23 Surefire Ways to Make Money Right Now With PayPal

PayPal is the preferred payment method for many online side hustles; payment is instant and if you make money from several different sources, all of your earnings are in one account.

I should know because I make money with PayPal every single month through a variety of side hustles and I choose PayPal whenever possible because it’s quicker than waiting for a mailed check!

If you’re a budding freelancer looking for regular work or you only want to earn cash back when you shop online, PayPal is the most common alternative to paper checks. As you’ll see, there are plenty of ways to get paid with PayPal.

Oh the possibilities!

1. Share Your Opinion Online

Online surveys are another quick income stream as the average survey takes 15 minutes or less. If you like sharing your opinion about consumer brands, current events, and your daily routine, taking online surveys is a fun way to get paid and shape the future.

Quick PayPal Tip: Get cash sent to you via a PayPal gift card when you share your opinion on Survey Junkie. They are our favorite choice for online surveys with a TrustPilot Rating of 8.8 out of 10.

2. Join Swagbucks

If you want to keep all of your online earnings in one place, you should consider Swagbucks.

This “get paid to” site pays you for the following activities:

• Shopping online
• Playing games
• Watching videos
• Surfing the web
• Taking surveys

You can redeem your points for PayPal cash or gift cards for your favorite retailer or restaurant. When you don’t need the cash, you can also exchange your points for Amazon gift cards.

3. Become an Airbnb Host

You can list an extra room or second house with Airbnb to earn a few extra bucks and meet some exciting guests in the process. PayPal is one of the payment methods for Airbnb hosts with each stay. In addition to becoming a host, you can also offer travel experiences on Airbnb too like being a tour guide, teaching cooking lessons, or a private concert.

You can get an idea of how much you can make each week by using Airbnb’s calculator during the signup process.

4. Shop with Ebates (Now Rakuten)

This is possibly my favorite way to make money with PayPal because it requires minimal effort. It’s estimated that over half of all retail purchases are made online. That’s why you need to use a cashback portal like Ebates.

I use the browser extension so each time I visit an online store, a small window pops up when a cash back opportunity is available. To get cash back, click the “Activate Cash Back” button before you make your purchase and you can get up to 40% back depending on the retailer.

Ebates deposits your cash back balance quarterly once it reaches $5.01.

Current Offer: Get a $10 cash bonus after your first $25 purchase.

4. Buy Groceries with Ibotta

This is one of the few ways you can earn PayPal cash with an in-person activity. Although you can also shop online at select stores with the Ibotta app, you can get cash back every time you buy groceries. Sometimes you can get 50 cents back for buying any brand of coffee or bananas; other offers require you to buy a name brand item like Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

We use Ibotta each time we buy groceries and find the offers more valuable than the Sunday coupons. I even saved $5 the other day buying motor oil from Walmart for an oil change, so Ibotta save you money on non-grocery purchases too.

Receive a $10 bonus with your first offer from Ibotta.

Once your balance reaches $20, you can request payment by PayPal or gift card.

6. Design Graphics

99Designs pays via PayPal or Payoneer for the following graphic design gigs:

• Advertising media
• Art and illustration
• Books and magazines
• Clothing
• Logos
• Packing and labels
• Web and app design

You can bid on design contests to win the job or connect with clients on a 1-1 basis as they browse your 99Designs portfolio. Once your balance reaches $25, you can request payment.

7. Sell Stock Photos

Do you dream of having your photos or videos on the largest websites in the world? That dream can become a reality when you contribute your stock photos, videos, and vectors to Shutterstock. Major websites or small blogs can buy your content and you receive a royalty with each sale and get paid via PayPal.

8. Freelance on Fiverr

Fiverr lets you perform just about any online task possible from graphic design, writing blog posts and ebooks, computer coding, and voiceovers or podcast bumper music.

Until you build an established online presence, freelance platforms like Fiverr can be your best way to gain experience and a client portfolio. One of Fiverr’s payment options is PayPal.

9. Freelance Write

While you can earn a steady income on freelancer platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, these sites might keep up the first 20% of each gig. Ouch!

Instead, try to find clients that pay you via PayPal to avoid those fees and the minimum payout thresholds if you don’t freelance regularly; one site it literally took me three months to reach the $100 minimum payment threshold because I wasn’t an active freelancer.

Depending on the arrangement with your client, you send an invoice and you get paid the second they approve it.

You can learn some tricks of the trade with Holly Johnsons’s Earn More Writing course if you’re looking to start landing clients that pay via PayPal. Pitching your own clients can be intimidating at first, but the reward is well worth the effort. Trust me!

You can listen to episode 13 of the Money Peach Podcast where Chris interviews Holly on how to land freelance writing jobs.

10. Become a Virtual Assistant

Are you like a Swiss clockmaker diligently working to piece the internal gears together so a clock accurately keeps time? Being a virtual assistant can be a similar behind-the-scenes experience as you make good websites into great websites.

Your responsibilities can run the gambit, but you might have the following duties:

• Scheduling blog posts
• Creating social media and article images
• Responding to comments
• Managing emails

If you have any experience with these activities, you can get paid by PayPal for your efforts.

Listen to this interview to learn how Kayla Sloan makes $10,000 a month as a virtual assistant.

And, you can also start her $10K VA course to begin your virtual assistant career too.

11. Start a Blog

If you’re even halfway serious about being an online freelancer, you need to start a blog.

Starting a blog helps you make money in two different ways:

• Affiliate income
• Attracting potential clients

Affiliate Income

Let’s talk about the first income method–affiliate income. When visitors buy a product through links on your site, you can earn a referral bonus. By joining an affiliate network like FlexOffers, you can partner with name brand companies that give you a portion of sales you refer.

