30 Low-Cost Business Ideas For Beginners

6. TRANSCRIPTIONIST

Are you good at typing? How many words can you type in a minute?

If the answer is a lot, then you may want to move transcriptionist to the top of your list of low-cost business ideas.

Simply, a transcriptionist is someone who listens to audio, both recorded and live, and converts it to a written format.

There are many opportunities for freelance transcriptionists to start earning money by transcribing business meetings, court hearings, web conferences, seminars, and more.

Go to watch a speech on TED Talks, and you will find a transcript below the video. The same can be said for many podcasts. This was done by a transcriptionist.

Does this sound interesting?

Megan decided to start her own transcriptionist business, and within a month, she found her first client. She is now able to work independently and sleep through the night without worrying about her job.

Sounds like something you want to explore?

Check out my guide to how to become a transcriptionist with no experience, and the best online transcription jobs for beginners. Then check out Transcribe Anywhere’s free mini-course to jumpstart your business.

7. GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Are you a visual type of person?

Did you know that over 20% of small businesses in the US hire freelance graphic designers?

In fact, the logo design industry alone is worth over $3 billion.

In other words, there is a huge market out there for your artistic talents.

A booming graphic design industry is your chance to help businesses and influencers develop their brand while doing it from the comfort of home or anywhere around the world!

I, for one, love the story of Joana Galvão, which was featured in Business Insider.

At 22, fresh out of college and straight into the corporate world, she, like many of us, dreamed of a more flexible, exciting lifestyle. So, she decided to start her own graphic design business, hoping to cover her salary with something where she could be her own boss.

Within the first ten months, she’d made $100,000!

As a freelance graphic designer, you may work on:

• Logo design
• Infographics
• Brochures and Posters
• Product packaging
• Web Design
• Social Media content

But how can you get started?

Once you have learned basic skills on software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, or Visme, you can create a small portfolio of your works.

Then pitch your skills to small businesses, or look for jobs online on websites like 99designs, Flexjobs, or Fiverr.

Or think about creating your own work of art (like quotes and prints) and sell it on websites like Etsy.

This course on Udemy about how to Become a Professional Graphic Designer will help you to break into the world of graphic design.

8. SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Do you love spending endless hours on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter?

How about getting paid for that?

Many small businesses and startups rely heavily on social media to find new customers and build their brands. And they are often on the lookout for social media experts to help them creating content and engaging with their followers.

As a social media manager, your job will be looking after brands’ social channels. You will monitor, moderate, and respond to audience comments. Plus, you’ll need a creative eye to design posts and share images online.

Remember, social media is all about communication. And you’ll need to be able to use a different voice for each brand you work for. You need to convert fans into customers and make them fall in love with the products or services you are promoting.

If this is something that interests you, consider investing in a course like this one to learn exactly how to grow a following on any platform and find clients in no time.

9. START AN ONLINE STORE

Over 2 billion people bought something online in 2021.

Yes, the eCommerce industry is booming, now exceeding an astonishing $8 trillion in yearly sales worldwide.

Want in on the action?

Then you want to start an online store.

And you can start one without up-front investment. Yes, really!

The secret is dropshipping.

Dropshipping

Here’s how it works: You list a product in your online store, take orders from customers, then send the orders to a third-party vendor, the drop shipper, who creates the product and ships it to the customer.

That’s right, you make sales without spending any money on inventory!

Who would have thought starting an online store could be one of the best low investment business ideas out there?

All you have to do is setting up your store on an eCommerce platform like Shopify to get started.

Need help with the technical details of setting up your store? No worries! You don’t need to know it all. You can find eCommerce experts on Fiverr.

Print on demand

But it gets better.

Within dropshipping, there is a popular sub-category known as print-on-demand. There, drop shippers will print your design on any number of products, from shirts to mugs and beyond.

Printify, for one, has over 200 products awaiting your customization!

Print-on-demand is where artists and photographers can monetize their work, where it is even possible to start your own clothing line.

Just look at Lindsey Ferris. She lost the corporate event production business she ran for over a decade when the pandemic hit. Locked down at home, she decided to start a print-on-demand store selling customized merchandise called FerrisBuilt.

Only a few months after she did, Meghan Markle was spotted wearing one of her shirts.

Want to know more? Take a look at Shopify’s guide: Print on Demand: A Low-Risk Way to Sell Custom T-Shirts, Books, and More.

10. RUNNING ADS CAMPAIGNS

It is all well and good to start an online store or launch a blog, but it’s all for nothing unless your site reaches its intended audience.

