---
title: '10 Ways to Earn Money Without Spending a Dime in 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=RqTM9seDnMk'
video_id: 'RqTM9seDnMk'
date: 2026-07-22
duration_sec: 1014
channel: 'PaidFromSurveys'
---

# 10 Ways to Earn Money Without Spending a Dime in 2026

> Source: [10 Ways to Earn Money Without Spending a Dime in 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=RqTM9seDnMk)

## Summary

This video presents 10 legitimate methods to earn money online without any upfront investment, based on the creator's real-world testing. The methods range from quick cash options like paid surveys to potentially scalable side hustles like becoming a Sharetown rep. The creator emphasizes that most are for extra income, not full-time earnings, and provides resources for finding the best platforms per location.

### Key Points

- **Paid Surveys** [02:09] — Easiest way to start earning immediately by answering surveys. Earnings are modest but can add up by joining multiple sites. Best sites vary by country; creator provides country-specific lists on his website.
- **AI Training Jobs** [03:15] — Train AI models through platforms offering long-term gigs (e.g., Pareto) or small tasks (e.g., Hyper Micro). Pay varies; creator has a curated list of best AI training jobs.
- **Gig Economy Jobs** [04:45] — Local physical tasks like furniture assembly, pet sitting, or delivery via platforms like TaskRabbit. Can potentially grow into a full-time income. Creator provides a list of best gig platforms.
- **Passive Income Apps** [05:56] — Install apps that share unused internet bandwidth or track browsing for market research. Low earnings but requires no effort. Examples: Pawns, Honeygain. Creator has a list of best passive income apps.
- **Free Crypto Earnings** [07:18] — Earn cryptocurrency through platforms like Gemsloot or PrizeRebel, then hold or trade. Risky but potential for growth. Creator provides lists for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptos.
- **Focus Groups** [09:14] — Participate in paid discussions (online or in-person) on specific topics. Hard to qualify but pays well when accepted. Creator lists best online focus groups.
- **Sharetown Rep** [10:01] — Resell returned items (e.g., mattresses, furniture) from retailers. Requires vehicle and storage. US only. Some reps earn up to $50/hour. Creator has a full tutorial.
- **Cashback Sites** [11:11] — Earn a percentage back on online purchases by clicking through cashback sites like MyPoints. Some apps connect credit cards for in-store cashback. Creator lists best options by country.
- **User Testing** [12:06] — Get paid to test websites, apps, or games and provide feedback. Pays well (e.g., $10 for 10 minutes). Hard to qualify; join multiple platforms. Examples: User Interviews, UserTesting.com.
- **Get Paid to Be a Friend** [13:29] — Platforms like Papa.com or RentAFriend pay for companionship (e.g., meals, events). Strict rules; earnings up to $50/hour but competitive. Creator finds it unusual but notes it works for some.

### Conclusion

There is no single best method; the right choice depends on your goals, interests, and location. The creator encourages trying multiple options and provides additional resources on his website for each category.

