12 Best Online Businesses to Start From Home in 2022 (Most Under $100)

Most people who want to start an online business think they need thousands of dollars, a degree, or some secret advantage only insiders have access to. The truth is simpler. The 12 businesses in this list can each be started for under $100, and some of them require nothing more than a laptop and a skill you might already have sitting unused.

This is the same list I walked through in 2022 when I was documenting what actually worked for regular people making their first real income online. Some of these businesses have obvious entry points you can act on today. A few of them, like the metaverse and NFTs, had a short early-mover window in 2022 that rewarded anyone who paid attention. I will cover all 12 in order so you can see which one fits where you are right now.

What You’ll Walk Out With

All 12 online businesses Alston reviewed in early 2022, each requiring under $100 to start
Real numbers: what each business pays, how saturated each one is, and where competition is actually lowest
Specific tools for each model, including Fiverr, Ahrefs, ThemeForest, Udemy, Jarvis.ai, and more
The one Fiverr trick that dramatically reduces competition in any category (buyer requests)
Why NFTs and the metaverse had thin competition in 2022 and what that teaches you about timing any new opportunity
How to build a five-page WordPress site in under three hours and charge anywhere from $300 to $2,500 for it
An honest look at what each model actually takes before you see your first dollar
Not sure which one fits your background? Take the quick quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get matched to the right starting point.

Business #1: NFTs

In early 2022, NFTs were one of the biggest opportunities available to anyone willing to learn what they were. Most people had heard the word but had no idea how to create one, sell one, or build a business around them. That gap was the opportunity.

On Fiverr, people were charging anywhere from $250 to $5,000 per NFT creation service. One listing offered to generate 10,000 images for an NFT collection. That sounds impossible until you realize there are free repositories on GitHub where someone has already done the coding for you. You copy it, drop it into a programming environment, and the tool does the heavy lifting. You do not need to be a developer to run it. Tutorials on YouTube will walk you through the full setup.

The problem with Fiverr in any category is visibility. With 20,000 NFT services available, showing up in search is difficult. The smarter approach is buyer requests. Under your Fiverr account you will find a section called Manage Requests, which shows custom orders that buyers are actively posting. There is far less competition there because most sellers wait for buyers to come to them rather than going directly after open requests. That is the wrong approach. Flip it.

Beyond Fiverr, the NFT space in 2022 had room for an entire content channel. Review videos explaining which marketplaces to use. Tutorial videos showing how to create and list a collection. Comparison videos on the best platforms to sell. The audience existed and the competition was thin because the topic was still new enough that most creators had not found it yet.

Business #2: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is recommending other people’s products and collecting a commission when someone buys through your link. That is the full model. You do not hold inventory. You do not handle customer service. You do not need your own product. You need an audience and you need to match them to solutions that actually solve their problems.

Amazon runs the largest affiliate program in the world with close to a million affiliates. Almost any product you can think of has an affiliate program attached to it. The key is matching the right product to the right audience consistently. If you are making content about cryptocurrency, you recommend something like Coinbase or a hardware crypto wallet. The viewer has a problem, you have the solution, and you get paid when they act on it.

Affiliate marketing works across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, blog posts, and email lists. The channel matters less than whether you are consistently creating content that people are actively searching for. Affiliate marketing also stacks naturally with almost every other business on this list. You can run it at the same time as a YouTube channel, a blog, or even freelance writing without the two competing with each other.

Business #3: Starting a YouTube Channel

YouTube is one of the most flexible income models on this list because a single piece of content can produce money through multiple paths simultaneously. The YouTube Partner Program pays you based on ad views once you hit the eligibility thresholds. Patreon lets your audience support you directly on top of that. You can sell a course, promote affiliate products, or offer a service, all from the same channel without any of them competing with each other.

