23 Simple Ways to Make $10 an Hour Online

Maybe you’re tired of the hustle and bustle of the 9-5 workday or just need the flexibility of working remotely. Whatever your reason is, it’s entirely possible for you to make $10 an hour online these days, while also being able to say goodbye to having to actually go to a workplace! 

We’ve all seen how working from home is becoming the norm in more and more fields. But there’s still some lingering belief in some people that it’s only available for certain jobs or that you’re going to be stuck doing data entry and be paid pennies.

And this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, these days, there’s a ton of opportunities that allow you to make 10 dollars an hour online – if not much more.

I can even speak from experience here. After all, when I first started working online as a freelance writer about 15 years ago, writing a 500-word article (which can easily take less than an hour) allowed me to make $10 fast straight to my PayPal account. I could accept as much or as little work as I wanted and I always knew some money was an hour – or less! – of work away.

And this is exactly why I want to help you do exactly the same thing! That’s why you should keep reading to take a look at the types of jobs you can do and where to find them – while steering clear of the scams.

How to make $10 an hour online

1. Focus groups 

A paid focus group is when a group of people are brought together to engage in a discussion about a specific topic. You’ll usually be asked questions by a moderator, with the overall aim being to find out about things like consumer habits or your thoughts on a particular political issue.

This is also often done virtually these days, making it much more flexible than the image you may first think of. (Surely I’m not the only one who pictures a bunch of people sitting in a dark room and answering weird questions?)

And there is seriously good money to be made here. For instance, how does more than $100 an hour sound?

Two great sites to look into include the following.

My personal favorite is Survey Junkie. It’s a market research community that’s mainly focused on having its members earn money by filling out surveys. These are pretty straightforward if you’re just looking for surveys that pay actual money, with questions generally relating to things like sharing your online activity activities (such as the websites you visit or what you search for) as well as your shopping activity.

However, it also offers the chance for you to join paid focus groups online – and you’ll be paid up to $150 an hour just for answering some questions. All you have to do is sign up with Survey Junkie to immediately see which of these are available to you at the moment.

Respondent is also another great option for this. It pays you to participate in research studies by providing your opinion on various things, to mainly help companies improve their products.

And given it pays an average of $140 an hour, these can be super lucrative opportunities to take advantage of.

2. Turning on your computer

This is probably the easiest way you’ll find to make $10 fast online as it involves the tiniest amount of work ever.

You may have heard of Nielsen from their reporting on TV viewing numbers. Well, they have to get this information from somewhere – and that’s where you come in.

That is, by signing up with Nielsen, you can be paid $50 a year simply to install their app on your computer or phone.

Their aim here is to track how  you use your device as part of their consumer research. Don’t worry: the information is completely anonymous and can’t be traced back to you. They also say that the app is tiny and won’t affect your device’s performance.

And for the 30 seconds it takes to download Nielsen’s app, it’s going to be the easiest money you’ll ever make.

3. Blogging

Blogging is no longer about simply writing your thoughts, like a diary. Instead, it can be a great way to make serious money by writing about basically whatever topic you can think of – bonus points if it’s something you’re truly interested in!

Just ask people like Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, who makes over $1 million per year (including $50,000 per month from affiliate marketing) just from her blog.

It’s important to note that you won’t be able to make $10 an hour online (or even more!) from blogging from the day you launch your blog, as it does take some time to build your site up to this point. But if you have the patience, it’s more than possible for your earnings to sky rocket.

4. Playing games

There are hundreds of sites that allow you to make $10 fast online by doing something you enjoy. And if you’re the kind of person who likes to spend time playing games on your phone, you can actually earn money here doing something you’d be doing anyway!

Just take a look at these apps with games that pay to your PayPal account, for instance, especially if you’re looking to get $10 fast on PayPal. 

And you can always join more than one site to increase your income. While it may not make 10 dollars an hour online playing just one game for an hour, it does add up quickly.

