15 Side Hustle & Gig Apps To Help You Earn More Money
The side gig economy is thriving. According to brodmin, an independent global directory for uncollected invoices, states that the growth of the global gig economy is expected to reach $455 billion USD in 2023.
So, I’ve got one question for you: How are you earning money with the side gig and side hustle economy?
I’m guessing you haven’t started or haven’t gotten very far yet, so this is how I’d start making money from side hustles and side gigs...with Side Gig Apps.
Many side gig and side hustle apps, regardless of platform, will prove to be very valuable to many freelancers and people who want to earn extra money on top of their regular day jobs.
But which side gig apps will you use?
We have classified the best side hustle and side gig apps based on the types of jobs available in their respective apps:
- Various Jobs
- Online Work
- Specific Tasks
Let the side gig hunt begin!
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Side Hustle and Side Gig Apps
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Side Gig Apps for Various Jobs
The following apps are best for people who work on various jobs, ie. cleaning, home repairs, delivery, yard work, and more.
TaskRabbit
If you’re an all-around handyman, this app is for you. TaskRabbit covers services from furniture mounting to assembly; cleaning; delivery; and home repairs and more. They have a list of services that might be up your alley—50+ categories!
The concept behind TaskRabbit is engaging trusted local Taskers (that’s what they call their handypersons) who can help out busy people with their various jobs from errands to other chores.
The beauty of TaskRabbit is you can render services in your chosen areas, set your own rates and, as per TaskRabbit, “keep 100% of what you charge.”
One Tasker, Tyler Jurelle, was grateful that he found TaskRabbit. He says in his blog: “Working as a Tasker for TaskRabbit has saved my financial life. It has kept money in my pockets while in between college semesters and upon graduating. Being a Tasker even helped me land my first full-time job within weeks of graduating college.”
Download TaskRabbit for iOS or Android.
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Instawork
Instawork offers businesses engaged in holding events, food service, and warehousing hourly workers for their staffing needs (that’s where you come in). The platform boasts of a network of one million workers nationwide.
To breakdown the jobs available in Instawork, here’s a list:
- Event: Bartender, Event Server, Busser, Concessions
- Food: Dishwasher, Runner, Cook, Sanitation
- Warehousing: General Labor, Picker/Packer, Merchandising, Warehouse
The Instawork slogan, “work where you want, when you want.” is ideal for someone looking for flexible work. You can “set your own schedule” and “make more money on every shift.”
Download Instawork for iOS or Android.
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Jobble
Jobble features full time or part-time, on-demand jobs that pay by the hour. It boasts of over 4 million jobs nationwide. That’s a vast field to hunt for side hustles!
A quick run of job listings in Jobble shows the following job opportunities in the following businesses:
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Sales
- Hospitality
- Customer Service
- Restaurant
- Warehouse
- Delivery
- And more!
Download Instawork for iOSor Android.
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Gigsmart
Another worthy addition to this list, Gigsmart lets you find work that offers hourly shift gigs, bid on a variety of residential projects or tasks, and check out part-time or full-time opportunities in your area.
Gigsmart acknowledges that you have more than one skill. So it matches you with opportunities across 3,000 plus unique worker skills. Just like the other apps, you can find gig jobs in the following industries:
- Hospitality
- Customer Service
- Construction
- Moving
- Warehousing
- Administrative
- and more
Download Gigsmart for iOS or Android.
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Care.com
Caregiving has found its home in Care.com’s app that features the following categories:
- Child Care
- School Support
- Senior Care
- Housekeeping
- Special Needs
- Pet Care
But exploring the site, you’d be surprised that they also cover a lot of other non-care job opportunities like:
- Business Operations
- Data Science/Analytics
- Engineering
- Finance/Accounting
- Information Technology
- Marketing
- Sales/Business Development
- and more
Download Gigsmart for iOS or Android.
