9 Online business ideas for 2022: Can be started for under $100

Last Updated on February 1, 2023 by Tumto Siram

The best advantage of online business is that it can be started as a side hustle, which might even turn out to be your main source of income later. And that's why I came up with this post where I'll be sharing a list of online business ideas that you can start with.

The best thing about these businesses that I'm going to talk about is that all these businesses can be started with very little capital, and almost anyone with a little knowledge of the internet and computer can start it.

When it comes to starting an online business, there are thousands of ideas, but I want to share those business ideas that need little to no investment, can be started for under $100 and almost anyone can start it.

All these ideas that I'll be talking about, won't sound like an actual business, but if you do it the way businesses are done and prioritized, all the things I am about to list out have the potential to become your number one source of income in the long run.

Best Online business ideas for 2022

From affiliate marketing to setting up your own eCommerce business, below are the best ways to make money online with a low budget.

1. Affiliate Marketing

If you don't know yet, affiliate marketing is the process of promoting other's products and generating sales for them and you get paid a commission for the efforts you have put on for that sale to happen.

Here's how it works, you sign up for a company or a business that offers an affiliate program, or join an affiliate network, through which you join various affiliate programs.

A unique affiliate link is provided to you, and then you go on to drive traffic to your affiliate link through your website, paid advertising or social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Pinterest etc.

Your website visitors get converted and become a customer by buying through your unique link, the business that you promoted gives you a percentage or a base commission for the sale generated. The best way to do it is to run your own website.

Starting affiliate marketing has its own advantages and benefits. It doesn't cost much to start and can be started even without any money if you already own a mobile or a laptop with an internet connection.

2. POD (Print on Demand)

A few years back print on demand was a new concept and very few people were into it, it was less competitive and really profitable at that time. These days It has become more complicated and competitive, However, it still does have a huge potential yet.

It would be best if you could find a niche that you are passionate about and know a lot about, you can make unique t-shirt designs related to that niche and sell your t-shirts to the people who are related to your niche.

There are different approaches to starting your own print-on-demand business. the most common way to do it is, you start a website of your own on platforms like Shopify, Wix or WordPress/Woocommerce, find a POD supplier like Printful and Printify that will print your design and directly ship the product to your customer.

Your job will be to design, list it up with a mockup on your website and drive traffic to your website through paid advertisements on Facebook, Pinterest etc. You can also grow a loyal following for your brand on your social channels and this might even give an edge to your business in the long run.

As for designing if you don't have much experience with complicated software, Canva might just be the best option for you, it's simple to learn and also a great platform.

You can learn more about the features of Canva here and also check out one of my Canva tutorials here. Or the other way around you can just hire a designer from Fiverr.

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3. YouTube channel

You must have checked out videos on YouTube every once in a while and might have even given a thought to starting your own channel, and if not, you should really be considering it.

Nowadays, marketers and businesses are flocking more and more towards video content, and in fact, videos have become the number one choice to market their products. And you should also be considering joining the bandwagon.

There are various ways that you can monetize a YouTube channel, the most common way is of course by applying for the YouTube partner program where you earn a piece of the revenue YouTube generates from the ads shown in your videos.

And to qualify for it you will need to complete the milestone of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time which will obviously take time. But with a little patience and consistency, it's quite achievable.

The other way to monetize your YouTube channel can be by applying for some affiliate programs and making money on YouTube through affiliate marketing.

And not to forget there are chances of getting Brand endorsement deals after your channel grows.

4. Freelancing

Earlier freelancing used to have a limited scope and reach. But the age of social media and information has transformed the game. The types of work and services that you can provide through freelancing have even gotten wider.

If you are not familiar, freelancing means working as an independent contractor for an organisation, company or person. You decide the delivery time, and the price according to your skill.

All you need is a skill in some specific area that you can monetize by finding clients that will need your service. Don't worry if you think you don't have any area of expertise.

Just head over to Fiverr.com, a platform where freelancers list out their gigs that a potential customer may find. Other one's Upwork. Go check out those pages and the kind of services freelancers sell on there, I am sure you will find inspirations for yourself in there or even find out the inner skills that you already have.

5. Selling courses

Same as selling your service according to your skill, you can make a course around the skill that you've mastered and sell it online. According to the Global market insights press release, the worldwide e-learning market is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2027.

Now is the best time you become a part of that industry. There are thousands of courses that you can find in the market these days. I was even surprised by seeing some of the courses that I never realized could be made and sold.

And for the type of course ideas, I'll give a general overview from which you can take inspiration. First, let's look at some examples of common types of online courses.