Saturation is a concern people bring up constantly. It is real, and it is also overestimated. On a single YouTube homepage you can find celebrity gossip channels, 90 Day Fiance reaction channels, make-money-with-YouTube-Shorts tutorials, and software walkthroughs for automation tools like Integromat. Multiple creators are covering the same topics from different angles and all of them are finding audiences. Someone watching 90 Day Fiance commentary is not watching just one creator. They are watching several. I watch multiple 90 Day Fiance channels myself when I am waiting in the school pickup line. Nothing is as saturated as it looks from the outside.

The practical move is keyword research. Find what people are actively searching for in your topic area, build content around those specific questions, and show up consistently. One video a week in an underserved niche beats ten videos a month chasing viral ideas in an oversaturated one. The algorithm rewards consistency and watch time, not volume.

Business #4: Starting a Blog

Blogs are not dead. They are not going anywhere. A blog will still be a viable income source in ten years because search engines still direct massive volumes of traffic to written content, and advertisers still pay for that traffic. The medium is not broken. Most blogs that fail do so because the person building them quit before the traffic arrived.

Ahrefs is the keyword research tool I used to look for opportunities when I was building this out. When I typed the word “review” into the Keywords Explorer and filtered for keyword difficulty of 10 or under, meaning a new site should have a reasonable shot at ranking, I found 598,000 keywords pulling 30 million searches per month. That is from a single seed word. You could build an entire review site in a niche you already know and find terms that established sites are ignoring because those sites are focused on higher-traffic, higher-competition targets. New sites can rank in the gaps.

Monetization options for a blog include Google AdSense, affiliate links, guest blogging fees, sponsored posts, and selling your own digital products. I get regular emails from people wanting to pay to post a guest article on my site because they want a backlink to improve their own rankings. Once a blog has enough domain authority, people come to you. You can start one for under $100 total with basic hosting and a domain name.

Business #5: Create and Sell Online Courses

Online courses are one of the highest-margin businesses on this list. You build the course once and it can sell while you sleep. The income becomes passive after the initial creation work is done, and the up-front investment is almost entirely your time.

Udemy is the easiest entry point for most people. It is a marketplace people already trust and visit specifically to learn things. You do not need to drive your own traffic when you are just starting out because the platform handles discovery. I have created courses on ClickFunnels, Amazon Web Services, and affiliate marketing. You do not need a formal certification in your topic. You need to know more than the person buying the course and be able to explain it clearly in a logical order.

Courses can be as short as one hour or as long as ten. You can do them entirely with screen recording and a decent microphone. No face required. Topic selection matters a great deal. When I searched Udemy for “metaverse” in early 2022, there were 74 results. A search for “affiliate marketing” returned over 531 results. A new creator entering an underserved category starts with far less competition fighting for the same buyer’s attention. Skillshare is another platform worth exploring, and you can always sell directly from your own site using ClickFunnels or any page builder you are comfortable with once you want more control over pricing and margins.

Business #6: Create and Sell Digital Products

Digital products are different from courses in that they are shorter, simpler, and often a single downloadable file. SVGs, printable planners, budget spreadsheets, templates, sticker packs. Once someone buys, the file downloads automatically. You never ship anything, never handle returns, never deal with inventory.

Etsy is a natural home for digital products because people go there specifically to find unique and useful items, and digital downloads fit neatly into that expectation. You can outsource the actual creation to someone on Fiverr for $5 to $10 per design and then sell that same file on Etsy for $10 to $15. Four or five sales and you have already recovered your investment. Everything after that is margin.

If you want to keep more of the revenue, sell them yourself. Build an email list, set up a simple sales page, and add an order bump or an upsell to increase the value of each transaction. Selling directly means you own the customer relationship instead of renting visibility from a marketplace that can change its algorithm or fees at any time.

Not sure which of these 12 businesses fits your current skills and situation?

Answer a few quick questions and get matched to your right starting point at finder.platformproof.com.

Business #7: Building WordPress Websites

WordPress powers somewhere between 25 and 35 percent of all websites on the internet. That is not a declining number. The demand for people who can build, customize, and maintain WordPress sites is large and not going away anytime soon.

