11 Home-Based Business Ideas

Over the past few years, making money with ecommerce has become more accessible than ever. Social media tools together with ecommerce platforms like Shopify and print-on-demand providers like Printful have made it extremely easy to open up a business and start selling immediately.

With just a laptop, a solid business plan, and the right skill set, the world is your oyster.

So if you’re looking to become an entrepreneur, that’s the good news—it’s never been easier to open up a home-based business. Whether you want to dropship trending products, start a landscaping business, open an event planning business, or sell educational courses to pet owners, you can do it all from your very own living room.

And if we’re talking exciting small business ideas you can explore from home, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll take a look at why starting an online home-based business is a great idea and go over some cool home business models, as well as part-time business ideas you can try out from home.

Why start a home-based business in 2024?

First, let’s go over the basics: what are the benefits of owning a home-based business? If you’ve just begun thinking about going at it from home, you might have some doubts. Keep reading to find out why it’s a great option for so many.

Freedom and flexibility

First and foremost, you’re your own boss. That means you’ll have the chance to work on your own time and take a step back when you get overwhelmed.

Plus, if you choose the right business model, like selling digital products, for example, you can create an impressive passive income source that won’t require a lot of your attention once you’ve set it up.

That said, running a business will still be work, so be prepared for that. However, if your business starts to see some real success and you feel like the workload is becoming too heavy, you can always hire somebody to help you out.

Lower overhead costs

Opening up a traditional brick-and-mortar store can be tricky. It’s a huge investment and a gamble that might not pay off. When you’re opening an in-person business, you’ll need to think about finding and paying for a business space, warehousing, inventory, extra employees, and other additional costs.

Starting a business from home will cost much less to set up and operate. There are many business types out there that don’t require anything from you but your computer, a solid internet connection, and your time.

In this way, you’re taking less of a risk: even if it doesn’t pan out as you’d hoped, you won’t have sunk thousands of dollars into your venture.

Potential to expand

Did you know that some of today’s most popular brands like Google or Amazon were born in garages or basements?

Even Printful’s roots go back to a home-based business. All the way back in 2012, Printful’s co-founder Lauris Liberts opened up an online store called Startup Vitamins, printing inspirational posters for offices. All orders were printed and packed by Lauris and his wife in their living room in Los Angeles.

As the store became more popular, Lauris began looking for a way to outsource product fulfillment. Unable to find reliable printing partners, he decided to create his own print-on-demand business: Printful. Now, Printful is a global brand and one of the leaders in the on-demand printing industry.

Source: Printful

Even if your home-based business doesn’t become a global brand, owning a small business can still be a great way to make money from home by doing something you’re passionate about. But at the end of the day, who knows? Your small business venture might just lead you to great things, much like Startup Vitamins eventually lead to Printful.

11 home-based business ideas

Starting your own business will take time and patience, especially if you’re building your venture from scratch in your living room. But let’s take a look at some home business ideas that you can start with.

1. Create a dropshipping store

Dropshipping is arguably the most popular ecommerce business model out there. Here’s how a dropshipping business works: you find a third-party dropshipping partner that will manufacture your products for you. Then, you set up a storefront, add your products, and start selling.

You take care of marketing, customer service, and your selling strategy, while your dropshipping partner takes care of manufacturing and order fulfillment. When you make a sale, your dropshipping partner manufactures and ships out the product.

Source: Pexels

Dropshipping can be a great business idea if you don’t want to go through the hassle of keeping inventory and shipping your products yourself. And if you find a reliable dropshipping partner with good reviews, you’ll be able to sell very high-quality products.

However, the popularity of dropshipping means you’ll have a lot of competition. Plus, there are a ton of dropshippers out there and only so many suppliers.

If you use a popular supplier like Ali Express or Alibaba, there’s a chance your customers might see the same products you’re selling on the social media accounts of another online store.

So, how can you make your business stand out?

2. Start a print-on-demand business

A great way to stand out from the crowd is to go with print-on-demand, or POD for short. The basics of POD are similar to dropshipping: you find a reliable third-party supplier, set up your store, and once you start making sales, your supplier will manufacture and ship out the products.

But there is one important difference. With dropshipping, you just sell generic products. With POD, you sell customized products with your own designs on them.

Starting an online store with POD is a good business idea if you want to sell something truly unique. But if you want to create a profitable business with POD, you’ll need a reliable partner for your bestselling print-on-demand products.

