15 Easy Businesses to Start from Home (That Earn BIG)

by Erin Schollaert

Updated

Although history has set a precedent that you have to leave home to start your own company: many entrepreneurs have found multiple easy businesses to start from home.

With the freedom of working from your property, you can get more done and watch your business grow faster.

From the highest-earning to the cheapest business to start from home, this is a list of companies everyone should consider starting!

1. Virtual Interior Design

kitchen-remodel-sketch

(Beau Chateau Kitchen and Bath)

Since the beginning of the pandemic, many have found themselves redesigning and revamping their homes.

As a virtual interior designer: you can market your skills online, design rooms, and send over options to clients, all without leaving your home and while enjoying work from home benefits.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $56,184 (ZipRecruiter)

How to Get Started: Create a portfolio of digital and real-life spaces you’ve designed and advertise your services on social media.

2. Web Design Agency

Although web design is awesome to get into as a freelancer, if you can hire other freelancers and take on larger accounts, you can start a full agency that will bring in even more money.

This is an ideal side job for software engineers, so start there when looking to put a work team together.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $65,000 (Thinkful)

How to Get Started: No formal education is needed if you’re willing to take online courses and self-teach.

Create a portfolio of designs you’ve completed and advertise yourself on gig sites.

Trend on the Rise

Web design is expected to grow by 13% in the next ten years, opening around eighteen thousand jobs a year. This leaves plenty of space to do your own business and create a large income for yourself.

3. Amazon FBA

Running an Amazon FBA is one of the top easy home based business ideas anyone can do. So if you were wondering is selling on Amazon worth it, it usually is with the right strategy.

The most important thing about an Amazon FBA is that it ships cheaply, it’s in high demand, and you can make or source lots of it inexpensively.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $60,000 (OA Beans)

How to Get Started: Create or source a product that Amazon fulfillment centers can keep on hand for instant shipping to customers.

4. Dog Park Patch

dog-inside

More people are renting or living in shared housing, so yard space is becoming a hot commodity.

Offer a dog park in your yard, with rules like cleaning up after themselves, and you can make easy money from just owning land.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $18,000 (SniffSpot)

How to Get Started: Clear out a portion of your yard, so it’s just fresh grass, and fence it in with an access code keypad you can change from anywhere.

5. Drop-Shipping

Although drop shipping isn’t allowed on sites like Amazon, this business model is an awesome way to make as much money as possible while getting to work from home to fulfill orders and create your own business.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $100,000 (BlueCart.com)

How to Get Started: Source a product you can see getting popular for as cheap as possible while maintaining quality.

Advertise your product thoroughly, priced at least 30% higher than you sourced it.

6. Book Flipping

Books are a commodity that’s becoming far more expensive in recent years, especially if it’s a textbook or collectibles.

Keep an eye out for trends and try to buy ahead of them to ensure you make as much money as possible.

You can use these sites to get college textbooks for cheap and then resell them.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $60,000 (Side Hustle Nation)

How to Get Started: Buy books in good condition at as low a price as possible. Research them before buying to make sure you can turn it around for at least a 30% profit.

Books That are the Most Value:

  • Educational TextbooksAlthough their value does drop once they become used, textbooks are always a valuable asset.
  • Collectible Unique Copies – Books with misprints, unique covers, interesting art, or short print runs can bring a higher price.
  • Old Antique Copies – Copies a hundred years or older are considered antiques and often worth more.
  • Signed Copies – Copies that are signed by the author are often worth more depending on the popularity of the author.

7. Print Shop

clothes-in-store

Once you invest in the machinery, print shops are incredibly affordable to run and allow you to make a huge income designing and to print anything from shirts to posters.

If you want to invest further, check out these ways to make money 3D printing.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $100,000 (ICSTD)

How to Get Started: Invest ten to twenty thousand dollars to buy machines and one to two products to print on, and then design and advertise your creations.

Offering custom designs and unique prints will score you more customers.

Trend on the Rise

The average printing business makes around $100,000 a year, and if you’re running it yourself from home, you get to cut down on overhead costs. This is a great business to start if you have a limited budget and want to make unlimited products.

8. Voiceover Business

Voice acting is an awesome way to make a lot of money for a low investment.