The business model is straightforward. You find clients who need a website, usually small local businesses that either have nothing or have a site from 2011 that embarrasses them. You propose a five-page site: home, about, contact, a products or services page, and one additional page of their choosing. You charge between $300 and $2,500 depending on the complexity and what the market will support. I have personally charged $2,500 for a five-page site.

The key to making this efficient is ThemeForest at themeforest.net. You find a template that matches the client’s industry, download it for a one-time fee, and upload it to their hosting environment. Once you know your way around the process, you can build a complete five-page site in under three hours. The client gives you their images, their written content, and their preferences on color and layout. You handle the formatting and the technical setup. You are not designing from scratch.

Getting clients does not require running paid ads. Local outreach works. Walk into businesses in your area, make calls to business owners, or use a platform like Thumbtack to find people actively looking for web designers. Once you have a few completed projects, word of mouth handles a meaningful share of the new work.

Business #8: Freelance Writing

Freelance writing has 143,000 services listed on Fiverr alone. That sounds intimidating until you apply the same buyer request strategy that works in every other Fiverr category. Instead of creating a listing and waiting for clients to find you in a sea of 143,000 options, go find buyers who are already posting specific requests and pitch them directly. You bypass most of the competition entirely.

Outside of Fiverr, there is HireWriters.com and iWriter. These platforms connect writers to clients who need blog posts, ebooks, email sequences, and sales copy. The work is available and steady if you are reliable and consistent. Quality and turnaround time matter more than price in most cases. A writer who delivers clean copy on deadline will retain clients. A writer who is cheap but unreliable will not.

One practical tip that changes the economics of freelance writing: Jarvis.ai, now known as Jasper, is an AI writing assistant that can cut your actual writing time by about two-thirds. The critical part is giving it direction. If you hand it a detailed outline with clear section headers and a defined tone, the output is close enough to edit quickly and use. If you just click a button and let it run with a vague topic, the output will require a full rewrite. Use it as a speed tool for first drafts, not as a replacement for your judgment and voice.

Business #9: Video Editing

YouTube automation channels and YouTube cash cow channels need video editors. TikTok creators producing content daily need video editors. Businesses running social media ads need video editors. The demand exists across multiple categories and is not shrinking as video consumption continues to grow.

On Fiverr there are around 30,000 video editing services listed. Competition is high inside the platform, which means your best path to clients is outreach rather than waiting for search traffic to find your profile. Reach out to YouTube channels in your niche. Contact small businesses running rough-cut social ads. Find TikTok creators posting consistently but producing content that looks unpolished. Those are your first clients.

Software does not need to be expensive when you are starting out. Canva has a free video editor built in. If you are on a Mac, iMovie comes preinstalled and handles the basics well. When you are ready to go deeper, ScreenFlow is a solid mid-range upgrade and Adobe Premiere Pro is the industry standard for professional work. Start with free tools, build your skills, and upgrade only when the income from editing warrants it.

Business #10: Create and Sell WordPress Themes and Plugins

This one requires more technical skill than most others on this list, but it also removes the need to deal with individual clients at all. You build once and sell repeatedly to whoever finds your product on a marketplace. That is a fundamentally different business structure than trading time for money.

ThemeForest is the primary marketplace for WordPress themes. When I searched for “plumber” on ThemeForest, there were 184 WordPress themes built specifically for plumbing businesses, priced between $19 and $99 each. Every industry has businesses that need a website and every industry has room for a theme built specifically for that type of company. A theme for real estate agents, one for personal trainers, one for restaurants. If the niche has money and needs an online presence, there is potential for a theme targeting it.

Plugins are a different angle. They add specific functionality to existing WordPress sites rather than changing the overall design. My membership area at members.alstongodbolt.com runs on a plugin I installed for access control and member management. Plugins that solve real problems for business owners, like appointment booking, payment processing, or membership access, can generate consistent passive income if they are built well and maintained over time. YouTube and Udemy both have complete tutorials on WordPress development if you want to learn the technical side without paying for formal education.

