Looking for the best side hustles?
Need a relatively painless way to supplement your income or even just pay your water bill this month? Here are four of the best side hustles we recommend when it comes to affiliate or reward programs. These programs will have you earning as soon as you sign up – even if you DON’T have a website or a blog!
The following article may include affiliate links. Please read our full disclosure regarding our affiliate policy.
Rakuten.com
Rakuten is so easy to earn extra cash with! In fact, it’s one of the only companies out there that encourages you to take the cash option vs. having to cash out for a gift card.
Currently, the Rakuten Referral Program is offering $25 per referral for you (that’s HUGE!) and $10 for the person that signs up and makes a purchase through Rakuten.com.
There are two ways to make money with Rakuten. You can simply use your link as I outlined above or you can apply as one of their Ambassadors if you are an Influencer. Just sign up for your free Rakuten account and then go to the “Refer and Earn” section. Scroll down to the bottom and follow the links to apply to be a Rakuten Ambassador. Either way, you will be on your way to making this one of your best side hustles!
>> Related: Rakuten Referral Program – How to Rock It as an Affiliate <<
Note: Ebates.com officially changed it’s name to Rakuten Rewards in early 2019.
>> REGISTER FOR RAKUTEN REWARDS <<
Raise
Raise is hands down one of my favorite money-saving apps and referral or affiliate programs! You buy stuff – you save! Know that you want to buy something at Lowe’s or Home Depot? Buy a gift card for the value or almost the value at a discount cost and save before you ever even hit the register. You can even use Raise to pay and accumulate a percentage of your spend to use toward additional discounted gift card purchases.
Think of this side hustle as a way to save and use the money you saved to fund something else – not actually putting money directly in the bank.
We recently renovated our house and although I didn’t discover Raise until well into our renovation, I still managed to save almost $160 in the span of about 1 month buying discounted Lowe’s gift cards! Win-win.
The Raise Referral Program? It’s just as good! For each friend that you refer (and they make a purchase or complete a transaction), you both get $5 in Raise Cash to spend toward a purchase or a gift card. Another win-win scenario! This is an easy sell to your base because they get something in return for helping you!
Tip: Be sure to use the gift cards on something that you don’t intend to return. Think eating out or that essential Target or WalMart run. While the retailer you purchased from will certainly allow you to return the product you purchased if you are within their guidelines, you will likely only be issued another gift card.
>> REGISTER FOR RAISE <<
Ibotta
I’ve written about Ibotta before on this website because it’s just a simple way to save money and their affiliate or referral program is SUPER simple. Simply put, if you want to save money, especially on groceries that you are already buying, this is the best side hustle for you!
It’s so easy to make extra cash with it whether you have a website or not! You get an incentive for signing people up on Ibotta. You also add them to your team and are eligible for bonuses based off of how many offers your team submits.
Tip: Watch out for bonus cash when you redeem a certain number of offers within a particular time period. These are great for you, but they are also great to talk to your tribe about. If they don’t know about, they can’t take advantage of it! If you aren’t telling them, you are missing out on an opportunity to elevate your side hustle.
>> REGISTER FOR IBOTTA <<
ReceiptPal
ReceiptPal is pretty cool! That’s why it makes our list for one of the best side hustles, right?!
It pays you to upload your receipts so that companies can receive anonymous information regarding the spending habits of individuals.
While the human side of me is a little nervous about the privacy issue of this, the marketing side of me would absolutely love to have this goldmine of data on my customers or potential customers. Just imagine how much better you could market to them?!?
You have to spend money to make money. If you have no receipts, you don’t get any points. Since most of my spending is done online and I opt to receive emailed receipts from businesses when I do shop in person, this one is on autopilot!
Here’s the skinny on how you make money with the ReceiptPal referral program:
Once you download the app and have your link, send it out to your tribe of followers, family, friends or wherever you see fit!
You will be provided 250 points for each person that you assist with signing up. Currently, you can get up to 6250 points per month, which is the equivalent of 25 new users registered per month.
What’s my reward? Currently, a $5 Amazon Gift Card requires an exchange of 2200 points and a $10 Amazon Gift Card exchanges at 4000 points. If you signup your 25 people per month, that’s a total of $15 per month. Don’t forget about your online shopping and any receipts you submit on your own as well!
