7 Best Low Cost Business Ideas With High Profit (2023

Are you looking for smart online business ideas you can start today? Well, you should be. With everything going on with the world’s economy today, who isn’t looking for an alternative means of income?

It is always comforting to know that your family will be financially secured no matter what new challenges life throws at you. 

One of the best ways to ensure this is to start an online business that can run independent of your physical involvement. 

This is why in this blog post I discuss the best online business ideas you can start today. Ideas that are suitable even if you’ve never made money online before. 

Let’s get right into it!

What Are The Best Online Business Ideas For Beginners?

The best online business idea you can pursue right now is to:

1. Start a Blog The Right Way

In my opinion the best online business you can start as a complete beginner is a blog. 

I know you’ve probably heard that it is hard work and takes a long time to generate a substantial income. My response is yes and no to this widespread opinion.

You will work hard, yes!

But if your goal is to earn a six-figure income in 12 months or less then setting up your blog the right way from the start can help you get there quicker. 

The work you put in is worth it. After all, there is nothing worthy that you will get without any sweat right?

So if you shy away from the idea of work then this is probably not for you.

The good thing about a blog though is that if you learn to build it the right way, you will only do the hard work once and then enjoy the passive income that comes continually with very little effort on your part.

This is what I teach my subscribers in my Six-Figure Blogging Newsletter. 

While you will not start making money tomorrow, you can make a full-time income in months if you follow the guidelines I give advice based on my personal journey.

You can subscribe below to get regular six fig blogging tips.

 

In my blogging newsletter you will learn the following among others:

  1. How to choose a profitable niche that is right for you
  2. How to choose a domain name
  3. How to get your blog online by setting up web hosting for as low as $2.95/month with a company like Bluehost.
  4. How to set up your blog the right way and monetize quickly.
  5. How to use the right tools and software to save time and maximize your blogging profits.
Bluehost

If you’re ready to start your blogging journey now you can sign-up with Bluehost for $2.95/month.

2. Digital Products

If you work as an artist or designer a digital store is an exciting business you can start online.

Actually, cross that out!

With a software like Canva anyone can create their own digital products. I have no background in graphic design but I regularly use Canva to create my own digital products

               See?

make money online ideas

I just used Canva to create that. Easy peasy!

And before you get too impressed, let me tell you this. When I was in high school my teacher said my drawings looked like cockroaches.

Hahaha!

My artistic skills are really that bad, yet I still make good money online with digital products I created myself.

So have a little faith in yourself and give yourself a chance to try something new.

Many people are willing to pay for information that will improve their lives or businesses in one way or the other. I’m sure you’ve downloaded many digital products yourself, some free, some paid.

But what if this time you could be on the receiving end, not of the content, but the money?

Yes, you too can share the knowledge or skill that you have on platforms like Thinkific, Teachable or Etsy and get paid for it.

The E-learning industry is on the rise and is expected to be worth $374 billion by 2026. If you were to start today, how much of that would you claim?

Think about it for a moment.

Teachable is a very good platform to get started selling digital products. You can get started for FREE  today.

3. Online Coaching

We all have something that we know better than the next person, whether that be arranging furniture, accounting, gardening, or whatever it may be. 

There is someone out there who needs the information and skill you have and they are looking for someone who can teach them. That someone is you.

With a good track record and a variety of testimonials to back you up, you can grow your coaching business to become a source of sustainable income even with a small audience at the beginning.

There are coaches like Nagina Abdullah who made $10,000 from one-on-one coaching sessions with just less than 500 subscribers. 

Online platforms like Thinkific and Teachable are at the top of my list as platforms that can help you to quickly launch your online coaching business.

Passive Income For Photographers Best Ideas

You can register on these platforms and start coaching right away.

Again my number one recommendation here is teachable because of ease of use. Get started today with Teachable.


4. Drop-shipping

Another highly profitable online business idea is Dropshipping. Dropshipping is briefly a supply chain management business that allows you to sell and deliver products without handling the products physically yourself.

The greatest benefit is that you do not need to buy and store large volumes of inventory, all you have to do is play the middle man between the manufacturer and the consumer.

The first thing to do is to find a product and then choose the best e-commerce platform to create your website. 

The easiest-to-use e-commerce platform that comes with all the marketing tools you need is Wix.

It is fairly easy to start a dropshipping site but the biggest challenge is driving buying traffic to your website. 

