The Side Hustle Tier List
In this video, I’m going to rank side hustles from my favorite to least favorite and help you determine which one may be the best fit for you.
If you want to get rich quick, well it’s highly unlikely that any of these little “side hustles” will actually help you do so. Generally, that’s not what a side hustle is for. It’s really for bringing in a little extra income every month, maybe testing out a business idea, or monetizing a hobby. But some of these hustles have fewer up-front costs, unlimited potential, or may just be a quick way to start bringing in an extra $200 every month.
But if you do have a goal of leaving your day job to run your own business that you’re passionate about, well that can be possible too. Once upon a time, Youtube was my side hustle and has since turned into a full-time job.
So for each of these hustles, I’ll rank them for the startup costs involved, how quickly you can start profiting, the profit potential, and the overall difficulty. Then, I’ll slap them on a tier list just for funsies. A tier list has video game origins, but basically S is the best, aka Superb and then A through F like we’re back in grade school. And a quick shoutout to Biaheza who did a tier list like this – I’m totally borrowing this idea from him, but I’ve got some different side hustles, a different point of view, and different experiences, so I thought it’d be worth doing.
So let’s get started.
Startup Cost
💰 < $50
💰💰 < $150
💰💰💰 > $150
Time to Profit
⏱ < 2 weeks
⏱⏱ < 2 months
⏱⏱⏱ 6 months and >
Profit Potential
💵💵💵 Unlimited
💵💵 > $300/mo.
💵 < $300/mo.
Difficulty
💪 Easy
💪💪 Medium
💪💪💪 Hard
Rideshare Driver
Startup Costs 💰
Time to Profit ⏱
Profit Potential 💵💵
Difficulty 💪
Tier B
First up is driving for Uber or Lyft. For Uber, you must have a vehicle with 4 doors, and it must be 15 years old or newer. For Lyft, it seems to have more location-based vehicle requirements, so here in LA, your car needs to be a 2001 or newer. As far as getting started, if you already have a car that meets their requirements, you just need to apply, pass a background check, and a vehicle inspection. If you don’t have a car, both companies have a rental program where you can pay around $250 to $260 per week to rent a car, but it seems like you would just have to put in a crazy amount of drive time to earn a decent wage, so I wouldn’t recommend that.
In terms of profit, I’ve heard varying reports – usually between $9 an hour to $19 an hour. This all depends on the city, the time you drive, etc. You’re going to be paying for gas. There’s going to be wear and tear on your car and maintenance costs. Roughly 2/3rds of rideshare drivers drive on both platforms to make sure that they are always getting a new fare when they finish a ride with another passenger.
Because of tipping, you’ll see some fluctuations in your profit, but it is definitely not unlimited like some other hustles out there. And in terms of difficulty, if you don’t mind driving, sitting in traffic, or small talk, it may seem like a pretty straightforward and simple job. And again, it’s probably city-dependent – I think driving in LA is a lot more difficult than driving in Chicago, for instance – but unlike other hustles out there, the job itself is simple.
I actually signed up to drive for Uber when I first moved out to LA. I passed the vehicle inspection and they sent me their smelly air freshener and everything – but since I got a new drivers license when I moved states, there was just a paperwork issue with them pulling my driving history. I went back and forth with their customer support, and they were too inept to help me, so I never ended up driving for them.
All in all, I rank rideshare driving a solid B on the tier list. If you are less interested in starting a business and more interested in bringing home extra money every month, put this on your list.
Instacart
Startup Costs 💰
Time to Profit ⏱
Profit Potential 💵💵
Difficulty 💪
Tier A
Since Uber wouldn’t have me, I did sign up to shop for and deliver groceries on Instacart.
This was about 5 years ago, so things may have changed a little, but they had strictly in-store shoppers, and then combo driver/shoppers. So if you didn’t have a car or didn’t want to make deliveries, you could just shop for the orders. But the pay is less as an in-store shopper, and you don’t make any tips, so I signed up as the combo driver/shopper.
