Your pockets are empty, you have no Money to invest, and you don't have time. But you still want to quickly make money online without paying anything.

No problem.

Get lost in a desert, find a magic lamp, and command Genie to fill your bank account to the top.

Easy, isn't it?

But there's an even easier (and more realistic) option.

Spare a few minutes to read this article in which I've shared more nearly two dozen different ways you can actually make money online without any investment or sign-up fees, even if you're a total newbie.

If you're a regular NicheHacks reader, you know we don't share useless advice like selling everything in your house on eBay or clicking Google Ads all day (which is illegal anyway).

This post is about practical ways that'll make you money online without the need to spend anything upfront.

Sounds interesting?

Keep reading.

Making Money Online Without Money - Is It Possible in 2020?

You need investment to start ANY business in the world.

When you don't have money, that investment comes in the form of your time.

This isn't true for every business model but there are ways you can earn money even with empty pockets provided you can invest your time in it.

For example, Chandler Boult, a college dropout with no money to invest, made several thousand dollars in his first year as a self-published author on Amazon.

Source

His story was so remarkable even Business Insider covered it in 2015. Today he runs an online academy teaching people how to replicate his success.

Here's another similar story.

When Harold, a Fiverr Super-Seller, graduated from college, he had several thousand dollars of student loans, no job, and no money to invest.

This is when he found Fiverr and started doing small freelance graphic design projects.

Source

Today, he's one of the top Fiverr freelancers pulling in 6-figures a month with freelancing. He has grown a team and turned his desperate side gig into a full-time business.

I can share dozens of other examples where people started online businesses with zero investment and transformed their lives.

So, yes! you can make money even if you're broke.

But how quickly can you do it?

And how reliable are these methods?

Good question.

I'll answer it in the next section.

26 Legit Ways To Make Money Online With Zero Investment

You have a choice - invest money or invest time

Building a long-term and sustainable online business with no investment requires more time. You need to work for countless hours finding such opportunities and then doing all the work yourself becuase you don't have the money to outsource work.

In a few months/years, you can turn them into fully functional businesses, grow your team, and become more independent.

There's no magic or mystery in this.

You only need to identify a need or problem, find the best solution, and charge money for it. It can be in the form of a product or a service.

The bigger the problem and the better the solution, the more money you can charge. This is true for any business in the world including online businesses.

But what if you need money right now?

This is where quick money-making methods come in.

Most of them are not long-term career options. But they pay quickly, don't require any investment, and can give you the breathing space to work on the more sustainable business models.

In this article, I've listed both short-term and long-term ways to make money online without spending anything.

Short-Term Ways To Quickly Make Money Online

If you want to earn money quickly without spending a dime, the following list is for you.

If you're patient and consistent, you can even turn many of them into full-time income options. 

Let's look at each method in more detail.

Important: You'll need to drive traffic to make money with many of these methods. But since you have no money to invest in advertising, here are different free traffic sources you can use.

1. Offer Services As A Freelancer

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn first $100: 1-2 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $30K-$100K per annum

If you have a skill (any skill) you can find people who'd be willing to pay you to work for them as a freelancer.

This is the fastest way to make money online.

You can do it today, right now, this moment.

Millions of people around the world are already doing it.

According to a 2019 survey report by Upwork and Freelancers Union, there are more than 57 million freelancers in the U.S alone, a number that's expected to reach 87 million by 2027.

Source

There are millions of freelancers in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Russia, and many other places.

What jobs do they perform and how much money do they earn on average?

This infographic will give you an idea.

Source

But freelancing is not limited to these industries.

You can literally offer any skill as a freelancer.

• Have good writing skills? Become a freelance writer
• Can you type quickly? Perform typing and transcription jobs
• Have a good accent? Do voice over projects
• Know how to drive sales with your words? Become a direct response copywriter
• Can you design logos and banners? Become a graphic designer
• Know how to code? Apply for thousands of programming jobs.
• Create PowerPoint presentations, proofread and edit content, find data entry work, edit videos, etc.

Can't do any of those things?

How about doing this for a few quick bucks?

This guy will dance on any song you want for $35 and he already has almost 200 customer reviews.

Can you believe it?

Anyone can do this.

But if you're serious about freelancing and want to make quick money doing something less awkward, here are a few things to do.

• Do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of your skills.
• List down any jobs you've ever done
• Any school/college projects you've done
• Anything you've done for a non-profit or a project with friends
• Any other skills you can think of (writing, speaking, typing, browsing the internet, research etc.)
• List all your hobbies

Once you've listed everything down, see which skills can you offer as a freelancer.

