’re younger, however, there’s nothing wrong with trying. I’ve seen teenagers as young as 14 refereeing games for younger kids.
To get started, simply approach sports associations, recreational leagues, and other local sports organizations and let them know that you’re available to work as an amateur referee.
You can expect to earn anywhere between $25 – $60 per hour as an amateur referee, depending on your location and the type of sporting event.
b) Deliver Pizza
Delivering pizza is one of the most popular part time jobs for teenagers looking to earn some money.
The work is fun, you get to interact with lots of people, and just about anyone can do it – provided you have a valid driver’s license. This means that you’ll need to be at least 16 years old in most states.
It’s also good to note that some pizza companies don’t provide delivery vehicles, which means you’ll also need access to a reliable vehicle. Alternatively, you can use a bicycle or a motorcycle.
While it won’t make you rich, delivering pizza can be a great way for you to earn enough money to meet some of your needs.
In most cases, pizza delivery guys get paid by the hour, while other pizza companies use a combination of hourly rate, and mileage costs. On top of the pay from the pizza company, you’ll also make some money from tips.
c) Work In Retail
Most huge retailers are in constant need of employees to work within their retail stores, which makes working in retail a very popular way for teenagers to make money. Actually, most people have served as part-time retail workers at some point in their lives.
Some of the opportunities that exist in retail include working as a cashier, a retail salesperson, a cleaner, a stocker, a retail warehouse worker, and so on.
In addition to the availability of opportunities, what makes retail an attractive way for teenagers to earn money is the flexible schedules. For instance, you can take up a retail job only during weekends or during the holidays.
Working in retail also teaches you a lot of skills that are useful later on in life, such as selling, dealing with people, time management, and so on. Being a retail worker could also give you access to employee discounts on items.
To make money as a retail worker, simply visit big box stores, home improvement stores, clothing stores, and other retail stores within your town and ask whether they are looking for part-time employees.
Note, however, that some stores might require you to be 16 or above in order to work there.
d) Help Out As A Babysitter
If you’re good with children, you can easily make some good money by offering to babysit for busy parents on evenings and weekends. Such a schedule allows you to easily make money without interfering with your studies.
While there are certified professional babysitters, you don’t really need any specific training or certification to work as a babysitter. You only need to be able to handle kids, feed them, watch them, and other such activities that come with taking care of small kids.
That said, taking a first aid course or the Red Cross babysitting course can improve your chances of getting hired and allow you to charge more for your services.
In addition, with such training, you are better placed to deal with any emergencies that might occur while babysitting, such as helping a choking child.
The best way to start out as a babysitter is to offer to babysit the kids of friends, neighbors, and family members. Since these people already know you, they are more likely to trust you with their kids.
Once you’ve gained more experience, you can use the above people as references when looking for babysitting jobs from people who don’t know you.
With time, once you’ve started making money consistently, you can print out flyers and distribute them in local notice boards and parks to attract more customers.
Alternatively, you can turn to the internet to find babysitting jobs across your city. Simply sign up on sites like Sittercity and Care.com, complete your profile, and soon enough, you’ll be getting offers for babysitting jobs.
If you have babysitting certifications, you can charge anywhere from $15 to $30 per hour, depending on your experience and location. Even as an amateur babysitter, however, you can still make decent money looking after other people’s kids.
e) Offer Pet Sitting Services
Most pet owners will often want someone to look after their pets while they are away on vacation, or even at work. If you love animals and are comfortable around them, offering to pet sit for such pet owners can be a fun way to make some money.
The difficulty of working as a pet sitter will depend on the kind of animal you’re caring for.
For instance, if you’re pet sitting a dog, you’ll need to feed them, take them for walks, clean their litter box, and so on. Pets like cats and fish are a lot easier to care for, since they don’t require much attention.
To start making money as a pet sitter, simply make flyers advertising your pet sitting services and hand them out around your neighborhood, at the dog park, at the vet’s, and so on.
Alternatively, you can find clients looking for pet sitting services on pet sitting websites like Care.com, Rover, and Pet Sitters International.
When coming up with quotes for your services, think about things like the amount of care and attention the pet needs, how far you need to travel to take care of the pet, how much time you have to spend with the pet, and so on.
To increase your income, you can organize to take care of multiple pets at once. For instance, if you can walk 5 dogs at the same time, you’ll earn five times the amount you’d have earned walking one dog.
f) Work As A Camp Counselor
If you have some leadership skills and enjoy taking charge of groups of people, working as a camp counselor is a great way to make money during the summer holidays.
