Top 10 Most Profitable Side Hustles

One question I get all the time is, “What are the most profitable side hustles?”

Well, there are a couple ways to look at profitability. First, there’s profit margin — how much of every dollar actually flows to your bottom line after expenses.

Then there’s raw profit – like Walmart making $10-15 billion a year, but on $500-600 billion in sales. Low margins, but HUGE volume.

But in this post, we’re gonna focus mostly on higher-margin, lean operation side hustles.

Let’s dive in!

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1. Recurring Web Design/ Hosting Service

Ryan Golgosky of 180sites.com took what is typically sold as a one-off service — web design — and repackaged it for recurring revenue in a really creative way: selling them to power washing companies.

Instead of charging thousands upfront (like $5,000 or $10,000), he goes for about $180 to $300 a month for 24 months, then a lower-priced maintenance package after.

“If having a better website… [is] generating just one extra sale a month, the service is already being paid for and then some. It’s a pretty simple, easy sell,” he explained.

So the fixed costs are covered in about 2 months, meaning the next 22 months are almost pure profit. This model is likely replicable in tons of different niches, so get your creative juices flowing.

2. Content Business

Think helpful websites, podcasts, YouTube channels, or social media followings. This makes the list because it’s super scalable with relatively low costs. It takes the same effort to write an article that 100 people read as it does one that 100,000 people read. And as traffic increases, so does revenue.

Andrew Fiebert from the affiliate tracking software Lasso and GiftLab.co shared some great insights:

“I kind of liken blogging to you have this bag of seed, and you’re just grabbing fistfuls and you’re throwing the seed out there… It’s really about how do we land as many of those seeds as possible in fertile soil?”

Plant those seeds, give them love and attention, and pay attention to what’s working. Then, do more of that. It’s a longer-term play, but your efforts can really start to compound over time.

3. Digital Products

Digital products pair nicely with a content business. It’s another way to monetize the attention your content attracts – think printables, digital downloads, or online courses.

Becky Beach from MomBeach.com was earning around $30k a month, primarily from digital product sales on platforms like Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. She was using ChatGPT to help create some of these digital products, such as printables, planners, and budgeting spreadsheets

Another great example is Jacques Hopkins of Pianoin21Days.com, who’s sold over $4 million worth of his online piano course through its various iterations over the last decade.

The beauty of digital products is that you create once, and then sell over and over again. This evergreen digital asset has low overhead, high profit potential.

4. Sharetown

Sharetown is a unique opportunity in the physical product space. It’s an app that specializes in customer returns for bulky items like furniture and mattresses. As a Sharetown rep, you pick up returned items, clean ’em up, and list them for resale.

Then once sold, that’s when you pay Sharetown for the product, where you can pocket $100 to $250 per item for your work.

The best part is you only pay for inventory after you sell it — similar to a dropshipping business — and the reason I’m including it here. Staci Aburto broke it down for us in Episode 501:

“We started out with just our garage, which was a huge benefit for us ’cause we didn’t have to invest in a unit or anything like that. Around a year-ish, we started talking we should invest in a unit so we can hold more inventory.”

So if you’ve got a truck or a bigger SUV and want to give it a shot in your area, check out my full Sharetown review to learn more.

5. Niche Consulting

Niche consulting can be super profitable because there’s essentially no overhead — you’re just selling your time and expertise. We’ve heard from our guests like:

Brad Rice earning $200k+ working 18 hours a week as a Salesforce consultant
Jayne Havens making $10k a month as a baby and toddler sleep consultant
Liz Wilcox landing $20,000 copywriting projects.

An interesting example is Carter Osborne who shared his story of building a full-time income with college admissions essay consulting. He initially undervalued his services before increasing his rate by understanding market demands rather than basing his pricing on self-perceived worth.

His advice on pricing:

“It’s not about what you internally think you’re worth. It’s about what the market can handle, what they’re willing to respond to.”

Remember, where there’s pain and uncertainty, there’s a business idea.

6. Ice Vending

This one’s fun because your product is almost free, but people will pay a premium for it in the right location.

The only drawback to this business is that the machines can be pretty expensive, and it’s seasonal in some places, but those margins are hard to beat!

