We live in tough times. Those who are not unemployed are under-employed. Many people agonize between taking a second job and family time. My goal is to share with you some legitimate work-from-home jobs that will allow you to earn extra income for your family from the comfort of your own home on your schedule.
Many of these examples I have personally used to add extra income to my household when needed. I am not going to focus on starting an online business in this post (although, for the diligent there is money to be made in blogging, Adsense, creating your own products, selling on Ebay, and affiliate sales.) Instead, I want to introduce to you a few reputable work-from-home companies that will pay you for your work. All of these will send 1099’s for tax purposes.
If you are looking to find your own freelance writing jobs sites like Elance and Odesk have thousands of writing jobs posted.
5 legit opportunities to work from home
1. Demand Studios
They have many different employment opportunities that range from Writers, Editors, Title Editors, Filmmakers, and more. They are usually hiring for certain positions at certain times so you have to keep your eyes peeled. I have made several thousand dollars in article writing and title editing. I even got my wife into doing title editing and earning extra spending money. As a writer you can make between $7.50-$20.00 per 150-500 word article. I usually write about two articles an hour (that’s $30.00 an hour at $15.00 an article). You do not have to be a prolific writer or have a background in writing to get accepted. Most articles are in a “How to” format. So, if you are the type that enjoys learning something new and then explaining it to someone else then this could be a fun work for you. Most of their content goes on eHow.com or LiveStrong.com.
Let’s say you have a trip you want to take in a month. Just decide how many articles you would have to write a day to reach your goal. They pay by Paypal every Wednesday and Friday. There is no payment threshold that you have to meet either. If you have money in your account, you will get paid. They currently have thousands of titles to choose from in the system and you can reserve up to ten at a time. if this interests you, feel free to contact me on some tips for the application process.
2. Live Work
This is mostly like a running projects board for a company called LiveOps (which I will discuss later on). Live Work has many different projects that you can bid on. Many are data entry and task-oriented. You work as much as you want. I once worked on a Dictonary.com project and was paid for every definition and source that I put in the system. There really is a wide-variety of work available there.
3. Leapforce
They are a vendor for Google. Once you are accepted in the program you log-in to the Google interface and rate websites. Google wants their searches to be relevant. They use human raters to rate whether the content is worthy or spam. At the time of this writing, they pay $11.50 an hour.
4. Textbroker
This is a great place to earn extra income if you want to write on simple projects. They pay is much less, but the projects are easy to write on. I once wrote several 150 word articles for someone that was creating an Extreme Sports website. The work was fun. I simply wrote a short bio about different professional athletes.
5. Liveops
If you want more human interaction, then you might want to consider LiveOps. LiveOps is an at home call service that you dial into while in the comfort of your own home. You will have to make a weekly schedule, but you will never have to commute anywhere. All calls are inbound from people responding to infomercials and you basically take their ordering information while being logged into the LiveOps system. They pay is around $9.50 but you do earn commission for different products sold.
Wrapping it up
Hopefully, this list will get you started thinking about ways to supplement your income. This resource is also good for Stay-at-home moms that are looking for ways to earn so money without being on a tight schedule. There are many more work-from-home companies out there, but these are all ones I have had personal interaction with and can recommend that they are legitimate. If you have additional questions, please feel free to ask in the comments and I would be happy to answer any questions.
{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
never heard of leapforce but it could be interesting. some people build websites from home and try to monetize them, may be a decent alternative.
What a wonderfully helpful post. It is so hard to find LEGITIMATE ways to earn a few extra dollars online without doing so 5 cents at a time.
I love the Demand Studios idea, since I enjoy posting articles anyway, but all of these are helpful.
Thanks!
Good article! I looked at the Demand Studios website and would definitely appreciate some tips for the application.
Great info Jonathan!
I am only familiar with textbroker but never tried them. Having such piece of information is particularly helpful to lead people in the right direction to avoid internet scams.
This is good direction. My wife lost her job just before the holidays and is investigating various situations. The work at home “jobs” are mostly scams designed to get you to send them money. Even many of the regular jobs advertised fall into this category. They seem like legitimate wage jobs, but dig a little farther and it’s a work at home scam.
There must be big money in that right now with so many people out of work and desperate for anything.
