The past year encouraged all of us to embrace the great indoors. No surprise, then, that interest in how to make money online from the safety of our homes is now on the rise.

What once felt like a distant daydream is now a reality for millions of people. Those of us who worked remotely from our home offices for the last few years have a lot less explaining to do at family events—the path to earning a meaningful amount of money online has become much clearer.

The magic of the web is that it’s a sales channel, marketing network, and community hub all in one—plus so much more. There are many creative ways to make money online beyond surveys and selling used goods on Craigslist. 

That said, some businesses and side hustles are better suited to the laptop lifestyle than others. In this guide, we’ll break down the strengths and shortcomings of a few of the top money-making options.

How to make money online: 25 proven ways

To make choosing the best ways to make money online easier, we’ll look at several key factors:

• Business type: whether the idea is product based, service based or driven by an audience.
• Effort: how much time, skill, or experience you’ll need to put into the idea. 
• Leverage: how well positioned you are to turn the idea into a money-making one that increases in value without needing your direct attention. A high-leverage idea isn’t a 1:1 trade of time for money. 
• Startup costs: the upfront budget you’ll need to launch the idea.
• Profit potential: how much profit you can expect to make from your idea per year.

Here are the top picks for making money online:

1. Dropshipping

Business type: Product based

Effort: Medium

Leverage: High

Startup costs (out of 5 💸): 💸

Earning potential (out of 5 💰): 💰💰💰

Last year, many worldwide trends experienced a decades’ worth of acceleration. One such trend was the rise of ecommerce. There are a number of ways to run an ecommerce business, some of which allow for minimal need to carry and hold lots of inventory.

Enter dropshipping. Dropshipping is a business model where you don’t keep the products you sell in stock. Instead, when a customer buys something from your store, a third party fulfills and ships the order for you. Because startup costs are low, it’s an increasingly popular way to make money online for beginners and pros alike. 

Dropshippers have a habit of chasing the latest trends. And while there’s nothing wrong with catching a trending product wave, know that there also are many product categories that are steady and offer similar opportunities to do well. At Shopify, we regularly see these categories on our list of top performers:

• Women’s clothing and accessories. Far and away the most popular category of dropshipping products. There are a variety of interesting niches within this category, too, including dresses, accessories, intimates, hoodies, socks and hoseries, and rompers. Since these products have a large market, are purchased relatively frequently, and are successfully sold through great marketing, they’re consistently a top performer for dropshipping.

• Jewelry. If you want to turn jewelry into a profitable small business, dropshipping is a good model to try. You can sell in a variety of categories, including fine jewelry, fashion or costume, and collectibles. Or sell jewelry made from different materials, like gems, wood, textile, or metals. 

• Home and garden. Home and garden is one of those dropshipping niches that seem to always be trendy. People are always looking to add personal touches to their space to make it feel warm and cozy, which can make this an exciting (and profitable) niche to sell in. 

• Beauty. The beauty and personal care market is projected to be worth $511.4 billion by the end of 2021. Beauty is a thriving industry fueled by younger generations entering the market and is strengthened by social media and ecommerce. You also have options in the beauty niche: you can sell cosmetics, skin care, personal care, hair care, fragrances, and more.

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OK, sounds good. But there is a huge hurdle to overcome with dropshipping: you’re selling an existing product. The ease of starting a dropshipping business also means you’ll be up to your knees in competition—so it relies heavily on customer support. That means you’re giving up a really important piece of leverage and need to recognize that, in order to succeed, you’re going to have to outdo the competition with a well-chosen niche and creative marketing.

🎯 Idea in action

Subtle Asian Treats is a top dropshipping store that sells cute plushies and cases for AirPods and iPhones. It was founded by Tze Hing Chan, a young Malaysian entrepreneur, to take advantage of the bubble tea craze happening in Asia. 

Tze explains in an interview with Oberlo, “I knew that the bubble tea trend was up and coming, especially in Asian communities, so I looked around for bubble tea stuff on AliExpress. I found phone cases, and that was my very first product.”

