It doesn’t matter what you call it—”sharing economy,” “gig economy,” or anything else—what is indisputable is that it is here to stay.
And if you’re willing, you can certainly take advantage of this sharing economy to make money. These days, with so many side hustle apps and gigs, it is easier than ever to find cash-paying gigs near you and online.
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How to Make Money in the Sharing Economy
Here are some of the best sharing economy platforms you can use to make money doing all sorts of tasks.
1. Postmates: Deliver Stuff
- Earning Potential: $25+/hour
Postmates (review) promises to revamp the way transportation of goods is done. They have put in place a team of local “transporters” (typically bikers, but also some using cars as their mode of transport) to zip around town and transfer goods.
The result is shorter delivery times and lower courier fees.
Of course, if you’re confident about the local geography, you might want to take advantage of your riding skills here and make some money in your downtime.
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The company claims you can earn up to $25+/hour.
2. Instacart: Shop/Deliver Groceries
- Earning Potential: $20 an hour
Instacart is a grocery delivery system where people pay to have their groceries delivered to them.
You can sign up as a delivery person for free and get paid to deliver groceries to local families.
Read my review of Instacart for more details and tips for making more money.
3. Bridesmaid for Hire: Hire Yourself out as a Bridesmaid
- Earning Potential: $100 – $2000
It happens often: bridesmaids back out, and they need people to get the party going.
Bridesmaid for Hire will hire you to be a bridesmaid at someone’s wedding.
You get to have all the fun of being in a wedding without the stress of attending your own friend’s wedding as a bridesmaid. And, you get paid for it!
Here is one lady who makes good money hiring herself out as a bridesmaid.
4. LandToHunt: Rent out Your Land
- Earning Potential: You set the price
Update: No longer in business!
In case you currently own a piece of land that you have no immediate plans for, LandToHunt can provide an interesting proposition.
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It lets you rent your land to hunters.
You get to name your price, scrutinize who gets to come to your property, draw the boundary where hunting stops (you may also choose to declare zero access to any particular parcel of that land), and also determine the timing when hunting is supposed to commence and stop.
Furthermore, you have complete control over the types of wildlife to be hunted. If this is your first experience using your land this way, LandToHunt can assist with all of the above considerations.
To make sure you get a fair deal, ask to be shown similar property that has been used for the same purpose, and compare their rates.
5. Vayable: Be a Local Tour Guide
- Earning Potential: $50 to $300 an hour
Update: No longer in business!
Vayable is a site that matches travelers with locals who want to make money giving tours in their local area.
Since locals usually know their town better than anyone else, the service is becoming very popular.
You can actually make good money as a local tour guide with this company.
6. KitSplit (formerly CameraLends): Rent out Your Photography Equipment
- Earning Potential: Varies
Is your camera, that you spent a fortune on, getting dusty because you bought it 6 months ago, used it for a few days, and then forgot about it?
Well, don’t feel bad. Now you can recoup all or some of the original cost by using a site called KitSplit.
It lets you rent out your camera and other photography gear to locals for a fee.
They do all the work for you in exchange for a 10% to 30% commission.
You can easily get back the money you spent on your gear, especially in cities where the site has more users, so you can finally stop feeling guilty about paying hundreds of dollars for your camera and using it once!
7. ParkingSpotter: Rent out Your Driveway
- Earning Potential: $10 to $50 a day
Update: No longer in business!
If you have a parking space that you don’t make much use of, get ParkingSpotter.com to advertise that spare space for free.
The company will match you up with people who need parking in your area.
You can work on a longer-term arrangement, like weekly or monthly, to derive a more consistent income from your seldom-used space.
8. RentAFriend: Hire out Yourself as a Friend
- Earning Potential: Anywhere from $100 a weekend to $8000 a month
If you have time to spare, you can keep someone company and make some money at the same time.
RentAFriend is a site that helps you rent yourself out to people looking for strictly platonic companionship for a day or night.
Activities could include anything from seeing a movie together, playing a round of golf, and having dinner to teaching cooking, attending a party, and so on. Nothing romantic, just a casual hangout.
You can read more about RentAFriend here.
9. Tagvenue: Rent out Your Space for Events
- Earning Potential: You set the price
People are always in search of one-of-a-kind spaces for their events – in the UK, Tagvenue is the place to find them.
Earn some extra money off your unique venue by renting it out for parties, meetings, film shoots, or other events. What’s not to love about leveraging the space you already have to generate additional income?
10. Turo: Rent out Your Car
- Earning Potential: From a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month
If you fly out of town often, you want the convenience of driving in and out of the airport hassle-free. And safety is important. With Turo, you can get a covered parking space at the airport with guaranteed safety assurance.
Turn it around: let’s say you have a car that you seldom use. Take the above mentality of what a frequent flyer looks for, and you bet there will be good demand for your car.
