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Top 17 Best Side Hustle Apps to Earn Money in 2025

by Nadia Shostak
Jul 29, 2025
12 min. read
Black text "Side hustle apps: Best picks to earn extra money (2025). Person holding phone and smiling at it, with green money icons on top. All against white backgr

Today’s economy is challenging. So most of us are looking for ways to shore up our finances and bring in a little extra. The gig economy is booming, and the best side hustle apps are transforming our smartphones into money-making devices!

From quick fun task apps that make you a few easy dollars, to apps that help you build a digital business, this is the best list of side gig apps for savvy money-makers! Let’s go!

Why Choose Side Hustle Apps?

Look, let’s face it, most of us are glued to our screens anyway, so why not use them to make money? The best side hustle apps offer everything you need to earn extra income. For example, they are:

  • Entirely flexible around your needs, allowing you to earn money at 3 am if you’re so inclined.
  • Great earning potential if you know where to look and how to stack your methods
  • Ease of use - most side job apps involve very few skills.
  • Quick and easy. Just download the app, register your profile, and go!
  • Available wherever you are.
  • Fast and reliable when it comes to payouts.

Who Uses Side Hustle Apps?

The side gig economy is booming in the USA, and all kinds of people use side hustle apps to earn extra dollars on the side. For example:

1. Stay-at-home parents

When children are your priority, side hustle apps are a great way to boost your income without sacrificing your time. Even better, when little ones are having their afternoon nap, grab your phone and spend a little time earning $$$.

For example, fun cash apps like Scrambly let you earn simply by watching videos or ads, and you cash out at $1.

2. Students

Student life doesn’t leave much time for work. After all, between studying and partying, your calendar’s full. But it’s easy to earn some extra cash on the side. For example, register at Rover.com, walk dogs in your community to earn $15 an hour, and save the cost of a gym membership!

3. People between jobs

Job hunting is time-consuming, and it’s good to feel productive while you’re brushing up your CV. The best side hustle apps will let you earn while you pin down that next career move, or they might even give you an idea for a career pivot.

For example, register a profile on Upwork, and put those coding or graphic design skills to work as a freelancer to earn $50 an hour.

4. People who love the hustle!

Perhaps you’re building a portfolio career with multiple income streams to diversify your earnings. Maybe you’re keen to stay flexible and away from that dreaded office job.

Maybe you’re exploring new ideas for training, personal development, and entrepreneurship? Whatever your situation, side gig apps give you access to flexible earnings on your own terms.

How Much Can You Earn With The Best Side Hustle Apps?

Choose the best side hustle apps and work hard to maximize earnings. This table indicates the possibilities:

App / PlatformTypical Earnings (USD)Ease of UsePayout Speed / Frequency
Uber / Lyft (Drive)$15–$25 per hour after expensesModerate (needs car, insurance)Weekly or instant with a fee
DoorDash / Uber Eats$10–$25 per hour, dependent on tips/cityEasy to moderateWeekly or instant with a fee
Scrambly (games & ads)$5 per hourEasyVaries; often after hitting minimum
Prolific (surveys)Up to $20 per surveyEasyWeekly via PayPal
Toluna (surveys)Around $3 per hourEasyPoints-based; payouts take time
Upwork / Freelance platforms$15–$100 per hour, depending on skillsModerate to hard (competitive)Weekly, milestones, or on completion
TaskRabbit$20–$40 per hour Moderate (account setup required)On task completion (same day possible)
Arrived (rental income)$5–$100+ a month (depends on investment size)Easy (passive)Quarterly dividends
Sharetown (furniture returns)$50–$200 per flip Moderate (pickup & resale)After resale (varies)
Rover (pet care)$15–$30 per walk / $25–$75 per night (boarding)ModerateWeekly
Outlier (train AI)$10–$30 per hourEasy to moderateWeekly
Amazon Flex (package delivery)$18–$20 per hourModerateTwice weekly
Fat Llama (rent items)$10–$100 a day (item-dependent)Moderate1 day after the rental starts
Depop (sell stuff)$5–$50+ per itemEasy to moderateAfter sale (PayPal or Depop Payments)
Field Agent (microtasks)$3–$13 per taskEasyWithin 2–3 business days
Turo (rent car)$30–$100 a day (car-dependent)Moderate (setup + maintenance)3–5 days after the trip ends
Poplin (laundry services)$15–$25 per hourModerateWeekly
Mercari (flipping items)$5–$100+ per itemEasy to moderateAfter the item is delivered & confirmed

Top 17 Side Hustle Apps to Make Money

These side hustle apps offer flexible routes to extra income.

