4 Work-From-Home Side Gigs That Can Make You an Extra $500 Weekly in 2026

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Life is expensive these days, so you might be hoping to earn some extra cash. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of side gigs that allow you to earn money on your own terms, from the comfort of your own home.

This can be a great way to supplement your full-time income or — for stay-at-home parents, students or retirees — to earn money without holding down a traditional job. Many of these gigs are flexible in nature, allowing you to tailor hours to fit your schedule. Though remote jobs might be getting hard to come by, side hustles are still plentiful.

As long as you have a computer and a reliable internet connection, you can get to work. Here’s a look at four work-from-home gigs and what you can expect to make.

Virtual Assistant

• Average hourly pay: $26.63
• Average weekly hours needed to earn $500: 19

If you’re a naturally organized person, working as a virtual assistant could be a rewarding gig. Some of your tasks might involve making appointments for your boss, answering the phone, scheduling travel arrangements and monitoring email accounts. Simply put, you can organize someone else’s day or business schedule from the comfort of your own home.

This type of job tends to be flexible, as employers don’t need a full-time assistant. Instead, they hire a virtual assistant to handle select tasks on their behalf.

Website Tester

• Average hourly pay: $38.36
• Average weekly hours needed to earn $500: 13

Companies want user-friendly websites, which is where web testers come in. In this type of gig, you’ll be assigned projects that will require you to review websites to seek out bugs and other glitches carefully. The pay can vary widely depending on the company, but you can easily earn $500 a week during the course of your regular screen time. 

Internet Researcher

• Average hourly pay: $54.38
• Average weekly hours needed to earn $500: 9

As an online researcher, some of your tasks may include answering questions, examining consumer behavior, reviewing studies, administering surveys and conducting competitive analyses. Pay varies by company, but making over $50 an hour on average is a quick and easy way to make $500 each week. 

Online Tutoring

• Average hourly pay: $19
• Average weekly hours needed to earn $500: 26

If you know a subject well, you could get paid to share your knowledge as an online tutor. Though the average wage isn’t that high, depending on your specialty, you could make much more. 

You might offer one-on-one sessions or tutor a group of students. This could be a regular occurrence with the same pupils or more sporadic to help with tests and projects.

Caitlyn Moorhead contributed to the reporting for this article.

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