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Side Gig Apps for Online Work
There are many side hustle apps you can choose from when looking for online work. I have used them and continue to use some of them. So here they are:
Upwork
I have been using Upwork long before when they were called Odesk (and Elance). It has seen me through many years of doing freelance work and some side gigs. So it’s a reliable site to search for full-time, part-time, or even side gigs online!
Most of the opportunities found in Upwork are dependent on your skills as a professional. So among the jobs that you can find here are the following:
- Development & IT
- Design & Creative
- Finance & Accounting
- Admin & Customer Support
- Engineering & Architecture
- Legal
- Sales & Marketing
- Writing & Translation
- And any type of work
Jobs posted in Upwork usually have an estimated budget. But the best part is you can propose your rates.
Download Gigsmart for iOS or Android.
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Freelancer
The site boasts of 1800 different categories where you can get work done. The key here is to know what skills you can apply to many available jobs that fit your talents.
For example, if you’re a web designer, they are broken down into Photoshop Designers, Illustrators, Motion Graphics Designers, and so on. Here are some of the skills you will find at Freelancer:
- Graphic Designers*
- Logo Designers
- 3D Graphic Designers*
- Web Designers*
- Web Developers*
- Mobile App Developers*
- Writers*
- Internet Marketing Specialists*
- SEO Specialists
- Data Entry Clerks
- Virtual Assistants
- Software Developers*
- Translators*
- Financial Experts
- Lawyers
- Manufacturers
- Logistics Experts
- Others
Note that those with (*) are further broken down into specific jobs, as described above.
Federico Gonzales, an industrial designer using Freelancer, has this to say about the platform:: "The best thing Freelancer.com offers is the independence to work. I can work in any place around the world, even on a boat in the middle of the sea."
Download Gigsmart for iOS or Android.
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Indeed
Known for providing regular job listings, Indeed also provides side gig opportunities. It’s just a matter of filtering out the Job Type you’re looking for—part-time or temporary? They even have listings for remote weekend jobs!
Some of the available jobs by category in Indeed are as follows:
- Accounting/finance
- Arts/entertainment/publishing
- Construction/facilities
- Customer Service
- Education/training
- Hospitality/travel
- Human Resources
- Legal
- Manufacturing/mechanical
- Marketing/advertising/pr
- Restaurant/food Service
- Retail
- Sales
- Others
Download Gigsmart for iOS or Android.
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Monster
Another online job site that contains many jobs a freelancer or someone looking for a side gig can explore. You can also find side jobs from home. As of this writing, there are more than 650 side gigs from home available.
Here are some of the following job categories posted on the site:
- IT
- Customer Service/Call Centre/BPO
- Human Resources
- Sales/Business Development
- Digital Marketing
- Finance & Accounts
- Admin/Secretarial/Front Office
- Arts/Creative/Graphics Design
- Journalism/Content Writing/Editing/Correspondent
- Advertising/Entertainment/Media
- Education/Teaching
- Health Care
- Operations
- Public Relations
- Quality Control/Assurance
- Others
Download Gigsmart for iOS or Android.
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Fiverr
Focusing on freelancers, Fiverr offers popular online gigs in the areas of Graphics & Design, Digital Marketing, Writing & Translation, Video & Animation, Music & Audio, Programming & Tech, among others.
These categories are further broken down to showcase skills that one may have to take on multiple gigs.
Download Fiverr for iOS and Android.
Side Gig Apps for Specific Tasks or Work
If you want to take on specific tasks or work, there are side gig apps for that too! Here are some of them.
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Rover
Yes, the name says it all. It’s a pet sitting app that offers more than just pet sitting for dogs and cats.
- Boarding
- House Sitting
- Dog Walking
- Doggy Day Care
- Drop-in Vets
These services will be rendered by your pet sitter when you’re away from home for some time or when you’re at work.
Finance Buzz, a financial advisory site, found out that, according to Rover, “you can earn up to $1,000 a month as a dog walker or dog sitter.” You can even earn up to two times more if you are willing to become a dog boarder.
Download Rover for iOS and Android.