For example, if you've ever done online research for a college project, you can easily offer it as a service to thousands of clients worldwide (like this freelancer)

Seriously, if you know how to use Google Search, you can offer this service and make quick money easily.

It's really hard to list everything you can offer as a freelancer since there are so many options.

But here's something you need to know.

Freelancing is not a passive income source which means you'll be trading your time for money.

Plus, you'll find it hard to get jobs at the start so be prepared to apply to dozens of jobs in one go to give yourself the best chance of landing a client.

Freelancing is a numbers game.

The more jobs you can apply for, the better chance you have of making quick money.

Once your profile has a few reviews from satisfied customers, and some projects in your portfolio, getting clients will become easier.

Where do you find freelance clients? Here are a few sites you can use.

General Freelancing Sites (all kinds of jobs)

• Freelancer

• Upwork

• Guru

• iFreelance

• People Per Hour

• Microworkers

• Craigslist

Small Freelance Tasks for Quick Money

• Clickworker
• Fiverr
• Microlancer
• GigBucks
• Truelancer

Freelance Writing and Content Marketing Jobs

• ClearVoice

• Contently

• ProBlogger Jobs

• Freelance Writing Jobs

• WriteJobs

Graphic Design Jobs

• Design Jobs Board

• Design Jobs

• Behance

• Dribbble

• Coroflot

• Graphic River

Programming Jobs

• Authentic Jobs

• Angel List

• Krop

• Startupers

• We Work Remotely

• Stackoverflow

• GitHub

• Android Jobs

• Core Intuition

• Remotive

SEO/SEM Jobs

• Search Engine Journal Jobs

• Indeed

• Trovit

You'll find every kind of freelancing job imaginable on these websites. If you don't have a professional skill like programming or SEO, I suggest starting with platforms like Fiverr, Clickworker or Upwork where you'll find many small projects in a wide range of industries that don't require technical skills.

At the same time, enroll in any of these online marketing courses to improve your skills.

Freelancing isn't easy since there's a lot of competition. But it's still your best chance to make money online quickly with spending anything.

2. Become a Virtual Assistant

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1-2 hours
• Time to earn first $100: 1-2 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $30K-$50K per annum

A virtual assistant (VA) is an online secretary that helps entrepreneurs and business owners manage routine tasks, makes them more organized, and allows them to focus on their core business tasks.

Technically speaking, a VA is also a freelancer but unlike regular freelancers, VA contracts are usually more long-term.

The VA industry has literally exploded over the last few years and there are thousands of active opportunities available for anyone who can spare 3-4 hours per day.

Source

What exactly does a VA do?

Any office tasks that your employer wants, for example

• Organize and prioritize daily schedule
• Set appointments and meetings
• Set reminders for important tasks 
• Follow up with different stakeholders
• Organize and answer emails
• Any documentation tasks
• Data entry tasks

The best part? you can become a virtual assistant today if you have a few hours every day. 

Some clients don't even need you to show up daily and instead hire you for a limited number of days every month.

There are a couple of ways to find virtual assistant jobs

• Search the freelance sites that I shared in the previous point.
• Reach out directly to different entrepreneurs, small businesses, and startups via LinkedIn and their sites to see if they need VA services

Although you don't need a website to start VA services, it certainly improves your chances of getting hired if you have a site (even a free one on WordPress.com)

3. Launch a Consultancy Business

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1-2 hours
• Time to earn first $100: 1-2 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $50K-$100K+ per annum

Do you have professional work experience in any industry?

If yes, you can start an online consultancy business and start making money in just a few weeks.

Do you need a university degree, a fancy office, or a title with your name?

No!

Consultancy business is simply about helping a specific audience solve a specific problem with your guidance.

That's it.

It doesn't even have to target large corporations.

For example, Hunter Otis, a former porn addict, found several Facebook Groups where people were struggling with porn addiction and it was ruining their lives.

That's when he launched his own consultancy business to help people get rid of porn addiction.

Source

In one year, Hunter scaled the business to several thousand dollars per month and nearly touched $1 million for the year.

He didn't even have a website when he started.

The same model can be applied to so many other problems people are facing eg. alcohol addiction, smartphone addiction, marriage problems, challenges young first-time parents face, etc.

Technical consultants earn even more money.

For example, accountant, lawyers, project managers, programmers, SEOs, etc. can all run independent consultancies.

Remember, you don't need thousands of clients to make money as a consultant. Even one or two clients at the start can give you enough money to reinvest in marketing your business and getting more clients.

How do you get your first client?

By spreading the word about your services in your immediate friends' circle, joining different Facebook and LinkedIn groups, and other free traffic methods that you can find in this article.