Working as a camp counselor is pretty easy for most people. You’ll be required to plan and manage camp activities, get everyone involved in the activities, ensure that the daily schedule is followed, keep the group safe, and resolve any issues that might arise between the camp participants.
If working as a camp counselor sounds interesting for you, you can easily find camp counselor jobs on sites like Camp Channel, Camp Page, CoolWorks, and Indeed.
- Serve Restaurant Customers As A Waiter
This is another part-time job that is very popular among teenagers and students. Restaurants and fast food joints are always looking for an extra pair of hands, which means that there are lots of opportunities to work as a waiter.
While the pay as a waiter is low, it is still enough for most teenagers, since your basic needs are taken care of by your parents.
If the establishment you’re working for has huge tippers, the tips can significantly bump up your income as well. In addition, you get free or discounted meals.
To start making money serving restaurant customers as a waiter, simply walk into restaurants and other food service establishments within your locality and ask if they are looking for some help.
10. Manage Social Media Accounts For Small Businesses
Social media started as a platform for people to meet and socialize, but today, it has evolved into an effective marketing tool for businesses. Projections show that by 2024, businesses will be spending over $233 billion on social media advertising.
From the above social media spending statistics, it is very clear how important social media is, and every business worth its salt needs to have a social media presence.
There’s one problem, however. Not all business owners are conversant enough with social media, while others are too busy to focus on social media.
To get their businesses heard amidst all the competition on social media, such businesses often find someone to manage their social media accounts for them. That’s where you come in.
Like most teenagers, you’re probably highly conversant with most social media platforms, and you already spend lots of time on social media.
Instead of doing it just for fun, you can make money by approaching such business owners and offering to manage their social media accounts for their businesses. Imagine getting paid to spend time on social media… sounds great, right?
It’s good to note that some of your tasks and responsibilities as a social media manager might be different from what you routinely do on your own social media profiles. As a social media manager, you’ll be required to…
- Plan, created, schedule, and publish content across multiple social platforms
- Plan and monitor social media campaigns and report on their performance
- Come up with strategies to help business grow their social networks
- Work with influencers to boost brand awareness and lead generation
- You’ll also be required to be conversant with various social media management tools and social media listening tools, such as Hootsuite, BuzzSumo, Buffer, Sprout Social, CoSchedule, and so on. Fortunately, most of these tools are very easy to learn.
To get started as a social media manager, the first thing you need to do is to learn the necessary skills. Get conversant with different social media platforms, learn how to use different social media tools, learn how to plan and execute social media campaigns, and so on.
Once you’ve acquired this knowledge, use it to build your own social media profiles. No client will hire you to manage social media accounts for their business when your own social media profiles have low following and low engagements. Your social profiles should be proof of your expertise.
After growing your own social following and engagements, you can then start reaching out to small businesses offering your social media management services.
When starting out, you can focus on a single social media platform, and then expand to other platforms as your expertise grows.
So, how much can you expect to make as a social media manager?
As a beginner social media manager, you can expect to earn anywhere between $8 – $15 per hour. As your experience, expertise, and social proof grows, you can start charging even more for your services.
11. Earn Money With Tutoring
There are a lot of parents looking for tutors for their kids, but for most of them, hiring professional teachers can be very expensive.
If you’re good at any academic subject, you can save these parents some money, and earn yourself some by offering to tutor their kids. The most in demand subjects are science, math, English, and foreign languages.
Aside from being a great way to make money, tutoring other students can provide you with experience that would be very valuable if you’re thinking of pursuing a teaching career.
Like most other teenage businesses, you can start making money through tutoring by talking with family, friends, and neighbors and letting them know that you can tutor their kids at a fee.
You can also create awareness about your services by making flyers and distributing them to local schools.
To access a market outside your neighborhood, you can sign up on platforms like Take Lessons and make your tutoring services available to students from all over the country. Note, however, that these platforms will take between 10% – 40% of your earnings as a commission.
As a tutor, you can charge about $20 per hour per student and above, depending on where you live, as well as the subjects you’re tutoring.
12. Selling Stock Photos
Do you like taking photos? Are you good with the camera? If you answered yes, you can make some money passively by selling your photos on stock photography sites.
With this approach, all you need to do is to capture high quality photos and upload them on stock photo sites. These sites then pay you whenever someone buys one of your images.
