Thinking of making money as a teenager? No worries, you are at the right place.
As per UNICEF reports, there are 1.2 billion teenagers (aged between 10 -19) and make up around 16% of the world’s population. And all of these teenagers aren’t that lucky to enjoy their inherited wealth.
Gone are those days when teenagers used to make money by doing odd jobs and hardly making a few cents per day after child labor regulations passed throughout the world.
We will not be talking about those old ways to make money as teenagers, as those teenagers’ jobs will not help you to make a good amount of money and assist you during your education days.
Rather we will be talking about the 15 top ways to make money as a teenager. This will not only help you with your pocket money, but you will be able to earn handsome passive income to help you to support your education fees.
Let’s look at all the ways.
Table of Contents
1. Start blogging
Blogging is the best online hustle you can do to make a lot of money as a teenager. Many of the famous bloggers now who are millionaires have started their journey while they were studying. Blogging has the ability to earn you money and fame in your industries and lots of new opportunities.
You can also make blogging your full-time career, as the opportunities here are exceptional: from running your own successful blog to creating your own marketing or consulting agency.
When blogging is mixed with affiliate marketing making money becomes 10x more provided how well you are monetizing your audience better you give them values don’t be surprised how quickly you start seeing the results.
Benefits: With proper planning and implementation, in a few years $5000 – $10000 per month will be an easy target.
Downside: You have to be consistent and give 1-2 years to see remarkable results.
2. Become a Youtuber
If you watch youtube you must have heard of this name- pewdiepie. Do you even know how much he makes per year? – $60,00,000 in 2019 (net worth is $30 million in just 10 years).
Do you know Ryan Toys Review now boasts over 18 million subscribers? It also brought in a reported income of $22 million dollars in 2018. He is just a kid who plays with the toys so that kids can watch him play
You see the opportunities, and the best thing is you don’t have to be talented to put your videos on youtube. Just upload videos that you think
Benefits: You can be one of the social media influencers with lots of opportunities.
Downside: Don’t be camera phobic and be able to upload regular content.
3. Teach your native language
Nowadays many people are moving to foreign countries maybe Europe or maybe Asia for better work or education. And being comfortable around with locals there becomes difficult due to the language problems.
People love to learn new languages. It is an easy way to make money as a teenager thereby teaching your native language to them.
Teaching your native language should not be difficult for you as basically what foreigners want is to learn the fundamentals to help them in communication and understanding the language. You can help them and make good money based on the duration of your course.
There are many websites also where you teach your native language and get paid on an hourly basis. You can sign-up freely to these websites – CAMBLY, LINGODA, VERBALPLANET and start earning.
Benefit: It is easy to earn money by teaching your native language.
Downside: You should dedicate a few hours every day.
4. Work as a Freelancer
Are you good at Coding or Photography or making websites or painting?
Then you can earn money right from your home and freelancing is a good option for you. There is almost every task available on the freelancing platforms to pay you for your work.
You will be paid on an hourly or daily basis for the projects given to you. There are almost all skills under which you can work and earn money from anywhere by freelancing.
Check out these two – Fiverr and Upwork for the wide variety of works for you and start making money.
Benefit: You can start making a good amount of money in a few months.
Downside: You should allot daily a few hours for your freelancing projects.
5. Sell stock photos
Selling stock images and earning is becoming common among photographers and designers. If you have an interest in clicking beautiful pictures with a few editing skills you can start selling your pictures on stock images websites.
There are many websites on the internet that pay you up to a few dollars on the sale of each photo. It is a good way to make money as a teen if photography interests you.
What can be more fun to earn money from your hobbies?
Benefit: By showcasing your skills, it is possible for you to try your career in the film industry.
Downside: Your pictures need to be professional to attract customers.
6. Manage social media accounts for businesses
Today all traditional marketing is being replaced by digital marketing and every business wants to be present on as many social media as possible to reach out to a greater audience.
It becomes very difficult for them to create and upload new content on a daily basis. You can help these small businesses initially by creating and managing their social media accounts for them.
You should initially reach out to smaller businesses as it will be easy to convince them, also you should change according to your skills and business size.
Benefit: You can start your social media marketing agency (SMMA).
Downside: You should be skillful with these marketing strategies to bring sales to these businesses.
7. Become a social media influencer
If you are a teenager, you must be using popular social media and be aware of how many youngsters of your age are making great money from social media.
You just have to grow your followers to a certain limit and later try to monetize these audiences giving them some premium products or services that you think will be useful to your audience.
Becoming a social media influencer can give you fame and money both and you will be able to earn a lot once you start spotting your opportunities. Many social media influencers once are now millionaires.
Benefit: Fan following, fame, and money.
Downside: You should keep your audience engaged with your content by putting consistent video content.
8. Do odd jobs
Doing odd jobs was one of the popular ways to make money as a teenager. It was the only way in the past through which teenagers were earning some money.
Odd jobs include washing windows, pet-sitting, babysitting, delivering newspapers and groceries, etc., it was popular among teens as it used to earn them pocket money on a daily basis.
Benefit: It does not require any specialization to get started and earn money.
Downside: It can definitely give you some pocket money but not lots of money.
9. Sell products on eBay
Buying different items online from retail stores at a very less price and selling it on eBay is a good way to make money as a teenager. You can buy various products in wholesale from Alibaba and list your product to a slightly higher price and make a good profit out of it.
Downside: You should make initial investments of your own of a few hundred dollars.
