3 Side Hustles That Pay $20+/Hour With No Experience In 2025

You need an extra boost to your income. But you don’t have years of industry experience, don’t feel confident in your skills yet to venture out into freelance coaching or consulting, and you’re unsure where to start.

Being stuck in a financial rut can certainly be overwhelming, especially when you find yourself confronted daily with scams and suspicious, too-good-to-be-true offers and schemes that promise you’ll get rich quick or make money online fast.

You’re not alone. An estimated 41 million Americans in 2025 have a side hustle, a recent survey by Intuit shows, mainly to supplement their income so they can cover bills and expenses, which they would find almost impossible to do with their primary job alone.

But how can you start making money this week, this month, when you have little to no experience?

3 High-Paying Side Hustles That Pay $20+ An Hour

To be honest, every side hustle or job that you apply for will require some level of experience, but just not in the typical way you’d expect. The experience required from side hustles and jobs that are perfect for beginners, are simply theskills and knowledge you would have acquired from everyday life experiences and any work you may have done previously. They also include skills you may have gained through spending time in your hobbies.

These are known as transferable skills--skills which can easily be transferred from one career or job to another. As you prepare to start your side hustle, you’ll notice that many side hustles share similar skill requirements and activities in common.

Here are the the top three side hustles that pay more than $20 an hour, according to a fresh NetCredit study:

1. Participating In Focus Groups

You may have been told that you’re highly opinionated, as though it was a bad thing. Well, the good news is there’s one place where opinions are not just tolerated, they are welcomed, and you can even get paid as much as $50, $75, and even $100+ for them. This is called “focus groups.”

What is a focus group, you ask? Usually, when a company wants to test a business idea or launch a new product into the market, they’ll employ market research firms to conduct interviews with their intended users or target client base. This helps them be more successful with their launches and create targeted ad campaigns. You can participate in focus group interviews via legitimate websites such as Fieldwork Hub and Respondent.io.

Average hourly pay: $28

2. Becoming A Virtual Assistant

Busy entrepreneurs and small online businesses are so swamped with routine tasks like bookings, responding to queries and emails, outreach, and social media and community management, that it becomes extremely overwhelming and it makes it difficult for them to scale.

As a virtual assistant, you’d be offering your services to take care of routine, “back-office” work, so that influencers and busy entrepreneurs can get down to the business-critical work.

While it is true that AI can automate many aspects of a VA’s work, like scheduling and email tidying, there are other aspects that are not so easily taken care of and require human input and support, especially for aspects like customer service and social media scheduling and management. The more versatile your skills, the more you can offer to potential clients. You can find virtual assistant work on well-reviewed websites like Belay, Time etc, and Fiverr.

Average hourly pay: $26.63

3. Dog Walking

Another fantastic side hustle idea that doesn’t require extensive expertise at all is becoming a pet sitter or dog walker. If you love dogs (and even have a few critters of your own) and enjoy being hands-on and outdoors, you can get paid to take dogs on walks in your neighborhood, which can feel almost effortless and a great way to make passive income if this is something you do regularly anyway.

Advertize your services on local sites like Nextdoor, Facebook Marketplace, and even a Google Business profile that lists your services to those living in the area. You can consider offering add-on services like vet visits, overnight stays, pampering, and feeding, to increase your earnings faster.

Average hourly pay: $24.84

No, you don’t need a degree. You don’t even need years of experience and you don’t need to quit your job…at least not yet. All you need right now is to take action. For many professionals, the one thing standing in between them and achieving their career goals while increasing their income, is moving past the decision and researching phase and just getting started.

Side Hustle FAQs

What are the highest-paying side hustles from home?

The highest paying side hustles include consulting, coaching, and AI-powered work. However, NetCredit’s study reveals that the highest-paying side hustle of all that pays the most for a single day’s work, is marketing strategy, paying out $150.00 per day.

How fast can I start making money?

Some side hustles can pay within just a few days (like dog-walking) while others require more marketing effort and a more robust plan in place to acquire a steady flow of clients (like virtual assistance).