Here are a few ideas that can help:

  1. Set up buyable pins with Pinterest. This allows you to sell directly to Pinterest users who search for your products without them having to visit your site. This is completely free to set up.
  2. Make your unique value proposition clear as you write your website content.
  3. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly as more and more people surf the internet on their phones today.
  4. Use targeted keywords to rank on search engines

To get started creating your dropshipping website try Wix for just $13-22/month.

If you’re already running a traditional retail business Square Online can help you move your small retail business online.

They are the best e-commerce platform for this.

Getting started with Square Online is completely free. You will only pay transaction fees as you start operating. To get your custom domain you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.

5. Photography

With the right skills and tools, you can turn your photography passion into a lucrative online business. You have several profitable options to consider.

One of the best options is to sell your photo prints on a platform like Pick-Time. I have compiled a comprehensive guide on how to earn passive income as a photographer  

Another fairly common method stock photography. This is where you sell your photos on online platforms like Adobe Stock to earn passive income.

Today the earnings with stock photos are however very low because the market has become quite saturated.

To increase your earning potential you can sign up with new platforms like Creative Market and SmugMug which have far less competition.

Pic-Time For Passive Income For Photographers


6. Podcast

The podcasting industry is becoming more and more lucrative as many people are now preferring it as a learning platform. Between the year 2006 and now the number of American adults who listen to podcasts has increased by 53%.

So what exactly is a podcast?

Simply put, it is an audio program that people can tune to on the internet and listen to anytime, anywhere.

As a business person, it can be a good way to inform your audience about your products or services.

To get started you need to plan your podcast episodes and get your software and equipment.

You will choose your podcast hosting. A podcast host is a service that stores your audio files and distributes them to the major podcast networks like iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, etc.

Signing up for podcast hosting is easy with  Buzzsprout You get a FREE $20 Amazon gift card if you start today.


7. Affiliate Marketing

With affiliate marketing, you make money by promoting someone else’s products or services online and get a commission out of the sale.

This is one of the most popular and beginner-friendly methods of making money online as you do not have to spend time creating any product at all.

The online retailer gives you a special tracking link that you  paste on your website or social media platforms. Whenever someone clicks on that link and makes a purchase you get a certain percentage of the sale as commission.

This is how the process works with Amazon.

  • You first have to create a website or blog. You can do that easily with BlueHost for only $2.95/month
  • Go to Amazon Associates homepage and sign up.
  • Enter your account information and website address,
  • Explain how you drive traffic to your site
  • Choose your payment method
  • Once approved you can create Amazon Affiliate links.
  • You can then place the links in your blog posts or your social media posts.
  • When someone clicks the link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission. 

Now here’s the best part, for you to earn a commission, the user doesn’t necessarily have to buy the product you are promoting. Even if they buy a completely different product, you will still get the commission because you brought the customer to Amazon!

Now isn’t that a smart way to earn money online?

You can earn anywhere from $100 to $20 000 with the Amazon Affiliate program depending on how much traffic you drive to Amazon.

If you are ready to start making money online with Amazon click here to create an account.


Why You Need To Start An Online Business

If you are still standing on the fence about whether to start an online business or not, let me share this brief life-transforming story with you.

I attended a major business conference once and a brilliant speaker asked the audience a simple question that drove home the truth I’m going to share with you now.

“Why do we work?” he asked. 

He let the question sink in for a moment and then said,

“We work to stop working!”

I want you to remember this for the rest of your life.

We work to stop working.

The reason why we work is because we hope we’ll be able to stop working one day and enjoy life a little. But we want the money to keep coming even if we stop working!

Having an online business is one of the best ways to ensure that money keeps coming even when you are busy doing life with your family and friends. 


Conclusion

When it’s all been said and done, it all comes down to action. I handpicked these smart online business ideas with low start-up cost because they are fairly easy to start. 

But none of them will give you a cent if you don’t take the first step.

Every business requires dedicated effort and focus to become successful. You will need to put in some long hours of effort before you see outstanding results, but the results are worth it. Your hard work will pay off in the end.

Ultimately, I recommend you start an evergreen business that is not easily swayed by economic changes like blogging, or drop-shipping.

Which one of these business ideas do you think you are most suited for you? 

Let me know in the comment section below.

Malehasa Moloi
Malehasa Moloi

Malehasa is a personal development coach whose major focus is helping people learn to make money online and create multiple financial streams. She is also a seasoned entrepreneur and speaker who has runs several small businesses of her own.

3 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *