20 businesses to start in 2026, ranked by what they cost to start

How the list is ordered

Cheapest and fastest first. The top of the list is things you can start tonight with a phone and earn from within days; the bottom is slower builds that pay more once they work. None of these require a loan, an office, or a logo. Most can run alongside a job or a degree until they can't, which is the right way to find out whether one is a business or a hobby.

1. Clipping: short-form videos for brands, paid per view

A brand, podcast or app puts up a budget and invites people to make short vertical videos about it. You cut the clip, post it on your own TikTok, Reels or Shorts account, submit the link, and you are paid for the views it earns. No follower minimum, because what's being bought is attention, not your audience. It is the cheapest business on this list to test: the whole experiment costs an evening.

How the money works. Campaigns pay a rate per 1,000 views (the CPM), with a cap per clip so one viral post can't drain the budget. Rates vary by campaign and platform; on Shoot the brand funds the budget before anyone posts, earnings move into your wallet on a 72-hour cycle after views are verified, and you can withdraw from $10. Shoot's fee is 7% and it is taken at withdrawal, never from your views.

Disclosure. We run a clipping platform, so read this entry with that in mind. It is on the list because it genuinely needs no capital and pays on output rather than on audience size, and the catch above is real: the people who earn are the ones who post through the slow first two weeks.

Who it's for. Anyone who already spends time on short-form video and would rather be paid for the instinct. It also stacks: clippers routinely run it alongside a job, a degree, or one of the other ideas below. Payouts need an ID check and you must be 18 or over to withdraw.

Full guide: how to make money clipping videos

2. UGC creation: product videos for brands, flat fee

User-generated content (UGC) is a brand paying you to make a video that the brand posts in its own ads. Unlike clipping, you don't need the post to perform on your account, and you're paid a flat fee per deliverable, typically tens to a few hundred dollars depending on the brand and usage rights. The work is finding clients: cold DMs, UGC marketplaces, and the brands you already use. It pairs naturally with clipping, since the same filming skills feed both.

3. Online tutoring

The oldest side business on the list and still one of the quickest to a first payment. Maths, languages, coding, music and exam prep all have steady demand, and tutoring platforms handle the finding and the billing for a cut. Rates climb once parents refer you, which they will if the grades move. Good for students, who are closest to the material.

4. Ghostwriting and copywriting

Founders, consultants and executives want to post on LinkedIn and X and don't have the time or the knack. Ghostwriting their posts, newsletters and sales pages is quiet, well paid at the top, and sold entirely on samples. Write three posts for someone whose work you follow, send them over, and quote a monthly package. It's a good fit for a writer who'd rather not be on camera.

5. Virtual assistant

Inbox, calendar, bookings, research, customer replies for a founder or small team. It's the most direct way to earn online with no capital and no portfolio, and a stepping stone to most of the other services here, because you learn how small businesses actually run. The VAs who earn well pick a niche and become the person who knows that niche's tools.

6. Reselling and flipping

Buy under-priced things (trainers, vintage, furniture, electronics, event tickets where it's legal) and sell them for what they're worth. It's one of the few businesses here where you learn the whole loop, from sourcing to customer, in your first week. Sneaker and vintage resellers now sell as much through short-form video as through listings, which is where this starts to overlap with the first entry.

7. Social media management for local businesses

Restaurants, gyms, salons and shops need someone to post three times a week and answer DMs, and the owner isn't going to do it. Charge a monthly retainer per account, keep the roster small, and batch the filming. It is one of the few businesses here where walking in the door beats any online pitch. Short-form is the format they'll ask for, so the clipping skill set carries over directly.

8. Video editing service

Every podcaster, YouTuber and small business posting video needs someone to cut it, and most of them hate doing it. Short-form editing (turning a 40-minute episode into ten clips) is the most in-demand slice right now, and the easiest to prove: edit a creator's public episode unasked, send them the result, and quote a monthly rate. Clipping is the fastest way to build the portfolio for this, because you get paid while you practise.

9. AI automation setup for small businesses

Local businesses know AI exists and have no idea what to do with it. Setting up an answering flow, a follow-up sequence, an invoice chaser or a review-request loop for a fixed fee is work that didn't exist three years ago and now has more demand than people doing it. Start with one business you can walk into, fix one annoying thing, and ask for two introductions.

10. Digital products and templates

Spreadsheets, planners, Notion systems, presets, Canva templates, sold on a marketplace or your own storefront. Make once, sell many times, no shipping. The products that sell solve a narrow problem for a narrow person (a budget for nurses, a content calendar for wedding photographers), and they sell through the maker's own short-form content far more than through marketplace search.