Tze spent months exploring and selling different dropshipping products; some earned him extra cash, while others flopped. It wasn’t until he found the bubble tea plushie that his dream store became a reality. Once he saw them, he immediately imported them to his Shopify store, ran Facebook ads, and watched customers start rolling in.

Learn more by reading Luck and Learning From Failures Led This Entrepreneur to Make $100K From Bubble Tea Plush Toys on the Oberlo blog.

2. Print on demand

Business type: Product based

Effort: Medium

Leverage: Medium

Startup costs (out of 5 💸): 💸

Earning potential (out of 5 💰): 💰💰💰

Print on demand allows sellers to customize white label products with their own designs and sell them only after a customer buys, eliminating the need to hold inventory (which is what makes it a subset of dropshipping). When a customer places an order, a print-on-demand company will add your design to the product, fulfill the order, and ship it to the customer.

The most significant advantage print on demand offers over dropshipping is that you have control over the aesthetic of your products—a key differentiator for product categories where the design is the distinguisher, like t-shirts or fan merch.

When it comes to making money online, you can also use print-on-demand services to:

• Test online business ideas or new products lines without the risk of buying inventory 

• Monetize an audience you’ve already built, whether it’s on YouTube, social media, or a personal blog

• Offer diverse products by selling t-shirts, books, shoes, bags, mugs, phone cases, laptop skins, wall art, and more 

• Sell photos online by placing your images on physical products to sell to your fans

Overall, print on demand lets you create customized products quickly. You don’t have to worry about shipping or fulfillment—it’s taken care of by your suppliers. And since you have no inventory to worry about, it’s a low risk, low investment way to make money online. 

🎯 Idea in action

Passionfruit sells inclusive clothing and accessories for the LGBTQQIA community. The brand is built around the power of togetherness and building a bright future for queer youth, creating products that allow them to show their pride all year around, rather than only at special events. 

Passionfruit’s products are all carefully designed with pencil and paper, then digitized, placed on products through a print-on-demand company, and sold in its store. You can find t-shirts, tank tops, sweaters, hats, stickers, tote bags, and more, all specially designed and curated for Passionfruit’s audience, with a mission to make a positive impact on the world.

3. Custom products

Business type: Product based

Effort: High

Leverage: Medium

Startup costs (out of 5 💸): 💸💸💸

Earning potential (out of 5 💰): 💰💰💰

While the options above come bundled with the convenience of not holding on to expensive inventory, they do come with some limitations—mainly that you don’t have full control over the product you’re selling.

And when you think of most direct-to-consumer brands, this is what comes to mind: original products that make meaningful improvements or add interesting details to well-known items. Personally, I’ve purchased many messenger bags, but I’d never seen anything like the one made by Vermilyea Pelle until it reached my doorstep.

Making products by hand is popular amongst jewelry brands, fashion brands, and home decor brands. It gives you full control over the product development and quality of your items. The only drawbacks are: (1) it can be time consuming, and (2) it’s difficult to scale. The costs associated with making products by hand are the cost of materials, storing your finished products, and labor. 

That said, a custom product doesn’t have to be completely handmade. There are many ways to find a manufacturer or supplier to help bring your product to life. For example, you could:

• Use domestic or overseas manufacturers. If you have a unique product that you don’t want to make by hand, you could find a manufacturer to make your products. The Alibaba dropshipping route is a common way to do this. You can use the marketplace to find potential manufacturers, communicate your vision to them, and get your products made. This will require some upfront investment because of minimum order quantities and storage, but it’s a good way to maintain control of your products while keeping cost per unit low. 

• Resell wholesale items. Buying and reselling wholesale items is a straightforward, low-risk way to make money online. You buy products you want directly from manufacturers—usually brands that are already credible on the market—at a discounted rate, then sell them in your online store at a higher price. 

It’s important to understand these methods to make the right choices when creating and selling custom products. Each has its own advantages and drawbacks, which you can read about in From Dropshipping to DTC, Here Are the Most Popular Types of Ecommerce Business Models.