Source: Printful

If you’re looking for a safe, high-quality option, you can always go with Printful. We’ve been in the POD business for over a decade, and have grown from a small Latvian company to a global enterprise that fulfills more than 1 million orders every month and works with businesses of all sizes—from small home-based businesses to giants like Paramount and Warner Bros.

3. Sell your art/hobby

Another great way to make money is to monetize your hobbies and turn your art into a small business idea. Are you good at painting? Or maybe you’re into crafts, like making jewelry or knitting? If you’re good at creating something, you already have a great head start.

For example, if you like arts and crafts, you can create items like children’s toys. This is a good niche since toys already have sentimental value to the customer—clients will buy toys for children they care about. And when you offer handmade toys, that just makes the product all the more special and unique.

A good example of this is the Etsy store NestaByAsta. This store offers crocheted toys, all handmade.

Source: NestaByAsta on Etsy

4. Teach online classes

Did you know that the e-learning market is actually a huge industry? In 2022, the global e-learning market size was valued at a staggering $399.3 billion and is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2032. So if you’re planning to set up an online tutoring business, now’s a good time.

When you’re starting your online teaching career, you’ll have to think like most business owners and find your niche. Think about your skill set and write down things you’re good at and could teach a course about.

Do you have a background in marketing? Become a digital marketing consultant and start your own online course. Or, maybe you’ve always been really good at math? You can set up a course that explains complicated math subjects in a simple way, helping students in their studies.

There are a lot of e-learning platforms that you can use: Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, etc. If you want more freedom, you can also build your own website and offer courses there.

Source: Skillshare

You also don’t have to choose between selling physical or digital products—you can combine the two. For example, if your skill is painting, you can sell courses showing your process and at the same time, sell your paintings and prints of your work.

When you’re building your home business, it’s important to think of ways you can branch out and offer new products that could be relevant to your target market.

5. Become a freelance writer

If you enjoy writing and have a background in marketing, editing, or translation, you can start a freelance writing service business.

While brands often take care of things like social media in-house or turn to ChatGPT for smaller tasks, they do outsource blog or video content and translation services. So, if you’re good with language, that might just be the home business idea for you.

Freelance writing is great if you want something that doesn’t take a lot of time to set up. Really, all you need to start is a laptop and an internet connection. You won’t need to pay for any supplies or keep inventory.

There are a bunch of freelancer sites to use if you want to start offering your writing services, like Fiverr or Upwork. However, don’t forget to take a look at local markets, too—you might find good offers from local businesses looking for editing or translation services.

6. Start your photography business

If language and writing aren’t really your bag, look for something that’s a little closer to your heart. Another great home-based business idea to try out is a photography business.

One of the main benefits of working as a freelance photographer is the ability to work on your own schedule. With this business model, you can pick and choose how many and what kind of projects you want to take on. You can work in-person on a project-to-project basis; collaborate with local business owners, do weddings, parties, events and more.

Source: Pexels

Another way to go is to sell your work to stock photography sites like Getty Images, iStock Photo, or Shutterstock. These sites will license your work to other agencies, brands and organizations to use for commercial purposes. Licensing is a popular way to sell photography and a good way to make a passive income.

However, you can also sell prints of your work online. With Printful, for example, you have a whole range of wall art products you can choose from—you can sell simple paper posters with your photos, or go for more luxury products like framed posters or glossy metal prints.

Source: Printful

7. Become a virtual assistant

Here’s a home-based business idea: why not make money by helping other businesses? Nowadays, being a new business owner and keeping up with orders, schedules, customer messages, and social media takes a lot of work. So, a lot of entrepreneurs are looking for someone to be their virtual assistant who’ll take care of the tasks they don’t have time for.

Starting a virtual assistant business is one of those home-based business ideas that doesn’t take a lot of money or effort to start—really all you need is your laptop. But working as a virtual assistant means you have to be organized, reliable, and have good communication skills.

Virtual assistants can be asked to do a variety of tasks: fulfilling orders, writing content, setting appointments, working with search engine optimization, or as a social media manager.

If you’re looking to be hired as an assistant for an ecommerce business, you can either offer your services on freelancing websites like Fiverr or join social media groups dedicated to small and mid-sized businesses and offer your services there.

8. Sell vintage/thrifted clothing

Maybe your talents lie in fashion? If you have an eye for trends and like to go thrifting, reselling vintage or used clothing is a good home-based business idea to try out.