## Transcript

Most videos about earning money online for free&nbsp; are either outdated, unrealistic, or they just try&nbsp;&nbsp; to sell you a course. So, in this video, I will&nbsp; show you 10 legit ways you can earn money without&nbsp;&nbsp; spending a dime. And these method actually&nbsp; work. They are completely free to start and&nbsp;&nbsp;
you don't need any experience. You don't need to&nbsp; buy any course or anything like that. And number&nbsp;&nbsp; seven is one most people have no idea about,&nbsp; but it definitely has some great potentials.&nbsp;&nbsp; Make sure you stick around to see all the&nbsp; opportunities so you can find the best for you.&nbsp;&nbsp;
In case you don't know, my name is Mikael and&nbsp; on this channel here, I test side hustles so&nbsp;&nbsp; you don't have to waste your time on things&nbsp; that don't work. And everything I share here&nbsp;&nbsp; is based on real experience and not just hype.&nbsp; So, in this video here, I will be showing you&nbsp;&nbsp;
10 legit ways to earn money without any investment&nbsp; at all. And some of them are just great for quick&nbsp;&nbsp; extra cash and others they can potentially&nbsp; grow into something bigger if you stick with&nbsp;&nbsp; them. and I'll break down how each of the options&nbsp; work, what you can realistically expect to earn,&nbsp;&nbsp;
and who each option is best suited for, so you can&nbsp; find which ones fit your goals, your experience,&nbsp;&nbsp; and everything the best. So, let's just get to&nbsp; it. So before going over the options I want to&nbsp;&nbsp; show you, I just want to talk a little bit about&nbsp; the earning potential so you know exactly what&nbsp;&nbsp;
to expect because as mentioned some of these&nbsp; methods they are some you can get started with&nbsp;&nbsp; right away start earning right away even also&nbsp; but then usually the earning potential is also&nbsp;&nbsp; not huge. Most of the methods I will show here&nbsp; are actually just methods to earn some extra&nbsp;&nbsp;
money on the side. They are not a way to build a&nbsp; full-time income or anything like that. There are&nbsp;&nbsp; a few of them that can grow into something bigger&nbsp; potentially, but overall these are side hustles,&nbsp;&nbsp;
free methods to start earning where you can get&nbsp; started very easily and start right away. And I'll&nbsp;&nbsp; show you many different methods. So then you can&nbsp; also choose different options. So it just keeps&nbsp;&nbsp; being interesting and more fun to earn also. So&nbsp; you can just join as many options I'll show you&nbsp;&nbsp;
and or as few as you want to. That's completely&nbsp; up to you. So let's just get to the list.&nbsp;&nbsp; So, when we talk about free ways to earn some&nbsp; extra money, we have to talk about paid surveys.&nbsp;&nbsp;
one of the easiest ways to earn some extra money&nbsp; right away. You can just sign up for the best&nbsp;&nbsp; survey sites in your country. I'll show you in&nbsp; just a bit how to find those and then you can&nbsp;&nbsp;
start answering surveys, questions, and get paid.&nbsp; It's not a way to make a huge amount of money,&nbsp;&nbsp; but it's easy to get started with and if you join&nbsp; several survey sites, it can be a nice way to&nbsp;&nbsp; earn some extra money depending on where you live.&nbsp; A couple of examples of great survey sites that&nbsp;&nbsp;
I've tested is for example, Branded Surveys. We&nbsp; also have TopSurveys. But as mentioned, the most&nbsp;&nbsp; important thing when it comes to paid surveys is to find the right ones for your location,&nbsp;&nbsp; your country, because what works for me or someone&nbsp; else might not be the best for you depending on&nbsp;&nbsp;
where you live. So I manually actually have built&nbsp; out these list here on my website where I show the&nbsp;&nbsp; best surveys in many different countries here. I&nbsp; keep updating them. I keep testing. I get feedback&nbsp;&nbsp;
from hundreds of people all over the world. If&nbsp; your country is not here, then there are not a&nbsp;&nbsp; or you can choose some of the other options&nbsp; I will talk about here in this video instead.&nbsp;&nbsp;
The next option is to train AI or do AI training&nbsp; jobs. And this has become very popular. There are&nbsp;&nbsp; many different platforms. There are some where you&nbsp; can actually get jobs or higher paying long-term&nbsp;&nbsp;
gigs. And then there are small platforms where&nbsp; you can just find small kind of data entry type&nbsp;&nbsp; of work but focused on helping to train AI where&nbsp; you can just join and sign up and start earning a&nbsp;&nbsp;
