9+ Proven Ways to Make Money Online as a Student

Have you ever wondered how to make money online as a student?

When we see people around us making a whole lot of money at an early age, it is very common to get the questions “How can a student make money online?” or “How can I earn money as a student?”

We are often said:

“Money is the root of all evils.”

– Almost everyone

But if you look at the actual facts and the reality of life, NOT having money is the root of most evils.

The goal here is not to promote the “money-first” mindset but just to highlight the importance of having enough money so as to live a financially fulfilled life. When you’re broke, there is not enough you can do.

As a student, even if you want to go out with your friends, you have to think twice or in several cases, a dozen times about whether or not you can afford that dinner or that trip with your friends.

When you’re broke, you can’t even afford to buy the things you want.

So basically: Money is important.

Now that that is out of the way if you’re reading this article, it probably means that you know the importance of money and are here to learn how to actually make money (online) as a student.

And in this article, I will tell you exactly that.

Why Should You Make Money Online As A Student?

1. Personal Expenses

Due to inflation, everything is becoming more and more expensive every day. In this situation, asking your parents to pay for everything, including your additional needs, might not be very convenient.

Having a way to make some money on your own can be very beneficial. And it is also something to be proud of if you don’t are making your own money while your friends are all asking their parents to give them money.

2. Opportunities

When you start earning on your own by making money online, whether it be from a part-time job or anything else, you build a lot of connections and learn a few very useful skills.

Those connections and skills help you, in the long run, to become more equipped than your colleagues if you ever decide to work a regular job.

These connections can also come in handy in your career for jobs, projects, and several other things.

3. In-field experiences

By working from an early age, you expose yourself to a lot of experiences that can be incredibly valuable when you actually start working after you complete college.

These experiences and lessons are needed to become many folds better than your fellow workers and solve problems that may arise during your career.

4. Why not?

Look, the thing is simple. If you CAN make some money on the side as a student, why not?

Why Listen To Me?

I am currently a high school senior, I stay alone, and I finance myself for almost everything. I started looking into how to make money online over a year back and currently, I have made several over a thousand dollars online.

This income is recurring. I assure you that if you read this article fully and if you follow the advice mentioned in this article, in a few months, you will have started making a few hundred dollars every month.

This amount was more than what most people here in my country make from a full-time job.

Now, if you really do want to make money online as a student, read this article fully and do three things:

1. Decide which way of making money suits you more.
2. Learn the basics of doing that thing from this article and do some more research if you feel like it.
3. JUST START! Don’t overthink what you will do and how you will do it. Just start and you will learn everything else along the way.

Step Zero: Preparation

1. Know What You Like

The very first thing to do to make money is to find what you’re interested in.

You don’t have to be super passionate about the thing you pick, you just have to have a little inclination or interest toward it so that if you have to do some research about it or learn something about it, you still enjoy it.

2. Be mentally prepared

One thing that you must understand is you will have to give it some time. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

This won’t take a huge chunk of your time, but you will have to put in some effort in giving this new venture.

If you want to make money equal to or more than people do from their full-time jobs, you will have to put in good effort so that you excel at whatever you are doing.

How to Find Your Interest/Passion?

I want to address this question because a lot of people have this question of how to find their interest as they have no idea about what they want to do and what they are interested in.

Like choosing a college major, finding your interest/passion is confusing for most. I will share a few things that I did that helped me to find my interest which will also give you a good idea of what you can do to find your interest/passion using which you will make money online.

The very first thing that I did was ask myself what I was good at. Definitely, as only a high school student, I wasn’t an expert in anything.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t good at anything. There are some things that everyone is good at. You don’t have to be a master at it, but even if you’re comparatively better than other people at something, that’s a good sign that you can do well at it.

While I was asking myself that question, I wasn’t just thinking, I actually made a list of the things that I thought I was good at including writing and solving a Rubik’s cube.

But at the top of my list was technology.

I could fix basic mobile and computer errors that most people couldn’t. I knew about which were the best smartphones in a certain budget range and what things to look for when buying a laptop.

So I knew I wanted to do something related to technology.

The second thing I did was talk to people. These people included my family members, my friends, my teachers, and even my relatives. I asked them “What do you feel like I enjoy doing or am good at?”

The reason why I asked other people was that there are some things that we may be good at or maybe interested in that we don’t realize. Talking to these people helped me reassure my inclination toward technology.

While some of the people I talked to said I was a good cook and a good motivational speaker, most of them emphasized my skill in computers and technology.

While I could have decided to work on my public speaking skills and do something in that niche, I wasn’t really interested in it.

