18 Surprising Side Hustle Statistics (2023): Income, Gigs, Goals

Able to dive into some facet hustle statistics?

Facet hustles are extra fashionable than ever, and I imagine there are two driving elements behind the development:

Proactive need and unprecedented skill to make more money — fueled by expertise and social media
Financial necessity

On this publish, I’ll dive into the most recent facet hustle statistics and share insights from the most recent Facet Hustle Nation member survey.

1. How Many Folks Have a Facet Hustle?

39% of working Individuals report having a facet hustle¹. That quantities to as many as 80 million folks.

Amongst millennials, that statistic rises to 50%².

	General Inhabitants	Child Boomers	Gen X	Millennials	Gen Z
United States	39%	24%	40%	50%	46%
United Kingdom	19%			42%	39%
Canada	28%¹³				35%

And the development continues to develop:

A further 35 million (roughly 17% of the working-age inhabitants) plan to begin to a enterprise¹⁴.
70% of Gen Z reported in search of a facet hustle¹⁰.
64% of Gen Z plans to “monetize a mission on social media” within the subsequent 12 months¹².
40% began within the final 12 months¹⁵.

It’s not only a millennial factor both; 24% of baby boomers (age 59-77) indicated they’ve a facet hustle¹.

Within the UK, 42% of Gen Z and 39% of millennials report having a facet hustle⁹.

And when the definition of a side hustle is expanded to incorporate answering surveys and promoting gadgets on websites like eBay, the numbers are even wilder. With these pointers, as many as 93% of us have an additional earnings stream¹¹.

Even celebrities are getting in on the action, recognizing the worth in diversifying earnings streams.

2. Why Are So Many Folks Facet Hustling?

Making more money is essentially the most commonly-cited aim for beginning a facet hustle.

In line with a 2023 Pinger survey¹⁴, 80% of facet hustle enterprise homeowners did it to enhance their earnings. However “rising earnings” is only a surface-level aim.

Why folks need the additional earnings is extra stunning. The identical survey discovered that 40% needed to study a brand new ability, and 30% needed to finally be their own boss.

In line with Bankrate, 41% of facet hustlers want the additional cash to make ends meet. One other 43% plan to make use of the cash primarily for financial savings or further disposable earnings¹.

(Source)

In 2022, 29% stated inflation was a consider beginning their facet hustle¹¹.

Once I requested Facet Hustle Nation what their main motivation was for beginning a facet hustle, I discovered private freedom on the high of the listing:

Why facet hustle? Right here’s what persons are hoping to realize:

38.7% – Extra private freedom
27.4% – Further earnings to save lots of, spend, or make investments
11.7% – Extra cash to make ends meet
6.2% – Repay debt quicker
5.6% – A inventive outlet
4.6% – “It felt like a calling”

3. What Do Facet Hustlers Need?

I polled over 5500 Facet Hustle Nation guests and located that solely 20% have been trying to construct a facet hustle to stop their jobs.

The remaining 80% have been merely trying to make more money.

4. How A lot Do Folks Make From Their Facet Hustles?

The typical facet hustle brings in $1,122 a month, however the median earnings is far decrease — simply $200 a month⁵.

That signifies that many facet hustlers are on the decrease finish of that incomes spectrum, and the info from Facet Hustle Nation subscribers appears to assist that as properly.

In our current survey, half of all respondents reported making lower than $100 per 30 days:

Nonetheless, you gotta begin someplace!

As soon as your facet hustle or enterprise has somewhat extra traction, the numbers are extra encouraging. Of the respondents making over $100 a month:

36.7% make $101-$500 per 30 days
19.8% make $501-1000 per 30 days
31.2% make $1001-5000 per 30 days
7.5% make $5-10k per 30 days
and 4.7% reported incomes over $10k a month from their enterprise

If we mix a few of these earnings brackets, you possibly can say that after somebody’s facet hustle will get over the preliminary startup part, 43.4% of facet hustlers earn $1,000 or extra per 30 days.

5. How A lot Time Do Facet Hustles Take?

The typical facet hustler spends 11-16 hours every week on their enterprise⁶.

Mixed with the typical earnings, that works out to a mean of $16-23 an hour.

38.3% of Facet Hustle Nation subscribers reported working 5-20 hours every week on their enterprise, which I’d put squarely within the “part-time” class.

Even when the long-term aim is to construct a time-leveraged enterprise, there’s a component of needing to place within the time to make it work. Of the individuals who reported incomes lower than $100 a month from their facet hustle, 75% stated they spent 0-5 hours every week on it.

Of the folks making $500 or extra each month, 85% are spending at the very least 5 hours every week to earn it.