bit of extra money right away. So which options&nbsp; are best really depends on your preferences. A&nbsp;&nbsp; couple of examples here also I'll show you a&nbsp; few examples for each of the methods I will&nbsp;&nbsp; talk about and then I will tell you where you&nbsp; can find more information also if you want full&nbsp;&nbsp;
list about a specific method if you want a more&nbsp; options or anything like that. But one option&nbsp;&nbsp; here is Pareto and here you can see you can apply&nbsp; to become an AI trainer. Here you can often find&nbsp;&nbsp; a little bit longer term projects or jobs so you&nbsp; can earn a little bit more. There's also something&nbsp;&nbsp;
like hyper micro where you would just find small&nbsp; tasks, jobs where you can see it categorization,&nbsp;&nbsp; drawing boxes, things like that. So, this doesn't&nbsp; pay that much, but it's easier and faster to get&nbsp;&nbsp; then I do have a list also on my website&nbsp; of the best AI training jobs. You can find&nbsp;&nbsp;
full tutorials and reviews of the two options&nbsp; there and many others also. So, if you think&nbsp;&nbsp; this sounds interesting, then you can also find&nbsp; a link to this list here below this video here.&nbsp;&nbsp; Another great way to make some extra money is gig&nbsp; economy jobs. And and on some of these platforms,&nbsp;&nbsp;
you can potentially even grow it into something&nbsp; bigger. Some people are making almost a living&nbsp;&nbsp; from gig economy jobs or apps or platforms.&nbsp; So, it is an option. And just to give you an&nbsp;&nbsp; idea about what type of work it is, usually it is&nbsp; in your local area. So, it's not online. It's one&nbsp;&nbsp;
of the few here where you would actually have&nbsp; to do something physically in your local area.&nbsp;&nbsp; TaskRabbit is an option that will show you just&nbsp; some of the many ways you can do it. But you&nbsp;&nbsp; can see it can become a personal assistant. It&nbsp; can be furniture assembly. It can be help moving,&nbsp;&nbsp;
indoor painting, all kind of different&nbsp; things here. It can also be to deliver&nbsp;&nbsp; different groceries. It can be pet sitting. There&nbsp; are many different types of gig jobs. And this is&nbsp;&nbsp;
just one example. Also here I do have a list on&nbsp; my website of some of the best platforms that I&nbsp;&nbsp; have come across for this here. There are many&nbsp; different types. So you can kind of just pick&nbsp;&nbsp; and choose depending on what type of jobs you&nbsp; are looking for. Some of them do pay decently.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Others will not pay you that much. But if you just&nbsp; choose the right option considering your location,&nbsp;&nbsp; your preferences, all these things, it can&nbsp; definitely build up to some nice extra income.&nbsp;&nbsp;
If you spend a lot of time online, then installing&nbsp; passive income apps can also be a great way to&nbsp;&nbsp; earn a bit extra. Usually, they don't actually&nbsp; earn you a lot because it will just run in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
devices and then you will just share your unused&nbsp; internet bandwidth. In many cases, in some cases,&nbsp;&nbsp; it will track anonymously what websites you're&nbsp; using, the ads you're seeing, and things like&nbsp;&nbsp;
this that is used for market research. So whether&nbsp; you feel comfortable about this or not that really&nbsp;&nbsp; depends on you. One example is Pawns is very&nbsp; well known for offering these options. There&nbsp;&nbsp; are other options also like Honeygain. I also&nbsp; have a full video about that. I'll leave a link&nbsp;&nbsp;
in the corner here. But in general I do have a&nbsp; full list also on my website of course with the&nbsp;&nbsp; best passive income apps. So I'll also leave a&nbsp; link to that below. Again you just need to do&nbsp;&nbsp; this with the right expectations. It will not make&nbsp; you a lot is one of the options here on this list&nbsp;&nbsp;
that will make you the least. But you also don't&nbsp; have to do anything. So if you are online a lot,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can let it run in the background and then&nbsp; a little bit of extra money once in a while can&nbsp;&nbsp; of course also be nice. So I just want to take a&nbsp; quick second to make you aware that the majority&nbsp;&nbsp;
of you watching have actually not subscribed to&nbsp; my channel. And it's a free easy way to support&nbsp;&nbsp; me and my work so I can keep focusing on creating&nbsp; valuebased content like this. So I would really&nbsp;&nbsp; appreciate if you could just take one second here&nbsp; to hit the subscribe button and also the like&nbsp;&nbsp;