Attract Potential Clients

If you’re trying to build an online presence as a freelancer. Your website can be the best way to build name recognition and let clients view your writing samples or graphic design abilities; that’s the case for me at least.

To be a serious contender in the online world, you should buy a domain and build your website with Bluehost. In time, your site will attract visitors and future clients that will pay you via PayPal.

Here’s a free step-by-step guide to help start a blog or build a website.

12. Sell Something On Your Own Website

In addition to using your website to earn affiliate income and attract future clients, you can also sell physical and digital goods on your own website. Be it books, xylophones, or something in between, you can sell on your own website.

In addition to building your site with Bluehost, use Gumroad as your digital shopping cart so your customer can pay with plastic or PayPal.

You can also create a PayPal business account and embed PayPal’s payment cart in your website for free too. Once you decide what products you’re going to sell and how they’ll be delivered to the customer, you will have a better idea of which payment processor to use.

13. Sell Unwanted Gift Cards

Did your boss give you a gift card you’re never going to use? Sell it with Gift Card Granny for cash.

Selling is extremely easy and I’ve done it a few times myself. You can either get an instant offer or name your price to fetch a few extra dollars. Once your card is sold, you can request payment via PayPal and the balance will be deposited within 72 hours.

14. Sell Your Old Junk

Before you have a garage sale or make a Goodwill donation, consider selling your unwanted items online. While you can sell on eBay and get paid via PayPal, you might prefer instant payment from these online vendors:

• Bookscouter (Books)
• Bonavendi (DVDs, CDs, and Videogames)
• Decluttr (Cell Phones, Electronics and Legos)
• Thredup (Clothing)

These sites give you the option to request PayPal payment and offer free shipping. Once the merchant receives your shipment, payment is sent within 48 hours.

15. Test Websites

UserTesting takes a slightly different approach than your typical paid online survey. You get $10 for testing a website or app, and each test only takes 20 minutes completing a list of assigned tasks.

There are only two requirements to become a website tester:

• Computer or mobile device with video and audio recording capability
• Ability to verbally express your thoughts as you perform the test

It’s possible to earn even more if you’re invited to take a longer test with live moderators.

16. Exercise with Sweatcoin

Exercise has many benefits including more energy and less stress. With Sweatcoin, you can also get paid to exercise as you get paid for each step you take by using your phone’s built-in step counter app and GPS.

You may opt for PayPal cash or other rewards from fitness-related merchandise to gift cards.

17. Lose Weight with HealthyWage

How’s that New Year’s Resolution to lose weight going? If you’re looking for some added motivation, HealthyWage makes it easy to up the ante as you bet how much weight you can lose in a given time period. You place a HealthyWage with real cash and you earn it back and more if you reach your goal.

Some people have earned $4,000 from HealthyWage and if you need some extra group motivation to trim your waistline, HealthyWage offers team challenges too.

18. Listen to Music

Are you an audiophile? With Slicethepie, you get paid to review:

• New songs
• Fashion items and accessories
• Commercials

In many cases, you review content before it goes public so you’re one of the first people to listen to the newest song or watch an upcoming tv commercial.

To review the items, you rate the product on a scale from one to ten and leave any positive or negative feedback too. You get paid $1 per review and can request PayPal payment once your balance is $10.

19. Transcribe Audio Recordings

If you can transcribe words to paper, you have an in-demand gift. Companies of any industry need official documents transcribed and you can get paid weekly by PayPal.

Even if you don’t have any prior experience, you can make up to $2,200 a month by transcribing one or two minute audio clips. The pay is higher if you qualify for legal and medical transcription. Two companies to consider are GoTranscript and TranscribeMe to begin working immediately on these micro-tasks.

20. Mystery Shop

Do you like filling out the survey sweepstakes invitations at the bottom of store receipts to grade your shopping experience? With Gigwalk, you can share your experience and receive guaranteed payment.

As a gigwalker, you can earn between $3 and $100 per gigs and receive instant PayPal payment once your findings are approved. All you need is a mobile phone and the Gigwalk app to start looking for nearby gigs that can require you to check item prices, taking pictures of shelf placement, or attending marketing events.

Gigs can take between five minutes and a few hours to complete, but you can apply for gigs as your schedule permits which makes this a flexible side hustle.

21. Teach English Online

International students from over 32 countries will pay you to teach them English online at VIPKID and you can earn up to $22 per hour!

Since these students might literally live on the other side of the world, you will most likely have to teach in the early morning or late evening hours. This can be a good income option for stay-at-home-parents with a teaching background or a side hustle before you head to your normal 9 to 5.

22. Tutor

You can also get make money with PayPal by tutoring students of all ages online at Tutor.com. Students are looking for tutors like you for math, science, history, language, and even ESL. All tutoring sessions occur online and the only requirement is that you must be available at least five hours a week.

23. Get a Haircut

If you have long, desirable hair but willing to cut it off for the right price of course, 🙂 you can advertise your hair on Hairsellon.

When someone buys your hair, you will receive PayPal cash. You might make close to a $100 bucks or maybe even $4000, either way, you can get a free haircut and still pocket a profit.

How to Create a PayPal Account

Don’t have a Paypal account yet? No worries, the sign-up process only takes a few minutes. Just follow these steps to create an account:

• Visit Paypal.com
• Click the Signup button
• Choose personal account (you can upgrade to a business account later if necessary)
• Enter your personal information

Once your PayPal account is created, you can link your bank account to transfer your earnings. All transfers are free and take up to two business days at most. If you need your money in a matter of minutes, you can pay a small fee and PayPal will forward the money to your linked debit card.

Summary

Paypal is one a favorite way for most online freelancers to get paid because it’s instant and easy. Whether you only pursue one gig or several of the suggestions mentioned here, all of your side hustle earnings will be in one place; your PayPal account.

So, let’s get going and start earning your first dollar!