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Best side hustle apps for earning some extra cash

What side hustles are out there other than Uber and Lyft?

People have long embraced the side hustle as a way to earn some extra cash in between jobs or shifts. In the past, that might have been babysitting or dog walking.

These days, there’s an app for that. And by that, we mean everything. There are a lot more options out there than just Uber. It doesn’t matter if your skills lean toward web design or manual labor, someone will pay you.

If you’re looking to earn a little bit of cash to heal your wallet post-holiday season, here is a roundup of a few apps that can help you do just that:

Best side hustle apps for earning some extra cash

Handy

At a glance, Handy appears to be one of the more lucrative gig economy apps.

This app provides a solid side gig for professional cleaners and handymen/women. The app claims that you can earn between $22 and $45 per hour, depending on the job. You also get to decide when you’re available.

We should mention that not everyone can sign up. You must have paid experience in cleaning or performing handyman tasks. Still, if you’ve done this type of work in the past and want to earn some cash on the weekend, this could be a good way.

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Postmates

Postmates drivers deliver food and other supplies to nearby customers. They can earn up to $25 an hour at their convenience. The only requirement is that you make at least one delivery per every 90 days and that you use your own vehicle.

That said, it’s not necessarily a steady income. You might be able to hit that $25/hr threshold. However, the average reported salary is $10/hr, per Glassdoor. Additionally, all of that driving around will cause wear and tear on your car.

We don’t recommend driving for Postmates full-time, but this gig’s flexibility makes it a good choice for people who want to earn some money during their downtime.

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Instacart

Instacart is ideal for those who love shopping for groceries. Sign up through the app to become a driver, shopper, or both. This app sends out assignments and will send you notifications about where you’ll be shopping that day.

Shoppers earn between $10 and $20 per hour and must have their own car. You’ll pay for the groceries through a prepaid Instacart card, then drive them to someone’s house.

Be prepared for a few challenges. In some cases, shoppers must carry heavy bags from down the street if there’s nowhere to park. Other times, you might get sent all over the place — spending more time driving than shopping. This side hustle might work for you, but be prepared to possibly walk bags upon bags of groceries up a flight of stairs.

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Amazon Flex

Amazon Flex allows you to block off time in your schedule to deliver Amazon packages to customers. You can reportedly earn between $18 and $25 per hour.

As far as earnings go, Amazon’s civilian package delivery service presents some decent side cash. However, it’s not always easy. This Atlantic writer detailed their experience delivering packages in San Francisco and noted that it was a struggle to make deliveries on time and avoid getting a ticket.

City dwellers could find Amazon Flex a bit more trouble than its worth, but those in smaller cities with ample parking might have an easier time. Keep in mind, like other gig economy driving services, you’ll want to weigh auto expenses against earnings to see if the work is worth it.

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Dolly

Dolly is an app that allows those with some muscle to earn up to $15 an hour as a mover. Those with a truck or van of their own can make up to $30 an hour.

Dolly allows you to turn on notifications and accept the gigs that work with your schedule. The few “helper” reviews we’ve found online have mostly good things to say about the gig. A couple of people mentioned that there’s a lot of work available in cities where people frequently move around.

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Rover.com

Rover is a dog walking service that provides dog owners with on-demand walking, boarding, and daycare. While you’ll need to pass a background check to sign up, Rover could be a good choice for those who already work from home. Supplement your income by hanging out with a rotating cast of furry friends. It doesn’t get better than that, right?

That said, it seems that you need to be prepared to send pet owners updates throughout the day. Also, be prepared for a steady amount of dog doo.

Still, the site guarantees that up to $1,000 worth of work is protected each month, and you’ll have access to 24/7 support.

Behance

Behance is a gig website for freelance designers, photographers, and other visual arts pros. The site allows you to show off past work to prospective clients, lock down gigs, and find some inspiration.

While it can be difficult to get views on your work, it will be subject to professional review. At the very least, you’ll get feedback for your work.

Starting a side business on your own is one of those ideas better in theory than practice. Apps provide a convenient way to sidestep the funding and marketing part of the equation and let you get right down to business.

Wrapping Up

That said, we don’t entirely recommend using these apps if you’re looking for something more substantial. Instacart recently changed their policy, and it has impacted shopper take-home pay significantly.

If you’re looking into gig work as a freelancer — you may be better off looking for direct clients or applying for remote contract work.

In any case, if you’ve got some skills, dust em off once in a while, and maybe you can pocket some cash.