A big example would be, courses around freelancing, making YouTube videos, making websites, affiliate marketing, and even courses on how to make a course. You can also divide the courses into sub-niches.

You can find inspiration from online course marketplaces like:

• Udemy
• Coursera
• Fiverr learn and
• Skillshare.

And if you already have decided on making your online course, you can sell it on the websites I've listed above or the other option would be to sell it through your own website.

6. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is somewhat similar to POD (Print on Demand) as you won't be the supplier or even the one who's shipping the products.

It works somewhat as a local brick-and-mortar shop but with a slight difference. Dropshippers usually, find niche-specific unique products in the marketplace places with suppliers like Oberlo, BrandsGateway, Dropship Direct, Wholesale 2B, Salehoo, CJ Dropshipping and Alibaba. They then list those products on their website.

When a purchase is made, the order is sent to the supplier, who then packs and ships the product directly to the customer. And the drop shipper makes a profit in between the price margins they have set. These systems are mostly automated inside the website these days.

If you are considering drop-shipping when it comes to choosing the website, there are lots of hosting platforms you can go for, some good ones are WordPress with Woocommerce, and Wix but the most preferred one is Shopify as it is completely e-commerce centred.

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7. Drop-servicing

I recently came across the concept of Drop-servicing. It really can be an effective money-making machine. Same as dropshipping, but instead, you will be providing service to your clients.

I've mentioned freelancing earlier in this article and the platforms that can be leveraged to sell or buy a service, but those platforms are all saturated, it might be confusing or even time taking for many businesses to filter out and find well-qualified and high-rated freelancers in there, and you can bridge that gap in between.

Just like any other business I've mentioned, you have to come up with a specific niche that you will be covering, and then, of course, your website and social channels should be built to attract clients.

Go to Fiverr and look for the gigs that are related to your niche, make contacts, fix the rate of each service and list it on your website. Find clients, and the profit in between will be yours.

8. Selling Website

Creating websites and selling also is viable business options, however, you will need website designing skills and also come up with a unique niche-based website whether it's for a blog or an eCommerce website.

As I've stated earlier, Fiverr Learn and Udemy are the best places for any kind of course. You can find any kind of web development course there, but for learning website design for selling, a simple web designing course for WordPress, Wix or Shopify will do.

All you have to do is monetize the website you created through display ads (Find the best ad networks here) and affiliate links and sell it for a good price. There is a lot of demand for AdSense-approved sites too.

You can even sell dropshipping starter sites which are yet to make a profit. You can learn more about selling and making money by building websites here.

There are lots of websites that work as a platform for selling and buying websites. The best one I would recommend is Flippa, it's a website for business to sell their old or new websites including android and IOS applications and games.

9. SAAS (Software as a Service)

SAAS is a business model where you sell your software as a service. For example, as mentioned earlier, websites like Wix, Shopify etc. are SAAS-modelled businesses, as these platforms offer services for their hosting and apps in return for a monthly or yearly payment plan.

Starting a SAAS service has become one of the most sought-after business models these days. And, you can start a business like that too. Once again Flippa is a great place to find prebuilt websites or applications that can be monetized as a SAAS.

Some simple SAAS services you can come up with are Billing and Invoicing tools, Email Marketing and management tool, SEO tool, link shortener tool etc.

If you could take an extra step beyond prebuilt websites and apps, and consider putting in some work on your SAAS startup, the Envato marketplace is another wonderful platform where you can find applications and websites to buy.

You can install the application on your own or you can pay some extra bucks to the vendor you've purchased from to install the software for you.

It's not that hard if you really want to give it a try. There are lots of YouTube videos and blogs that you can refer to on how to install your own PHP website and applications on a VPS server.

After that, the final steps would be to promote your SAAS business through your social channels organically or by promoting it through paid ads like Facebook ads, Google ads or Native ads.

Conclusion

Now, the wonderful thing about all these businesses is that they can be started as a Side Hustle, and on top of that you can choose and start one of the businesses first, and then move on to the next one and interlink all these businesses to each other if you want.

Let me give you a roadmap here, for instance, when you start affiliate marketing, you can build your website, and to promote it, YouTube will be the best place including other social media channels.

Now when you start earning a little bit, you can further include your online courses on your website and then place your SAAS services link on your website. You know you can mix it all up and make money online from multiple sources regularly.

However, before you move on to try starting your online business, let me remind you that, starting a business and making money online will not be as easy as it sounds.

Just like every other business, it will need hard work, determination, consistency and above all patience. Your business won't grow overnight, you will have to give it some time to bloom.

If you have reached all the way down here, and are looking forward to starting your own online business, I wish you all the best in your endeavour. See you at the top!