Online Side Hustles in India That Actually Work (2025 Guide)

Starting an online side hustle is a thing almost everyone wants to do. Imagine working on your phone or laptop, not moving at all and earning money every month. Sounds like every person's dream right?

I still remember, many years back, googling "how to earn money online" every day. I would read about many things from becoming a freelancer, running an ecommerce store, doing affiliate marketing and whatnot. But most of them were either unrealistic or just too difficult for a normie like myself. And I know most of ya'll think the same.

Because let me be honest, if anyone was earning any money doing all of that on a website, then why isn't the website owner doing the same? Why is the owner not doing that already?

Sorry to break it to you, but most people who talk about those stuff haven't done it themselves or they weren't as successful. Because nobody wants to read about failures. Everyone wants to hear that xyz side hustle is easy and can earn in lakhs. But that is never the case.

So you must be asking, am I doing the same?

Short answer is No. I am going to mention a few side hustles that actually work. But before I begin, I'll be honest, these are not get rich quick schemes. These are not "earn from day one" side hustles. These are some simple one person ideas that you can execute and build a side income for yourself.

Note, some of these side hustles may require knowledge in specific fields in order to monetize your skills

Print on demand/Merch

Alright, before you click on the back button, I did warn you some of these side hustles will require you to have some sort of knowledge in specific fields. For this it is all about editing and an understanding of tshirt designs.

I agree that POD (Print on demand) is a widely covered topic but I will just say this. Build your design, list it on a platform and keep promoting it on social media. But what most people don't tell you is how to sell those tshirts. You shouldn't rely on Amazon to find you buyers for your designs. That's not how Amazon works.

Amazon is just a store and if you want to promote your products then you need to pay them for advertisement. But we are not interested in that. What you'll do instead is, list a few killer designs on Amazon or any other POD platform and then get a sharable link and then just add the link to your bio on any social media. Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, X, or even LinkedIN if you are a weirdo.

Once you've done that, do not spam stories or posts about your designs. This is the biggest turn off for customers. Social media is already flooded with such accounts. Instead what you'll do is actively browse these apps and hand around posts where you can talk about relevant topic.

For example, on reddit simply go to subs where you can post your own outfit of the day or comment on other's pictures. And guess what? You'll be wearing your amazing looking tshirt and ask for genuine reviews without actually promoting. Just ask people for a review, how do you look. And if you look good then a lot of people would wanna get that tshirt. That's where they might leave a comment asking where did you get it from. You don't even need to tell them that it's yours, just guide them to the store and hope they purchase. DO NOT BE SPAMMY.

And if nobody likes your style then it means your design sucks and you should focus on improving it.

Selling Digital products

This one is a lot similar to POD, instead of selling tshirts, you'll be selling digital products. Now I understand that we Indians rarely pay for digital products. I've barely paid for a digital product which is not a premium subscription of something I was already using.

So you'll need to work on something that foreigners would be purchasing. That's where you can work on ebooks, templates, designs, courses, etc.

I am a nobody so I don't know why you would trust me but just listen to me for a minute. People in first world countries love to consume. And that's what you have to do. Make something they will consume without a second thought.

The best example I can give you is an ebook or a hardcover that you can do via Amazon KDP. This is where you write about something you know better than the other person, you format it via various free softwares available online and you post it on Amazon KDP. You can publish it as an ebook, paperback or even hardcover. People love to read books. Ebooks are getting really popular if you don't wanna format a hardcover.

All you need to do is write something that provides value to someone else. This can be anything from a fictional story to teaching a language, to talking about something niche in your village, or some horror story, or simply just self help. In India, everyone has their own philosohy which they love to tell to others. You can be one of those people.

Other than that you can create things like niche journals, templates, courses, etc. But all of these require you have some sort of a following already. If you don't have a following then these are going to be very time consuming for you.

If you have some good skills as a programmer, designer, video editor, etc you can create templates like website landing page tempaltes, brochures, resume templates, video assets, etc. These sell really well on gumroad, envato or even a custom website if you can build one.

In order to promote these, you can create short videos with AI generated audio and post on YouTube or Instagram and then link to your page. You don't need to become a YouTuber or a content creator, if you have built something good, people will buy it no. Trust me, I work in a digital agency where we buy templates like WordPress themes, icon packages, etc.

Stock Photography

How would you feel about putting your photographs for a sale? They don't have to be yours but any photograph you took, could be a beautiful scenery, birds, a cute puppy, a selfie, waterfall, snow, etc. It can be anything as long as it is legal.

I'm sure you might have traveled somewhere and took some photographs. Nowadays phones have pretty good camera that you don't need any additional investment. Use platforms like istock, shutterspeed or adobe stock. List your photos over there and they pay you whenever someone downloads your photograph.

If you are living in a metro city, if you are a college student. You can just take pictures daily from your phone and keep listing on the platform. Eventually someone will download. The more you list, the better. There are people who have listed over 20,000 photos and they go anywhere from a few rupees to a few thousand rupees.

A good point about this hustle is that you are not restricted to Indians, almost all agencies use stock photograph sites across the world and whenever they use your photo, you will get paid a little but of money fully passive once you do the initial work. And this income is lifetime. If you get a good photograph, it can possible generate passive income for you, your whole life.

You literally just need to take photos and learn how to add proper keywords to describe the photos. Rest all is handled by those apps.

Content Writing

How is this different than writing ebooks you say? Content writing is a wider industry than that. It includes things like copywriting, blog posts, website content, social media posts, newsletters, script writing, story telling, etc.

I personally do content writing and I've done it for over 18 months now after I first monetised this in February of 2024. I left this for the end is because I have been doing the work for free for over 7-8 years and only started monetising it last year. I didn't even knew I could earn money doing that.

Before that I have done small gigs in content writing that were more technical like creating technical documents, dissertation, etc. But now I write fiction. I write stories and I publish it on a pay to read platform.

I have build a small following over the years on social media and there are a few people who pay to read my locked content. I earn anywhere from 20 thousand to 40 thousand rupees. Which is around 500 USD. In my best months I have gone over 60 thousand rupees and till date I have earned more than an average salary of an Indian. All of this completely online. Mostly through my phone only.

I left this side hustle for the end because it does require more skills than all the other ideas I mentioned above. You need to know how to write, and also need a following. Other than that, you need to convince people to buy your subscription because there are so many people who do this stuff for free like I used to do in the past.

If you want an easier version of this then I'd suggest write on medium. Build a following first and then join their partner program. Although in order to join the partner program, you need to spend around 5$ per month minimum to be eligible for the partner program. This is what most people are not willing to do.

If you want an even easier version, I'd suggest to build a simple wordpress website and start posting content over there and eventually monetize it via google adsense or other ad platforms. Once you have a decent following, you'll be able to expand more like creating gated content and charging your readers to read exclusive content.

Content writing is a vast field and I've only covered a few points in it. This requires a dedicated post which I will create soon.

Conclusion

I hope you have reached to this section and have gained some knowledge on how to start an online side hustle.

A quick recap here are the 4 online side hustles that actually work

Print on Demand/Merch
Selling Digital Products
Stock Photography
Content Writing