Being able to work from home and have a flexible schedule is beneficial for many reasons. It allows you to make your own schedule, achieve a better work-life balance than in the office, and spend more time with loved ones, pursuing hobbies, or traveling. Many remote job seekers appreciate that remote work offers greater flexibility, enabling them to continue earning an income and advancing their careers.
Starting a business from home is a great way to broaden your horizons, generate income, and have more time and autonomy in structuring your work schedule. It’s estimated that currently, this year, about 32.6 million Americans work from home. Business owners who work from home can create and manage their own schedules, meet with clients, collaborate with their teams (if they have one), and take time to ideate business development plans and strategies to help them achieve their organizational goals.
Having an at-home business can also be more affordable than one that requires in-person operations, since there are fewer overhead costs associated with renting or owning a space, as well as utility and other operational expenses. Working from home and running an at-home business allows business owners to save extra funds that could otherwise be invested in their business and achieve their business goals.
At-home businesses can offer the flexibility business owners may need and allow them to be part of an industry they’re passionate about and want to grow in. Take a look at some of the cheapest at-home businesses that come with minimal start-up costs and cover a variety of industries.
Virtual Tutor
Becoming a virtual tutor or starting a tutoring business is a great option for former educators who want to work from home and enjoy a more flexible schedule. Tutors can tutor individuals at all grade levels, from K-12 to those pursuing higher education degrees, such as a Bachelor’s or Master’s. Tutors can also teach a variety of subjects, ranging from English to Math and Social Studies, depending on where your expertise resides, as well as subjects that are related to higher education courses, such as business or finance. Meeting with clients online requires that you have a working laptop or computer and optional headphones so that you can meet with and hear clients while you’re tutoring. When advertising tutoring services to clients, it’s essential to include specific credentials that showcase your knowledge about the subjects you’re teaching, such as a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, or comprehensive certifications related to these subjects or training courses. When signing up with a tutoring school, many require a degree or a High School Diploma or GED, passing a knowledge test on the subjects you want to tutor, and passing a background check for safety and security. As an individualized tutor with a business, it’s also recommended that tutors supply background check information to potential clients as well.
Affiliate Creator
Collaborating with brands and earning affiliate revenue based on commissions is a significant way to make money online. It’s estimated that in 2024, online creators as a whole made over $1 billion in affiliate revenue. Many affiliate creators publish content and grow a following across social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok to showcase a business’s products and services and potentially earn sales commissions. Affiliate creators can work with brands across a range of industries, like fashion, beauty, and technology. They can apply to brands’ affiliate creator programs, join affiliate networks for affiliate business opportunities, or even be approached by brands themselves if they have a solid following within their niche and post content that aligns with what a brand is looking for. In the beginning stages of growing their brand and online presence, which can take time to build an audience and garner affiliate commissions, many affiliate creators and influencers put together a media kit that brands can reference when deciding if they want to work with a specific creator or not, and meet a specific criteria, such as if they have a certain amount of followers or engagement metrics.
Graphic Designer
Graphic design can be a fun and rewarding career that allows you to hone your creative skills. Independent or freelance graphic designers can create a range of assets for brands, such as for a brand’s website, social media posts, product packaging, logos, and more. Skilled graphic designers who have years of experience have high earning potential. At a senior level, full-time graphic designers who work at a company in-house can make close to $80,000 per year, or approximately $38 per hour. Based on their skill set and experience, freelance graphic designers also have high earning potential and can set their hourly rate based on these factors, then seek clients who align with those price points.
Photographer
If you’re an experienced photographer or want to pursue this career, starting a photography business from home is a great way to build a solid clientele and maintain a flexible schedule. Starting a photography business requires investing in a professional camera, which can cost between $500 and $2,000 depending on the brand and features, as well as photo editing software. Currently, Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop subscription bundle costs $19.99 per month, billed annually; Photoshop costs $22.99 per month; and Adobe Creative Cloud Pro, which includes over 20 Adobe applications, costs $34.97 per month. To showcase their work and advertise their services, those with photography businesses also have their own website or portfolio that presents their work to clients, depending on the photography niche they’re in, such as fashion magazines, product photography for e-commerce and retail businesses, or weddings. Depending on the client, niche, industry, and event or booking time requirements, photographers can make hundreds or thousands of dollars for a single client. On average, wedding photographers nationwide make roughly $48 per hour in 2025.
Print On-Demand Business
Print on-demand businesses print your original designs across products, while the printing service you use handles customer shipping and handling. With this business model, you aren’t obligated to manage sending out orders to customers and can instead spend more time developing your own designs. Print on-demand services like Printful and Printify let you print your designs on various products, depending on the site, such as t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, caps, and phone cases. Sites like these offer design tools you can use to create your own original designs, or you can use platforms like Canva to design the products you want to feature.
Copywriting
Many businesses are still seeking out copywriters who can produce copy in a brand’s voice that resonates with their audience and aligns with their brand ethos. Starting an at-home copywriting business requires a working laptop and computer so you can work on your copywriting, communicate with clients, and hold team meetings and check-ins, if needed, via communication apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Copywriters can produce everything from landing page copy on a business website to social media captions, product descriptions for e-commerce businesses, or blog posts for businesses. When growing their business and securing clients, copywriters usually have a portfolio of select work to showcase their skills and experience.
Video Editor
In today’s digital age, many brands, businesses, and creators hire video editors who can edit and structure their video content across social media channels. Video editors can edit content for YouTube creators and vloggers or for brands’ social video posts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Being a video editor allows you to work from home, as you can edit content using tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and CapCut for social posts. For social media, some creators in the fashion and beauty space may hire video editors to edit their videos using a social media platform’s in-house design and editing tools if they aren’t able to do it themselves or they don’t have the time. Being a video editor requires investing in photo and video editing tools, like the ones mentioned above, which can cost a few hundred dollars a year, each, depending on the service and subscription. Currently, video editors for social media make an average of $32 per hour in the United States. With video editing, business owners can set their own rates that align with their skill level, knowledge, and expertise, which can generally be higher with more years of experience.
Table of content
Share
