The 10 Best Side Hustles of 2025

The end of the year is upon us, which means it’s time to reflect back on the side hustles that stood out — the ones that got people talking, the ones I was most excited to share, the ones that made me think, “Dang, I need to drop what I’m doing and go try that.”

Now the mark of a good episode, for me, is when I hang up the call thinking exactly that.

And I try to exercise some level of discipline because the shiny object syndrome is real, but when the shiny object shines for me, I know it’s going to be a hit episode.

So I’ve selected my top 10 for the year, presented in chronological order. If you’re new to the show, I’ve included episode numbers so you can check out the ones you’re interested in.

And if you’re a long-time listener, see if your favorites made the list.

(Here’s the Spotify playlist to make it easy to add these to your device: Best Side Hustles of the Year 2025)

Table of Contents show

1. Vending Machines

Starting off 2025’s best side hustles is Anthony Kolodziej’s vending machine business from Episode 662, which has grown into one of the most impressive scaling stories we’ve featured all year.

AI Vending Machine from H&H Vending — Vending Machine from H&H Vending

In just 16 months, Anthony took his Chicago-area vending business from zero to over $50k/mo — and by the end of the year, he was already over $100k a month. The man is moving a lot of snacks and drinks!

It’s kinda funny, people in the business don’t even really want to say “vending machines” anymore. You know how AI is eating everything? They’re not vending machines, they’re “AI smart markets.”

But the end result is the same: find the right locations, buy products in bulk, and sell them at a markup. The more volume, the merrier.

What makes Anthony’s story stand out?

The whole episode, he’s super open and transparent about his margins and mistakes, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt he took on financing the machines — but essentially getting them for free since the sales cover the debt service and then some.

His secret weapon? Customer service and responsiveness that blows legacy operators out of the water.

“When I go into an appointment, I tell them, ‘Hey, I’m local. You could call me… And I’m gonna get back to you right away.'”

He sends proposals within 24 hours, sets clear expectations about stocking schedules, and brings modern cashless equipment to buildings stuck with outdated coin-operated machines.

We actually did a follow-up with Anthony later in the year (Episode 703), and he dropped this line about waking up in the morning and showing his wife:

“We literally made $25 in our sleep.” That ah-ha moment of gratitude and excitement led them to think, “What if we had 10 of these machines? What if we had 100?”

Want to go deeper? Check out Mike Hoffmann’s Vendingpreneur training program and book a strategy call today.

2. Printables

This is definitely more of a traditional side hustle, one that can be done completely online — and that is Cody Berman’s printables business, which we featured in Episode 665.

Cody’s been doing printables for years, but here’s what makes this story stand out: In response to skeptical comments on the internet saying “it’s too saturated now” and “good luck starting that business today,” Cody had 2 words: “Challenge accepted.”

He started a brand new Etsy shop with no sales history, no outside traffic, and proved it still works — getting it to $1k/mo in just 4 months.

What kind of products can you sell?

Think:

Thank you cards
Budget templates
Chore charts
Meal planners
Intake forms
Packing lists
Trip planners
Invitations
Trivia games
Checklists

Here’s Cody’s advice for getting started:

“If you’re already a side hustler, look at what you already have and what you’re already using.”

The keyword research strategy:

Cody creates a massive list (250+ ideas), then plugs them into keyword research tools like eRank and Everbee to answer two critical questions:

Is there search demand? Are people actually searching for this?
Is there competition? Can I stand out?

Go after low-volume search terms with almost no competition. If he can scoop up 10 sales a month for a $5 product, that’s $50/month in passive income. Stack up an army of these “little mini digital assets,” and it becomes a serious operation.

Create them once, sell them over and over again.

To learn more, check out Cody’s E-Printables Side Hustle Course.

3. User Generated Content (UGC)

This isn’t about being an influencer and having hundreds of thousands of followers. This is about brands hiring individual creators like you to help them fill their own social feeds with authentic-looking content — and maybe even using the videos you create as ads.

In that sense, UGC is freelance content creation, just with a specific short-form video-first spin.

Creators are earning $200+ per video — videos that are usually less than a minute long.

Megan Collier from Episode 666 set a goal as a new mom to earn an extra $1,000 a month from UGC deals. Her very first one earned her $750 for 5 videos, and it grew far beyond her original goal — on the side from her day job.

@megan_ugc
Type your CURRENT age in the comments!