1. Drive at Uber / Lyft

Earn between $15-$25 per hour by driving passengers in your own car. Sign up for Uber and Lyft to keep 100% of the tips, and every ride earns a fixed fee, with regular bonuses. Track your earnings in the app and cash out at any time.

You’ll need to have a reliable car in good condition and personal auto insurance that meets minimum state requirements. Lyft provides additional commercial insurance and a ‘Women+ Connect’ scheme that matches female drivers and passengers.

Earnings vary by area and time of day. Surge pricing earns you more at peak periods, in high-demand urban areas.

Lyft.com landing page with a young dark-haired smiling woman wearing a bright pink cardigan and white vest, holding a phone and leaning against a large navy blue vehicle. Bright blue background with white text.
Lyft.com landing page with a young dark-haired smiling woman wearing a bright pink cardigan and white vest, holding a phone and leaning against a large navy blue vehicle. Bright blue background with white text.

2. Deliver food at DoorDash / Uber Eats

Earn $10-$25 an hour as a delivery driver with DoorDash or Uber Eats. Check city rules to deliver by car, bike, or scooter, and sign up with multiple food delivery services to take the best-paid jobs in your geography.

You’ll earn more by working at peak hours when surge pricing kicks in and in high-demand urban areas. Enable push notifications on your phone and look for incentive pricing. Provide great customer service for excellent reviews.

DoorDash driver landing page, featuring a young woman with long red hair, wearing a red beanie hat and check shirt with jeans, looking at her phone and carrying a DoorDash delivery bag. Backdrop features an urban street with a tiled wall. Burgundy homepage background with white text.
DoorDash driver landing page, featuring a young woman with long red hair, wearing a red beanie hat and check shirt with jeans, looking at her phone and carrying a DoorDash delivery bag. Backdrop features an urban street with a tiled wall. Burgundy homepage background with white text.

3. Play games and watch ads with Scrambly

Earn $5 an hour playing free games, watching ads, and doing fun tasks in your spare time on Scrambly. This fun app won’t cover the rent, but it’s ideal for stacking up bonus dollars between work jobs.

Waiting to begin a shift? Standing in a line somewhere? Just grab your phone and play some Scrambly games to chill out and relax for a minute, while you earn. Cash out at just $1. Other great cash apps include SurveyDollars and Toluna.

Scrambly.io homepage featuring an illustrated graphical fox in orange and white, with black accents. Fox's character is sitting on a purple chair holding a gaming controller, with orange coins floating around him. Black homepage background with white text and orange CTA box.
Scrambly.io homepage featuring an illustrated graphical fox in orange and white, with black accents. Fox's character is sitting on a purple chair holding a gaming controller, with orange coins floating around him. Black homepage background with white text and orange CTA box.
Start hustling with Scrambly for free!

4. Take surveys at Prolific or Toluna

Earn $0.50 to $20 per survey, depending on the platform. Some committed survey takers stack apps to make up to $200 a month. Choose sites such as Prolific, Toluna, SurveyJunkey, and SwagBucks. American Consumer Opinion sometimes offers surveys that pay up to $50.

American Consumer Opinion homepage with pop art style graphics featuring a woman's mouth calling into a loudspeaker. Orange and red accent colours against a teal green backdrop with decorative dots in a grid.
American Consumer Opinion homepage with pop art style graphics featuring a woman's mouth calling into a loudspeaker. Orange and red accent colours against a teal green backdrop with decorative dots in a grid.

5. Freelance on Upwork or Freelancer.com

Earn $15-$100 per hour on freelance platforms, depending on your profession, skills, experience, and project.