And for established companies, the efficient hourly charges can change into fairly profitable. Within the $5000+ earnings class, 40% of individuals reported spending 20 hours every week or much less. That works out to round $60-500 an hour.

6. What Are the Most In style Facet Hustles?

Primarily based on over 1,700 survey responses from Facet Hustle Nation, the preferred facet hustles are:

On-line Enterprise — together with blogging, podcasting, on-line programs, and affiliate marketing.
Freelancing and Consulting
E-Commerce — together with Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and your individual on-line retailer.
Investing — together with real estate, crypto, shares, shopping for companies, and alternatives.
Self-Publishing
Native Providers — together with cleaning, knife sharpening, notary services, pet waste removal, and extra.
YouTube
Software program and Apps
Gig Financial system jobs, like Instacart or Lyft.

7. What Facet Hustles are Folks Most Fascinated with Beginning?

Primarily based on Google search quantity estimated by ahrefs, listed below are the highest 25 businesses people are most interested in starting.

8. What Are the Highest Paying Facet Hustles?

Subsequent, I needed to see if there have been any shifts within the enterprise fashions that the best incomes facet hustlers have been concerned with. In different phrases, which side hustles have the best earning potential?

Amongst facet hustlers incomes over $1,000 a month, the highest 3 enterprise fashions are:

On-line Enterprise
Freelancing / Consulting
Investing

This was an analogous distribution to the preferred facet hustles knowledge above, solely with Investing changing E-Commerce within the High 3.

That bias towards investing is much more profound once we take a look at solely the $10k+ per 30 days earners. In comparison with the remainder of the facet hustle inhabitants, the best earners skew towards investing, Software program, and curiously, YouTube.

Maybe not surprisingly, the $10k+ per 30 days earners are much less more likely to be concerned with gig financial system apps, the place your incomes energy is commonly capped by the hours you possibly can dedicate to them.

9. Who’s Facet Hustling by Gender and Age?

Each men and women facet hustle at comparable charges. In line with the Facet Hustle Nation web site analytics, roughly 45% of holiday makers are feminine, and 55% are male.

Facet hustlers are likely to skew youthful as properly, with 54% being 18-34 years previous.

To itemize out the age knowledge for facet hustlers:

24% are 18-24 years previous
30% are 25-34
22% are 35-44
13% are 45-54
7% are 55-64
4% are 65+

One speculation is that older staff are extra established with their careers and households, and have much less time and need to begin a facet hustle.

10. When Did Facet Hustles Change into a Factor?

Dictionary.com says the time period was first recorded within the 2000-2005 interval, however according to Grammarist, the time period facet hustle was first used approach again in 1950!

In earlier generations, creating wealth outdoors of your day job might have been referred to as “moonlighting” or just beginning a enterprise.

11. Have We Reached “Peak” Facet Hustle?

Curiosity in facet hustle-related searches has elevated dramatically since late 2015:

Whereas the time period was definitely in use previous to that, it didn’t change into mainstream till then. Per Google Trends, curiosity in facet hustles peaked in July 2022, however we’ll see if the chart continues to climb.

12. Do Folks Like Their Facet Hustles Extra Than Their Jobs?

The Hustle discovered that whereas solely half of respondents “cherished” their main job, 76% cherished their facet hustle⁴.

13. What Are the Largest Challenges Dealing with Facet Hustlers?

I requested Facet Hustle Nation subscribers what their largest wrestle was, and grouped the responses into a number of normal classes.

The “Large 3” challenges that got here up essentially the most have been:

Rising their enterprise
Coping with restricted time
Developing with the correct side hustle idea to maneuver ahead with

Mindset points, administrative challenges, and lack of startup funds additionally made the listing.

14. Do Facet Hustles Come From Hobbies?

Vistaprint discovered that 27% of full-time staff have began making money from a hobby. One other 55% stated they’d like to show a passion right into a enterprise⁶.

15. How Do Facet Hustles Impression Full-Time Jobs?

Analysis from the College of Iowa discovered {that a} facet hustle can really increase efficiency at your full-time job⁷. (Regardless of this, some firms nonetheless have “no moonlighting” policies.)

16. The place is Facet Hustling Most Widespread?

Impressed by this data on which metro areas have essentially the most facet hustlers, I took a take a look at a few of the location knowledge for Facet Hustle Nation guests.

Not surprisingly, at first look, most guests have a tendency to come back from essentially the most populated areas: New York, LA, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Dallas, and so on.

However once I management for inhabitants, the info tells a extra fascinating story. In some cities, facet hustling is 2-5x extra frequent than the nationwide common.

These metro areas are, so as of recognition:

Atlanta, GA
Washington, DC
Salt Lake Metropolis, UT
Orlando, FL
Miami, FL
Hartford, CT
Myrtle Seashore, SC
Boston, MA
Ft. Myers, FL
St. Louis, MO

Detroit, Seattle, and Denver additionally sought out facet hustle data at roughly double the nationwide common.