Steve Slagle from Beachside Ice broke down the economics:

“It costs about 8 cents to make 10 pounds of ice roughly. Let’s just say you’re selling that for $3… So now you’re at $2.92 of profit. Back a little bit out of that for maybe planned maintenance and some of those things, but you’re probably going to land in the $2.40 range per bag.”

If you want to start a vending machine side hustle, check out Episode 599 with Mike Hoffman.

It would be super seasonal in the northwest, but a snack-and-drink vending machine at our local community pool would crush in the summer.

7. Membership Business

Membership businesses are attractive because of the recurring revenue.

The common membership model setup includes two main parts: content (like educational material) and a community (where members connect and interact). People usually join for the content, but they stay because they value the community.

But a different example is shared by Jack Spirko from The Survival Podcast. He introduced his unique model called “Support Brigade,” which gives followers exclusive access to deals and discounts he’s negotiated.

For $50 a year, members get access to discounts from about 70 companies. Jack explained:

“If you had something that’s giving you $100 worth of discounts, you’re paying 50 bucks for, like you have poor financial sense if you cancel that product.”

This model works well because members see the value — they pay $50 but might save more than that through discounts. Jack runs this with a very lean operation, just himself, his wife, and some minimal costs like web hosting.

8. Product Licensing

Product licensing is another opportunity for recurring revenue. You come up with a product idea, then pitch it to bigger companies with the resources to bring it to life (instead of you trying to get the thing off the ground all on your own.)

This is the side hustle that appeals to all the modern-day inventors who look at products and think of all the ways to make it better.

A previous guest licensed a Pictionary-inspired card game to Mattel. Another one has patents related to products in the baseball and softball world.

Stephen Key from InventRight, our go-to expert on this, shared in a previous episode:

“An average royalty is about 5%. What’s really more important is make sure it has minimum guarantees, meaning that they have to sell X amount. If not, you get it back. It’s your best protection.”

Most companies often want exclusive rights to your idea. This means that only they can sell the product, and you can’t license it to anyone else.

So to protect yourself, you can include a minimum sales guarantee in the contract.

This means the company must sell a certain number of units within a specific time frame. If they don’t, the rights to the product revert to you, allowing you to find another company to license it to.

Low risk, big upside potential. Not a bad combo!

9. Reselling Software

I wanted to include software on this list because software companies are some of the most profitable in the world, right? But some of our previous episodes about it didn’t do well, except for one topic: reselling software.

Reselling software, or white-labeling someone else’s software, can be a great way to tap into the software business model without the headaches of development.

The idea is to find a software tool that you believe in, and then sell it to businesses that could benefit from it.

Chris Lollini shared his experience reselling reputation management software in Episode 494.

Chris buys the software at a wholesale price, for example, $40 per seat, and then resells it to his clients for $97 to $300 a month, depending on the services included.

Since software can change over time (for example, when companies get bought out or platforms evolve), the key is to build relationships with your clients and become their trusted advisor.

10. Self Publishing

Self-publishing has been one of my longest-running side hustles, starting back in 2012 with Virtual Assistant Assistant.

Since then, I’ve added several books including:

Work Smarter (2015)
Buy Buttons (2016)
The Side Hustle (2019)
$1000 100 Ways” (2021)
The Progress Journal (2023)

In total, these books have earned over $84k in lifetime royalties, with only about $2k in production costs. That’s a 97% margin!

And that’s not even counting audiobook sales or the other benefits like brand awareness and growing my email list.

We’ve covered all sorts of angles on self-publishing, from low-content books to children’s publishing to public domain publishing.

Aaron Kerr from TimelessReads.com described earning over $100k in royalties by republishing books from the public domain — texts that are no longer under copyright protection.

This involves formatting these works for Kindle and selling them on Amazon.

Wrapping Up

So there you have it — my top 10 most profitable side hustles, complete with real-life examples and some actual numbers.

Interestingly, when I asked ChatGPT the same question, there was shockingly little overlap. They included things like ridesharing, delivery, and dog walking — all viable hustles, but with pretty limited earning potential.

So take everything (including this list!) with a grain of salt.

Do your own research, and most importantly, find a side hustle you’re excited about. If you’re not pumped about it, you’ll never give it the time and attention it needs to succeed.

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