Popular gigs include copywriting, graphic design, and coding. To stand out, create a quality profile, add your portfolio, promptly answer enquiries, and build up positive reviews. Use the platform’s marketing tools to maximize your visibility.

Fiverr homepage featuring a group of men in the background talking, and a young woman with long dark hair in a yellow shirt working in the foreground. The setting is a stylish cream office space with framed prints and black shuttered windows.
Fiverr homepage featuring a group of men in the background talking, and a young woman with long dark hair in a yellow shirt working in the foreground. The setting is a stylish cream office space with framed prints and black shuttered windows.

6. Do odd jobs and errands at TaskRabbit

Register at TaskRabbit to earn $20-$40 per task with odd jobs and errands. Typical jobs include yard clearance, furniture assembly, house decoration, and tip runs.

As a tasker, you set your hourly rate and keep it entirely, plus tips. TaskRabbit pays Taskers twice a week.

TaskRabbit landing page with a young smiling woman with short hair, wearing a check brown shirt and jeans, sitting on a stepladder holding a paintbrush. The room is pale and gray, and filled with light. The homepage is white, with green accent colors and black text.
TaskRabbit landing page with a young smiling woman with short hair, wearing a check brown shirt and jeans, sitting on a stepladder holding a paintbrush. The room is pale and gray, and filled with light. The homepage is white, with green accent colors and black text.

7. Earn rental income on Arrived

Sign up at Arrived with as little as $100 to earn quarterly dividend payments of $5–$100+ a month. This is a passive income opportunity that involves buying fractional ownership in physical properties. Read the terms carefully to understand the model.

Arrived.com homepage with a montage of beautiful houses in lovely environments, sitting in a grid of rounded squares. The background image is a gradient color of pale to mid blue, with black text.
Arrived.com homepage with a montage of beautiful houses in lovely environments, sitting in a grid of rounded squares. The background image is a gradient color of pale to mid blue, with black text.

8.Resell Furniture Returns on Sharetown

Earn up to $250 per flip with Sharetown. This ‘reverse logistics’ app partners with furniture brands to handle return requests. When the customer wants to return a mattress or furniture item, you’re dispatched to collect it.

You then clean it up, photograph it, and list it for resale on eBay or Facebook Marketplace. You pay for the inventory upon sale. The most successful reps earn $4000+ per month.

Sharetown.com homepage with black text on a pale gray background and three rounded squares featuring a logistics image, a smiling man in an apartment with a package to welcome a customer, and a tracking screen grab, each overlaid with white text.
Sharetown.com homepage with black text on a pale gray background and three rounded squares featuring a logistics image, a smiling man in an apartment with a package to welcome a customer, and a tracking screen grab, each overlaid with white text.

9. Walk dogs and sit pets at Rover

Sign up for Rover and earn between $15-$30 per walk, depending on the duration and location. Rover takes a 15% cut. Walks are as short as 15 minutes.

This is a great app for side jobs in your community. Charge extra by walking more than one dog, and earn more with value-added services like pet sitting, medication administration, and holiday bookings.

Wag is another dog-walking platform, but it charges higher commissions.

Rover homepage with a smiling young woman with long dark hair and silver hoop earrings, wearing a long-sleeved, round neck fitted black top. The woman is laughing as the pale labrador-type dog nuzzles her ear. The image is outdoors with background hedging and a distant urban vista.
Rover homepage with a smiling young woman with long dark hair and silver hoop earrings, wearing a long-sleeved, round neck fitted black top. The woman is laughing as the pale labrador-type dog nuzzles her ear. The image is outdoors with background hedging and a distant urban vista.

10. Train AI on Outlier

Help train AI to earn $10 to $30 per hour. At Outlier, you earn by assessing prompts and responses. The work is sporadic, and you need to do unpaid onboarding first, but projects run for up to a year.

Outlier homepage with rounded square containing image of young dark-haired woman wearing a brown jumper, sitting in a domestic living room at a desk, on her laptop. Light illuminates the working area, with a pot plant and hot drink.
Outlier homepage with rounded square containing image of young dark-haired woman wearing a brown jumper, sitting in a domestic living room at a desk, on her laptop. Light illuminates the working area, with a pot plant and hot drink.

