Getting a little extra spending money can be challenging as a teen. You often don’t have independent transportation, and a lot of the most common jobs aren’t available until you’re a certain age.
Sadly, only about 17.5% of all US teens in school also had jobs in 2020, which is a significant decrease from past years. Getting a job as a teenager is getting harder, even without factoring in school and extracurricular activities.
Don’t despair, there are plenty of good online jobs for teens.
Here are some of the best jobs for teens in 2022, and some of how you can get started.
This list isn’t in any particular order. Some of these jobs are more consistent than others, and some of them have higher potential earnings for teens that are willing to put in the work. As you look through these 11 job opportunities, think about what kind of job you want to do, what skills you have, and the kind of work you think you’re best suited toward.
If you get good grades and have a solid understanding of the subjects in school, you might want to sign up to be an online tutor.
Peer-to-peer tutoring, that is, tutoring other teens your age or younger, is a great way to make a little extra money and can sometimes be even more effective than tutoring from adults or professional teachers.
Why is teen tutoring so effective? Because you communicate the same way other teens do, so you’ll be better able to understand the confusion or difficulty the person you’re tutoring is dealing with. You’ll also be in a good position to explain those problems, and it may be easier for your tutor to ask you questions than it would be to ask an adult teacher or tutor the same questions.
There are a lot of online platforms that are good options for tutoring that will help match you with other teens who need help in English, Math, Science, or even elective studies.
You can also talk to your school guidance counselors to see if they use a particular online platform or if they have helped other students become online tutors. They may have additional resources for you, offer to let you use a free hour for tutoring, or just provide a little extra support.
The trick is, you shouldn’t try to tutor for any subjects you don’t understand well, or for classes you haven’t taken yet. You should also be prepared for a little extra work because sometimes tutoring means taking on extra studying to better help the person you’re tutoring with their classes.
English tutors in particular may need to read additional books so they are familiar with the books used in their student’s classes.
If you’re primarily looking for quick jobs and quick pay, and don’t need a lot of consistency, Fiverr and other task websites can be a good way to make a few dollars.
All different kinds of jobs get posted on these task boards, so it's up to you to figure out what skillsets you have and want to sell and to find the relevant tasks and take them.
That means that it takes some time to really learn how to make money on a task platform, but that isn’t always a bad thing. You’ll have a chance to see what kind of skills are in demand, and you might even be able to find chores or yard work tasks in your area. That can lead to long-term jobs down the line if you impress your neighbors or take the time to learn an in-demand skill.
Most of the time Fiverr and other task sites are better if you’re looking for extra spending money, not for consistent income. While tasks themselves can take as little as half an hour, you’ll need to invest more time in finding them, and the pay rate is typically pretty low per task.
That said, this is also a good way to start making money if you don’t have any particular skills you want to use at work, or if you’re still figuring out how to balance working for money with working on your homework and balancing school obligations.
Because you don’t have any set hours and only have to complete the tasks you specifically accept, it’s easy to avoid getting overwhelmed while you learn to juggle work and school.
Being a YouTube content creator can be a difficult and demanding way to make money, but, if you’re able to make it work, it also offers some of the highest earning potential for teens.
The trick is figuring out what kind of YouTube Channel you want to run, and then figuring out how to get some eyes on that channel.
The biggest challenge in running a YouTube Channel is having the patience to understand that you probably aren’t going to become immediately successful when you start a channel. It takes a lot of videos, interacting with other creators, and taking the time to hone your skills and improve your equipment to get successful.
The good news is that there are YouTube channels for almost every interest and hobby, and you don’t even need to be very skilled at the beginning. Charisma and confidence in front of a camera are the two main personality requirements.
Unfortunately, it’s also true that there are a lot of teens out there that have tried to make YouTube Channels and gave up when their popularity didn’t live up to their expectations.
It’s important to have reasonable expectations when you get started. Just as important, you shouldn’t plan on making any money on YouTube for at least the first couple of months. If you need money immediately, for a trip or to pay for specific things you need, you’re probably better off on Fiverr or another faster and more guaranteed payment site.
You may also need your parent’s help to really make YouTube work and should talk with your parents before you get started even if you aren’t asking for help. Internet safety is complicated, and even more important for teens on YouTube than when you’re just surfing the internet or hanging out on social media.
Another good option if you’re into content creation but don’t necessarily want the higher production values and editing work that goes into YouTube, is Twitch streaming.
Twitch lets teens over a certain age have their own accounts and stream themselves having conversations, playing games, crafting, or just interacting with the stream chat.
This is a great way to start getting into content creation and see if you have a personality that works in this industry, but it does have some drawbacks.
For instance, it takes time to build an audience on Twitch, and you need to meet certain milestones before you’re even eligible to earn on the platform. That’s also true of YouTube, but you shouldn’t expect to get a check your first month of streaming, or even your first 2 or 3 months.