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DoorDash
This is a food delivery app where you can choose when to work. Isn’t that great? DoorDash pays you to deliver food from local restaurants to those who place their orders through the app.
Depending on the estimated delivery time and distance, base pay varies from $2 to $10 per trip, with the base pay changing depending on the estimated time and distance of the order. The longer the distance, the higher the base pay. But long-distance deliveries are not popular with delivery drivers (or Dashers as they are called).
One dasher, Jerry, detailed his experience with DoorDash in his blog, saying that he “loves side hustling“ and that trying out DoorDash came naturally.
“I need a side hustle I can do according to my schedule quirks. When I have free time, ideally I would use it to make extra money...With DoorDash, you can accept deliveries any time as long as restaurants are open. You can work as much or as little as you want. You don’t have to commit to certain days or shifts, so that works smashingly for me.”
Download DoorDash for iOS and Android.
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iTutorGroup
If you love teaching, then why not teach students in Asia? iTutorGroup lets you do that!
Minimum requirements are a bachelor’s degree or higher, a TESOL/TEFL/TESL certificate (or equivalent), and that can render a minimum of 5 hours a week. Do you fit the requirements?
Download iTutorGroup for iOS and Android.
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UrbanSitter
Babysitting is one service that will always be in demand. UrbanSitter lets you find part-time and full-time babysitting jobs. According to their site, “Top sitters earn over $1000 a week and set their own schedule.”
Download UrbanSitter for iOS and Android.
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Handy
A handyman app that provides household services from professionals (that’s where you come in). From home cleaning to handyman services (ie, plumbing, painting, electrical stuff, and more), you pick the jobs you want to do on the side.
According to their site, you can “make up to $22/hour/job as a cleaner or $45/hour/job as a handyman or $62/hour/job as a lawn care pro.”
Download Handy for iOS and Android.
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Vetting Side Gig and Side Hustle Apps
Many of these apps will ask you to register for free to join their roster of service providers.
However, job providers will screen you first if you meet their bare minimum of standards before including you in their accredited service providers. This vetting process is necessary to build trust and credibility with their apps’ client base, aside from protecting themselves from lawsuits.
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Earnings From Side Gig and Side Hustle Apps
Enlisting in these apps doesn’t earn you anything unless you begin accepting work. Most of the apps allow you to set your rates per hour or per project. Some apps will ask you to bid for a project.
You have to pay close attention to how you get paid and when, because some apps will charge you a service fee for getting you signed up for a gig. Then there are instances where you only get paid when the project is finished.
As always, make sure to take note of all your income for tax-filing purposes.
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Exercise Caution
When looking for side gigs on these apps, don’t throw caution to the wind. Monster reminds us that the popularity of online jobs has also resulted in frauds who resort to the following to get your money: claims processing, envelope stuffing, refund-recovery work, and wire transfer schemes, among others.
The site even shares tips how to identify fraudulent jobs online:
- If a job posting uses Gmail as their email
- If the only interview is done by online chat
- If the job description sounds too good to be true
- If the potential employer does not care much about your qualifications for the position
- If a job requires you to pay a fee to get the job
- If the job says they overpaid you and that you need to send them a check.
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My Experiences
If you’re not sure about signing up with a job app, you can do your research and seek people who have been doing side gigs through various apps.
For example, take my case; I still use Upwork for some side hustles whenever there’s a need for me to raise funds for a much-needed vacation. Upwork is my go-to side gig app because I feel safe dealing with clients who want to engage my services as a writer. But then, there’s that fee that Upwork gets from my earnings. So what I do is factor in that Upwork fee into my rate, which I propose to my client.
My experience with Indeed is terrific. I signed up with them because of the multitude of opportunities they have for a writer like me. I have set up job alerts that give me a list of writing opportunities to choose which employer I will send my resume to. Their user interface on my mobile phone is very user-friendly, too.
And yes, I got some projects from Indeed. That’s how I am happy with them.
But don’t have to take my word for it. It would be best if you experience using these apps to appreciate their functionalities fully.
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