Sometimes you’d shop for every item for the customer and then deliver it to them, and other times you’d just pick up an order that was already bagged and ready to go. I mostly worked in Downtown LA, so driving around and finding parking was stressful at first, but after a few weeks, you get the hang of it. And honestly, it wasn’t so bad. I don’t mind grocery shopping – I’m fast at it, and I’ve delivered pizza before, so I was used to that aspect of it too.
Sometimes, I’d get a large order from a company like WeWork, and I’d get a tip of like $40 to $70 for an order which would make my day. Other times, there’d be a lot of downtime waiting for a new order to come in, and without orders, you obviously aren’t getting paid. In general, I made between $15 and $25 dollars an hour. Pay depends on how many items are in the order, the driving distance, and how much the customer tips.
Getting started was easy. I passed a background check, went to one in-person orientation, and then was given a debit card and was pretty much good to go. You get paid out weekly, too, which is pretty nice.
As far as profit potential, the massive tips will definitely even out across low or no tipping orders, so kind of like rideshare driving, there is definitely a ceiling on how much you will likely make.
For difficulty, again, it’s pretty simple. If you’re decent at finding things in a grocery store and navigating around a city in your car, you should be fine.
I put this in the A tier because I had a pretty decent experience with it. It bridged the gap in between jobs, and it’s super flexible. I also liked not just sitting in my car all day and getting out to go in a grocery store kind of mixed things up a little to keep me mildly less bored.
Dropshipping
Startup Costs 💰💰
Time to Profit ⏱⏱
Profit Potential 💵💵💵
Difficulty 💪💪💪
Tier C
Okay, next is the infamous world of dropshipping. The basic idea is you find a unique product for cheap on a site like Aliexpress, you create a simple website on Shopify with that product, selling it for a healthy profit margin, and then you advertise or use influencer marketing to get sales. Then, you place the order from your supplier, and they ship it directly to your customer.
I’ve thought about trying this out for years – and I actually did start an experiment for this channel with it, but I ran into some roadblocks on the advertising and marketing front. More on that in a minute. Startup costs are low. You can get a Shopify trial for free. You can usually get trials for Shopify apps you may need as well. Then, you should probably order the product for yourself so you can create your own photos, videos, and make sure the product is actually decent.
Then, you can start running ads on Facebook or Instagram or reach out to theme pages or influencers to make posts advertising your product.
So the initial costs are low, but if it takes you awhile to get everything in place like it has me, you’ll start paying for all of the Shopify costs and you may waste a good amount of money as you figure out the paid advertising or marketing that you employ. I think you could easily spend $300 to $500 on something that ends up failing, so you have to make sure you keep your costs in check.
And now unlike ridesharing or grocery shopping, there’s no guarantee of profit here. If you don’t have experience sourcing the right products, or building a Shopify store, or advertising, or finding the right pages or people to market with – it can be really tricky to figure out. There’s basically a lot of things you have to get right in order to have success with it. So I think if you’re dedicated to learning this business and trying out different products, it is possible you could start profiting within 2 months.
But look – it’s a super competitive field. Dropshipping is just too enticing of a business model for it not to be. I think it’s freakin hard, but I will keep exploring it and see if I can crack the code.
Once you do, the profit potential is virtually unlimited. You can definitely make a lot of money doing it which is great, but I would guess that it’s a small percentage of people that actually do.
Because I believe it’s super saturated and difficult, I’m gonna slap it into the C tier.
Youtube
Startup Costs 💰💰
Time to Profit ⏱⏱⏱
Profit Potential 💵💵
Difficulty 💪💪💪
Tier S
Alright, let’s talk about YouTube. You really can start with just a smartphone and some free editing software – but you have to either have amazing camera charisma unlike myself or a really captivating concept. An example of this would be the channel You Suck at Cooking. The production quality is low, but the concept is off-the-charts entertaining. Realistically, buying at least a lavalier microphone and maybe an affordable light would get you off on a decent path.