Some of my favorites in terms of their money-making ability and range of options include:

• Swagbucks not only pays you to play games, but you can also complete surveys, watch videos, get coupons, and cash back on your online purchases. These all add up fast and give you a ton of variety when it comes to earning money – starting with the free $5 bonus just for signing up!
• MyPoints is another great online money-making site. You can play games, earn cash by shopping at your favorite stores, and answer surveys. And you’ll get a free $10 Amazon gift card just by buying basically anything online in the first 30 days after signing up.
• InboxDollars is another site where you can play games, watch videos, take surveys, and earn money for shopping. And their free $5 welcome bonus is pretty amazing too!

5. Taking advantage of sign up bonuses

This isn’t going to be a long term option for you to be making 10 dollars an hour, but it’s a super simple way to make that amount today.

Specifically, there are some great apps that offer different ways to make money that pay you just for signing up with them. Literally all you have to do is verify your email address with most of these and you can make up to $50 from just a few minutes of “work”.

6. Referring friends

And as an added bonus on top of the previous option as a way to make 10 dollars an hour online (or, in this case, much more than that), most of those same apps also offer referral bonuses.

What this involves is having your friends sign up through the unique link that’s personal to you that you’ll get once you create your profile in these apps. Just send that link to your friends and, if they sign up for the same app through your link, you’ll get a bonus for this. This means that this is a great option if you’re looking for free gift cards online without having to complete any offers to get them. 

In most cases, you can have as many friends sign up for this as you want. And as you’ll see below, you’ll also get to keep earning while they keep earning when it comes to certain apps.

7. Proofreading

If you’ve got an eye for detail, proofreading could be the perfect way for you to make 10 dollars an hour online – at the very least.

Proofreaders are responsible for reviewing all sorts of documents and correcting any issues they find. You should have an excellent grasp of grammar and be able to read and identify errors, as well as having the ability to, when needed, make suggestions for corrections and even content improvement. 

There are several sites on the internet that hire proofreaders, with Upwork being one of the biggest for this.

You may also be surprised at just how much you can earn by doing this, as Caitlin Pyle has shown by making more than $70,000 per year as a proofreader.

To help you do the same, Caitlin‘s created a free workshop to show you just how to get started as a proofreader. Her workshop (in which she’s taught over 12,000 students!) goes through:

• Why proofreading could be the perfect fit for you to make money
• How she used proofreading to get lifestyle freedom
• Her strategies for attracting your ideal clients

Click here to sign up for Caitlin’s free proofreading workshop.

8. Transcribing

An online transcriber turns an audio or video file into written content. This means basically all you need to get started is an internet connection and a pair of headphones (although some clients do also ask you to have a foot pedal for transcribing). 

How it works is that you listen to the audio or video file and type it out, with the goal being to create either transcriptions or captions.

There are tons of companies, independents, and even professionals who require the assistance of a transcriptionist and you can take a look here at some of the best transcription jobs (no experience needed!) that are out there.

FYI: While you don’t necessarily need a certificate or anything in order to do this, it can definitely always help to boost your earnings. It’s for this reason that I strongly recommend you take a look at this FREE seven-day course on how to start making money as a transcriptionist from home.

9. Working as a virtual assistant

A virtual assistant is someone who helps a company or individual with essentially any sort of online task. While these can be more administrative, like making phone calls and sending emails, it can also be much broader than that. 

(In fact, this list of over 275 services that VAs can offer should show you just how many things you can specialize in as a VA.)

To find out more, check out this article on how to become a virtual assistant. Alternatively, you can take a look at these virtual assistant websites to see where you can find your first VA job!

10. Teaching English Online

Teaching kids is a rewarding job. After all, they are our future, and we should strive to help them be all they can be. 

But fortunately for us, teaching English online to a child or children is also a great way to make extra money!

In fact, by becoming an online English teacher with VIPKid, you can earn way more than $10 an hour from your own home. Specifically, they pay up to $25 an hour for you to teach English online to students in China.  