@carole – their hiring comes in waves, but hiring writers is what they do on a regular basis. The best tip I can give is when you write a sample article make it between 400-500 words long and write it in a "How to" format. You should have an introduction that is about 50-75 words and then 5 steps with a paragraph each. Be as specific as possible when explaining your topic. You can write on even the simplest of ideas.
@kick debt off – There are actually many websites that hire writers and you do not have to be a professional writer. Some pay you up front and others pay revenue long term for either page views or adsense revenue.
@Kevin@Out of Your Rut – You also might want to have your wife look into a free forum that post credible positions. The forum is filled with at-home workers who weed out the scams from the real ones. The website is http://workplacelikehome.com I hope that helps!
Wow, great to see some legit websites out there. I’ll have to pass these on to friends & family that are looking for some side money.
I wouldn’t mind making $30/hr to write a few articles ;o)
Thank you for this post! I live in a small town and it’s not easy to come up with second jobs (or primary jobs for that matter) around here. I’ve been looking for a way to make some extra money. I’ll be sure to check these out.
@MD – You are welcome. I actually covered 21 work at home programs on one of my blogs a few weeks back. You can view the whole list of work at home opportunities here: http://simplelifehabits.com/money-habits/21-simple-ideas-to-get-cash-fast-for-an-emergency-fund
Some are just simple ideas for getting cash quickly and others you can do for a longer period of time.
Thank you SO much for this article! I have been applying everywhere I can think of for minimum wage jobs and having no luck. As someone newly on the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover I really wanted to find a second job and these ideas are great! I’m a writer so it promises to be easy work for me. Thanks for the tips and for doing the research to weed out the good from the bad. I’m very excited
@Julie – You are more then welcome. I have a whole list of freelance sites that either pay up front or pay by revenue. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks!
Jonathan – I am VERY interested! I did go to the link you provided in an early comment, and I will investigate those. I assume those are the sites you’re refering to, but if there are others, please share!
Question: Demand Studion, in reference to Editor positions, states they require “five years of demonstrated editing or copyediting experience with a newspaper, magazine or book publisher”. How do you become a title editor, as I didn’t see anything like that?
Thank you so much for this post. This is just what I have been looking for, work from home opportunities from a trusted source. I recently signed up for FlexJobs to find a job I could do from home, but so far I have found the requirements in terms of experience or specific skills to be outside of my background.
I gained even more information by reading the comments of others. Thanks again.
@roger – you are welcome. My wife stays at home with our kids but she wanted to find work to do that was flexible. These are the sites we have found to be trustworthy.
@Julie – They do still hire title editors but not as often. It is fun work and you get paid .04 cent per title. Might not sound like a lot but some titles do not even need editing. You can realistically make $10-15 hour (sometimes more). I would just keep your eyes peeled and monitor the site. Also, If you get in on one job (like a writer) you have an option to apply to all the other positions if you want. Once a Title Editor does not log in for 30 days they are kicked out essentially so probably once they get depleted they will hire again.
If you want more paid for content sites as a freelancer, look into these as well:
http://wisegeek.com
http://lifetips.com
http://InternetBrands.com
http://ContentCorp.net
http://ConsumerSearch.com
@Kevin@OutofYourRut – I got your email, but I got an error message both times i tried to reply. Let me know if you didn’t get them from me.
I didn’t get either…perhaps I inadvertently put .com as opposed to .net?
I am a work-at-home mom and I surely am happy about this post. It is really helpful. I know I will be an avid reader of your site.
Jonathan, I would like to start doing some tech writing. Most of my work history was in engineering, until I got laid off about 6 years ago. For the last 4 years I have been working at an elementary school as the tech support person. I taught some undergraduate business courses for a couple of years and my wife and I are currently teaching an ESL class for adults. I enjoy writing and have always have had positive feedback on my writing skills in college, But how do I transform all of this background into a resume for an online tech writing position? I can write some articles to put in a portfolio, but beyond that I have nothing to show. What is the acceptable format for a resume to apply for positons at these websites you recommend? Is it vastly different than the tradtional work history, education, skills resume?
@Normalyn – Awesome, great to have you.
@roger – I just used a traditional resume as far as the resume was concerned and honestly, there was no writing experience on the resume except for resume writing experience. I really think they put a lot of weight on the sample article you write. Which you should write a 5 step “how to” article. By the way, there are plenty of technical articles that you can write for Demand Studios. That being said, there are other sites out there that pay for your expertise too.