Twitch: How to make money as an affiliate

Becoming a Twitch affiliate might seem like a pipe dream, but this guide can make your dream come true!

If you’re a gamer, you’ve probably had the fantasy of quitting your job to pursue a career of streaming video games on Twitch. However, an endeavor like that sounds too good to be true. Also, learning how to record and stream live gameplay sounds like a daunting task. On top of all of that, you need to not only figure out how to become a Twitch affiliate, but also if you can realistically support yourself through this new career path. Not every Twitch streamer is going to make $3 million playing Fortnite.

Despite whatever qualms you may have, Twitch’s affiliate program is one of the top-ranking affiliate programs you can join. If you’re curious about how to get started, we’ve got the guide for you!

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Twitch: How to make money as an affiliate

Starting off

You need to set realistic expectations for yourself as a streamer. You’re probably not going to be the next Ninja, but you can still make a name for yourself.

The first thing you need to do is to decide what games you’d like to stream. Weigh how popular a game against how much you enjoy playing it. Sure, games like Fortnite are really popular, but if you don’t find the game fun, nobody will want to watch you.

Also, don’t become a streamer just because you like to play video games. A lot of people like to play video games, but they don’t make money from it.

Become a Twitch affiliate because you like the idea of interacting with a community of gamers that you will gather.

We would recommend watching popular streamers to get ideas for your own stream. You shouldn’t copy another popular streamer entirely, but you can learn how to set up your streams, how to engage with your community, and how to stay interesting to your audience.

10 best Fortnite Twitch players to watch

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Eligibility

In order to be eligible as a Twitch partner, you need to stream 500 minutes of content every 30 days. That boils down to a little bit more than one eight-hour shift. You also need to stream seven times every 30 days. If you stream for an hour every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you’ll knock that out easily.

You might think that you need thousands of followers in order to qualify to be a Twitch affiliate, but you don’t.

In order to be eligible, you just need three concurrent viewers for your streams over the past 30 days. Finally, you need at least a total of 50 followers altogether. This means that you probably can’t just have all of your buddies follow you on Twitch, but you still don’t have an unobtainable goal in front of you.

Create the perfect streaming setup

Aside from the money you’ll need to spend on consoles, games, controllers, and other gaming peripherals, there are a few things you are going to need to buy. Luckily, we have included links to some of the best products you can buy to create the perfect streaming setup.

This stuff can get pretty expensive, so don’t feel like you need to buy it all at once. However, if you want to really make it big in the world of streaming, these are all necessary and are used by the top dogs in the world of streaming.

Consider these things an investment into your future on Twitch. They can up the quality of your streams which means you can potentially gain more subscribers which means more money. The amount of money, time, and effort you put into your stream will determine what you get out of it.

How to film yourself for a gaming channel

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How do Twitch affiliates make money?

Twitch affiliates basically have four ways of making money on Twitch:

Ad revenue
Paid subscriptions
Donations from fans
Sponsorships

Ad revenue

Twitch streamers make money from the pre-rolled ads run before their streams. Also, streamers can choose to run ads during their streams, which they also profit from. However, Twitch Turbo members and grandfathered-in Twitch Prime members won’t see these ads after a Twitch Prime change last year.

Basically, you can’t quite rely on ad revenue to bring home the bacon.

Paid subscriptions

If you want to subscribe to a streamer on Twitch, it costs $4.99. The good news is that Twitch streamers do get a cut of that money. Basically, if you have a few hundred subscribers that resubscribe every month, you got quite a chunk of change coming your way.

Twitch takes 50% off the top for paid subscriptions. However, if you average about 10,000 viewers per stream, Twitch only takes 30%, according to an article from Tubefilter. That extra 20% is a great incentive to try and grow your viewership.

You need to create incentives for your viewers to want to subscribe to you. A common thing streamers will do is to create custom emoticons that your subs will be able to use in the Twitch chat. These custom emoticons typically are related to your content or your personality.

You can hire someone to illustrate some emotes for your channel. Fun emotes can attract other viewers to your channel, which means more subscribers.

Donations from fans

It isn’t uncommon to make money on Twitch by receiving donations from fans. However, you shouldn’t base your entire Twitch revenue stream on hoping that you’ll receive donations from fans.

Create a link on your channel to for your viewers to donate money. Affiliates typically label this button as either “Donate” or “Send a tip.”

If you’re a Twitch affiliate, you can also receive donations by getting bits. Bits are sort of like Twitch currency (you know, aside from the actual real-world money on the site). Prices sometimes vary, but 100 bits typically costs $1.40. However, first-time bit buyers get a discount, and you get a discount the more bits you buy. If a viewer donates bits to you, you do get a cut of the profits.