You don’t even have to create lesson plans and you choose the hours you want to teach, making it a super flexible way to earn money.

(You may also want to check out some other online tutoring jobs here.)

11. Freelancing

There are all sorts of freelance sites out there offering you work in basically any sort of field you can think of. Whatever your skill, there’s almost guaranteed to be someone willing to pay you for it.

Upwork and Fiverr are both reputable platforms that have been around for a while and that offer an abundance of freelancing opportunities. As a general rule, Fiverr is more for one-off tasks while Upwork jobs tend to be a bit more long term, so pick your platform based on what you’re looking for.

This includes anything from voiceover artists, to designers, to coders, to freelance writers and more.

Just take a look at each site to see the range of work on offer – and to get some ideas where you could also offer your own skills to find your first client.

12. Bookkeeping

Bookkeepers keep track of all the money that’s coming into and out of a business’ account. This means it’s one of the most important roles in any small business – and so it pays accordingly.

That is, most online bookkeeping jobs pay more than $10 an hour, with many paying up to $45 an hour. And one great part is that they don’t require a degree or a certificate. 

A couple of great places to begin your search include:

• Bookminders have been in business for over 20 years, and they provide you with everything you need to work as a bookkeeper.
• ClickAccounts work with 500 fortune companies, and you can work part-time or full-time to make your own schedule.

Looking for some free training to maximize your earnings as a bookkeeper? Take a look at some free training, like this free course on how to start your own bookkeeping business. That way, you’ll hit the ground running in your new bookkeeping career.

13. Designing and selling printables

Printables can be anything from educational worksheets to craft patterns and instructions. In fact, as you’ll see if you spend more than a few minutes searching through what’s on offer on sites like Etsy, the possibilities for this market are basically endless. 

And while printables can be one of the best things to sell on Etsy, you can also sell printables from your own website or through a Shopify store.

Find out more about how to make money on Etsy for some great tips on getting started with this.

14. Testing websites

Getting paid to test websites is a pretty easy area of work to get into and you absolutely don’t need any tech background to do this – in fact, it’s better if you don’t. It involves you checking sites for things like usability, performance, bugs, lagging, content, etc. Companies want to hear about user experiences by “normal”, non-techy users so they know what to improve.

There are a significant number of well-known companies that hire people to test websites, including companies like Airbnb, Twitter and Microsoft. You won’t find jobs directly through those companies though, as they tend to hire people through other companies for this kind of work – as you can see in the article above. 

But given that testing apps takes about 20 minutes and you earn $10 for each site you test, this is a great way to make $10 fast online.

15. Writing an ebook

Do you enjoy writing? Would you love to see your book for sale online or in your local bookstore? Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform is the way to go.

You can write an e-book or a print book, with print books being usually less than $5 to purchase as the author and sell yourself on your website or at places like a book fair.

Kindle Direct Publishing has free templates for you to add your text to, and they are quick to answer any questions. You’ll get an online preview of the book before you publish it and, once it is published (in the case of e-books), you’ll earn at least 70% of the sales back yourself.

It can also be sold in numerous places, such as the Apple stores, Amazon, and numerous other places, meaning you’ll have access to literally tens of thousands of potential customers. This is why Kindle Direct Publishing is considered one of the best print-on-demand printers for independent authors.  

16. Virtual friend

When I first saw becoming a virtual friend listed as an online job, I thought it was rather odd. Truth be told, there are a lot of virtual friend jobs.

But having actually talked to people who do this, I think it’s a great way to meet new people online and develop friendships. 

Don’t worry, it’s completely platonic, with most clients being those who may be lonely or people who are housebound and so may not be able to get together and socialize. So this works well for a lot of people!

17. Selling items on Etsy

You can sell all sorts of crafts, craft supplies, and vintage items on Etsy. Set up a free storefront, add your products, write a title, description, tags and put up a few pictures and start selling.