In order to turn a profit, you need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time over the past 12 months. And honestly, that’s no easy feat. What I always tell people starting out is you have to give people a reason to subscribe to you and watch your videos instead of someone who is already established in your niche. If you’re just going to make knock-offs of Casey Neistat vlogs – you’re going to have a hard time gaining an audience because everyone would probably prefer to watch Casey Neistat – not an unknown imitator. So if you can get beyond that and actually build an audience of over 1,000 people who are actually watching your videos, congrats. That is the hardest part and can take a long time depending on your skillset.
When Rachel and I started our first YouTube channel about photography, combined we had a lot of experience running a photography business, video editing, creating motion graphics, and editing audio. So creating the channel fit right in with the skillset we already had. But if you have to learn a lot of this as you go, it can make it harder to get that initial audience to be able to start generating income. Realistically, it will take you over 6 months and maybe over a year until you start seeing revenue… or you may never hit that benchmark, and it never becomes a profitable venture. There is obviously no guarantee.
But let’s say you do become eligible for monetization. Then, you get paid per view on your videos. This amount fluctuates based off the type of ads being shown. And then YouTube is going to dig their grubby little paws in and take a 45% cut for their troubles. So in the finance niche, you could make maybe $15 per 1,000 views – and in other niches you might only make $4.
From here, the profit potential is unlimited. You can grow diversify your revenue streams through affiliates, merch, brand deals, etc. It can become your full-time job. Generally, if you can hit 100,000 subscribers, you’re probably able to make it your full-time job, but this may all depend on the kind of videos you make. There is almost a quarter million channels with over 100,000 subscribers, so it’s certainly possible, but it is saturated and competitive.
My suggestion is if you want to start a channel – do it. Don’t count on it making you money, just do it because you’re passionate about it and enjoy the process. And if you want to know the checklist I look for when it comes to side hustles, I talk all about it in this video here.
So in case I haven’t hammered home how difficult making money on YouTube is, I’m hitting it with three poop emojis for maximum impact.
And look, even though it is difficult, YouTube can really help you launch so many other businesses, open doors you may never have been able to before, and in general can help you make a good living. For me it’s been an S-tier side hustle because no other platform has the same ability to organically build an audience.
Fiverr
Startup Costs 💰
Time to Profit ⏱⏱
Profit Potential 💵💵
Difficulty 💪💪💪
Tier D
Ahhh, Fiverr. When it comes to freelancing, Fiverr is kind of the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality – both in service providers and customers. But the good news is it costs you nothing to get started.
My first experiment on this channel was actually trying Fiverr out for 30 days, I was able to make $132 my first month, which wasn’t bad – but much like YouTube, Fiverr is incredibly competitive and saturated. And it did take 2-3 weeks of absolutely no action on my profile until I started getting some gigs coming in, but you could be on there for months without getting any orders. I noticed Fiverr really encourages you to upload a video introducing yourself and your gig, so I did that, and I think that helped set me apart. I also joined Facebook groups and traded “saves” with other sellers, which is most likely against Fiverr’s terms of service, but you gotta do what ya gotta do.
Once you get orders coming in – the clients can be a little tricky to work with. Whether there’s a language barrier or unrealistic expectations, they definitely aren’t dream projects to work on. It’s definitely a grind – at least that’s how I felt. I know in general when it comes to freelancing, usually it’s the customers paying the least that give you the biggest headaches, and Fiverr really attracts those kind of clients.
And here, there are those rare cases where sellers are able to make a full-time living from Fiverr, but in general, I think once you get a few orders coming in, you could probably make a couple hundred dollars a month depending on what services you’re offering, how competitive your niche is, and what your price points are.
In general, getting the orders and actually completing the orders can be a bit tough, and the fact that the price points are generally pretty low, this lands squarely in tier D.