11. Deliver packages with Amazon Flex

Earn $18-$25 an hour as a package delivery driver with Amazon Flex, plus any tips.

You reserve a “block” for your shift, which shows pre-scheduled delivery jobs to plan your route.

The block will show the day, location, type of deliveries, start time, expected earnings, and anticipated duration to complete the block jobs.

This work is entirely flexible around your schedule. Factor in the cost of gas and vehicle maintenance against your earnings, look for high-paid blocks, and work efficient routes to minimize gas consumption.

Amazon.flex landing page featuring Dad and daughter looking at iPad together under a duvet with blue light illuminating their faces. White overlay text and blue branded CTA box.
Amazon.flex landing page featuring Dad and daughter looking at iPad together under a duvet with blue light illuminating their faces. White overlay text and blue branded CTA box.

12. Rent what you own on Fat Llama

Earn $10-$100+ a day by renting out what you own. Rent a spare room, garage space, a property, a car, or even tools to earn money on the side with side hustle apps such as Airbnb and Fat Llama. Some users make thousands of dollars by renting valuable items.

Read the terms carefully and check details of insurance to protect your belongings. Fat Llama charges a 15% commission.

Fat Llama homepage with blue and pink colors, and graphics of trees and bikes in a park, illustrated in pale green shades. White text and CTA box.
Fat Llama homepage with blue and pink colors, and graphics of trees and bikes in a park, illustrated in pale green shades. White text and CTA box.

13. Sell your stuff on Depop

Part-time sellers on Depop earn $5-$50 per item.. Declutter your closet and home to sell unwanted items on Poshmark and eBay. Build up a great profile with positive reviews by offering great customer service and fulfilling orders quickly.

Depop homepage featuring a black-haired male with a beard wearing a grey short-sleeved shirt, and a woman with long brown hair, wearing a pink shirt over a colorful top, holding a bag and wearing sunglasses. Against a pale grey backdrop with black text.
Depop homepage featuring a black-haired male with a beard wearing a grey short-sleeved shirt, and a woman with long brown hair, wearing a pink shirt over a colorful top, holding a bag and wearing sunglasses. Against a pale grey backdrop with black text.

14. Do Microtasks on Field Agent

Earn between $3 and $15 or more per task doing small microtasks on sites such as Field Agent or Gigwalk. Task fees are clearly shown.

ClickWorker is another useful site for microtasks such as AI training. Download the apps, register your profile, and enable alerts to see when new tasks go live.

Field Agent homepage with minimal design featuring black text on white background with orange CTA buttons. Graphic with a blue organic shape and a hand holding a smartphone with a shopping cart icon and the FieldAgent logo. Group scene of illustrated characters to the bottom, shopping with smartphones, overlaid on pale orange.
Field Agent homepage with minimal design featuring black text on white background with orange CTA buttons. Graphic with a blue organic shape and a hand holding a smartphone with a shopping cart icon and the FieldAgent logo. Group scene of illustrated characters to the bottom, shopping with smartphones, overlaid on pale orange.

15. Rent your car out on Turo

Rent your unused car on Turo and earn an average of $545 a month. This is a good passive income opportunity if your car’s just sitting in the garage, doing nothing.

You set your rates and keep 65%-90% of the rental fee. Payment is made by direct debit three days after the customer’s trip completes.

Just factor in your costs for maintenance and consider insurance.

Turo homepage features a young woman with long black hair and a man with a beard wearing grey warm winter clothes, crossing the road in front of a red shiny car, parked on a street of elegant redbrick properties.
Turo homepage features a young woman with long black hair and a man with a beard wearing grey warm winter clothes, crossing the road in front of a red shiny car, parked on a street of elegant redbrick properties.

16. Do laundry or ironing with Poplin

Earn up to $400 a month by ironing and earn while you watch TV! You get paid by the kilo to wash, dry, fold, and return laundry within 24 hours. Sign up to find out more.

