Here is what people realistically earn from popular side hustles, drawn from cited sources and labeled gross-vs-net and median-vs-average so the numbers are not misread. Gig drivers earn roughly $12-23/hr gross before vehicle costs. Turo hosts earn about $874/mo per car after Turo's cut and before car costs. Experienced freelance writers bill $65-100/hr. Full sources and caveats are in the table.
Changed in this update (3 September 2026): we withdrew two figures after re-reading their named sources directly. The Etsy median of about $574/mo went first: the source we credited does not publish that number. We have now withdrawn our affiliate-marketing figure for the same reason. We had cited about $636/mo for beginners from a survey of 2,270 people; on 3 September 2026 we re-read the Authority Hacker page we credit and it contains none of those figures. We pulled the row rather than keep a citation that does not check out. We also tightened the two Gridwise rows: the 2026 report's public page states that driver hourly pay barely moved in 2025 but does not publish new per-platform hourly figures or the specific percentages we had quoted, so those percentages are gone and the sourcing note now says exactly what the public page does and does not show. We would rather show a gap than a number we cannot stand behind.
| Side hustle | Typical earnings | Basis | Source |
| Etsy | no defensible median (see notes) | No median is published. The only per-seller figure available is an AVERAGE: sellers earned a collective $9.910B across 8.762M sellers in 2025, or about $1,131/yr (~$94/mo) each, after Etsy's 16.8% take rate. Re-read at source 2026-09-03: the page states "Etsy sellers earned a collective total of $9.910 billion for an average income of $1,131 in 2025" and "8.76 million sellers used Etsy in 2025". The monthly figure is our own division of that annual average, not a figure the source publishes. That average includes every shop that listed in 2025, dormant ones included, so it understates an actively run shop. Do not read it as "what a typical Etsy seller earns." | Capital One Shopping Research, Etsy Statistics (2025 data, page updated 2026-03-29; re-read 2026-09-03) |
| Printify / Printful | no defensible median (see notes) | No credible average-monthly figure from a primary source. Sourced fact: typical POD margin 20-40% of sale price. UNDER REVIEW: we previously also cited a "median ~165 days to first $1,000" to this source; an internal check could not locate that figure on the cited page, so it is withdrawn pending re-verification rather than carried forward. | Printful, Is Print-on-Demand Profitable? (2025-2026) |
| DoorDash | ~$12.23/hr gross | GROSS hourly (base + tips + bonuses, including downtime), 2024 full-year, before vehicle costs. Net often $8-9/hr after expenses. The 2024 absolute comes from Gridwise's 2025 edition. Re-read at source 2026-09-03: the 2026 edition's public page is headlined "Driver Hourly Pay Barely Moved in 2025" and shows direction-of-change only; it does not publish a new per-platform absolute hourly figure, and the underlying percentages sit behind the report download. We therefore keep the 2024 absolute and say so rather than derive a number we cannot cite. | Gridwise Annual Gig Mobility Report 2026 (2025 direction of change; re-read 2026-09-03) and the 2025 edition (2024 absolute) |
| Instacart | ~$12.51/hr gross | GROSS median per active hour including batch pay, tips and promos. Median trip pay $12.21/hr. n=20,538 shoppers. Before vehicle costs. Re-read at source 2026-09-03 and confirmed: the article states a median of $12.21/hr in total trip pay rising to $12.51/hr gross including batch pay, tips and promotions, across 20,538 shoppers. | Gridwise, Instacart shopper earnings (2025 data, article dated 2026-04-01; re-read 2026-09-03) |
| Uber / Lyft | ~$23.28/hr gross | GROSS hourly, 2024 national average (Uber $23.33, Lyft $23.23), before vehicle costs. Realistic net often $14-16/hr. The 2024 absolute comes from Gridwise's 2025 edition. Re-read at source 2026-09-03: the 2026 edition's public page states that hourly earnings were largely flat year over year across major rideshare and delivery platforms, but publishes no new per-platform absolute hourly figure on that page. Percentages we previously quoted for customer prices and platform fees were not on the cited page and have been removed. | Gridwise Annual Gig Mobility Report 2026 (2025 direction of change; re-read 2026-09-03) and the 2025 edition (2024 absolute) |
| Turo | ~$874/mo per car | Turo-published average host earnings: $10,489/yr per car, US, calendar 2025. This is what hosts receive after Turo's share, and Turo states it is NOT reduced for vehicle ownership costs. Cars book an average of 15 days/month. Excludes the car payment, commercial insurance, depreciation, maintenance and cleaning. | Turo, Rent out your car (2025) |
| Airbnb | ~$1,167/mo typical | GROSS revenue, highly location-dependent; ~$14,000/yr average US supplemental income across syntheses. Estimates vary widely by method. Not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh. | Azibo, The Average Airbnb Income (2024-2025) |
| Sniffspot (dog-park rental) | up to ~$3,000/mo (top hosts) | GROSS. Operator says some hosts earn up to $3,000/mo; commission ~24%. No host-wide median exists; weak sourcing. Not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh. | CNBC Make It + Sniffspot Help Center (2024) |
| Freelance writing | ~$65-100/hr (experienced) | Median hourly ranges from the 2026 EFA Rate Chart, for rates charged during 2025. Work-for-hire: blog posts $74.50-87.50/hr, articles/essays $70-100/hr, business/marketing $65-75/hr. Ghostwriting pays more (business/marketing $87.50-125/hr). Billed rates when working, not guaranteed income. Compare the BLS benchmark below: employed writers' median wage is $36.98/hr. | Editorial Freelancers Association 2026 Rate Chart (released 2026-03-24, n over 1,100) |