For those who don’t know, Etsy is a platform for selling handmade items. This means that you cannot go to Walmart and buy something and list it on Etsy, nor can you sell things like collectibles. That’s the type of thing you would sell on eBay, which is better for this sort of thing (including, for example, that it’s one of the best places to sell baseball cards and other similar items).

Etsy has a lot of beautiful, customizable items for sale. In fact, it is the largest craft selling platform on the Internet and the funny thing is there are still a lot of people who do not know it exists.

If you’re a crafter or make printables, set up an Etsy account and get selling!

Need some ideas of what you can sell? Take a look at this list of some of the best things to make and sell online.

18. Creating an online course

Creating an online course is a great way to share your knowledge and make some extra cash. Teachable is my pick for this, as it’s a great platform that provides you with numerous tools to get your course up and running.

They do charge a nominal fee per course, which can easily be made up for if one or two people take your course. You can also choose the price for your course, meaning once you get the word out about what you’re teaching, you should easily be able to make 10 dollars an hour online with this.

And this really is a fantastic way to make money online. All you need is a little time to create your course. In fact, if you’re not a great writer, you can outsource the course created for a few hundred dollars. 

Either way, once the course is done, it basically becomes passive income, allowing you to sit back and collect hundreds or even thousands of dollars sharing what you know!

19. Micro-jobs

Micro jobs are simply small tasks that need to be completed, such as reviewing products. For example, I mentioned Swagbucks earlier. Their jobs are considered micro-jobs.

There are numerous types of micro-jobs, and some do pay more than others. These odd jobs apps can be a great starting point for finding this kind of work, but there are also a range of sites you can sign up for if you’re interested in doing some micro-jobs to earn extra money:

• Gigwalk is a good micro-job site. It is also a mystery shopper site. About 1.7 million are doing small tasks for this site so they must be doing something right! You can go to the store and take pictures of an item, go to lunch, visit websites, comment on posts, etc. and make money.
• Slice the Pie pays you for your opinion about songs, clothes, and several other things.
• Amazon Mechanical Turk has you doing all sorts of things as a way to work for Amazon from home. You may find yourself being paid to tag objects, find images, upload videos and images, identify objects, remove duplicate content, gather information, data processing, getting paid to type and so much more.

20. Translation

There are a range of online translation jobs available. So if you know a second or third language, translation may be perfect for you. 

One thing to flag is that I don’t recommend you to use an online translator for this type of work as the results won’t be quite right. But if you’re aiming to do this yourself, the average translator pay is $25 an hour. This means it’s more than possible for you to make 10 dollars an hour online doing this!

To get started, check out websites like Stepes, Unbabel and Blend Expert.  

21. Sell your photographs

If you love to take pictures, then you can sell them online. People love pictures of everything: a wheelbarrow full of flowers, a random cow in a field, waterfalls, the ocean, pictures of food and more.

(You can even sell feet pics if you want to!)

And as people and businesses need stock photos to show all sorts of scenes, there’s bound to be someone who wants to pay for what you’re photographing. And if you’re an illustrator, you can upload your images and sell them too.

When it comes to where to sell your photographs, start by taking a look at Dreamtime and Photoshelter.

Related: 20 Best Tips to Sell Feet Pics Without Getting Scammed (2023)

22. Online personal trainer

With the help of webcams and apps like Zoom, personal trainers can still work with clients online. In fact, it’s becoming a bit of a booming business, especially after the events of 2020.

Ideally, you should start your own website to advertise your services to potential clients. You can also combine this with promoting your new business on social media to get the word out.

And while personal trainers start with an average of making $10 an hour, your online earnings here can easily grow well beyond this.

23. Freelance illustrator

Freelance illustrators can make a nice living online. Fiverr is a great place to place your portfolio and get customers.

When it comes to finding jobs, freelance illustrators are a lot like freelance writers. That is, while you will probably have to bid on jobs, if you’re good at what you do, it won’t take long to grow your list of clients.