To make money selling stock photos, you’ll need to do three things
1) Understand What Customers Are Looking For
People won’t buy your photos simply because you uploaded them to a stock photo site. They’ll only purchase photos that fit what they are looking for.
Therefore, you need to be aware of what most customers are looking for, otherwise you’ll waste time shooting photos no one wants.
Some of the photos with the highest demand include…
- Nature photos
- People working
- Food photos
- Cityscapes and buildings
- Travel photos
- Photos showing various tools
- Photos showing people’s day to day lives
2) Shoot High Quality Photos
Having identified the kind of photos you’re going to shoot, the next thing is to make sure that you’re shooting high quality photos. To take such photos, you’ll need to spruce up your photography and photo editing skills.
3) Upload Your Photos To Stock Photo Sites
After shooting high quality photos and editing them to make them even better, all you need to do now is to upload the photos on a stock photo site. Some reputable stock photo sites to consider include…
include…
So, how much can you make selling stock photos? On average, most stock photographers earn about $0.30 per image per month. This is not a lot of money.
However, stock photography is a numbers game. The more photos you have, the more money you’ll make.
For instance, if you commit to uploading about 200 photos every month, you’d have a total of 2,400 photos within a year, earning you $720 every month in passive income. In five years, you’d be earning $3,600 every month.
13. Start A Landscaping Business
Everyone wants their lawn and yard to look beautiful, but not everyone has the time to do it themselves, or the money to pay a professional landscaping company.
This provides an opportunity for an enterprising teenager like you to make money by offering landscaping services.
Some of the services your landscaping business can offer to clients include mowing lawns, trimming hedges, raking and bagging leaves, painting fences, shoveling snow, trimming flower bushes, pulling weeds, and so on.
One thing I like about this job is that it is very flexible. You can work according to your own schedule, which means that it won’t affect your school time.
In addition, you don’t need a huge investment to start your own mini landscaping business. You can borrow a lawn mower and other tools from your parents. Being a teenager, some clients will even allow you to use their own tools.
A good way to start your landscaping business is to offer your services to family, friends, and neighbors. After doing a good job for them, you can then ask them to send some referrals your way.
As you gain more experience and start earning more, make some flyers and distribute them within your city. You can also get more customers by signing up on apps like NextDoor and Taskrabbit.
If you start getting more work than you can handle by yourself, you can even bring in other teenagers as employees and keep growing your business.
Starting a landscaping business will not only help you make some money today, it could even provide you with stable employment after you’re done with school.
For instance, R. J. Duarte, the founder of GreenWorx Landscaping, started cutting grass around the neighborhood at the age of 8, and slowly grew his business into a budding landscaping company.
By the time he was 19, he turned down an offer to join Colorado State University so he could focus on his landscaping business, which was already bringing in high six figures in annual revenue.
14. Run An Online Conference
You’ve probably attended a couple of conferences, but did you know you could make money organizing your own online conferences?
Running an online conference doesn’t require much in the way of capital investment, which means you can do it even as a teenager.
Running an online conference is pretty simple. You only need to find a couple of people with demonstrated expertise in a certain topic, interview them over the internet, and then make these interviews accessible to online viewers. An online conference can either be live or recorded.
To run a successful online conference, the first thing you need to do is to pick a great topic. If you pick a topic no one is interested in, no one will attend the conference, which means you’re not going to make any money.
When choosing a topic, therefore, think about topics that your target audience are interested in learning about.
For instance, if you are targeting teens, an online conference on how to negotiate for a pay raise won’t attract a lot of viewers, because most teenagers are not working.
However, if you held an online conference on how to get into good colleges, this would attract a lot of viewers, because this is a huge concern for a lot of teenagers.
Once you’ve found a great topic, the next step is to get the right software for hosting and recording your online conference. Some reliable video conferencing software to consider include…
With the software bit sorted, it’s now time to identify and approach your guest speakers, interview them, and then make the online conference available to viewers. You’ll also need to promote the online conference if you want to attract a significant number of viewers.
In most cases, online conferences are accessible to viewers for free. So, how do you make money from running the conference?
The main point of running an online conference is to attract an audience that is interested in a certain topic. Once people attend the conference, you can then use various strategies to monetize this audience, such as…
- Selling a lifetime access pass to the conference content
- Promoting affiliate products during the online conference
- Selling your own products
- Promoting your freelance services
- Selling your online courses
- Finding brands to sponsor your online conference
With an excellent topic and a great selection of guest speakers, you can easily make thousands of dollars from a single online conference.