17. What Areas Facet Hustle the Least?

And the place are comparatively few folks fascinated about facet hustles? Per our knowledge, a decrease than common variety of folks visited Facet Hustle Nation from:

El Paso, TX
Bakersfield, CA
Tucson, AZ
Colorado Springs, CO
Wichita, KS
Albuquerque, NM
Fresno, CA
San Antonio, TX
Louisville, KY
Jacksonville, FL

18. How Many New Facet Hustles Are Began Every Yr?

The precise variety of new facet hustles began annually is tough to pin down, since many start as un-registered sole proprietorships.

Nonetheless, the US Census Bureau does acquire knowledge on new enterprise registrations, which permits us to make an estimate⁸.

The grey phase of the chart represents companies with out speedy plans to rent staff. These usually tend to be facet hustles than the “excessive propensity functions” in orange, that are official incorporations or point out plans to rent instantly.

From this, we are able to see that in 2023 there are over 400,000 new companies began each month. Of these, almost 300,000 are more likely to be facet hustles.

Annualized, that equates to almost 3.6 million new facet hustles.

The place Do These Facet Hustle Statistics Come From?

This knowledge was compiled from the Facet Hustle Nation member survey, Facet Hustle Nation web site analytics, and different on-line sources.

Amongst these:

Concerning the Facet Hustle Nation Member Survey

The most effective methods to determine easy methods to higher serve your clients or your viewers is to, properly, ask them.

Each couple years, I ship out a survey to Facet Hustle Nation electronic mail subscribers.

My objectives are to get some insights into:

the place readers and listeners are at in your facet hustle journey
the kinds of companies you’re engaged on
what your largest challenges are

I additionally wish to learn the way I can enhance as a content material creator to be extra useful.

I all the time take these responses critically they usually information my route in numerous methods. Prior to now, the solutions to those questions have led me to revamp the location, add a particular VIP web page, create a Fb group, rent a podcast modifying service and a podcast coach, do public facet hustle teaching, do away with my voice over man, deal with sure facet hustles greater than others, and much extra.

My Survey Necessities

Right here have been my major necessities:

Brief – I needed to be respectful of subscribers’ time, and in addition knew this could enhance response charge.
Cell-friendly – Since I used to be solely sending the survey invite through electronic mail, it needed to be mobile-responsive.
Actionable – I needed to have the ability to DO one thing with the outcomes! Not a lot level in going by way of this train if it doesn’t lead to any new motion.

The Survey Set Up

As an alternative of devoted survey software program like Survey Monkey, I went with my tried-and-true Google Forms.

It’s straightforward to arrange and edit, and all of the responses get dumped right into a useful spreadsheet for you.

I prefer it as a result of it’s easy and you may select between a number of selection, free-response, non-obligatory questions, and you’ve got resolution logic on pagination of the place to ship folks primarily based on what reply they choose.

The design will not be the prettiest on the earth, however it’s cell responsive.

Oh, and it’s free. 🙂

My survey this 12 months had 5 major questions, largely multiple-choice, cut up over 4 pages. I broke up the questions on totally different pages as a result of I reasoned having all of the questions on one web page might sound intimidating and damage the completion charge.

Plus Google Types will present somewhat progress bar that “completionists” like me actually wish to see hit 100% as soon as I begin.

Advertising the Survey

I despatched out one devoted electronic mail asking subscribers to finish the survey, and despatched a reminder a couple of days later

To offer folks an incentive to finish it, I gave away two free 30-minute consultations. Right here’s the message I despatched:

Hey Nick,

Obtained a minute?

I’ve a couple of fast questions that may assist information the route of Facet Hustle Nation.

Your responses assist me higher perceive and serve you and the remainder of this unbelievable “Nation,” plus you’ll have the choice to be entered to win one among two free Facet Hustle Technique Classes with yours really, only for filling out the survey.

(Frequently not even on the market!)

Please Click Here to Complete the Survey

It ought to solely take a pair minutes and you may even do it out of your telephone.

Responses are completely nameless — except after all you wish to enter the drawing for the free Technique Session.

Thanks a lot in your enter!

Hustle on,

Nick Loper
SideHustleNation.com

The survey invitation went out to greater than 65,000 subscribers and in complete, I gathered greater than 1700 responses!

Congrats to Maria and Angel for successful the random drawing for the technique session!

(I used this Random Number Generator from Google to choose the winners.)

If you happen to don’t have the e-mail listing to ship to, you are able to do one-on-one outreach, or publish in related FB teams you’re energetic in.