4. Become a Professional Guest Blogger

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 2-3 hours
• Time to earn first $100: 7-10 days
• Long-Term Career Option: No
• Long-Term Income Potential: $10K-$20K per annum

Have good writing skills but no time to grow your own blog?

No problem! Become a professional guest blogger.

Your job? Contribute articles as a guest author to different websites.

How do you make money as a guest author?

There are a couple of ways.

You can write for sites that pay between $100 to $500 for a guest article. 

The second method needs a bit more explanation.

Every blog wants more backlinks becuase they have a direct impact on search rankings. You can reach out to different blogs, tell them you're writing a guest post on XYZ site and can give a backlink for anything between $50 to $400.

To know exactly how much you should charge for a backlink, read this detailed study by Ahrefs

5. Promote Products As An Affiliate Marketer

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1-2 hours
• Time to earn first $100: 10-15 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $50K-$100K+ per annum

Affiliate marketing is the most popular way to make money online.

And it requires no investment.

As an affiliate marketer, your job is to promote third-party products for a commission on every sale.

Here's how the whole process works.

Is affiliate marketing a quick way to make money? 

There are several types of affiliate marketing and each has a different time frame for success.

For example, you can't expect to create and rank an Amazon affiliate site within days or even months. It takes time and a lot of hard work (I'll cover this later).

Your best chance to make quick money as an affiliate is with digital products on ClickBank, CJ, and other such affiliate platforms.

My article on ClickBank Affiliate Marketing covers this topic in more detail but let me give you a few pointers.

You can choose a high potential digital product from any affiliate network, enroll as an affiliate, and then drive traffic to the offer to earn money.

Easier said than done.

Since you don't have money to invest in advertising, you'll need to create lots of content about the product, with affiliate links, on your site (start a free one with WordPress.com).

Your next job is to promote your content in relevant social media groups, Q&A sites, forums, and other online platforms.

For example, if you're promoting a weight loss training program, you should promote your product reviews in different social media groups and forums related to weight loss, health & fitness, healthy living, etc.

You can adopt the same approach to promote different CPA offers as well.

Cost Per Action (CPA) offers are different from regular affiliate offers where you need to make a sale to earn money. In CPA, you're paid if your referral performs a specific action, eg. fill a form, download an eBook etc.

Source

You can find unlimited affiliate products and CPA offers on the top affiliate marketing platforms that I've listed in this post.

6. Play Video Games on Twitch and Facebook

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 3-4 hours
• Time to earn first $100: 10-15 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $10K-$50K per annum

Who doesn't like playing video games?

According to a 2019 research study, 65% of American adults regularly play video games and an average gamer spends around 8 hours per week playing games on different devices.

Source

You can easily turn this hobby into a career and make money (thousands of dollars) playing your favorite games on Playstation, Xbox and other gaming consoles.

Just stream your games live on Twitch, Facebook Gaming, YouTube or any such platform and get paid via donations from your viewers and advertising revenue.

Pewdiepie, the world's biggest YouTuber with 103 million subscribers, has become a multi-millionaire just by streaming video games online.

Twitch is the world's most popular video game live streaming service which has already turned several gamers into millionaires.

On average, though, a Twitch gamer can make $250-$300 per 100 subscribers, which isn't hard if you're good at a popular game.

With Facebook Gaming growing fast as well, professional gaming has already become a serious career option for thousands of people around the world.

7. Browse The Internet To Earn Money With SwagBucks

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 1 day
• Long-Term Career Option: No
• Long-Term Income Potential: $5K-$10K per annum

An average internet user spends around 6 hours and 42 minutes browsing the internet on different devices.

Source

That's the global average.

In many countries, the average time spent on the internet is much higher. For example, 10 hours in Philippines, 9+ hours in Brazil, and almost 8 hours in India.

With Swagbucks, you can get paid for using the internet and browsing your favorite websites every day.

Seriously, no extra work.

Watch videos, play games, and explore shopping offers to earn Swagbucks points which you can redeem on Amazon, and Walmart or encash with PayPal.

If you're a regular internet user, you can easily earn 200-300 Swagbuck points in 20-30 minutes. Every 100 points are equal to $1 so that's $2-$3 every half an hour for browsing the internet and doing things you already enjoy.

Not a bad option if you need some quick cash.

8. Test Websites and Review Mobile Apps To Earn Quick Money

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Long
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 2-3 hours
• Time to earn first $100: 7-10 days
• Long-Term Career Option: No
• Long-Term Income Potential: $5K-$10K per annum

Thousands of new websites and apps are launched every day and they require real user feedback to improve their usability, design, and conversion rates.