11. Print on demand

T-shirts, mugs and prints that a supplier makes and ships only after a customer orders, so you never hold stock. The listing is the whole business: a design, a niche, and a way to get it in front of that niche. It works best as a second income for someone who already has an audience or a community, and poorly as a cold start.

12. Paid or sponsored newsletter

A weekly email on one topic for one kind of reader, monetised by sponsors, a paid tier, or both. Newsletters work because the audience is yours in a way a social following never is: no algorithm sits between you and the inbox. The trade is time. Most writers who get there spent a year publishing to a small list, then used short-form video (their own or clippers') to feed it.

13. Podcast production service

Editing, publishing, show notes, and increasingly the short-form clips that promote the episode. Hosts who are good on the mic are often bad at everything after it, and will pay a monthly rate to not think about it. The clip side is now the part they value most, because it's how new listeners find the show, which makes this a natural step up from clipping for someone who wants retainers.

14. Websites for local businesses

A huge share of small businesses still have no site or a bad one, and AI builders have made a decent one a day's work. Charge a build fee plus a small monthly fee for hosting and changes, and the business turns from projects into a book of retainers. Bundle the social posts and you have a full local marketing package.

15. A local service: cleaning, detailing, lawn care, moving

Unfashionable and reliably profitable. Mobile car detailing, pressure washing, house cleaning, gutter clearing, small moves. The demand is local, the competition is often unreliable, and a few good reviews fill a calendar. The best operators now market it with before-and-after short-form videos, which cost nothing and outperform flyers. Scales into a real company if you want it to.

16. Faceless YouTube or TikTok channel

Channels built on narration, stock footage, screen recordings or compilations, with nobody on camera. They can earn from ad revenue, affiliate links and sponsorships once they have an audience, and some do very well. The honest version is that it is a media business with a long ramp, and the ones that last pick a narrow topic and publish on a schedule for a year before the numbers are interesting. Worth running as a slow build beside something that pays sooner.

17. A paid course or community

Package what you know into a course, a cohort or a membership. The economics are excellent once there's an audience, and nonexistent before. The honest sequence is: get good at something, show the work publicly for a year, then sell the structured version to the people who followed along. Creators increasingly fund that audience-building with clipping campaigns, paying clippers per view to spread their best moments.

18. Micro-SaaS: a small app for one niche

AI coding tools have made it realistic for one person to ship a paid web app in weeks: a scheduling tool for dog groomers, a quoting tool for roofers, an invoice tracker for freelancers. Subscription revenue is the most durable income on this list once it's there. The pattern that works in 2026 is build small, charge from day one, and market it with short-form video and in the communities where the niche already talks.

19. Dropshipping

Sell a product online and have the supplier ship it straight to the customer. The model still works for people who are genuinely good at paid ads or who find a product before it's everywhere, and it still eats beginners who buy a course and a store on the same day. If you want to learn ads, learn them on a client's money first. If you want to sell physical products, creators now do it better through short-form video than through cold ads.

20. Running a clipping agency

The step up from clipping. A brand gives you a brief and a budget; you get a pool of clippers posting against it, review what goes up, and report what it delivered. You're paid for coordination and accountability, on top of the working budget that reaches the creators. Most agencies start with one campaign for one client in one niche, and build their roster from the clippers who performed on it.

How the money works. Two lines, always separate: a client-funded working budget that pays the clippers, and your management fee on top (a retainer, or a percentage of that budget). On Shoot an agency runs each client as its own funded campaign from $500, views are verified before money moves, and creator payouts are handled for you, so you never carry the budget and never chase a payout yourself.

Disclosure. Agencies are customers of ours, so again, read with that in mind. The reason it's on the list is that it's the rare agency model where the biggest cost (paying creators) is funded by the client up front, which means the barrier is a first case study, not capital.

Who it's for. A clipper who already knows what performs and wants retainers instead of per-view pay, or anyone who's run social for a brand and has a few creators they trust. Land the first client with one honest campaign's numbers, not a deck.

Full guide: how to start a clipping agency

How to pick one

1. 1

   Pick by your constraint, not by the ceiling.

   No money: start with 1, 3, 4, 5 or 12. No time: 1, 6 or 10. No skills yet: 1, 5 or 6, which teach you a sellable skill while paying something.

2. 2

   Give it thirty days of daily effort before judging it.

   Almost every idea here looks dead in week two. The people who earn are the ones still posting, pitching or listing in week four.

3. 3

   Stack, don't switch.

   The services on this list feed each other: clipping builds the portfolio for editing, editing builds the client for podcast production, and a roster of clippers is an agency. Keep the one that's paying while you add the next.

4. 4

   Keep the money separate from day one.

   A separate account, even for $40. It's the difference between a business you can read and a hobby you can't.