It’s always nice to have some extra money.
You can use it to get ahead on your bills, pay down debt, or save for something fun.
There are a lot of ways to make extra money, but some of the most appealing opportunities exist on the internet.
With these online gigs, you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own home or invest in any fancy equipment.
You just need an internet connection and the desire to do some work.
But while making money online is a vast subject, what about if you want to make money online fast?
The idea of quick money can be a tricky one, as it can downplay all the hard work it takes to make money online in most cases.
However, there are some legitimate ways to make extra cash online without having to put in a lot of time upfront.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at six of our favorite ways to make money online fast, so that you can earn in your free time without taking away the energy you need to do your full-time job.
How Not to Make Money Online Fast
Before we get into some effective ways to make money fast online, we need to go over some of the ways that do not work well if you’re attempting to make money online in a short amount of time.
The following are all good ways to make money online, but they can take quite a bit of time to build up.
Therefore, we don’t recommend them if speed is your priority.
1. Affiliate Marketing
If you’ve done any reading about online business, you’ve certainly come across the affiliate marketing business model.
With affiliate marketing, you get paid in exchange for promoting products to others.
Generally, this takes the form of a special link that you place on a website.
When someone clicks the link and takes an action (usually signing up for a service or making a purchase), you’ll earn money.
Affiliate marketing is a powerful business model — one that can even generate passive income once you have it set up.
The key thing to understand, however, is that it takes a lot of time and know-how to start earning affiliate income.
It usually requires you to have either a high-traffic website or a large social media following, neither of which happens overnight.
We’re not discouraging you from pursuing affiliate marketing.
Just don’t think that it will earn you money quickly.
2. Investment Accounts
Investing can be one of the most effective ways to earn passive income and build wealth.
However, this doesn’t happen overnight.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is either deluded or attempting to scam you.
The compound interest that makes your wealth grow when properly invested takes decades to reach its full potential.
So in the meantime, we recommend you turn to other methods if you want to make money online ASAP.
3. Freelancing
Compared to the two methods we just described, freelancing is a much faster way of making money.
You just need the right skills and someone to pay you for them.
However, it can still take time to get your first few freelancing clients.
If you use a site like Fiverr or Upwork, for instance, you need time to build up your reputation and refine your offering.
Freelancing may also require you to learn new skills.
While this is easier than ever thanks to online courses and all the other information on the internet, it could still be a few months before you start earning money.
Therefore, we recommend you look elsewhere to make money online quickly.
6 Ways to Make Money Online Fast
Now that we’ve covered how you shouldn’t make money online quickly, let’s look at some ways that we do recommend.
1. Swagbucks
To start, we have Swagbucks.
It’s an online platform that lets you earn rewards in exchange for answering online surveys, watching videos, and shopping online.
If this sounds too easy to be true, trust us: Swagbucks is perfectly legitimate.
You won’t make a lot of money with it, but it can be a great way to earn a few extra bucks to use for online shopping or whatever you like.
When you’ve accumulated enough points on the platform, you can simply redeem them for cash delivered to your PayPal account or gift cards to online retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart.
To learn more about how you can start earning with Swagbucks, visit their website.
2. Survey Junkie
Up next, we have Survey Junkie.
The premise of the site is similar to Swagbucks, except that Survey Junkie is exclusively a survey site.
Survey Junkie partners with brands and research companies to find out what real consumers like you want.
In exchange for taking surveys, you’ll earn points that you can redeem for PayPal cash or online gift cards.
Signing up for Survey Junkie is easy.
All you have to do is answer a few basic questions about yourself.
Once you’ve built your profile, Survey Junkie will match you with relevant surveys.
From there, you can take as many or as few as you’d like in your spare time.
When you take enough, you’ll be able to redeem the points you earn and spend the cash or gift cards on things you want.
To get started taking surveys and earning, visit the Survey Junkie website.
3. Ibotta
What if you could get cash back on things you already buy?
This is the premise of Ibotta, an app that rewards you for shopping for everyday items like groceries, apparel, cosmetics, mobile apps, and much more.
Even better, Ibotta rewards you in cash.
There are no points to worry about redeeming — just money deposited into PayPal that you can withdraw to your bank account anytime you like.
To download the Ibotta app and start getting paid, visit their website.
4. InboxDollars
The next money-maker on our list is InboxDollars.
It combines a variety of activities such as taking online surveys, watching videos, redeeming coupons, and even playing video games.
In exchange for doing these things, InboxDollars will pay you in cash.
One of the coolest parts of InboxDollars are their emails.
You can get paid just for reading about the offers they send you, and you can earn even more if you act on the offer.
Who knew it was possible to earn money from opening and reading email?
To learn more about InboxDollars, check out their website.
5. Ebates
You’re probably familiar with the idea of a rebate, in which you get money back after making a particular purchase.
Ebates is based on the same concept, except it all occurs online.
In exchange for visiting and making purchases at the websites that Ebates recommends, you’ll earn cash back.
Each quarter, you can cash out these earnings in the form of either a check or a deposit to your PayPal account.
As with many of the other opportunities we’ve discussed in this guide, you get paid for doing something you’d already do anyway.
As of this writing, Ebates will even give you a free $10 bonus just for signing up.
To learn more about Ebates and get your $10 sign-up bonus, check out their website.
6. UserTesting
For the final item on our list, we have UserTesting.
As the name implies, UserTesting is a site that helps companies see how real people engage with their websites and apps.
When you sign up for UserTesting, you’ll get paid $10 to spend around 20 minutes looking at a website or app and completing a set of tasks.
As you do this, you’ll record yourself giving your opinion out loud, so that companies can get brutally honest feedback on what is and isn’t working with their products.
Given that the pay for UserTesting works out to around $30 per hour, it’s potentially a far more lucrative opportunity than most part-time jobs.
After all, how many low-skilled hourly jobs pay $30 per hour?
To learn more about UserTesting and start getting paid for your thoughts, check out their website.
Earning Money Online Is Easier Than You Think
We hope this guide has shown you all the quick and easy ways you can earn extra money online.
You won’t get rich using any of these methods, but if your goal is to earn some extra money in your free time, these opportunities are a great place to get started quickly.
So what are you waiting for?
Get online and start making money today!