Mr. Milligan, I am a 21 year old home schooled young man. Who would like some tips for the Demand Studios application process if available.
Thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Micah Tribelhorn
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for sharing the list. My girlfriend has earned a very nice salary working with Demand Studios over the past year. Great company.
I’m frustrated … the sites offering work, it seems, are only willing to pay about $2.50 for 300 words. I am unable to research and then write 3+ 300-word articles per hour for barely minimum wage.
I had hoped Demand Studios would be better, but I just got an email thanking me for my submission but “At this time, we do not have any assignments for you that fit our needs.” Not sure if they are rejecting my writing or my experience, but there’s no promise to keep me in que or suggesting when, if at all, I might re-apply.
@Julie – keep your chin up. They hire in spurts and you may just get an email soon asking you to join. I encourage you to look into http://workplacelikehome.com there is a whole thread dedicated to writing jobs online. In fact one sticky post list 50 freelance writer sites. You need to look into it.
Jonathan – thanks for the encouragement. I DID visit the web address you referenced but the forum notes were so cryptic as to be unable to decipher what sites they were referencing. There is a rule about writing any sites out in full (??) and I couldn’t figure out how to get in “the know” about the short-forms (KBG is one that comes to mind). I did post asking the reason for this policy and for a little help in translation but received no replies.
@julie – I hear you. Those are mostly phone jobs anyways. The reason they do it is because people talk about everything (good, bad, ugly) and they don’t want to lose their job if the name of the company is showing up in the search engines is my guess. Keep scrolling down and there is a writing gigs or writing jobs thread somewhere. Also, go to Indeed.com and type in Freelance Writer there are many companies looking to hire people who like to write.
Jonathan & Julie – I put an application in to Demand Studios as well and have not heard yet, but a friend of mine did also, and got the same message Julie did, “At this time, we do not have any assignments for you that fit our needs”. I’m no expert, but that friend has a solid writing history, so it may not be a matter of Julie’s qualifications.
Is it possible that given the state of the job market they’re swamped with applicants?
They hire in spurts so unfortunately you will have to be patient. What you received was not necessarily a rejection letter.
That being said there are plenty of companies that will pay you to write for them like DemandStudios. Here is a job board to watch:
http://www.freelancejobopenings.com/
Also, I consider this site a reputable source: **Disclaimer: I can not testify to the validity of all of these sites**
http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/2009/07/50-places-that-hire-freelance-writers/
I really appreciate the time and research that went into this article. It seems there is so much garbae to sift through that this article will be really helpful to the people who desere to go right to the source.
Hi, what is the application process for demand studios?
Now this is a unique list! I have seen so many articles of this time and they usually list every possible moneymaker out there, and most of them are crap.
These are all clearly legitimate, with a clear pay schedule.
My only concern is that they are all “time for money” type positions, and there is a lot of time involved in some of them for only a bit of money.
I also find that the websites are not giving enough information about what is required or expected before asking to to sign up.
Thank you very much for this article. I have a family member struggling right now, and I can’t wait to share this information with them.
What a nice post!
thank you very much. Let me tell you that I am new in this blog
and I just subscribed for newsletters.
this is wonderful!!!! keep the good job!!!!!!
This is great, thanks! How do I contact you on tips for the application process for the article writing?? Or is this comment me contacting you?
@Lauren – The best tip I can give is when you write a sample article make it between 400-500 words long and write it in a “How to” format. You should have an introduction that is about 50-75 words and then 4-5 steps with a paragraph each. Be as specific as possible when explaining your topic. You can write on even the simplest of ideas.
hi- found your site while surfing the net and just marked it as a favorite. I would very much appreciate for you to please send me some info on the Demand Studio application you mentioned on the site.
your site is very friendly and informative- A real common sense approach. I really apprecatiate the fact that you give the information and then add your personal take.
Tanya Ansley
You mention at the end of your paragraph about Demand Studios that you will offer advice about how to apply. So I’m asking for help with that. I really really need extra income, my husband has lost his job (October 09), his unemployment is being “reviewed”, so that is no longer coming in. We are just steps ahead of losing our house to foreclosure. I am especially interested in the title editing since you said you made thousands with that along with article writing. ANY help is greatly appreciated!!!! Thank you!
I’m curious how many people who read this have any luck getting hired on with Demand Studios? I possess above-average writing skills and submitted an entry that was outright rejected without explanation or recourse. An applicant, I was advised, may not re-apply if rejected. As no explanation was provided I cannot know why I was summarily dismissed.