Business #11: The Metaverse

In early 2022, the metaverse was genuinely brand new territory. Facebook had just rebranded to Meta and announced its bet on virtual worlds. Most people had not even been given access to participate yet. On Fiverr there were only 425 services related to the metaverse. Compare that to 20,000 for NFTs or 143,000 for freelance writing. The low service count meant low competition for anyone willing to get into the space before the crowd arrived.

The opportunity showed up in multiple forms. You could create content explaining what the metaverse was to people who had never encountered the concept. You could sell virtual goods inside it: virtual houses, vehicles, clothing, jewelry, accessories. You could create Fiverr gigs offering services that brands and businesses would need once they eventually showed up in the space. And you could start building an audience now around a topic most creators had not discovered yet.

Facebook’s decision to put its full corporate weight and resources behind the metaverse was a real signal worth paying attention to. When a company with that kind of reach and capital commits to a technology, it will get traction whether or not the initial version is compelling. The businesses paying attention in early 2022 were positioned earlier than the ones waiting for the technology to prove itself first. That early-mover window closes fast once a topic becomes mainstream.

Business #12: Etsy Digital Products

Etsy gets its own section separate from the general digital products category earlier on this list because the Etsy marketplace has its own traffic, its own buyer expectations, and its own product types that consistently perform well there. Understanding what Etsy buyers are looking for is different from understanding what buyers on your own site or Amazon are looking for.

Products that work on Etsy include SVGs, digital planners, planner stickers, budget spreadsheets, Google Sheets templates, and seasonal items like NCAA bracket templates. Products range in price from $1 to $30. The margin on a $15 digital planner you commissioned for $5 on Fiverr is real money at scale. And once the product is listed and someone buys it, the download happens automatically. No shipping, no inventory, no fulfillment, no customer waiting on a package.

The practical path forward is to hire someone on Fiverr to create your first products, list them on Etsy to test what actually sells, and then take the winning products and sell them from your own site where you keep more of the revenue. A digital planner that sells consistently on Etsy for $12 can be sold on your own site for the same price with no marketplace fees taking a cut of every transaction. The Etsy shop is your proof of concept. The direct sales channel is where the long-term margin lives.

Honest Drawbacks to Know Before You Pick One

Every business on this list works. None of them work immediately. There are a few patterns that show up across most of these models that you should understand before you commit.

First, most of these take longer than people expect to generate consistent income. Blogging can take six to twelve months to get meaningful search traffic. YouTube channels typically need sixty to ninety days of consistent posting before the algorithm starts recommending your content more broadly. Etsy shops need enough products and enough reviews before organic visibility kicks in. The businesses that feel like they will produce results fastest, like Fiverr gigs or WordPress web design, still require active outreach to land your first client rather than passive discovery.

Second, the “under $100 to start” framing is about the barrier to entry, not the total cost of building something sustainable. You will likely spend money on tools, training, hosting, and software as you grow past the initial stage. The point is that you do not need a large upfront investment to test whether a business model fits you before going deeper.

Third, choosing one and committing to it matters more than which one you pick. The people who make real money with these models are not the ones who read the most comparisons. They are the ones who chose something, stayed with it long enough to understand how it actually works in practice, and kept going past the point where most people decide to try something different. Switching too early is the most common reason people stall out.

Find Your X

Twelve options is a lot to sort through on your own. If you are not sure which one fits your current skills, available time, and income goals, finder.platformproof.com will walk you through a short set of questions and match you to the right starting point. No guessing, no comparing seven tabs of notes. Just a clear answer on where to focus first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which of these 12 businesses is easiest to start with zero experience?

Etsy digital products and affiliate marketing have the lowest technical barriers. With Etsy, you can hire someone on Fiverr to create your first product and have a shop up and running within a few days. With affiliate marketing, you can start creating content on a platform you already use and add links to products you genuinely recommend from personal experience. Neither requires a business license, technical background, or a following to get started.

Do these businesses really cost under $100 to start?