Businesses know this, which is why they now spend over $600 billion per year on digital marketing globally, attempting to get their message in front of customers.

With such a huge pie, why not grab yourself a slice by running these campaigns for them?

This might include:

• Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
• Email Marketing
• Web Content
• Social Media Content

Facebook Ads

It has to be said: for digital marketers, Facebook is the place to be.

Consider, there are over 200 million small businesses on Facebook worldwide. Yet, an average branded post will only reach 2.6% of a business’s fans.

This is why many millions of businesses turn to Facebook Ads to enhance their reach. Except, a full 58% of those who do say they don’t think, or don’t know if, their Facebook marketing initiatives are effective.

The lesson: become a master with Facebook Ads, and businesses will pay a premium for your services.

You can earn an average of over $50,000 a year managing ads to start, but top Facebook Ads managers out there can earn over $300,000.

How do you start? First, check out Facebook’s guide on how to create a Facebook Ad. Then, learn how to run a Facebook Ads marketing campaign by watching this free training here.

Google Ads

Yes, Facebook allows the best targeting for small business campaigns. But Google is still one of the best advertising options out there.

Google is the most used search engine, receiving nearly 100,000 searches per second, over 8 billion per day! You create ads and show them only to people searching the internet for a specific relevant product or service. This is what makes these types of ads so powerful.

How can you start a small business that manages Google Ads campaigns?

You need to become a master in keyword research and catchy headlines for your ads. And the best way to do that is to become Google Adwords certified. It’s free, and you need to pass two Google assessments.

You can then start looking for clients locally or online.

The average rate for the top AdWords freelancers is approximately $90 an hour. And if you decide to run a small ads agency, it’s common to get paid $100 to $200 an hour.

Want to start a Google Ads agency? Start by checking out the free Google Ads Academy. 

11. SEO SPECIALIST

Another angle for businesses and bloggers to get their site in front of the intended audience is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Yes, we’ve all heard of it, but what exactly is SEO?

Most simply, it means understanding keywords in order to show up higher in organic Google search results.

Of course, SEO is ever-changing. That’s actually good news since it means many people and businesses will pay top dollar for SEO specialists that can help them to stay on top of the game.

Just look at former aspiring writer Leslie Gilmour, who, in her words, “tore up my latest attempt to write a novel and dumped it in the bin” and got into the SEO game.

Her company, Cube Digital, now brings in some $25,000 per month and has been growing by 50% each year since it was started in 2015.

The secret to getting started?

Learn how search engines like google work. Get to know the best SEO tools out there, like Ahrefs. Then create your own SEO-friendly website. If you can’t do it for yourself, how can potential clients believe you can do it for them? In the SEO game, your website is your portfolio.

From there, start selling your services on marketplaces like Fiverr.

Ready to become a specialist? Start by reading Google’s guide to How Google Search works and their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide.

12. WEB DEVELOPER

When the Wizard of Oz nervously shouted, “pay no attention to the man behind that curtain,” did you think to yourself? What’s wrong with working behind the scenes?

Maybe you don’t want to start an online store or, for that matter, a blog, but wouldn’t mind helping somebody else create theirs.

Good news! Businesses, entrepreneurs, and influencers are desperate right now for help setting up and administering their websites.

If you know how to write code and speak the language of HTML, you may want to become a web developer.

A web developer is someone who builds and maintains a website at its most fundamental level, developing applications and functionality.

It is no longer possible to operate a competitive business without a website, meaning those who don’t’ have one need help to build one. Moreover, even those who were ahead of the curve and created a website long ago are becoming desperate for updates.

In other words, for those with the technical skills, the time is now to cash in on one of the best small business ideas from home in the game.

For those who don’t have the skills, there are numerous courses to get you started at places like The Web Developer Bootcamp course on Udemy and Codecademy.

And for those who do? Start looking for web design or web development gigs on Upwork now!

13. SELL YOUR OWN BOOKS

Did you know: more than 700 million print books were sold in the US last year?

Incredibly, American adults spend an average of $110 per person on books per year.

It looks like the much-ballyhooed death of the bookstore was overstated. In fact, whereas large, in-person bookstores have been in decline, the number of small and specialty stores has actually been growing.

Yes, you can make money by selling your own books online!

I will tell you the dirty secret. There has been a death, but it is not of the bookstore; it’s of the traditional publishing model.

Not only is the process of getting published by a big publishing house arduous, but the profits are minuscule, and the support is non-existent.

The answer is self-publishing.

Fiction books and non-fiction books

Just look at Adam Nevill.

An author for 20 years with 19 traditionally published books to his name, including one, The Ritual, which was adapted into a Netflix movie, Adam recently abandoned the big publishers to start self-publishing.