Trading
Startup Costs 💰💰💰
Time to Profit ⏱⏱⏱
Profit Potential 💵💵💵
Difficulty 💪💪💪
Tier F
Okay, now let’s talk about trading with stocks, crypto, and forex. Yes, you can probably get started with $50, but I wouldn’t recommend it. In general, $1,000 is the minimum I would start with trading across all of these asset classes. The reason being is trading is incredibly difficult. Like really, really challenging. I have spent hundreds of hours studying, watching, and reading as much as I could about trading, and it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever tried to do.
Most full-time day traders I’ve talked to have spent 2-3 years of full-time trading and studying trading before they became consistently profitable. Most people can’t devote that kind of time to something without earning any money. And some people can but still don’t have the ability to become profitable.
Now, if you are able to become a profitable trader, the income can be pretty wild and depends on your risk tolerance and strategy. It could be $500 a day or $5,000 a day or $50,000 a day. So needless to say, the profit potential is high if you’re able to get to that point.
But because I believe it requires so much time and discipline, it gets a big ol’ F in my book. You’re much more likely to lose your entire bankroll.
Now instead, take that $1,000 and throw into a boring old boomer fund on something like M1 and let that go to work earning you money while you work on a different side hustle.
But Wait, There’s More!
I don’t want this to be too long, and I wanted to cover some of the most popular ones. Now, I’ll quickly rank a few more on the tier list.
Amazon FBA – the barrier to entry is a bit higher with this one. You’ve gotta have the cash to buy the products, and it’s likely going to take more research and just up-front work until you start getting things rolling. A C for this one.
Flipping Land – Again, a little higher barrier of entry here because you need cash to market and you need cash to actually buy the land. Then, there’s paperwork and logistics to figure out along with the risk of owning something that may be difficult to sell. I’d also give this a C.
Etsy – if you have a skill like woodworking or jewelry-making or maybe cross-stitching – I think Etsy is a good route to go. As a customer, I like Etsy for finding unique or custom things. For instance, I wanted a solid wood tabletop to work on, so I went to Etsy and got one just the size I wanted, and it’s a lot better quality than those particle-board piece of crap desks they sell at big box stores. I think it can be a good way to grow a hobby into a business for sure. I think the digital product space on Etsy is a bit more challenging, but this lands solidly in the A tier.
Affiliate Marketing – I’m not a huge fan of affiliate marketing as a side hustle. I think it works better as an additional revenue stream when you already have an audience, but just purely building something to generate revenue from affiliate marketing is incredibly difficult, and getting traffic to convert is a challenge in itself. I’d plop this into the F tier and think you’re better off pursuing other methods.
Online Courses – If you have useful knowledge that you know there’s a market for, I think online courses could be worthwhile. And again, having an existing audience is immensely helpful, so if you don’t, I would recommend putting out a course on a site like Skillshare, where they have the customers, and you don’t really need to do all of the work to get people to buy a course. The downside is you won’t make as much because you earn a cut of minutes watched by premium members. But if you’ve got the know-how, a decent camera, and a microphone, I would give this a shot. Right in the A tier for you.
Final Thoughts
So that’s it. Every one of these side hustles has some drawbacks. They are either difficult, have a high cost to enter, or have a low profit potential. And that’s kind of the nature of side hustles. But you may find that selling custom tables on Etsy is a killer business for you… for me, making YouTube videos turned out to be an S tier side hustle for me.
And look, I don’t have anything to sell you. I don’t need to convince you there’s some magic side hustle out there that is the key to financial freedom if you only buy my course and unlock my secret formula. There’s nothing like that.
So my final thought is this: if you need extra income right now, sign up as a rideshare driver or grocery delivery or postmates or doordash – whatever. If you have something you’re passionate about that you want to build a business out of, find the platform that will allow you to do so – whether that’s Etsy or Shopify or something else entirely – and give it your best shot.
If you would do me a solid and hit the thumbs up button on this video, that’d really help this channel out. Consider subscribing if you haven’t already and I’ll see you in the next one.