| Upwork / Fiverr | ~$39/hr (Upwork avg) | Hourly billed rate. Upwork average ~$39/hr (band $29-54); Fiverr skews lower. Skilled devs/analysts $55-65+. Not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh. | Upwork Hourly Rates (2024-2025) |
| Surveys / microtasks (Prolific, MTurk, Swagbucks) | ~$8-12/hr (when work is available) | GROSS. Prolific enforces an $8/hr minimum, recommends $12/hr. MTurk realistically far lower; task availability, not the rate, is the real cap. Not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh. | Prolific Researcher Help, reward guidance (2024-2025) |
| Affiliate marketing | WITHDRAWN - no defensible figure (see notes) | We previously published ~$636/mo for beginners under one year, from a self-reported survey of n=2,270, alongside a ~$8,038/mo overall average. On 2026-09-03 we re-read the Authority Hacker page we credit and it contains none of those figures. Rather than move the citation to a different page to make the number survive, we withdrew the figure. We will republish only when a named, dated primary source supports a specific number. | Authority Hacker, State of Affiliate Marketing - cited page re-read 2026-09-03, figure not found |
| Online courses (Teachable / Thinkific / Kajabi) | ~$1,200/mo (paid-plan avg) | GROSS course revenue before platform, ad and production costs. Huge variance; self-selected platform averages. Not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh. | SellCoursesOnline (Thinkific/Kajabi reports) (2024-2025) |
| Digital templates (Gumroad / Etsy) | ~$500/mo (typical) | GROSS before platform fee. A 23-seller Notion cohort over 6 months: top earners $3K-$10K/mo; most first-timers far less. Not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh. | Kupkaike, Selling Notion Templates (2024-2026) |
Read the numbers carefully. Marketplace figures (Etsy, Turo, Airbnb) are gross revenue before costs, except Turo's, which is after Turo's cut but before car costs. Gig hourly figures are gross before vehicle expenses, so realistic net runs 30-40% lower. Survey figures are self-reported and skew toward the already-successful. We report medians where available because side-hustle income is heavily right-skewed, and we report nothing where no defensible median exists.
What employed workers earn, for comparison
Side-hustle figures are easy to misread on their own, so here is the government wage data for the nearest employed occupations. This is the benchmark to read the table above against. One caveat matters more than any other: these BLS figures cover wage-and-salary employees and exclude self-employed independent contractors, which is exactly what gig-platform workers and freelancers are. These are not side-hustle earnings.
| Occupation (BLS SOC) | Median hourly | Mean hourly | 10th - 90th percentile | Employed |
| Writers and Authors (27-3043) | $36.98 | $41.39 | $21.31 - $67.25 | 47,940 |
| Taxi Drivers (53-3054) | $20.24 | $24.01 | $16.66 - $36.44 | 41,050 |
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Two comparisons are worth sitting with. Employed writers earn a median of $36.98/hr, roughly half the low end of the $65-100/hr that EFA member freelancers report billing, which tells you how much the EFA figure reflects established association members rather than writers generally. And employed taxi drivers earn a median of $20.24/hr as a wage, where the employer carries the vehicle, against a rideshare gross of about $23.28/hr where the driver carries it. That gap is the clearest illustration of why a gig "gross" hourly number overstates take-home.
We are also collecting anonymous, self-reported numbers from HustlEdge readers through our profit calculator. We do not publish a reader-reported figure for any platform until enough people report it: a minimum sample of 30 after outlier trimming, shown with the sample size and a confidence interval, and clearly labeled self-reported. As of September 2026 no platform has reached that threshold, so nothing reader-reported appears above. Only the curated sourced figures are shown.
How we built this
Every figure is traced to a named, dated source, in preference order: government data, platform-operator disclosures, large-sample analytics on real payout data, named surveys with stated samples, then reputable syntheses where no primary source exists. No figure was invented, and where a source stops supporting a figure we remove it rather than carry it forward. Gig hourly figures are gross before vehicle cost, roughly a 30-40% haircut to reach net. Marketplace figures are gross before commission and operating costs unless stated otherwise. We label medians against averages because side-hustle income is right-skewed.
This refresh, dated 3 September 2026, re-read four cited sources directly rather than relying on our own earlier notes: the Capital One Shopping Etsy research, the Gridwise 2026 gig mobility report page, the Gridwise Instacart article, and the Authority Hacker affiliate-marketing page. The Instacart figures checked out exactly. The Etsy annual average checked out, and we now flag that the monthly version of it is our own arithmetic rather than a published figure. The Gridwise 2026 page turned out to publish direction of change only, with no new per-platform absolute and none of the specific percentages we had quoted, so those percentages were removed. The Authority Hacker figures could not be found on the page we cite, so that row was withdrawn. Where a newer edition publishes only a change and not a new absolute, we keep the last published absolute and say so rather than deriving a number we cannot cite. Rows marked "not re-checked in the September 2026 refresh" keep their earlier dates and should be treated as older than the rest of the table. Refreshed quarterly; last updated 3 September 2026.
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