You can also receive donations via PayPal.

How Twitch streamers earn money

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Sponsorships

Sponsorships are a great way to make money as a Twitch streamer. The way they work is that you’ll apply to be a sponsor of a company that’s typically gaming related. If you’re a big-shot streamer, companies might reach out to you, but, more often than naught, you’ll need to do the hustling yourself. If you’re accepted after applying, the company will send you instructions as to how your viewers can buy their products while you make a cut of the profits.

Typically, you’ll be sent a coupon code that your viewers can apply at checkout on the company’s website. For example, if your Twitch name is “GamerBoiJakeyyyy” they’d enter coupon code “Jakeyyyy” to get a discount on your sponsor’s product. Every time someone enters that coupon code, you’d get a cut of the sale.

A great company to try and partner with is G FUEL. G FUEL is an energy powder you mix in with your drinks to keep you energized while gaming with no threat of crashing (allegedly). Also, they sponsor with loads of smaller streamers so they’re a great one to partner with if you’re on the smaller end.

Altogether, how much money you make as a streamer depends on the amount of time and energy you invest in your work.

Payout and payout schedule

Twitch has a $100 threshold in order to be paid out. Also, payouts take place around the 15th of every month.

This might be a bit of an issue for some potential affiliates. If you earned $75, you not only can’t access that money until the middle of the month, but you can’t get it unless you earn at least $25 more. If you need some money for groceries or another expense, you’re out of luck. You can receive money through checks or through PayPal.

If you have any other questions about Twitch payouts, check out their FAQ for more info.

Consider other options

If you want to earn some extra money from your gaming content, there are other websites you should consider. For example, you can take your Twitch streams and upload them to a YouTube channel. That way, your fans can watch older streams of yours. If they’re YouTube Premium members, they won’t even have to sit through ads!

An added benefit is that if they see you interacting with your subscribers in the chat, it might inspire them to want to subscribe to you on Twitch.

Can I realistically have a career as a YouTube content creator?

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You should also consider creating a Patreon page. Patreon is a great way to offer incentives to your fans in return for monthly donations to you.

What is Patreon and how does it work?

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Wrapping up

Working as a Twitch Affiliate full-time is not easy off the bat. If you have pressing bills to pay, you might want to consider another source of income before devoting all of your time and energy into working as a full-time streamer.

How Twitch streamers earn money

Many of us have considered becoming a Twitch partner, but can we realistically make money?

Whether you’re casually interested in Twitch or looking to become the very best streamer in history, one question often looms: How do they make money?

Sure, we’ve already talked about what it’s like being a YouTube content creator, but what’s it like being a Twitch partner? Can you really support yourself? Let’s find out!

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How Twitch streamers earn money

Through Twitch

There are a number of methods on Twitch for monetization.

Direct Donations

Donations are a streamer’s best friend! Money goes straight from the giver to the streamer, avoiding Twitch entirely. It’s an easy and meaningful “thank you” from users who love a channel.

Understandably, since Twitch earns nothing, they require streamers to set up donation links for themselves. Take, for example, the Apex Legends streamer Viss. On their channel, you can find a number of links directly below the stream, as seen below:

All streamers that set up donations will have something like this button on their site. You may have to search, but it’ll be there!

If you are a streamer looking to set up direct donations on your site, you have the option to give your donors a choice of emoji that plays over the stream. We suggest using this to let the donors know they’re appreciated!

Twitch Affiliates and Partners

Before we go on, we need to discuss two terms: affiliates and partners. Essentially, these are two levels of Twitch streamer that each unlock new aspects of monetization.

To become an affiliate, you must reach 50 followers and meet a few criteria for monthly streaming (ex: 500 minutes on 7 unique days, etc.). Once that’s accomplished, you can apply to be an affiliate.

And why would you? Because subscriptions and bit donations start right here, along with the ability to earn from the advertisements played on your channel.

Partners are a step above affiliates, and the requirements for partnership are set down in the aptly named Path to Partner. Basically, have 75 viewers on average, and a meet a much higher number of average streams. Twitch describes the ideal Partner as someone who they can partner with to exemplify a good streamer to others on the site.

This final tier has many more benefits: promotions on the Twitch website, channel-specific benefits to subscribers, potentially paid appearances at conventions, and more. We’ll talk about a few of these further down.

Subscriptions

Twitch subscriptions can be confusing for anyone traveling from YouTube, where “subscribe” simply means to follow a channel.