♬ original sound – Megan | UGC Creator & Coach

How do you get started?

First, you need a portfolio. But how do you build a portfolio before you have any clients?

“I created a portfolio using products around my house that I already had.”

Next, it’s time to reach out to brands.

Megan’s DM strategy:

“I would literally just scroll Instagram, look at the ads that I was seeing on Instagram, and then go and follow the brand if I wasn’t already following them, and then I would DM them.”

If brands are already investing in ads, it’s a signal they might be open to working with creators.

What about pricing?

Don’t sell yourself short, even as a beginner. “Typical beginner rates are going to be like $150 to $200 per UGC video. Now I can charge well over $1,000 per UGC video.”

Plus, most brands hire you for more than one video. Megan gave an example of a 3-video package for just over $3,000 that took her less than two hours to create.

4. Foam Parties

This is from Tim Carstensen’s mobile foam party business from Episode 676.

Happy Kids partying — Foam Party All Stars

When we connected, Tim was still working full-time as a PE teacher, but running this business on weekends and over the summer and had hired helpers after demand grew to the point where he couldn’t be two places at once.

The creative and relatively low-risk way Tim started the business. He pre-booked parties months in advance and used the save-the-date deposits to fund his equipment.

Tim’s launch strategy:

He made a list of every daycare, summer camp, park district, library, and elementary school within 35-40 miles, then sent postcards to all of them.

The postcard said: “We bring a foam party to you.”

Equipment costs:

Professional foam cannon: $2,500
Barriers, tent, branding, hoses, tools: Additional costs
Total initial investment was manageable, and Tim figured if it didn’t work, he could sell the equipment back

5. BBQ Seasoning (White Label E-Commerce)

When we recorded, Chris Gray’s Bald Buck BBQ Seasoning business was doing around $300k a year in sales — on the side from his day job.

While Chris enjoyed smoking meat and definitely enjoyed eating it, he wasn’t a professional chef and he didn’t even invent this seasoning as his own personal recipe.

Instead, he found a product that he knew already tasted great and applied his own marketing to it.

“I just found out who made it. And then I called them up and I’m like, ‘Hey, I like your seasoning. Do you white label it?'”

The marketing breakthrough:

To get his initial sales, Chris turned to influencer marketing — targeting big BBQ channels on YouTube, offering to send them the seasoning and even run giveaways for their audience. That drove quite a bit of business.

Then Chris turned to a unique storytelling and retargeting strategy on social media to sell what might be considered a commodity product at a premium price online.

6. Glamping

This was Garrett Brown’s glamping business from Episode 686.

Wonderland Geo Dome from Cameron Ranch Glamping

Garrett did such a good job building up the experience surrounding staying at his property (an hour outside of Houston) that he was able to command 4-star hotel prices ($400 a night) without the 4-star amenities.

It’s a tiny house in the woods, but people come for that Instagram-worthy shot, to get away from the city, and to have a unique experience.

And it costs a whole lot less to set up than trying to run a 4-star hotel, so his return on investment math was really strong.

Garrett’s 60-30-10 Rule for location:

60 minutes from a major city (not too far to drive)
30 minutes from some type of national, regional, or state attraction (lake, state park, national forest)
10 minutes from civilization (Dollar General, gas station, Walmart) so you can get people to help clean and operate the facilities

Garrett found a house on 10+ acres in an unrestricted area. By purchasing a property with a house already on it, he only needed to put 5% down (much easier than financing raw land).

He negotiated a 3% seller concession into his offer, which meant he went into the property for about 2% down, just $12,000.

The money he saved upfront went into building his first tiny cabin on the property.

7. Return Reselling (Sharetown)

This is one of those plug-and-play side hustles that continues to get outsized feedback and support from listeners, and that’s Sharetown.

If you’re not familiar, Sharetown is the “reverse logistics” arm for a lot of online retailers in the furniture, mattress, and exercise equipment space — basically big bulky stuff that’s difficult to return.

How it works:

Sharetown partners with local reps (often side hustlers like you and me) to facilitate pick-up requests when a customer wants to return their item. But the companies can’t really take the items back and would prefer they stay out of the landfill.