He did it because he wanted greater control of how his books were packaged and marketed and because he wanted more of the profits.

But I’m not a published author of 19 books, you may be thinking.

Maybe not. But remember, Fifty Shades of Grey was originally self-published, the work of an inexperienced author who had hashed out the idea of writing Twilight fan fiction.

To date, Fifty Shades has sold well over 100 million copies worldwide and has been turned into a movie.

Ready to self-publish your percolating idea? Check out 50+ Publishing Resources You Should Know About.

Low-content self-publishing

For all the non-writers out there, did you know that you can make money selling books with nothing in them?

No, really.

It’s called low-content, or no-content, publishing.

Think of journals and diaries, their creamy white, empty pages; picture daily planners and coloring books, books of crossword puzzles and games; think even of the lined paper used by students or the composition paper used by musicians.

Yes, people make big money selling these.

People like Ron Cubbon.

A 51-year-old Brit living his best life in Thailand, Ron makes nearly $4,000 per month from the 2000 or so low- and no-content books he sells online.

As he said himself, “I couldn’t believe that people would spend $6.99 on a hundred-paged blank paperback, but they do.”

Check out his secrets here.

14. CREATE DIGITAL PRODUCTS

Often selling books online means selling eBooks. Yet, eBooks represent only one of many digital products you could sell in your online store.

Expand your thinking! Just some of the digital products you could sell in your store include:

• Digital Assets: including social media graphics, icons, infographics, or fonts.
• Templates: for websites, PowerPoint, resumés, even sewing or knitting patterns.
• Audio content: like sound effects, text-to-audio conversions, or voiceovers.
• Printables: meal planners, organization planners, or budget templates.

Need more? Check out my guide to the best digital products to sell. Then read Shopify’s breakdown on How to Create and Sell Digital Products: A Roadmap With 6 Ideas to Get You Started.

Like dropshipping, digital products require no investment in inventory, making selling digital products in your online store one of the top low-cost business ideas.

Need proof?

By now, many have heard the story of Cinnamon and Jason.

When Cinnamon started hand-making clothing for her daughter’s dolls, she found they became the envy of the neighborhood. So, she and her husband started selling the patterns for doll clothing online.

They now run the world’s largest marketplace for doll clothing patterns at Pixie Faire, making over $50,000 per month!

Have a great digital product idea but not sure how to turn it into something you can sell online? Get a professional freelancer on Fiverr to construct it for you.

15. ONLINE COURSES

Of course, we have to mention the most booming digital product niche of all.

The e-learning industry is expected to triple between 2022-2030.

This must be why Forbes proclaimed, “there has never been a better opportunity to join the growing industry of e-learning,” calling it “a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to start creating their own online courses.”

Think about it: people spend big money at universities and colleges to get educated; companies send employees to expensive courses to expand their knowledge; in an information age, people go online to become experts in their hobbies.

Create your own course

Do you have a particular skill or a specific knowledge that others don’t?

Sure, you do.

Create and sell an online course teaching people about it!

Popular online course categories include:

• Cooking
• Marketing
• Languages
• Photography
• Technology
• Finance
• Personal Development
• Music
• Software

How do you sell your online course?

While it is certainly possible to create your course on platforms like Teachable and sell it directly through your online store, try selling it through specific course marketplaces like Udemy to reach those who are already looking.

Still not sold?

Consider the story of Joseph Michael, a father who taught himself how to use the writing software Scrivener while living paycheck-to-paycheck. Having gained this knowledge and desperate for “an extra $400 or $500 per month,” he created a course to teach others how to use the software.

It made $25,000 in an afternoon.

Need the nitty-gritty? Have a look at this free online training from Teachable to help you launch your online course in no time.

Teach online

And if you don’t want to create your own course yet, but you simply enjoy teaching, how about teaching online to kids?

Online teaching is changing the way kids learn at school and from home.

And you can benefit from this revolution. All you need is an internet connection and a laptop, and you can start your own small teaching business today.

If you pick the right classes to teach, you could make over $10,000 a month teaching online, as Jade does.

And you don’t need to be a traditionally qualified teacher.

Places like Outschool let you teach any sort of subject: you can teach classical subjects like English and math, or fun classes like cooking, acting or singing.

Teachers on Outschool earn an average of $35 per teaching hour.

Listing classed is free. You will have total control over the listed price and decide how many participants can take each class. Outschool will take 30% of your earnings for their support services. Once your class starts, you will receive payment via PayPal.

Sign up for Outschool here, and start thinking about your first class!

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