New research ranked popular side hustles by what they pay per hour and the range is way wider than most people realize

I put together a summary of some recent side hustle research cuz the numbers on what different ones pay are pretty interesting and there's a lot more spread than you'd think.

The big picture first... somewhere between 28% and 35% of Americans have a side hustle right now depending on which survey you look at. About half of current side hustlers started within the last year, and over half say they picked one up specifically to cover bills and essentials. This isn't really a hobby thing for most people anymore.

The most popular category by far is e-commerce... selling stuff on eBay, Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, reselling secondhand items, handmade goods, digital products. Around 46% of side hustlers are doing some version of this. Freelance work is at 31% and content creation or blogging sits at 21%.

The hourly pay is where it gets really interesting though. A BestBrokers analysis using Upwork income data ranked popular side hustles by what they earn:

1. Life coaching averages around $150/hr but depends heavily on building a personal brand first. You're not walking into that kind of rate on day one, it takes reputation and a real client base to get anywhere near it.
2. Brand content creation comes in around $40/hr on average, though early income is pretty inconsistent. This is creating content for brands specifically, not just posting your own stuff and hoping someone notices.
3. Affiliate marketing averages roughly $37.50/hr but is tied directly to traffic and conversions. So there's a huge range between people who've figured out their funnel and people still grinding to get clicks.
4. E-commerce freelancing, photography, t-shirt design, influencer marketing, copywriting, and tutoring all land above $30/hr on average. This is kind of the sweet spot where the barrier to entry is reasonable and the pay is still solid enough to be worth the time.
5. Photo editing, proofreading, Canva design, blog writing, and digital art come in above $20/hr on average. Lower ceiling than some of the others but a lot of these you can do from your couch with basically zero startup cost.

One stat worth calling out... about 39% of e-commerce side hustlers say they're making over $1,000 a month. Compare that to 28% of freelancers, 26% of food delivery workers, and only 19% of content creators hitting that number. E-commerce doesn't top the hourly rates on this list but it looks like the most consistent path to decent monthly income for the most people.

And one more thing that's kinda counterintuitive... people making over $150k a year are actually the most likely to have a side hustle at 45%, compared to about 31% of people earning under $50k. The reasoning is basically that higher-paid skills translate into consulting and freelance gigs way more easily. If you're already an AI engineer or something similar at your day job, there's contract work just sitting there waiting for you.

I'm curious what this sub's experience looks like compared to these numbers.

note: this was sourced from a USA Today article by Rachel Barber, the original is here