Sharetown reps:

Pick up the returned items
List them for resale on Facebook Marketplace
Once sold, send a portion of proceeds back to Sharetown
Keep the rest as profit

Why it makes the list:

It’s a simple, low-risk side business. Yes, it’s labor. Yes, you need a way to transport and store items. But you’ve got super-low overhead and it’s one of those side hustles where:

You don’t need to build an audience
You don’t need to create a product
You just need to do the work

That sentiment was echoed by Matt and Hannah in Episode 687. They weren’t particularly passionate about selling mattresses, but targeting $200 per flip, it became a meaningful extra income stream at a time they really needed it.

8. Directory Websites

Here’s a business model I’ve got some level of experience in and one that’s proven to be a bit more AI-resistant than some other online businesses.

In Episode 692, we met Frey Chu, who specializes in “near me” directories, helping people solve problems and find information about businesses near them: thrift stores, RV parks, splash pads.

He layers in value-added information that maybe Google Maps doesn’t have, becoming the go-to expert in that space and getting rewarded in the search results.

The three umbrella frameworks:

What saves people time?
What earns people money?
What saves people money?

Why local directories are more protected:

“Local queries, local SEO is way more protected. If you go on ChatGPT or any LLM and you look up a local query or local keyword, like barbers near me, it’s arguably worse than Google Maps right now. And the SERPs look the same, which is great.”

Plus, for certain niches like daycare, legal services, or finance, the consequence of choosing the wrong vendor is too high to just trust a one-shot ChatGPT prompt.

Monetization options:

Display ads (Frey’s primary method)
Affiliate partnerships
Featured listings
Your own digital products

9. Facebook Content Monetization Program

This is a brand new income stream for me, one I’ve been spending a lot of time and attention on trying to get off the ground.

Like YouTube, Facebook is paying creators who can post engaging content and get people to stay on the platform longer.

The catch: They don’t have clear guidelines on what it takes to get invited, and as of now, it’s invite only (not something you can apply for).

However, if you’ve had your page for a while, even a somewhat dormant page like mine was, you might find you have an invite waiting for you.

After months of seeing Jeff Rose’s Good Financial Cents at the top of my feed, I finally had to call him up to learn more. There’s no way he’s posting this much and not getting paid — and sure enough, he was making like $1,000 a day posting memes, screenshots of tweets, stock charts, all loosely related to personal finance.

What’s working for Jeff’s audience:

Screenshots of gold, Bitcoin, S&P 500, or stock charts with captions
Parenting stuff
Marriage humor

The volume game:

This is very much a game of throwing digital spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

“I did not get any serious traction until I started committing to eight posts per day.”

I’m currently posting 8-10x a day and trying to increase that volume in a sustainable way, because the more you post, the more chances you have to have a winner.

Can I get it to $100 a day? $5-10k a month? We’ll see what happens in the coming year.

10. Re-purposing Public Domain Content

This one is arguably the most creative side hustle we featured this year, and this was Cheyenne Bulloch’s public domain radio re-purposing business.

The raw material? Old, free, available-to-everyone radio shows from the 1950s. Zero cost of goods sold.

What Cheyenne does (and the branding is amazing if you check out DomesticDaydreams on social) is sprinkle in homemaking advice and cleaning routines into the audio, and charges $25/mo or $45/quarter for a subscription to 6 new episodes a week.

It turns keeping your house clean into a pleasant, entertaining routine.

When we recorded, she had over 500 paying members.

The Instagram to email to offer strategy:

Create pain-point oriented Instagram captions
Direct people to comment “homemaker” (automated via ManyChat)
Send free sample episodes via email opt-in
Follow up with email sequence highlighting the membership
Run retargeting ads to anyone who’s interacted with her content

Why retargeting works for her:

“So many new people knowing about my brand through my Instagram, through my Facebook. I get millions of views every single month through my blog. I basically do organic content marketing at the top, and that’s what gets new people in. And I only do retargeting ads.”

Such a unique business addressing the problem of a dirty house. Those members all had the pain point of a disorganized home, but probably didn’t know old school radio programs could help solve it until they discovered Cheyenne on social media.

Your Turn

Did your favorites make the list? What did we miss?

Any new side hustles you took action on in 2025?

Honorable Mentions:

Eric Dingler – Local SEO: “The fastest path to $20k a month is with a local marketing service”
Harrison Nott – 15-year-old e-commerce mogul, youngest Side Hustle Show guest ever, mastering short-form video to move cooling towels

Happy New Year!

If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend — fire off that text message and send some positive financial vibes their way.

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