Great Article!
I am very interested in several of the work from home jobs. I would like to find out more for an immediate opportunity. My contact number is 909-767-0902
I recently applied to Demand Studios and was rejected saying that they were unable to offer me a writing assignment at this time as they’ve had an increase of freelancing positions and are having to turn away even highly qualified writers. It seems that others are getting or had the same thing happen. In Demand Studio’s FAQ’s page, it says that a person can apply for different positions at different times, but they don’t want you to apply more than once. I was in a forum where someone said they had applied 5 times before they were accepted as a freelance writer for Demand Studios. Maybe a person can reapply at a later date. With that in mind, it still seems hopeful.
@Patricia Don’t be discouraged there are many places that hire writers and pay them up front. Go here for a great list: http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/2009/07/50-places-that-hire-freelance-writers/
Jonathan
I like how dammand studios sound, how do I get started?
Hi Brandie,
It is pretty much like any job. You will have to submit a resume along with a sample article. Just be sure the article is about 500 words long.
Wow I actually never heard of these before, thanks for the great info!
I actually just got hired by Demand Studios a couple weeks ago, before I even found this post. I spend a lot more than 30 minutes on an article though. The actual writing portion doesn’t take more than 30 minutes, but researching the information takes at least an hour for me. They require you to have references for each article, and there is a long list of blacklisted sites that you cannnot use as references. I sometimes have a hard time finding suitable references, although I think part of it is that I may be trying too hard and passing over sites they would be OK with.
There is a huge list of topics available to write, usually well over 100,000. But my experience is limited and I can spend an hour or more just sifting through the lists trying to find a topic I can actually write on. It’s not a fast money maker for me at all, but it is enjoyable and I hope to get faster as I learn. I’m trying to find other sites to supplement this income, so I’m very relieved to find this list of reliably legitimate jobs!
Jonathan, can you tell me more about the Leapforce jobs? If you pass the qualification exams (which they say are difficult), how do you claim jobs? Do you have to bid on them like with Live Work? I’ve been poring over their website and FAQ pages but they are somewhat vague about some things. What exactly do we need to know for the qualification exams, and what would the actual work entail? I really liked how Live Work went into detail to let you see exactly what it would be like and I was hoping Leapforce had something similar.
Sorry for such a long comment!
Surfie,
There are other companies besides Leapforce that all basically do the same thing. Besides Leapforce, google Lionbridge, Butler Hill Group, and Workforce Logic. All four of these companies are hiring in the United States right now. In fact, I’ve applied to all four companies within the last two weeks and am getting ready to test for Leapforce next week. All you need to do to apply to these positions is make sure you have a resume ready to go. All I did with mine was to change the title of the position I was seeking on the resume and convert it to a PDF to upload to their Websites. If you apply to all four, then whoever hires you first gets you. You can only work for ONE of these companies at a time. From what I understand, depending on how busy they are, it could take a week to get back to you… or several months. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to apply to all of them. Should you get hired by anyone, you can also put your applications on hold with the other companies so that when your contract is up with whoever hires you, you can reapply to the other three companies to keep your revenue stream going. All pay pretty decently for the work that you do. I signed an NDA with Leapforce, so I can’t say how much you get paid, but google it and you will find out. I will say that Lionbridge and Butler Hill Group (and I do believe Workforce Logic as well) pays more, but you don’t get to work as many hours (I believe it’s something like up to 20/hours/week for those companies and up to 30/hours/week with Leapforce). However, if you apply to Lionbridge, be advised that they don’t hire in every state. I think it’s something like they only hire in about less than half of the states, although I don’t remember which ones. Since that application takes by far the longest (as in, you just can’t send a resume in– you have to type up your past positions, education, etc., so it’s a real pain).
I learned all of this information by googling. There are a number of forums that discuss these positions. Be forewarned, though, that people do sign NDA’s with the companies and cannot divulge much information, eg., pay rates, what they do, what they ask on the tests, etc.
Good luck!
I am very interested in the demand post jobs(#1). Any information you could give me would be very appreciated.
Thanks,
Daniel
Jonathan, Thanks for the info. I forwarded it to my daughter who’s a pretty good writer.
By the way do you know anything about this address: Learn today
is it okay?
Thanks again