Try apps like EazyIron to start earning money from ironing, or earn by the kilo to do people’s laundry.

EazyIron landing page with woman ironing clothes in the background, and the text "Make money by ironing from home" in front.
EazyIron landing page with woman ironing clothes in the background, and the text "Make money by ironing from home" in front.

17. Flip for profit on Mercari

Stack apps to earn $5–$100+ per item from product flipping. Buy and sell items for a profit and list them on Facebook Marketplace, Depop, Mercari, OfferUp, and Poshmark.

Use Keepa and Flip Mine to find products with flip potential on Amazon and eBay, and source resellable items at thrift stores and garage sales.

Flipmine homepage with illustrated graphic that shows a cartoon male in grey leaning against a stack of boxes in different shades of grey. White text is overlaid above a gradient background image of lilac merging to purple.
Flipmine homepage with illustrated graphic that shows a cartoon male in grey leaning against a stack of boxes in different shades of grey. White text is overlaid above a gradient background image of lilac merging to purple.

Bonus: Niche or Emerging Apps Worth Trying

New side hustle apps regularly come online, so keep up to date to discover new earners. Some relative newcomers worth looking at include:

  • Neighbor, to rent out storage space
  • Steady, to find gig jobs in your area
  • Sweatcoin, to earn money simply from walking!
  • Amazon Influencer program, to earn hundreds of dollars if you already have a social media following.

5 Tips for Success With Side Hustle Apps

To maximize your earnings with side hustle apps, try these tips:

  1. Manage your time carefully. Unproductive time doesn’t pay, especially for side job apps that pay by results, rather than by the hour.
  2. Factor in expenses. For example, if you’re doing delivery jobs, remember to factor in wear and tear, maintenance, and gas costs.
  3. Track your expenses and income for tax purposes.
  4. Build up your profile and focus on getting great reviews. These matter.
  5. Combine different apps to multiply your earnings. For example, fun cash apps are easy earners while you’re between other jobs and killing a little time.
  6. Avoid burnout. It’s easy to work every available hour when you’re trying to earn extra money, but rest is key to a balanced life. Remember to prioritise loved ones, self-care, and exercise too.

How to Stay Safe Using Side Hustle Apps to Earn Money

Side gig apps are convenient, flexible, and a great way to make income. But it’s important to stay safe, whether you work online or in your community. These tips will help.

  • When using side job apps online, read the small print carefully, check for reviews, and ensure the sites are authentic. Never download an unknown app from an unsolicited email, and think twice before sharing personal data.
  • When working through side gig apps in your neighborhood, tell someone which shifts you’ll be working, and carry your phone at all times. Understand the platform safety policies and follow them carefully, especially for jobs that involve driving other people or making deliveries at night.
  • Choose your routes carefully and wear comfortable clothing that lets you move easily.
  • Carry personal safety devices as appropriate.
University of St Augustine information page about safe night shifts, featuring a young female health professional at work on nights leaning against a wall and checking her fitness tracker. She is wearing a short-sleeved blue work tunic and has a stethoscope around her neck.
University of St Augustine information page about safe night shifts, featuring a young female health professional at work on nights leaning against a wall and checking her fitness tracker. She is wearing a short-sleeved blue work tunic and has a stethoscope around her neck.

How to Maximize the Value of The Best Side Hustle Apps

  • Stack up cash-earning apps to maximize the value of your time. For example, pair passive dividend payments on fractional property income with delivery driving, tasking, or freelance work. In your downtime, do surveys and game apps.
  • Put your earnings to use! Invest in training that will advance your career plans or put them into a high-interest account.
  • Regularly review the market for new apps to see which are the best use of your time.
  • Seek balance and don’t overdo it. Combine work with rest, family time, social interactions, exercise, and hobbies.

The Top Side Hustle Apps: Concluding Thoughts

Side hustle apps are ideal for flexible, user-friendly earning opportunities. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to finding the best side hustle apps for your needs, so it’s good to experiment.

Decide which side gig apps suit your skills, lifestyle, and time, and work around your existing commitments.

Start small to test the water and see how your earnings stack up!

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