Buying a quality microphone, practicing your skills, and knowing how to edit noise out of audio will ensure you succeed.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $85,000 (SPG Studios)

How to Get Started: Create a portfolio based on current voice acting work, or make a script for yourself and read it aloud as a sample. Advertise yourself on gig sites.

9. 3D Custom Printer

3d-printing-shop

With a 3D printer, almost any product is printable – the only limit is your imagination.

3D printing businesses can jump on new product trends faster than traditional manufactures, and therefore beat most of the competition to market.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $53,000 (How to Start and LLC)

How to Get Started: Look at popular costume trends and design products that play into those trends while offering a unique look.

You can 3D print them for sale or sell the models for people to print themselves.

Tactic for Success

Get to know what’s culturally relevant and what companies to avoid making fan content of. The most popular 3D printed costume pieces are tied to fandom space and DND.

10. Collect Debt for a Living

Although this is one of the most stressful jobs on this list, it can bring in untold amounts of money depending on how much debt the original person is in.

Estimated Yearly Earnings:$250,000 (Quora)

How to Get Started: Buy debt portfolios from companies, and follow the law to contact and collect this debt.

11. Adult Day Care Center

As the baby boomer generation grows older, the demand for adult care services continues surging.

Not only is the demand high, but it’s a very rewarding business that impacts elderly people’s lives in a big way.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $140,000 (National Library of Medicine)

How to Get Started: Create a safe and comfortable space for adults who need care while their families are out of the home.

This allows them to live at home longer and gives them human interaction every day.

Tactic for Success

This can be a stressful job if you’re not used to it, so make sure you get thorough training for everything from first aid to responding quickly in an emergency. If you have employees, ensure they’re thoroughly trained, and you keep emergency signage up for guidance.

12. Make Video Tombstones

Making video memorials and tombstones is a recent line of work that allows you to help a family move through grief.

Although it’s an affordable business to start, it can be emotionally draining, so it’s important to be ready for that.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $60,000 (Digi Effects)

How to Get Started: Create a few sample memorials, and advertise yourself on mourning support sites and social media.

13. Rent Out Your Space for Events

venue

Renting out space is a business that isn’t going away any time soon.

People will always have reasons to rent spaces, some new and some old. Operationally speaking, it’s one of the easier businesses to manage on this list.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $300,000+ (CommerciaLoneBrokers)

How to Get Started: Clear out and make your property attractive for events, based on whether you want them to be indoors or outdoors.

You can build spaces onto your property, like a rustic-looking barn that’s only used for events to draw in more customers.

Popular Events that Use Venues:

  • Wedding VenuesThis venue can bring the highest amount of pay but requires a scenic space.
  • Reception Hall – if you have an older home with larger rooms or a large property with an area to build a hall, this is a great idea.
  • Business Conference Spaces – many businesses seek ways to make employees bond, creating a space to facilitate that can be smart!
  • Birthday and Retirement Parties – everyone has a birthday, and retirement is coming quickly for older generations; offering a space gives you a surefire income.

14. Goat Rentals

As the world becomes more environmentally conscious, creative solutions are taking the place of ecologically harmful methods.

One such solution gaining popularity is goat lawn mowing – the practice of allowing goats to trim the grass by grazing, replacing the need for a gas guzzling lawn mower.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $60,000 (Erin Spain)

How to Get Started: Raise or purchase goats, and advertise them as a lawn mowing or petting zoo service.

If your animals will interact with people, make sure they’re well accustomed and confident around people to avoid biting or butting.

15. Making and Selling Candles

Many small candle companies are making unique and gorgeous art out of burnable wax, giving anyone the chance to start their own business.

Get to know your product types, make unique candles, and you’ll do well.

Estimated Yearly Earnings: $65,000 (Candleers Candle Company)

How to Get Started: Learn how to make candles and invest in a small batch of supplies to make test samples and unique smells and styles. Market yourself on social media to make sales.

Wrapping Up

Although some assume the only way to get rich starting a business is to approach it traditionally: that’s not necessary to succeed.

You can create a successful business from home, don’t be afraid to try new interesting things!

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Erin is a business teacher and mother of three. When she’s not in the classroom or fulfilling her obligations as an A+ hockey and lacrosse mom, she’s working on her latest article.

About the Author

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Erin is a business teacher and mother of three. When she’s not in the classroom or fulfilling her obligations as an A+ hockey and lacrosse mom, she’s working on her latest article.