10. Domain flipping
Domain flipping has become quite popular in recent 5-7 years. It is just the process of buying domains at a lower price with the intent of selling it quickly at a higher price.
It is just like house flipping where you buy houses with the intention of selling them quickly by seeing profitability there.
Is it among legit ways to make money as a teenager? – the answer is that buying Domains was never illegal.
If you have a few dollars in your pocket, you can bet in Domain flipping it will certainly give you good returns. In fact, many successful Domain flippers have made $100,000 per year.
You can easily turn your $100 into $1000 dollars with this. People have started it as a business now.
It is just about betting on those opportunist domains which could be sold quickly or on greater profit in the near future.
If you know a boy from Kochi India sold a web domain owned by him to ICONIQCAPITAL which is a company that is managed by Mark Zuckerberg. Kochi-based Amal Augustine sold ‘maxchanzuckerberg.org’ to ICONIQCAPITAL for $700 which is the name of Mark Zuckerberg’s daughter.
Benefit: It’s easy money you won’t entertain missing.
Downside: You need initial investments for buying Domains.
11. Monetize your Facebook page
With almost 3 billion people using Facebook throughout the world, it’s quite impossible for you to ignore it.
People have started using Facebook for socializing themselves and it was criticized for wasting a lot of personal time spending their productive hours being online.
But now is not the case, Facebook is paying users in many ways today. Some of the ways you can start earning from facebook are – selling stuff on the marketplace, social media influencer, Affiliate marketing.
You can create your own Facebook page and build your followers in your niche and start promoting your products or selling your premium course to your followers.
As an affiliate marketer, you can also sell other products and earn a commission on each sale of the products. Your followers are assets now which can earn you recurring money.
Benefit: It is free and easy to grow as an influencer on Facebook.
Downside: Easy only if you are helping and giving people values on a regular basis.
12. Make money with affiliate programs
As discussed in Blogging, affiliate marketing and blogging combined together works wonders in online earning industries. But it is not always like that to know both to get started.
If you feel you can promote someone’s product in a better way online with good marketing efforts, Affiliate marketing is a jackpot for you. It’s the best recommendation I can give you to make money as a teenager.
There are many affiliate networks that have thousands of products with them and they just want it sold. And they are ready to pay you the commission of each sale you bring to them.
Affiliate websites like Clickbank, Shareasale, Jvzoo, Amazon Associates give you the opportunity to earn commission on each of their listed products on their websites.
Making money with affiliate marketing is much profitable if you can bring sales with your marketing strategies. Affiliate commission goes from 10%- 90% on each sale, you see the best price of your efforts here.
Benefit: No other online work will give you a greater profit margin initially than affiliate marketing.
Downside: No sales, no commission!
13. Teach your talent to others
It is hard to say you don’t have any talents or something which you know better than your peers. It can be any skill – music, dance, sports, or your school subjects and you will always find younger children than you who will be willing to learn.
You can start tutoring them your skills and earn money from them. It is not required to teach them physically. Why not start uploading your tutorial videos on Youtube or on social media.
It is just a matter of initial momentum and then you will see a group of young students liking your teachings and want to learn further.
Also in the process, You should try to hone your skills to a more professional level which will help you to stand apart in your niche and give you a unique opportunity.
You can start taking tutorial courses on your skills and sell them on paid online platforms and earn money from there as well.
Benefit: Selling your own course is becoming very popular recently and has the potential of earning huge money in less time.
Downside: You should be really good at your skills and avoid being an average teacher.
14. Sell e-books
Many teenagers have this hobby of writing when they are in school. Also, they want to show and present their work to many people but the what-people-will-think factor stops them to further continue their wonderful interest.
But now you don’t need any big publication house to approve and publish your works. You can start writing it online for journals or on many online platforms, where people come and read such articles and appreciate them.
When you see people liking your works, you can think of monetizing this hobby by properly compiling those most likable articles in the form of e-book and selling those to the audience.
Some do’s while writing your ebook
- Create a proper outline of your Ebook from start to finish.
- Write simple and don’t make it confusing, in fact, your writing should be understandable to 5th-grade students.
- Create a professional layout and cover.
- Keep your ebook price to the average price to reach a larger audience.
You should not get overwhelmed as it is a low-risk and low-cost business rather. Try to write for your audience and you will see good money coming to you very soon.
Benefit: With almost zero expense you can sell almost unlimited copies of your E-Books.
Downside: Initially the price of the book is kept as low as $2 – $8 per sale.
15. Transcribing
Transcribing is the process of converting audio or speech into written form. If someone wants you to transcribe something, they want you to listen to an audio version and write it down in the printed form.
Many News or Media agencies hire transcribers to help them to convert their interviews or talk shows into written form to be further printed in the newspaper or magazines.
Basically, you will be paid on an hourly basis or words per minute. Although it is not something I would recommend to you in the long term, you can make some quick money out of it.
There are many websites like Fiverr and Upwork where you can sign up and search for these works instantly.
Benefit: This can earn you money with very little effort.
Downside: Many audio-to-text softwares are being released into industries, So it is not something reliable for a longer duration.
Final words
As I asked this question – how to make money as a teenager should not only be limited to earning a few dollars per day for your pocket money.
But these 15 ways to make money can be proved to be a life-changing opportunity for you, even though you might have started with the intention of earning to achieve your short-term goals.
Find what interests you and there is always a massive hidden opportunity under even the smallest of the profession.
Also, check out these 20 ways to Make Money Online Without Investments for College students.