For most of them, yes. A blog can be launched for under $100 with basic hosting and a domain name. An Etsy shop has no upfront fee to open. Affiliate marketing costs nothing if you already have a social media account or a YouTube channel. The businesses that can cost more at the start are WordPress website building, where you may need to purchase a theme or two from ThemeForest, and video editing, if you move beyond free tools like Canva and iMovie. Even those can start at zero cost with trial versions of paid software.

Are NFTs and the metaverse still worth pursuing today?

The NFT market cooled significantly after 2022 and the metaverse did not take off the way early projections suggested. The lesson from those two sections is not about NFTs or the metaverse specifically. It is about timing: every new technology creates a window where early movers face far less competition than everyone who waits to see if it is real. That principle applies to whatever is emerging right now. The specific opportunities from 2022 have changed, but the pattern of finding new categories before they are crowded remains as relevant as ever.

How do buyer requests on Fiverr actually work?

Buyers on Fiverr can post a custom request describing exactly what they need instead of browsing thousands of listings. As a seller, you can access these under Manage Requests in your Fiverr account. You send a custom offer to match what they specifically asked for. This bypasses search competition entirely because you are responding directly to a stated need rather than competing for ranking visibility in a category with tens of thousands of listings already established. It is a better use of your time than hoping a new listing gets discovered on its own.

How much can you realistically charge to build a WordPress website?

For a standard five-page WordPress site, the realistic range is $300 to $2,500. What you can charge depends on your track record, your local market, and what the client’s business is worth to them. Local service businesses in smaller markets often pay on the lower end of that range. Professional services and e-commerce businesses in larger markets can support higher rates. Starting at $500 to $700 for your first few projects while you build a portfolio is a reasonable and honest entry point.

Can you run multiple businesses from this list at the same time?

Yes, but not effectively from day one. The most common pattern that actually works is starting with one model, building it to a point where it produces some consistent income and runs somewhat on its own, and then adding a complementary model. A YouTube channel naturally feeds into affiliate marketing. A blog feeds naturally into digital product sales. Freelance writing can fund the early months while a blog builds traffic. Trying to run three or four of these simultaneously from the beginning usually means none of them get enough sustained attention to gain traction.

Does Jarvis.ai actually save time for freelance writing, or do you end up rewriting everything?

It saves significant time when you use it correctly. Provide a detailed outline with clear section headers and specific points you want covered in each part, and the output is close enough to edit and use efficiently. Hand it a vague topic and click generate, and you will spend more time rewriting than you would have saved. It functions best as a fast first-draft tool, not as an autonomous content generator. You still need to review everything, fact-check the claims, and add your own voice and examples before the content is ready to deliver or publish.

What is the difference between selling digital products on Etsy versus selling them from your own website?

Etsy brings built-in traffic but takes a cut of each sale through listing fees and transaction fees. Selling from your own site means you keep more of the revenue, you own the customer data, and you can build an email list to sell additional products to the same buyers later. The trade-off is that your own site requires you to drive your own traffic. A practical path many people follow is to start on Etsy to confirm that specific products actually sell, then build a direct sales channel for those validated products once you have proof of demand. Etsy is your test environment. Your own site is where the margin is.

Sources

Fiverr marketplace: fiverr.com (NFT creation services priced $250 to $5,000; freelance writing with 143,000 listings; video editing with 30,000 listings; metaverse services with 425 listings at time of video)
Amazon Associates: largest affiliate program globally, close to one million affiliates as of early 2022
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer: “review” seed keyword returned 598,000 matching keywords, 30 million monthly searches, difficulty 10 or under for new sites targeting low-competition terms
Udemy: “metaverse” returned 74 course results vs. 531+ for “affiliate marketing” in early 2022, illustrating topic-level competition differences
ThemeForest at themeforest.net: WordPress theme marketplace; “plumber” category returned 184 themes priced $19 to $99 as an example of industry-specific templates
Jarvis.ai (now Jasper): AI writing assistant referenced as reducing writing time by approximately two-thirds when given a clear outline and direction
Etsy digital products: pricing range $1 to $30 across planners, SVGs, spreadsheet templates, and sticker packs; automatic digital delivery on purchase