Here, subscriptions work more like a regular streaming service (think Hulu or Netflix). Users pay monthly fees for the ability to watch without ads, and half the subscription cost goes to the streamer.

With a subscription, viewers can also attain user badges and special emoji to enter in the live chat. Also, they may be invited to subscriber-only chatrooms.

Once again, these features become available at the affiliate level. Meanwhile, partners can begin to create their own badges and emoji for greater personalization.

Bits!

Bits are another form of “direct donation.” However, these are officially created by Twitch themselves and are only available to affiliates and above.

They work something like in-game currency: you buy bits, which are then used to purchase emotes that play over a streamer’s video. When this happens, you have a chance of being personally thanked by the recipient!

Once again, to create unique bit emotes and “cheermotes,” you must gain the level of Partner.

Outside of Twitch (Somewhat…)

There are many monetization options that aren’t connected to Twitch. These can actually be some of the best sources of income, but won’t be available to smaller streamers for quite a while.

Appearances

While Twitch Partners may receive offers to show up for Twitch events to represent the company, there are many different businesses that will pay to have streaming legends appear for their product.

At E3 2019, the creators of Philips Hue, a company that uses light shows to enhance gaming experiences, invited Apex, a member of the FaZe Fortnite clan, to join their booth for media interviews.

So, is Twitch Prime Related?

With all this talk of Twitch, users familiar with the website may be questioning: does Prime affect monetization?

The answer is: kinda.

In addition to video game specific benefits like free loot boxes, every Twitch Prime member gets one free monthly subscription, which at this time would normally cost $5.

So, remember how we said Twitch streamers get about half of the subscription cost? In this situation, they still get paid half the month’s subscription, even though the actual viewer didn’t put money down.

Conclusion

Between direct donations, the affiliate and partner programs, subscriptions, bits, sponsors, appearances, and Twitch Prime, monetization can seem a bit daunting at first, when combined with everything else this streaming platform offers. We hope this guide gives you a better idea of how everything works.

Can I realistically have a career as a YouTube content creator?

Making money on YouTube sounds like the dream, but can it be a reality?

We’ve all thought about doing it: Quitting your job and becoming YouTube sensation.

That’s exactly what Nick a.k.a. Sacred/SacredAlmighty decided when he was 16.

“I just remember watching old let’s play-style videos back in 2009 and thought ‘I could do this too,'” Nick said. “I was always fond of video games and ended up meeting friends real quick once I started.”

At the age of 22, Nick has about 150,000 subscribers on his main YouTube channel, and more than 22,000 followers on Twitch. His content is focused on gaming with a heavy concentration on Pokémon games.

Although being a content creator wasn’t Nick’s first choice of career, he can’t imagine pursuing a different career at this point in his life.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 16 and I know everybody has a normal job, but I genuinely don’t see myself being happy working and doing anything else for right now, at least,” Nick said. “I used to always want to be a police officer growing up but lord knows where that road went.”

No guaranteed success

Nick does not have a job outside of being a content creator. He supports himself through the money he makes from YouTube and Twitch.

“Being able to pay bills and buy gifts with money is something that I didn’t expect to have in the first place,” Nick said. “I didn’t see YouTube or Twitch becoming a thing at 16, but here I am.”

Although Nick has found success in his career, he does stress the unlikelihood of becoming the next sensation.

“No matter how much money or time you put into this you’re not guaranteed to become the next PewDiePie or Markiplier,” Nick said. “You can’t quit your job and blow up; that’s not the case at all. There are so many other people that have put hours into this, more than me, and haven’t gotten a scrap of anything. I spent the past six to seven years doing this and I just now hit where I am, and there’s so much work to do. “

According to estimates in a Medium.com post, less than 1% of content creators can financially support themselves solely off their channel.

Learning how to make videos

Some channels with millions of subscribers have content teams who help out with production. However, most of them started as solo efforts. A great example would be JonTron.

The work that goes into building a channel includes audio recording, video editing, and even marketing. This makes just picking up becoming a content creator a bit difficult to do.

“There are so many things you can do in Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere that you just can’t pick up immediately,” Nick said. “You have to sit down for hours and pay attention to frames, transitions, and making sure the video is presentable. Audio always has to universally be sound enough for every device that YouTube is on so everyone hears it correctly. ”

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How much money can I make?

The actual money you can make is not quite as high as you might imagine. Your average content creator is making about $0.0042 per view. This money comes from advertisers. Let’s say you publish a video that gets about 50,000 views. On average, you will only make maybe a few hundred dollars for that video.