Twitch streaming is also mostly gaming still, which means that gamers have a bit of a leg up on this platform. If you’re playing the latest games anyway, and you have a good internet connection, streaming can be one way to turn your favorite hobby into a money-maker as well.
Twitch can also be a good platform for supporting other platforms. For instance, if you’re a painter, you can promote a painting on Etsy, or sell digital art on Redbubble, and stream the creation process for your art on Twitch. Combining more than one platform in a single job can give you multiple streams of income and can help both sides of your business grow faster.
That said, it doesn’t matter what niche you’re working in on Twitch. It takes time and effort to get enough attention to start making money. And, like other content creation platforms, Twitch is getting more and more competitive all the time, and it’s only getting harder to earn a reliable audience on the platform.
If you're a skilled writer you can probably get some work as a freelance writer, even as a teenager. The thing with this kind of work is that you need to be prepared to write about things you aren't necessarily interested in and that you won't always have a lot of control over the finished work.
That said, freelance writing can be a good job if you’re looking for consistent income, and if you’re willing to work to find the right clients, you can get jobs that you’re more interested in instead of just whatever work pays.
There are a lot of job sites that will hire freelance writers, from Indeed to Upwork, to Writers Work, and plenty of others.
To succeed as a freelance writer you need to have an eye for detail, strong command of the language you’re writing in, be willing to follow instructions, and know how to write a large amount relatively quickly.
For a beginner freelance writer you should be able to turn out 1-3k words of finished, high-quality, writing in a day. Long-term, most freelance writers aim to be closer to 5-10k words of writing per day, without compromising quality, and with strong understanding of grammar and writing conventions.
Additional skills, like SEO, the basics of web design, and how to write compelling marketing copy can all help you get better-paid work. You can learn those skills on the job, but it might be worth looking to see if your local library has how-to books on those subjects, and seeing if you can take a marketing or journalism course at school if you're serious about this work.
Data entry is a great job for teenagers who want consistent income, have a schedule that lets them commit to working a certain number of hours every week, and who have an eye for detail and know that they can copy information from one screen to another with a high level of accuracy and consistency.
There are a lot of things that can go into good data entry, and fortunately a lot of the companies offering data entry jobs are good about training people for their particular process and the information that matters most.
However, this isn’t a good option if you can’t commit a certain number of hours every week, usually at least 4-10 hours, or if you don’t have a good eye for detail.
Small errors in data entry can cause large problems down the line, so you also need to be able to concentrate on the work to make sure you aren’t making mistakes. Otherwise, your employer might not keep you for very long, or might choose not to rehire you for their next project.
Those downsides aside though, there is always demand for more people in data entry, you can learn a lot of the necessary skills along the way, and data entry jobs can look good on your future resume depending on what careers you’re considering.
If consistency is one of your traits, and you have the time to spare, there are a lot of companies offering part- or full-time data entry positions, and a lot of freelancing sites that will let you pick up short-term data entry positions over the summer and winter breaks, or any other time you think you can commit to the required time.
If you're looking for something you can start doing now that will potentially follow you into adulthood and offer a lot of different kinds of money-making opportunities in the future, you can use your knowledge of social media to become an influencer.
Teens are uniquely positioned to be able to make being an influencer work. You have a lot of exposure to social media on average, you know what works and what doesn’t, and you’ve grown up very used to algorithm-guided experiences online, so you can usually recognize what's going to work in the current algorithm and what is less likely to succeed.
However, despite your natural advantages in becoming an influencer, this route is a lot like becoming a YouTuber or a Twitch Streamer. There is potential for income here, but it will take time and work and persistence before you will be able to get there.
It’s difficult to be a successful influencer quickly. Especially if you don’t have money to spend to help create an image and brand that’s likely to attract sponsors.
That said, if you have the time and drive to make it happen, there is always demand for new influencers and new voices online. Sponsorships can also give you a lot of opportunities you might not otherwise have, and this is a job that can have a lot of perks that aren’t just extra spending money.
Things like trips, swag bags, exclusive offers, and invitations to try pre-release products and media before the general public are all relatively common perks of being a successful social media influencer.
You need some creativity, a good camera, and dedication to your influencer niche to make this work, but it can be done, and you can do it if you’re willing to work hard enough.
If you love making things, one of the best online jobs for teens is probably going to be opening an Etsy store and selling your crafts online.
Amigurumi, or crochet animals, are just one example of a craft that you can produce cheaply, relatively quickly, and for fun, but that’s also a popular craft for people to buy on Etsy.
Paintings, Christmas ornaments, clay statues, and basically any other craft can also be monetized on Etsy if you want to.
However, you do need to have good store policies, know what you’re going to do if someone asks for a refund or to return a product, how you’ll handle shipping problems, and have a PayPal or similar that you can use to receive payments.
If you don’t have a car you may also need your parent’s help with shipping orders and getting packaging and other materials to ship the physical craft.
It takes a fair amount of organization and scheduling to make this work, especially if you decide to make things to order, or only make unique items that can only be listed once. The best crafts are often things you can make over and over again that aren’t unique, but that can also take some of the fun out of the job.