Thus, I decided to do something related to technology. That was my passion: tech.

You can also take some time to make a list of 3-5 things that you think you’re good at and are a little interested in.

Then talk to people and ask them what they think you’re good at, and then see which ones of your talent and interest overlap and then pick that.

One additional thing you can do is check your YouTube feed.

The thing that appears most often on your feed may also be a good indication of your passion/interest.

Don’t Worry About The Money:

When you’re interested in something and are really passionate about it, you will definitely do great in that field. There’s money in all sectors and majors when you put in the time and effort to excel at it.

So don’t worry about the money, just focus on what you’re interested in and work on it. You’ll do great.

Now that we are convinced of why we should make money online as a student and we have our interest/passion clear, let’s jump into the list.

Here’s a list of 9+ Proven Ways to Make Money Online as a Student:

9+ Practical Ways to Make Money as a Student

1. Becoming a YouTuber

The number #1 is no surprise. In this era of online videos, YouTube is our go-to platform when we have any questions, confusion, or even for entertainment.

That is the market we can target as students to make money side by side.

Currently, over 30 billion searches are done on YouTube every single month. On YouTube, people search about everything from “How To Draw a Line” to “How to Build Your Own Car.”

It doesn’t matter if you think you’re not skilled or you don’t know anything enough to teach someone else.

You can make videos teaching the things you learned at school, how to make quilling art, how to make a new google account, or how to install an app on an iOS/Android.

Even if you feel like you don’t aren’t really that good at studies or don’t really feel comfortable in tech, following what you’re interested in, you can watch a few videos and make a video summarizing everything you learned watching other’s videos.

This way you can even do better than most other people who made the videos you watched previously. You will have those several videos as a source to prepare your version of the video.

Initially, it will take some time to monetize your channel due to the conditions for monetization. But if you work on your channel consistently for a few months, you can make good money from Ads revenue.

Once you grow a little on YouTube, you can make even better money from sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and brand deals, even $5000+ from a single deal.

As advanced technology has become today, you can start a YouTube channel with only your phone. Growing on YouTube isn’t very difficult, you just need to be consistent enough to post every once or twice a week.

2. Twitter Ghostwriting Services

These days a lot of people want to grow their following and grow on Twitter. To do so, regular helpful tweets are necessary.

That’s where the business is. Currently, Twitter ghostwriters (which is a small but growing market right now) make on average $1000-$4000 per month.

You can also watch this video to learn how to use templates to Ghostwrite.

A lot of people want to grow on Twitter but don’t want to put in the time to write and send out tweets every day. You can pretend to be your client and write simple helpful tweets for them that suit their audience.

Or, if your client is a creator, you can also turn their videos and/or long-form articles into short-byte-size tweets that are easy to digest.

You can easily reach out to people who want to grow on Twitter and give them your services for free in the beginning. This will make them more likely to give you a chance. You can tell your client that if they like your service, they can pay you.

3. Becoming a Social Media Manager

Becoming a social media manager is a very good side-hustle idea. I have personal friends who make over $300 every month by spending 2-3 hours a week as a social media manager.

These days every business, big and small, wants to grow on social media. But more often than not, they don’t have the time to put in.

So what you can do is offer your services to these businesses. You can make social media posts for them on their Instagram and Facebook.

And these days, it is very simple to do. You can easily get Canva Pro for free and use its templates to make social media posts for your clients.

4. Content Writing

Similar to #1, Content Writing is a wonderful side-hustle idea. This is more of a business-to-business idea. If you look around, there are a lot of local businesses or even small influencers who have websites for which they’d want articles written.

You can also build your own side hustle using the skill of content writing.

You can watch some YouTube videos and learn basic content writing and SEO. I promise you it’s not hard, you just need a few hours to learn how to write a good SEO-optimized blog post (article).

If you want to work for an influencer, you can also reach out to them by emailing them or DMing them. If they are a YouTube creator, you can convert their YouTube videos into blog articles. You can also write video scripts for them.

Read: How to become a content writer & make money online?

5. Thumbnail Designer

Also by using Canva Pro for free, you can easily design thumbnails for creators that you admire. Using the Permissionless Apprentice method, if you have a good eye for thumbnails (which you can improve over time), you can easily get hired.

This is a good method to make good money as a side hustle.

Permissionless Apprentice

It is an act of creating something for someone you admire for free. You first create something for someone and send it to them for free (preferably via email). And if they like it and want to hire you, you can get on a call and negotiate the price.


Why it works better than Freelancing?

It works better than freelancing because on a freelancing website, a lot of people offer to do the job, so you become one among many. But if you reach out to an influencer personally, you already have a unique foot forward.