You can list your car with Turo and earn anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month.
Your car is covered up to $1 million for each trip, and each traveler is prescreened, so you and your car are safe.
11. Uber: Drive People Around
- Earning Potential: $20 to $75 per hour
Uber means the reality of working as a cabbie without being hired by a taxi company.
Making money with Uber has become the go-to side hustle for a lot of people!
This was unimaginable just a decade ago. But now, this new way of driving people around can fetch you up to $75 (and sometimes even more) per hour. Some claim to easily make $1,200 per week!
The caveat is that you need to have a car in your name, and that car has to be manufactured in 2005 or later.
Uber has a weekly payment scheme, so your deserved earnings are never deferred more than one week from the time you pick up your last fare!
12. Yerdle: Sell Your Used Items
- Earning Potential: Varies
Update: No longer in business!
Yerdle is more like an online marketplace where you can trade goods of all sorts.
You can find pre-owned vinyl records to secondhand bicycles.
I think this site works well, except that you have to use Yerdle’s proprietary credits to facilitate transactions. But they do give 250 credits for new registration, so that gives extra motivation to sign up.
As you consign more no-longer-in-use stuff here, expect your credits to grow.
13. JustPark: Rent out Your Garage/Driveway
- Earning Potential: $10 to $30 a day
Have a spare parking space on your driveway or in your garage?
List it on JustPark and get paid when it gets used.
14. Rover (formerly Dog Vacay): Pet Sit
- Earning Potential: $20 to $100 a day
This is the Airbnb version for dogs.
Rover helps pet owners find pet sitters.
To become a service provider, applicants have to go through vetting exercises (including a phone interview) to determine his or her suitability.
If you have no qualms about letting dogs run wild in your living room, you stand to make about $50 a night (rates are dependent on factors like the breed of dogs).
15. Spinlister: Rent out Your Bike
- Earning Potential: $10 to $100 a day (or more depending on your bike and location)
Spinlister is a peer-to-peer marketplace for a certain category of sports equipment you can ride—bikes, snowboards, skis, etc.
If you own some of these items, you can list them on Spinlister and make money by having other people rent them for a few hours, a day, a weekend…
16. Lending Club: Lend Money
- Earning Potential: Average of 7% to 10% return
Lending Club is a peer-to-peer lending marketplace where you can borrow or lend money.
The return on your investment varies based on the rating of the loan you choose.
Some people are getting much better returns on their investment by using peer-to-peer lending rather than traditional investment options.
17. Getaround: Rent out Your Car
- Earning Potential: Average owner makes $6,000 a year (according to the company)
With Getaround, you can either put your car out for people who need to get around, or you can take the car available to places you want to go.
If you are the one renting out your car, you state your preferred rental terms, and Getaround will take care of the administration work and payment.
It’s an easy way to make some extra cash when your car is not in use.
18. Zaarly: Do Various Gigs
- Earning Potential: $25+/hour
Update: No longer in business!
Zaarly is basically a “middleman” type of website where small business owners and individuals can list their services (cleaning, lawn care, painting, etc.) and are matched with locals who need those services.
19. Poshmark: Sell Used “Fashion”
- Earning Potential: Varies
Poshmark is exclusively dedicated to women’s fashion. You can sell your unused clothes here. Items must be gently used.
20. Lyft: Give Rides to People
- Earning Potential: $35+/hour
Lyft is a competitor to Uber.
The advertisement also touts that drivers can make $35 per hour. And the company lets you keep the tips.
They also publish the Prime Time pricing as a guideline for drivers (this is especially helpful in cities where there are multi-tier surcharge schemes during peak hours).
The company requires you to own a four-door car with room for five adults.
The cars need to be made in 2003 or later.
21. HomeDine: Make Homemade Meals
- Earning Potential: Varies
Update: No longer in business!
Are you a stay-at-home mom who has good recipes and loves to cook?
Do you think of yourself as a good chef?
You can now make some spare cash using your home cooking talent with this company.
They match up diners who like to try homemade meals rather than the same old restaurant food with people who have a talent for making homemade food.
22. Sidecar: Deliver Stuff – No longer in business
- Earning Potential: $25+/hour
Update: No longer in business!
SideCar is a rather unknown company (to most people) that pays you for delivering things to their clients.
Sign up for free, get notified of new delivery opportunities near you, pick up the item(s), get directions, drop off, and get paid.
The Sharing Economy is Here to Stay!
The sharing economy is here to stay, and it is going to get even stronger.
So it would be smart to adopt and use the new opportunities created by this new economic landscape to help your bottom line.
I’d love to hear from you if you have used, or are currently using, any one of these options to make money on the side. Please share your experience in the comment section below.
I think having your groceries delivered to you is very useful. I think it helps people that might have trouble getting up to get to the store and for people that cant drive>
Indeed!