I started making my first money online when I was about 15 years old. I’m now 26 and since then I have been making money online and only had a job for 1 year out of the last 11. I’ve made money online in countless ways but some are more catered towards teenagers than others.
Below I have listed some of the best opportunities to make money online for teenagers in 2024 and beyond. Whether you want to start something that just earns a few extra £100 per month or you want to build a full-time career online, there is something here for you.
Let’s jump in and take a look.
Freelancing
Freelancing is one of the easiest ways to start making money online. If you are already good at something like photoshop, video editing, coding or building websites you can start selling your services to clients.
This was one of the ways I made my first money online. I learned some graphic design skills on Youtube and started picking up jobs for business card and flyer designs. At 15 I was able to make an extra couple of hundred pounds per month which was life-changing at the time.
There are websites such as Upwork and Fiverr where you can start selling right away.
Upwork – On Upwork, you will find jobs posted that you can apply for. Make a really good application (I recommend recording a video to stand out from the crowd) when applying for your jobs. Start off with simple easy jobs that pay a small amount. This will help you build up a portfolio and get some feedback on your profile. Once you build up your profile you will be able to start landing higher paid gigs.
Fiverr – Fiverr works slightly differently. Here you can create gigs for the specific job you are good at rather than pitching for work. People will come to you. If you can learn a specific skill that is currently in high demand, this can be a good place to start selling your services.
Overall, I think freelancing is a great place to start working online for teenagers. You learn how to find work, deal with clients and hone in on a skill. This is a great experience to get at such an early age.
Tutoring
If you are a good student at school, this could be one of the best ways to make some extra cash in your spare time. There is a wide range of online platforms such as Mytutor, Tutorful or Tutorhunt.
You can do this tutoring completely remotely from your laptop and help struggling students all around the world. You can work flexible hours and also earn upwards of £70/hour depending on your level of experience.
This is a very seasonal side hustle. It will be significantly easier to find jobs coming up to exam time than it would be in summer.
This is a great choice for those A-Star students who want to help others learn and get to their level.
Video Editing
In 2024, video editing is one of the most in-demand skills out there. Pretty much every business is using video to help grow and advertise their brands along with hundreds of thousands of creators who need people to help them edit.
You can learn how to edit videos to a fairly high level with a few hours per day for 2-3 months. Best of all, you can do it 100% free on Youtube. There are lots of easy-to-access tutorials teaching you to edit.
I would recommend eventually finding your own style and specializing in a specific niche/ This could be editing shorts, documentaries, Animation, clips etc. When you specialize and become one of the best in a small industry, you can charge much more for your services.
If I was taking this route today I would try to partner with an upcoming creator who is on the come up and try to work out a deal where you get a percentage of their ad revenue for your editing services. This is a great way to generate scalable income and means that both you and the creator are incentivized to do their best work.
When it comes to finding work, many creators will post jobs in video editing discords, Linkedin and even Twitter. These are great places to find your first piece of work.
Paid Surveys
I am not a huge fan of Paid Surveys but it is an easy way to generate some income online however as the work is extremely low effort, so is the pay.
There are a lot of websites out there offering paid surveys for money but many of them are not legit. I would recommend going with a reliable service such as Swagbucks or YouGov where you can get paid up to £25 to complete surveys.
This really isn’t a place where I would waste my time. You would be much better off learning an actual skill that you can use in the future either in your own business or at your own job. Surveys may make you a few pounds now but that’s all you’ll get and it’s not scalable at all.
Youtube / Influencer
If you enjoy the process of content creation and have a niche you are passionate about, creating content can be a great side hustle that can turn into a full-time income, even as a teenager.
Over the past 5 or 6 years Youtube has provided me with a solid side income both from ads and affiliate marketing. You can see my ad revenue below.
While it’s not as simple as quickly recording a 10-minute video and putting it online, this can be an extremely lucrative way to make money for teenagers. If you do plan on taking this route, I would recommend taking it very seriously and learning what type of content works well on Youtube or your platform of choice.
Study and improve on each video as you go. Eventually, you could be making ad revenue, landing sponsorship deals, and selling your own products.
You may also be interested in Side Hustles For Gamers
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products and get a commission from each sale you make.