Query 1: Your Facet Hustle Earnings

Aim: Determine the place your viewers is as we speak so you possibly can create content material to finest serve them.

My phrasing: “In a typical month, my facet hustle or enterprise earns:”

$0-100
$101-500
$501-1,000
$1,001-5,000
$5,001-10,000
$10,001 or extra

I used this this multiple-choice query to kick off the survey as a result of it could be very fast to reply and hopefully construct momentum into the remainder of the questions. This was the one query on Web page 1 of the survey.

And whereas it’s nice to see roughly a 3rd of the viewers incomes $500 a month or extra, it’s somewhat discouraging to see that half the viewers hasn’t determined the most effective plan of action but.

Just pick something, I wish to yell. It doesn’t matter!

On the constructive facet, the proportion of of individuals incomes $500 a month or extra is dramatically up from earlier years. (It was 14% in 2019, so we’re shifting in proper route!)

The problem for me is to transfer folks clockwise alongside this pie; to equip you with the concept, empower you to take motion, and present you easy methods to get outcomes and develop your corporation.

Query 2: How A lot Time Do You Put Towards Your Facet Hustle?

I requested: “In a typical week, I spend about ______ hours on my facet hustle or enterprise.”

Half of the respondents indicated they have been spending 0-5 hours every week on their facet hustle. Not surprisingly, the outcomes right here have been carefully correlated to the earnings outcomes from query 1.

Query 3: The Most In style Facet Hustles

Aim: Discover out the most typical or fashionable kind(s) of companies facet hustlers are engaged on.

I requested: “What kind of enterprise / facet hustle are you operating or are you most fascinated about? Please test all that apply.”

Query 4: Motivation: WHY Facet Hustle?

Aim: Discover out what impressed folks to hunt out data on facet hustles within the first place. With that motivation in thoughts, I can higher converse to the big-picture objectives of my viewers.

My phrasing: “My PRIMARY motivation to begin (or search details about) my enterprise or facet hustle was _________________:”

Query 5: What Are You Struggling With?

Aim: Discover out what facet hustlers are presently fighting.

My phrasing: “Relating to your corporation or facet hustle, what’s the only largest problem you’re going through proper now? (be detailed)”

This was a free-response query, however I grouped comparable responses into a couple of normal classes.

The speculation is, as soon as you recognize what your viewers is fighting, you possibly can craft content material, merchandise, or companies to assist them.

In line with the e-book Ask, that is crucial query of all, and means that you can create totally different “buckets” of your viewers. For instance, primarily based on these solutions I can see buckets associated to:

Discovering your facet hustle concept
Taking advantage of your restricted hours
Rising your corporation to the subsequent stage

Query 6: Fishing for Future Content material

Aim: To see what the viewers wish to study extra about.

My phrasing: “One factor I want you’d cowl extra totally is _________.”

This query was additionally free-response, however there have been some patterns that emerged. Among the many most commonly-requested content material have been:

Affiliate marketing (As this has been my major supply of earnings for over 10 years, I believe I take numerous the fundamentals with no consideration. To make certain, I may do a a lot higher job overlaying the way it works and easy methods to get began.)
Taxes, accounting, and authorized stuff.
Outsourcing and hiring
Step-by-step guides
Extra company who’re earlier of their journey

The ultimate query was the one I used to be most anxious about, however knew it could be essential to ask.

Query 7: Critiques

Aim: Determine what’s turning off subscribers so I can probably cease.

My phrasing: “… and if I’m being completely trustworthy, one particular critique I’ve is _________.”

I took a day, swallowed my pleasure and dove right into a pile of constructive criticism. And other people didn’t maintain again!

For instance:

“You’re somewhat whorey with advertisements.”
“I merely don’t belief you.”
“Emails are somewhat clickbaity.”

Now as to be anticipated, there was a good quantity of conflicting critiques:

“Podcasts are a bit prolonged.”
“Exhibits are too brief.” (Extra folks have been really on this column, asking for extra in-depth content material and much more frequent episodes).

And:

“I really like that there’s no fluff and hype.”
“Means an excessive amount of fluff. Get to the purpose.”

However after sorting by way of a whole bunch of responses, a couple of votes began to pile up in favor of:

Following up with previous company.
Explaining acronyms or technical phrases as they arrive up.
Extra teaching episodes or that includes individuals who aren’t “tremendous profitable” but.
Urgent for particular particulars, asking folks what they’d do in a different way, and never glossing over the negatives.
Probably updating the quilt artwork and branding.

Whereas a few of these solutions stung somewhat to learn, they have been really tremendous useful. I’ve acquired some concrete actions I can take to enhance, and might be engaged on these.

I owe an enormous thanks to everybody who took the time to fill out the survey!