If you can spare 1-2 hours every day to browse different websites and mobile applications and share your feedback according to the guidelines, you can easily earn $10-$30 per hour on the side.

UserTesting is one of the most popular sites for such tasks.

Tester Work is another place where you can get quick mobile app testing assignments that can earn you a useful income.

The projects are assigned based on the demographics, location, and testing performance of a tester. In general, users based in the US, the UK, Australia, or any other leading European country are more likely to get the assignments since there's higher demand in these regions.

But testers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and several other developing countries are also regularly hired for such projects.

 

9. Start an eCommerce Dropshipping Store

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 1-2 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $50K-$100K+ per annum

eCommerce dropshipping is one of the best ways to start making money immediately without investing any money.

Here's how the dropshipping business works.

Source

Unlike regular eCommerce businesses, dropshipping doesn't require any product inventory.

You can create a free website with WordPress, list any products that you like, and source them directly from the market AFTER you get an order from a customer.

Regular people from countries like Australia, USA, India, and many others are making millions of dollars with dropshipping stores without any upfront costs.

Irwin Dominguez from San Diego is one of them.

Source

He started from scratch and scaled his dropshipping store to more than $1million is total sales in just 8 months.

There are a couple of ways to start a dropshipping business.

Create a Shopify store and automate the whole dropshipping business with Oberlo (read this guide for details).

This approach requires a very small initial investment of just a few hundred dollars.

But if you want a totally free solution, you can execute the whole business model manually by finding suppliers online or in your city, getting product images from them, listing them on your free WordPress site, and paying them when the client places an order.

Again, the free traffic generation techniques I've linked in this post will come handy.

10. Write For Medium

With nearly 100 million monthly active users, Medium is one of the biggest open blogging platforms in the world.

According to SimilarWeb, Medium's monthly traffic touched almost 150 million visitors in Feb 2020.

Not only can you sign up for Medium and start publishing content right away, but you can also make money from it by enrolling in its partner program.

How do you get paid?

Your job is to publish high-quality and useful content that resonates with a specific group of Medium readers. Whenever a Medium paid subscriber Claps your content (Medium's version of Like), you're paid a portion of their $5 monthly subscription fee.

How much money can you make?

The top Medium writers have made between $30K-$50K/month.

But that's not the norm.

If you're lucky and one of your posts goes viral, you can gather a lot of Claps in very little time. But if you're just consistent in publishing useful content, you can make a few hundred dollars every month.

11. Sell Online Courses on Udemy

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1-2 hours
• Time to earn the first $100: 10-15 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $10K-$30K+ per annum

With over 50 million students and 150K+ courses taught by more than 50 thousand instructors, Udemy is one of the world's largest online learning platforms.

It allows you to turn even common knowledge into a full-fledge online course and sell it to thousands of customers.

Do you know how to train pets? create a course about it.

Have great cooking skills? teach others with an online course.

Are you good at English, Math, Poetry, Writing, SEO, Web Design, or any other subject? help others learn.

No matter what industry you're in, you can create a Udemy course and make a decent income from it.

Here's a quick look at their main course categories.

As you can see, each category has several sub-categories.

And every sub-category lists the most popular topics that you can create courses about.

Your course doesn't need to be a 60 hour long series of videos, quizzes, and tests.

You can create smaller courses as well, with a few slides or screen recording (if you're camera shy), and sell it for a small amount.

Even if a course is priced at $10, the volume of traffic on Udemy ensures that you get a decent number of sales every month, especially if you have created multiple courses.

You can learn more about creating Udemy courses in this guide

12. Publish eBooks On Amazon

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 3-4 hours
• Time to earn the first $100: 10-15 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $20K-$30K per annum

I've already shared the example of a broke college dropout who made almost a million dollars in 1 year with Amazon Kindle self-publishing.

You can do it as well.

If you don't make millions, you can certainly make a few hundred dollars in the short-term by selling eBooks on Amazon.

Here's another example of a self-published author making a full-time living with Amazon publishing.

Thre are many other common people who've turned this into their full-time career.

The key to success in this business model is in

(a) The quality of your eBook and whether it generates enough interest.

(b) The price of your eBook

Amazon writers earn from volume sales which is why their eBooks are priced very low.

Read this detailed guide to learn more about this monetization method.

13. Become An Online Teacher

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 1-2 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $20K-$30K per annum

Online teaching is another easy way to make money online quickly without spending anything.

Millions of people around the world are looking to learn new subjects, topics, and skills on the internet.

Teach them whatever you can and make money doing it.

And the best part?

You don't need to be an expert in your subject to become an online teacher. You only need to know more than your students.