There are two ways to go about affiliate marketing. One is to run paid ads toward different affiliate offers. This requires some upfront capital to test ads, angles and landing pages but can be very scalable if done well.
The second option is to build an audience on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram or your website and promote products to the audience. You can find and share useful products and services while making money doing it.
Building an audience can take a long time but can be extremely valuable when you do it. I used to promote and affiliate products for graphic assets. I made 3-4 YouTube videos on the product about 3 years ago and still make $1,000 per month from it to this day.
Theme Pages On Instagram/Tiktok/X
Creating theme pages is another great way to make money online. It was one of my first-ever successful online businesses which I started while I was freelancing.
I had Instagram pages in the motivation and travel niches where I would post 3-5 times per day and build an audience. I would then charge other accounts and businesses for promotions. This was 8 years ago and this is still a thriving business today.
If you’re passionate about an industry, maybe it’s streaming or rap, you can create a page around this and make good money creating content about something you love. You probably consume content from pages similar to these every day. Why not be on the other side of it and start making money from your time on social media? Be a producer, not a consumer.
Starting one of these pages is a great way to start learning about social media and growing a page as well as learning how to edit video and create graphics. It’s not just Instagram either. You can start a theme page on TikTok, Youtube or X as well.
With this option, you won’t start making money instantly but it is free to get started and you can learn some great skills along the way.
Newsletters
The Newsletter business became extremely popular in 2023. The newsletter business is simple in theory. Build an email list and sell advertising spots on the list or monetise through affiliate products or your own products. If you can acquire subscribers at a price less than your revenue per subscriber you essentially have a money-printing machine.
Many people use organic channels such as X, TikTok and Youtube to build up their email lists. Others use paid advertising on Google and Facebook. I’m a fan of paid advertising if you can make the economics work. Pay £1 for a subscriber and get £2 in revenue back. That right there is a money machine.
I created a video breaking down this business model in more detail below:
Streaming
Streaming is a popular way for teenagers to make money online these days. While it can be lucrative it is also very competitive. Anyone who enjoys gaming has probably thought about becoming a streamer at one point or another.
If you have a unique personality, have some great ideas for content, or are exceptionally good at a game, this could be a route you can take to make money online.
Streaming isn’t as easy as sitting in front of a computer and playing games. If you want to succeed, it’s going to be a lot of work. Most of your time will actually be spent creating content for other platforms such as TikTok and Youtube to drive people to your stream.
This is a great one to start if you’re going to take it seriously and already have a passion for gaming and content creation. It can take a significant amount of time to start making money but if you enjoy it and do well, there is tremendous upside.
Blogging
Most people think blogging is dead but they’re completely wrong. The fact you are reading this article right now means that they’re wrong. By you being on this page right now, I’m making money through ads and if you click any of the links on the page I will likely make a commission.
By writing content that focuses on answering people’s questions, you can rank in Google. People will then visit your website. When you have people visiting your site, there is always a way to monetize it.
For example, I used to get paid over $5,000 per month on my Twitch Streaming guide website from ads alone. It made another $1,000 or so from referring products.
I then eventually went on to sell this website for over 6 figures at the end of 2022. So, if anyone tries to tell you blogging is dead, they’re simply wrong.
Amazon Influencer Program
The Amazon influencer program is one of the fastest side hustles I have tried to make money online. You review products from Amazon and your video appears on the product page. If someone watches your video and then makes a purchase, you get a commission.
We put a full free guide together teaching you how to get set up. Pretty much everyone has items in their house that they purchased from Amazon or are sold on Amazon. You simply record a quick 1 – 2 minute video review with your thoughts on the product and upload it.
In my first 30 days of the program, I was able to make over $400. Depending on how many products you have, you can easily add a few hundred pounds to your income each month. If you want to scale you can purchase more products or get products from friends to review.
I think this might be one of the best places for teenagers to get started. You likely have a lot of products already sitting around your house. You can start filming videos on your phone and start making commissions within a few days.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully one of these ideas has piqued your interest. As someone who has made their money online, I would recommend just starting something. As you attempt to build something, get some small wins, fail at things and meet people on your journey you will eventually learn what works and what doesn’t.
All of these business models can make you money online as a teenager. When you’re so young, you should get out there and try multiple things to see what works best for you. Eventually, you’ll pave your own path and hopefully be able to have some success online.
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