So, it’s up to you to create a business plan, decide what kind of craft you want to offer, and have clear store policies that will explain to customers what to expect in a wide range of shopping situations.
If you think you can do that, selling on Etsy can help you build a lot of business and organizational skills, and is a wonderful resume builder, especially if your shop is successful or manages a high volume of orders and maintains good reviews.
Another option, if you’re a digital artist or just don’t want to deal with the production and shipping of physical products yourself, is to open a digital art store on RedBubble, Deviant Art, or a similar platform that handles the printing and fulfillment of your art on a wide range of products.
The nice thing about this system is that it’s largely passive income once the designs are created and uploaded onto the site. Customers will order what they want, according to the options you’ve enabled for each design, the site handles printing and shipping, and you don’t really have to do anything.
The main responsibilities you have as a creator are to follow up on negative reviews to see if there is a genuine problem that can be resolved, and to keep creating new designs. You may also want to curate your existing designs, or pull some of your older work off the site when it stops selling, just to prevent things from getting too cluttered or difficult to manage.
The main downside of this kind of work is that you typically need a bigger investment in equipment and tools when you get started. You need a means of creating digital art, an art pad and art software, or you need a means of creating high-quality digital scans of physical art to get started.
The one advantage you have if you create physical art is that there are plenty of scanning and printing places that can create a high-quality scan of your physical art as long as it fits in their scanners.
From there, once you have a quality digital file, uploading the design is all you need to start making money.
Blogging is another job that can take some time to start earning money, but that also can potentially turn into a full-time adult career if you get good enough doing it.
There are a lot of different ways to be a blogger. You can talk about your life and your interests and find ways to monetize that, you can become a recipes and cooking blogger, post guides for other teenagers, or learn to blog about products and for businesses.
Any of these options offer a range of monetization options from getting sponsorships, writing paid content, or getting an affiliate code and making a commission on the products you review or recommend on your blog.
There are options for making just about any blogging niche profitable, you just need to know what you want to do and how to make it happen.
Many bloggers run more than one blog as well, creating a new blog for each of their specific interests and niches, and developing independent revenue streams from each one. This option gives you the most long-term stability, and also the largest and broadest portfolio if and when you decide to become a professional writer, or if you try to get hired as a professional blogger or marketer in your future career.
Just remember that what goes on the internet can become eternal, and mistakes made now can have consequences even years from now. If you’re putting your most intimate thoughts and opinions out there for the world to see, you need to be confident that those things won’t get you in trouble later.
The last online job for teens we’re going to discuss in this article is taking surveys. Sites like Surveymonkey are always looking for more qualified participants to provide survey answers and consumer data.
This data is used in a variety of ways, from figuring out the target audience for a particular product or service, determining public perception of a product or company, or looking for opportunities and brand awareness in a key audience group.
Teenagers are a highly valuable group for this kind of product research because a larger percentage of teenager income tends to be free income that they can spend however they choose. That means that there are generally a lot of surveys targeting teenagers once you find the right sites.
This is a good job if you don’t have time to be very consistent, or just don’t have that much time in general but want additional income.
The downside is that each individual survey usually doesn't pay very much and that you typically need to do more surveys if you want to be paid in real money instead of gift cards or promotional offers.
All that said, though, this is about the most flexible job you can have. You only need to take surveys when you have time and want to, you don’t have to commit to doing a certain number of surveys, and you choose what kind of payout you want once you’ve earned enough points to get paid.
All that said, it can take quite a while to get enough money to make survey taking worth it, and you won't always be eligible for the high-value surveys being advertised. Most survey companies are looking to gather opinions from a very specific consumer group, and if you don't fit all the criteria, you won’t be allowed to take that survey.
The consumer group requirements do also mean that you’ll sometimes log in to take surveys and not end up taking any because you don’t qualify for the current surveys. So, if you’re looking for fast or consistent income you might want to look at one of the other jobs we’ve talked about.
There are a lot of opportunities online for enterprising teens who want a good job. It takes persistence and dedication to make any of these jobs work, but they can also be excellent ways to test your skills and prove your character.
Remember that a lot of sites, especially jobs sites, do have some age restrictions that you need to respect, especially if you’re a younger teen.
However, as a workaround, if you really want to get started working you can talk with your parents and ask them to help you manage an account to start working. A lot of sites that restrict teens are okay with teens who have parental supervision on the account.
You can also work together with friends for some of these jobs, which means that you can combine work with friendship, especially for things like selling items on Etsy or running a blog or YouTube channel.
It’s also worth remembering that even the best online jobs for teens can take a lot of energy and attention away from the rest of your life. You should be sure you’re ready to take on the responsibility of a job, and that the extra money will be worth the sacrifice, before you commit to having your own job.
At the same time, having your own job and making your own money is an important step toward proving your maturity and getting ready for adult life. When you're ready, getting an online job is a great way to jump-start your future.