Unlike online courses, teaching over the internet is usually a one to one service in which you trade time for money.

You can find students on platforms like ClassGap and Preply

Or you can market your services as an online teacher in different Facebook Groups and by spreading the word about it in your immediate friends' circle.

You can also use the different freelance platforms I mentioned earlier to attract students.

14. Fill Online Surveys For Quick Money

• Passive Income: No
• Learning Curve: Short
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 1 day
• Long-Term Career Option: No
• Long-Term Income Potential: $5K-$7K per annum

Filling online surveys is a popular, easy, and quick way to make money online.

There are hundreds of different paid survey websites where you can register for free and complete your profile after which you're asked to participate in relevant survey studies.

SurveyYeah is one of them.

You can also find paid survey jobs on sites like SwagBucks, Ysense, SurveySavvy, InboxDollars, and Vindale Research.

On average you can earn anywhere between $1-$20 per survey depending on several factors.

To earn good money with surveys, make sure you sign up for as many survey sites as possible so that you get more invites.

Filling surveys won't make you rich but it's certainly a good method to earn a few hundred dollars every month.

15. Sell Print-On-Demand Designs

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 1-2 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $50K-$100K+ per annum

If you have a creative mind and like designing clothes and accessories, you can easily start a Print-On-Demand (POD) business with no initial investment.

How does it work?

Sign up for a POD service, use their tools to design T-Shirts and merchandize, and put the product on sale on your website.

When a customer orders the product, the POD company prints your design, ships the product, charges the customer and gives you your share.

Merch by Amazon is the world's biggest POD company that allows you to leverage Amazon's traffic and supply chain to build your business.

But inexperienced sellers are not always approved by Amazon Merch which is why you should also explore other companies like Printful, Zazzle, Printify, Redbubble, TeePublic, Sunfrog, and Teespring.

You can find numerous POD success stories where common people went on to build thriving eCommerce businesses. But this particular example published Shopify blog is perhaps the most practical for anyone looking to get into this business.

The Print-On-Demand business model is quite similar to dropshipping in the sense that you don't need to manage inventory or invest in production upfront.

However, POD gives you greater control of your product's appearance and lets you explore your creative side.

16. Sell Your Creative Artwork Online

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 5-7 days
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $30K-$50K per annum

If you're good at painting and creative art, Etsy is the perfect platform for you to make money online.

With hundreds of thousands of product listings and millions of active buyers, Etsy is home to some of the most creative products on the internet.

Painters, in particular, have a great time on Etsy becuase it's a platform where they're not only able to sell their products but also get appreciated for their work.

However, you do need an initial investment to get started on Etsy - 20 cents.

That's right, listing a product on Etsy costs 20 cents.

I hope that's not a lot for you.

17. Sell Photos and Video Footage Online 

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1 hour
• Time to earn the first $100: 8-10 days
• Long-Term Career Option: No
• Long-Term Income Potential: $5K-$8K per annum

Do you enjoy photography?

If yes, you can make money by listing your photographs on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock.

Shutterstock, in particular, is a great place to make money online with your photographs and video footage.

In the last 15 years, they've paid over $1billion to their contributors in royalty.

And here's the best part.

You don't need a DSLR camera to get started on Shutterstock.

You can even use your iPhone camera to capture and sell beautiful pictures.

Closing This Section

The methods I've listed in this part can make you quick money without the need to invest anything upfront.

If you're looking to make money immediately, try your luck with any of them.

However, if you're ready to invest some more time into building an online business, I've some more great tips for you in the next section.

Long-Term Strategies To Build Online Businesses

There's no business in the world where you can become a millionaire without investing money......

....except for online businesses.

If you're prepared to work hard, you can become a multi-millionaire with any of the following business models without spending a dime upfront.

Let me quickly describe them to you.

18. Start and Grow A Profitable Blog

• Passive Income: Yes
• Learning Curve: Medium
• Min. Time Required Per Day: 1-2 hours
• Time to earn the first $100: 3-4 months
• Long-Term Career Option: Yes
• Long-Term Income Potential: $50K-$100K+ per annum

Blogging is one of the easiest ways to become a millionaire without investing money.

How do you create a successful blog?

It's a very long topic and I've written several articles about it already on NicheHacks.

But here are a few things you need to do to grow a successful blog.

• Choose the right niche.
• Identify the real needs and problems of your audience.
• Find out the questions your audience is asking
• Answer those questions by publishing high quality, detailed, and actionable content.
• Be consistent with content creation.
• Optimize your content for search engines
• Build backlinks to your content
• Turn your website visitors into email subscribers

Once your blog starts getting regular traffic, there are