You directly get a chance to show your skills and then the influencer can decide for themselves.

6. Selling Templates

If you want to make money using your laptop or computer, you can easily make money selling templates. Don’t freak out, I’m not talking about website templates where you have to code.

You can easily learn how to make templates by watching a few videos on YouTube.

You can also make a decent income by selling Notion templates or Excel templates. I actually know someone personally who has made over $6000 by selling personal finance Excel templates for $4/5 each.

There also is this guy on Twitter (@heyeaslo) who makes and sells Notion templates and made over $200,000 in 2022. You can learn something from this Twitter thread as well.

And the best part is that once you create these templates, you don’t have to make them again. You can keep selling them for years and make money from them, passively. Similar to YouTube and selling books.

So basically, it’s all profit from there.

7. Selling Stock Images & Videos

Selling stock images and videos is one of the easiest business ideas to make some good side income. You won’t need a fancy and expensive camera for it.

You can use the smartphone you have right now to take photos and videos of things you have around and upload your images, videos, or illustrations on sites like ShutterStock or GettyImages.

8. Become a Virtual Assistant

If you are a student or have some hours laying around, you can easily make some money by becoming a virtual assistant for someone.

You don’t need a lot of skill for it. You just have to help people manage their tasks or help them stay on top of their emails over Google Meet or Zoom every day or every other day for 30-60 minutes.

You can head over to freelancing websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, or PeoplePerHour and search for “Virtual Assistant” and get a lot of open jobs.

9. Freelancing

If you are afraid to show your face or don’t like editing videos for YouTube, or have a skill that you can’t really teach others, freelancing may be a good pick for you.

Freelancing is basically taking independent projects from individuals or organizations for a limited time. For example, you could work as a freelancer to make thumbnails for someone’s YouTube channel.

You could also do data entry for someone from a PDF to an Excel file or maybe translate a document for someone. Freelancing has a lot of options for the types of jobs you can do.

The best part is that this is not a full-time job and you have a flexible schedule for when you work and how much you work.

As students, you can learn a skill related to the field you’re most passionate about from YouTube. Then, you can easily monetize those skills and sell your services on freelancing platforms like UpWork, Fiverr, Freelancer, and PeoplePerHour.

My personal recommendations are UpWork and Fiverr.

You can earn about $8-$15 per hour in the beginning and if you keep up with the good work and get good reviews from your clients, you can make as much as $50 per hour or even more from basic jobs.

One of the easiest ways to monetize yourself is by using Canva. You can freelance as a designer and use Canva to create all the designs easily.

They have a huge collection of templates that you can use out of the box for commercial purposes by only changing the text.

You can use read “How to Use Canva Pro For FREE” to get Canva Pro for free which will allow you to make the most out of Canva.

10. Blogging

Now let’s say you don’t like having to deal with clients and organizations while freelancing. And let’s say you also don’t like showing your face or making videos for YouTube.

Another really good option you have for making money online as a student is blogging. This is what I do as well.

Most of my revenue comes from blogging and the website you’re reading this article on.

Blogging is basically just writing. We can write about anything from How-to tutorials, share notes, just share our experience of using something (reviews), or our best picks for a product or service. We do the writing on a website.

Don’t get afraid of hearing the word “website.” Building a website is super simple. And write now, even more than ever. You mostly need two things: a domain and hosting.

A domain is basically the URL of the website (highapproach.com in my case), and hosting is the place where all our files (texts, photos, videos) are stored.

If you have the money and want to do everything professionally with full control of everything, I recommend Dreamhost for hosting. It is the one I use and it is the best and the fastest with the best customer support.

And I recommend Namecheap for the domain. They have the cheapest domain names on the entire internet.

If you don’t have the money right now, you can use services like Google’s Blogger to start a free blog. You can get a free domain by reading “How To Get A Domain Name For FREE” and you can connect that domain to your free Blogger website.

Blogging has been around for almost as long as the internet itself. It is a very mature sector; many people think that blogging is dead but it couldn’t be far from reality.

Blogging still has a huge market and demand on the internet. When in need of assistance with anything, we google how-to’s and all the webpage links we see in the Google search result are blogs.

With the help of Google AdSense and affiliate marketing, you can easily make a good amount of money from blogging.

You can blog about a lot of things ranging from habits, finance, technology, and news updates, you can also share your notes as blogs.

You can also blog about the things that you have learned over time, or know that not everyone else does.

There is an audience for almost every niche, you just have to begin.

I hope these 10 ways to make money online in 2023 was helpful.

If you have any curiosity and/or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment down below in the comments.

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