Online Business Ideas 2018
Updated February 09, 2024

29 Best Online Business Ideas for 2024 That You Can Do From Home

Content Businesses

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Online business ideas, especially home-based ones that you can start on the side, are a faraway dream for most people.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning, turn on their computer, and make six figures without even leaving the house?

Who wouldn’t want to escape the 8-to-5 rat race, complete with endless traffic, demanding bosses, and annoying coworkers?

29 Best Online Business Ideas

Well, believe it or not, every year it gets easier and easier for the average person to come up with their own online business ideas and execute them.

The fact of the matter is that the Internet is a freaking miracle, and if you know how to use it to your advantage, you can start an online business form home.

Here are 29 of the best online business ideas for 2024.

1. Blogging

I list this one first because I have firsthand experience with it.

On July 15, 2017, I bought the domain moneydoneright.com because I was sick of working my full-time job (complete with a 2-hour one-way commute) and wanted to build an online business that would provide me with more money and a better life.

So I worked on nights and weekends to produce content and promote my blog on social media.

WHOIS Record

By January 2018, my blog was making me over $12,000 a month, on the side, while I still maintained my full-time job that consumed at least 50 and sometimes up to 80 hours a week (not including my commute).

It wasn’t long after that when I put in my notice at work to kiss the corporate world goodbye forever!

Quit Big 4 Public Accounting

Since then, I’ve been able to over double my earnings from my blog now that I work on it full-time, from home.

And the best part is that it doesn’t really feel like work!  I love what I do and the freedom it gives me.

I mean, today’s a weekday, and I took a break from 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM to play Battlefield on PS4.

And even though I’m an ambitious person, I don’t feel bad about it at all because I know that my blog is making me money 24/7.

2. Become an Amazon Associate.

Did you know that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently overtook Bill Gates as the richest person in the world?

It’s true. Amazon is taking over the (e-commerce) world!

And guess what? You can partner with Amazon as an Amazon Associate to make money without touching a single product.

You simply promote products that can be purchased on Amazon (which is just about anything imaginable) and receive a commission when somebody buys them.

3. Slogan Writing

Are you kinda witty? Then you may be able to make money just by thinking up slogans in your spare time.

4. Voice Overs

If you don’t mind being recorded, you may be interested in the various voice over jobs from home that have crept up online over the years.

Every day, there are literally thousands of pieces of content produced — from TV commercials, web presentations, radio jingles, and video game characters — that need voice over work.

And the majority of these content creators don’t want to pay a Hollywood actor or actress thousands of dollars, so they’re willing to pay everyday people $100 – $1,500 for lending their voice for 10 – 180 minutes.

I personally know some people who make $150 – $200 for just 10 minutes of work.

Pretty good, yeah? And the opportunities are endless!

5. Photography

Are you good behind the camera? Then you can make a somewhat passive side income licensing your photos online for others to download.

For example, I get all my pictures for this blog from various stock photo sites on the Internet. And every time I download a photo, the photographer who uploaded it gets a royalty!

Licensing one picture that you take and upload now can give you cash flow forever as it’s downloaded again and again!

6. Video Game Testing Business

This is one of those online business ideas where you get paid to do something you enjoy, so it’s not really work at all.

With more and more video games being produced every year, more and more video game companies are looking for everyday gamers to review their products.

7. Real Estate Wholesale Business

Did you know that you can make money in real estate with no money down?

Yes, you can!  Here’s how it works:

  1. Find a motivated seller who needs to sell his or her house quickly and doesn’t have time to go through a real estate agent
  2. Negotiate with this seller and get his or her house under contract
  3. Assign this contract to a cash buyer who wants to flip it or keep it as a rental

Confused?  Don’t be.  There’s a 21-year-old guy who makes over $1,000,000 a year doing this.

8. Social Media Marketing Business

In the business world today, social media is a must.

It’s no longer optional like it was 10 years ago.

Either a business is on social media, or it will fail.  And this reality is scaring older business owners out of their minds.

That’s where Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram-savvy you come in.

9. Drop Shipping

You may have heard of people making six-figure income with drop shipping but aren’t quite sure what exactly drop shipping is.

Let me break down the basic steps of a drop shipping business:

  1. Find common household items that interest you.
  2. Easily set up an online storefront on Shopify, Clickfunnels, or Amazon (takes less than an hour).
  3. Connect your online storefront to a credit card processor and bank account (takes less than 30 minutes).
  4. Drive traffic to your online storefront.
  5. When people purchase from your online store, you purchase the item from a third party who ships it directly to the customer and collect the difference as profit.

You don’t have to worry about storing inventory or packaging up products at the post office.

You are simply a facilitator for the transaction.

10. English Teaching Business

If you have fluency in English, a Bachelors’ degree, and at least some experience working with children, then you can make $14-$25 per hour teaching English from home.

By the way, don’t let the “experience working with children” requirement scare you away. This could be simply be babysitting or caring for your own children!

11. Start a Consulting Business.

Consulting is incredible because you are simply taking knowledge that you already have and sharing it with others for a profit!

I personally know people who left their W-2 jobs an to launch a consulting business and within 2 years were netting over $100,000.

One of them grew his business to over $1,000,000 within 5 years!

12. Bookkeeping

If you’re somewhat decent with numbers, you can start an at-home bookkeeping business with absolutely no training in accounting or bookkeeping necessary!

What with so many small businesses forming every year, bookkeeping is an extremely in-demand skill set that doesn’t require much training to learn.

In fact, Entrepreneur Magazine recently concluded that bookkeeping is the #1 most profitable small business. Here’s what they had to say:

Finances are a part of everyone’s lives, so here’s an industry that will remain important no matter what. Not only that, but these types of businesses don’t need to purchase or maintain any expensive equipment, thus have few overhead costs. — Entrepreneur Magazine

If this sounds like something that interests you, then you need to check out Bookkeeper Launch — right now they’re offering free three classes to teach you how to start your own bookkeeping business!