Recommerce, or reverse commerce, has seen a major spike in popularity over the past few years. According to one study, 2 out of 5 apparel items bought in 2023 were secondhand, meaning resold clothing makes up a considerable part of our closets. Purchasing thrifted clothing is especially common among GenZ and Millennials, with 68% saying they’ve recently engaged in secondhand shopping.

So, the interest and the demand is there. But not everyone has the time, patience, and opportunity to follow fashion trends and pick through thrift shops to find the best pieces.

That’s where you come in. You can build your own website where you post a curated collection of pieces you’ve thrifted, or sell them on an online marketplace like Depop or Vinted.

There’s a ton of vintage shops you can take inspiration from. Here’s a good example: JaneEtSergeVintage on Etsy, who sells vintage items from all eras, but focuses on the 1970s.

Source: JaneEtSergeVintage on Etsy

9. Start an affiliate marketing business

Affiliate marketing might be the right home business choice for you if you don’t want to go through the hassle of worrying about product manufacturing, selling, packing, or shipping. Similar to other home gigs, all you really need to get started as an affiliate is your laptop and some good marketing sense.

Here’s how affiliate marketing works: you promote a product on your social media platforms using a unique tracking link. One of your followers clicks on the link and buys the product. Once the transaction goes through, you get paid commission.

This does mean that you need a pretty sizable audience on social media to earn a good income from a home business idea like this. But we all need to start somewhere, right? If you’re interested and want to try out affiliate marketing, take a look at our Printful Affiliate program.

Source: Printful

10. Become a freelance graphic designer

The world of ecommerce would be nothing without graphic design. If you have the skillset, you can offer your services as a freelancer on sites like Fiverr, and help entrepreneurs with all sorts of tasks. Whether it’s product design, social media posts, product visuals, or anything else—if you’re skilled in graphic design, you can help.

Source: Pexels

You can combine your work as a freelance designer with creating or selling educational content about how to use various design programs. For example, if you’re skilled with Adobe Illustrator, you can create short TikToks about how to gain certain effects or use certain features.

Or, if you’re up for something more serious, you can create a full course about your approach to graphic design. This will help you amass a larger follower base and might even snag you a few clients.

11. Start a subscription box business

Another business idea you can try is starting up your own subscription box business. Here’s how subscription boxes work: your customer subscribes to your service and you make regular subscription box deliveries to the customer. You can offer all sorts of products in these boxes: skin or hair care, different foods, or items related to a certain hobby.

A good example of a business that sells subscription boxes is the meal kit company Hello Fresh. The principle is pretty simple: the customer subscribes to the Hello Fresh service, and the company delivers meal kits to the customer’s doorstep. These kits consist of pre-measured ingredients and step-by-step recipes that the customer can easily and quickly prepare at home.

In this way, Hello Fresh offers a service that makes their customers’ lives easier—they don’t have to stress about meal prep if they know it’ll just be delivered to them. You can create your own subscription service that provides similar convenience and value to your customers, tailored to their specific needs. 

Source: Hello Fresh

Learn more about ecommerce with Printful

When you’re building your home-based business, it’s especially important to keep up with what’s happening in the industry. The world of ecommerce trends changes fast—what’s in this month, will be old news by the next. So if you want to create a successful business, you’ll need some good resources.

At Printful, our goal is to help new entrepreneurs succeed. That’s why we share our knowledge about the ecommerce and on-demand printing industries whenever we can. If you’re looking for new business ideas, in-depth comparisons of various ecommerce platforms, or advice on digital marketing strategies, browse the Printful blog. You’ll find all that and more.

Source: Printful

But if you’re somebody who prefers educational content in video form, head over to our YouTube channel. There, you’ll find tips on all things ecommerce—how to start a store with Printful, how to create the best marketing materials, how to do content marketing the right way, and more.

Ready, set, go!

Now’s your chance to start building your own home-based business. Remember that small businesses generally take a lot of time and patience. Your sales will most likely be pretty low at the beginning, but that’s totally OK—everybody starts somewhere. The most important things when building your home-based business are to know your brand, create a strong business plan, and stick to it.

If you feel like you need more help with finding your brand or starting your business, you can always take a look at our Printful Academy courses. In these, our marketing experts go in-depth about various ecommerce-related topics. As someone who’s just starting out on your ecommerce journey, you might find these very useful.

Source: Printful

OK, are you ready to start your home business? We hope this list of online business ideas was useful. If there’s anything else you’d like to know about how to find a great home business idea, let us know in the comments. We’ll be rooting for you—good luck!