Reaching 50,000 views per video is a nice goal, but it probably isn’t going to happen for your first few years on YouTube.

Even if you make a video that gets hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, that doesn’t necessarily mean your video will make thousands of dollars.

Abiding by YouTube

In order to become a partner on YouTube and monetize your channel, you need to abide by the company’s rules:

Your content is advertiser-friendly.
You created the content or have permission to use it commercially. See Fair Use
You are able to provide documentation proving you own commercial rights to all audio and video content.
Your content complies with the YouTube Partner Program policies, YouTube’s Terms of Service, and Community Guidelines. YouTube reserves the right to disable monetization for accounts that do not follow their guidelines.

Becoming advertiser-friendly is easier said than done.

Even if you are allowed to have ads on your videos, you aren’t really making a killing. If a viewer stops the video before a certain point or has ad block enabled, then the content creator makes nothing from advertisers.

“However many views the ads on your video get decides the pay,” Nick said. “Some people expect to quit their job, work towards monetization, and make big money but that’s not the case. There will be slow days and you’ll inconsistently make money. For some people, that’s the scary thing versus their normal $10 an hour job.”

Back in 2017, YouTube experienced what many have since dubbed, “The Adpocalypse.” During the Adpocalypse, several advertisers boycotted YouTube after their ads automatically played on a racist video. Afterward, YouTube began demonetizing videos that weren’t deemed advertiser-friendly. YouTube did release a video teaching how to remain advertiser-friendly, but many content creators are still having issues to this day:

The problem is that many videos are being flagged without having any non-advertiser-friendly content. One person even commented on this video saying that their gardening videos were flagged.

Here’s where things get a bit hairy. Becoming advertiser-friendly might not be what your audience wants. When the first Adpocalypse hit, H3H3 Productions released a video talking about how their videos weren’t being monetized. The things that led to their videos being demonetized were types of humor that attract their millions of viewers. Removing the humor means losing those viewers.

In this comes the debate of what YouTube needs to do. Channels like H3H3 don’t have PG content. However, their content is not toxic/racist, so they should be allowed to have advertisers. Gaming content is similar. Playing a game from the Mortal Kombat franchise can attract viewers, but the amount of blood and gore can get your video demonetized.

What YouTube should be doing is monitoring videos for toxic/racist content, but allow YouTubers to exercise creative liberties based on things like content and comedy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that change is coming soon.

Basically, if you aren’t planning on having PG content, then you need to explore other platforms to help earn money.

How to film yourself for a YouTube gaming channel

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Partnering with Twitch

Twitch

Because YouTube pay is both sporadic and unreliable, many content creators also stream on Twitch for some added income.

Twitch partners can make money from sponsors, fan donations, paid subscribers, and ad revenue. A Twitch subscription costs $5 per month, but Twitch takes 50% off the top.

Those numbers may still sound better than YouTube. You may be thinking, “Why don’t I just become a Twitch partner and forget YouTube altogether?” Well, that’s not the best idea. For many content creators, YouTube is their biggest platform where they have their biggest audience. Even Pewdiepie who has nearly 100 million subscribers on YouTube has only about a million on Twitch.

If you have a YouTube channel, but you want to gain additional revenue on Twitch, plugging your Twitch stream on YouTube is your best bet.

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How long can I realistically do this?

Old people using a phone

YouTube is a young platform that has already undergone so many changes. The website launched 14 years ago. In that time it went from being a place to share “fail” videos, to the supporter of full-time careers.

Some may think that being a YouTube content creator isn’t a viable option for later in life, but that’s not necessarily the case. As YouTube grows older, so does its audience. In fact, a July 2016 statistic shows that the average YouTube viewer is an adult with kids.

“I always think about when is it my time to gracefully bow out, or maybe that won’t be the case and I become some huge, rich YouTuber,” Nick said. “Maybe I can hire someone that can manage full time, hire some editors, or whatever. It just depends on the decisions I make now that set me up for that point in time.”

So should I do it?

Sacred Kingdom Hearts 3

If you are going to start, start young. It is much easier to put in the time and effort when you are still in high school and you don’t have adult bills to pay. Starting when you’re older means that you need to do this along with a fulltime job that pays the bills.

“If you’re looking to get rich and spend money then just don’t bother,” Nick said. “This is a creative space, an escape for some, and overall a place where everyone is trying to be the next big thing. If you’re gonna come here, prepare for trial and error and accept that you might not get really big, but have fun while you’re doing this.