13. Write an ebook

Publishing a book is a lot easier these days than it was even 20 years ago.

See, these days we have things like Amazon Kindle where practically anyone can self-publish their own books.

14. Freelance Writing

You can turn your solid writing skills into an extremely lucrative work-from-home career.

With emojis and texting taking over our daily communication, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find people who can communicate effectively in writing. And so they can charge a premium for their skills.

Every day, there are literally millions of pieces of content published online — and every single one of those pieces needed someone to write it.

The opportunities are endless!

15. Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants help people and businesses do things online.

All you have to do is know how to use the Internet!

Your tasks could be anything from proofreading articles to curating social media content to managing a calendar.

And there are dozens of other ways to make good money working from home as a virtual assistant.

16. Proofreading

Are you a grammar Nazi or a spelling bee champ?

Do you actually know the difference between “they’re”, “their”, and “there”?

Do you find yourself shaking your head at grammatical errors you come across in everyday life?

If so, then you’re a rare and in-demand breed.

17. Life Coach

If you like people and are passionate about helping others, starting a life coaching business from home may be right for you.

Not only is this online business idea extremely profitably, but it can also be extremely satisfying knowing that you are providing others with the information they need to better themselves.

18. Freight Brokerage

Freight brokers help shippers that need to move freight from point A to point B by finding a carrier (trucking company) that will haul the freight for slightly less than the shipper is willing to pay them.

Brokers earn between 10% and 35% profit per shipment they broker, which translates to approximately $100 to $500 per shipment.

Although you may only start off getting 1-2 shipments a day, experienced brokers can do as many as 5-10 shipments a day.

And the best part is you can become a freight broker from home!

19. T-Shirt Design

Did you know that over 2 billion T-shirts are sold every year? It’s true! Think about how many T-shirts you own. Probably at least a dozen or two, right? And consider the fact that every one of those T-shirts had a designer who was paid handsomely for his or her creativity.

And just one or two T-shirts that you design today could provide you with passive income for years to come! And you can get started designing T-shirts from the comfort of your own home.

That’s right. Somebody else can handle for you all the production, inventory, and shipping.

20. Data Entry

Thousands of companies need work-from-home data entry workers.

They don’t want to have to pay for people to come into the office for something they can do at home.

See, when workers come into an office, the company has to rent space for them to use and provide facilities such as air conditioning, restrooms, etc.

They would rather people simply work from their home for data entry tasks, so there are plenty of opportunities for this kind of work.

21. Ticket Broker

Ticket brokering used to be associated with scalping.

It used to be a long, tiring process that involved a lot of driving and having to show up to events hours before they started to sell your tickets.

Well, that’s not the ticket broker game anymore.

Now, you can launch your own ticket broker business from home, getting the best tickets and selling them for major profits on Stubhub and Ebay.

22. Travel Agency

Many people think that travel agents have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Not true!  Now, to be honest, people don’t need a travel agent anymore to book flights.

The majority of flights these days are booked online.

But did you know that 70% of cruises are booked through a travel agent?

Also, those who spend the most on cruises (senior citizens 55+) aren’t very computer savvy and prefer communicating with a human being.

That’s where you come in with your work from home travel agency business!

23. Tutoring

Do you know stuff?  Of course you do.

Then consider sharing your knowledge with others and getting paid for it!

Of course, you can find people to tutor the old-fashioned way by posting in your local classified section, but the Internet has made it extremely easy to create a profitable online tutoring business.

You can set your own hours, taking on as many or as few students as your goals and schedule allow.

24. Translation

If you know a language other than English, you’re a hot commodity, my friend.

In fact, the United States Department of Labor expects that the demand for interpreters and translators to increase by more than 28% by 2024.

25. Dog Treat Baking Business

You can make a killing making dog bones because (1) pet products is a $65 billion industry and (2) your competition will be slim.

As dog owners become more and more picky about their pet’s health, they are becoming less content with the standard, mass-produced dog treats that can be purchased at the grocery store.

That’s where you come in with your unique dog treats and bones!

26. Woodworking

Do you love the smell of freshly-cut wood?

Do you have a little workshed or maybe a garage where you can launch a new business?

Then making money from home as a woodworker may be just the job for you.

See, more and more people every year want “handcrafted” items and aren’t happy with store-bought furniture.

And they are willing to pay top dollar for such pieces!

27. Event Planning

If there’s one thing that people will never stop paying for, it’s getting together with family and friends.

We’ve known for years that paying tens of thousands of dollars for a wedding isn’t the greatest financial move.

But guess what?

We still do it.

Wedding planning, and event planning in general, is a booming business and will be around as long as people like nice gatherings with family and friends.

28. Import/Export

Go pick up five random objects in your house.

I guarantee that at least one of them (if not all of them!) was manufactured overseas.

We don’t think about it in everyday life, but there are people making big money importing products like these from other countries as well as exporting American-made products around the world.

Who knows?  Maybe the next big import/export profiteer will be you!

29. Property Tax Appeal Business

Every property owner in the country is convinced they pay too much in property taxes.

But they feel helpless to do anything about it.

That’s where you come in with your property tax appeal business.

You will be able to help your clients lower their property tax, and they will pay you handsomely for it!

Author:

Logan Allec, CPA

Logan is a practicing CPA and founder of Choice Tax Relief and Money Done Right. After spending nearly a decade in the corporate world helping big businesses save money, he launched his blog with the goal of helping everyday Americans earn, save, and invest more money. Learn more about Logan.

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