button for this video here. So thanks for that and&nbsp; then back to the list now. So the next option is&nbsp;&nbsp; to earn crypto for free that you can then use to&nbsp; either trade or you can invest it in crypto in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
cryptos you believe in the long-term potential of&nbsp; and then what you can earn now from free platforms&nbsp;&nbsp; can potentially grow into something more. This is&nbsp; of course a little bit more risky because there is&nbsp;&nbsp; no guarantee. So I'm not guarantee you that this&nbsp; will give great results. Of course, you need to&nbsp;&nbsp;
do some research about the different cryptos,&nbsp; especially if you want to trade. But there are&nbsp;&nbsp; many free earning platforms, even some of the ones&nbsp; I have already mentioned here where when you earn,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can actually choose to withdraw in crypto. So&nbsp; that way you can either then hold on to it if it's&nbsp;&nbsp;
a crypto you believe in or you can trade it if you&nbsp; want to. A couple of examples also of platforms&nbsp;&nbsp; that offer this is for example Gemsloot here.&nbsp; It offers to pay out in many different cryptos&nbsp;&nbsp; including Bitcoin and Solana and also PrizeRebel,&nbsp; one of my favorite get-paid-to sites where you can&nbsp;&nbsp;
earn in many different ways by doing small online&nbsp; microtasks and then you can get paid out also in&nbsp;&nbsp; Bitcoin and many other cryptos. So these are just&nbsp; two examples. I also do have list on my website of&nbsp;&nbsp; the best ways to earn Bitcoin or Ethereum for&nbsp; free. I'll leave links below. I also have for&nbsp;&nbsp;
other cryptos. Then you can just go on my website,&nbsp; use the search bar and search for your crypto.&nbsp;&nbsp; for example of XRP and Solana, Dogecoin and&nbsp; more. So you can go there and check that out&nbsp;&nbsp; if there's other cryptos you are interested&nbsp; in. But as mentioned, you can also just take&nbsp;&nbsp;
out the cryptos each of these platforms have&nbsp; and then you can trade it into something else,&nbsp;&nbsp; if there is a particular crypto that you want that&nbsp; these different free online earning platforms are&nbsp;&nbsp; not offering. So this can be a way if you don't&nbsp; need the money here and now to potentially grow&nbsp;&nbsp;
it into something bigger over time. But again, do&nbsp; your own research so you know the risks and what&nbsp;&nbsp; is involved. But it can definitely be something&nbsp; to consider. So focus groups is another great&nbsp;&nbsp;
way to earn some extra money. Sometimes it's&nbsp; in person, other times it is online and often&nbsp;&nbsp; you can participate in interesting discussions.&nbsp; I have done it quite a few times. And the great&nbsp;&nbsp; thing about it is that it's not only interesting,&nbsp; often you can also earn really nice extra money.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Some focus groups are very hard to qualify for&nbsp; because they're looking for very specific type&nbsp;&nbsp; of people or demographic groups or things like&nbsp; that. So, just be aware that it's a good idea to&nbsp;&nbsp; join several platforms that offer this so you&nbsp; have a bigger chance of finding projects you&nbsp;&nbsp;
qualify for. But the great thing is when you then&nbsp; qualify, it can really boost your site income. I&nbsp;&nbsp; do have a list on my website of the best online&nbsp; focus groups. So, I'll leave a link to that below&nbsp;&nbsp; here also, so you can go and check that out if you&nbsp; think this sounds like the right option for you.&nbsp;&nbsp;
So number seven here is one that most people&nbsp; are not aware of and one that I find quite&nbsp;&nbsp; interesting and this can grow into something&nbsp; quite big potentially. Of course it depends on&nbsp;&nbsp; your effort and everything but it is to become&nbsp; a Sharetown rep and Sharetown is a platform&nbsp;&nbsp;
where you can actually resell items or you can&nbsp; get paid to pick up store and resell like new&nbsp;&nbsp; oversight products. It can be mattresses, it&nbsp; can be furniturees, it can be gym equipment,&nbsp;&nbsp; all kind of things from people that are returning&nbsp; it after they bought it and then you have to pick&nbsp;&nbsp;
it up. You have to then resell it and then you can&nbsp; keep a big part of this profit here and that is&nbsp;&nbsp; for Sharetown and you can apply to become a rep.&nbsp; And I also do have a full tutorial of that. I'll&nbsp;&nbsp; you can see here that uh some of the reps are&nbsp; making up to $50 an hour. This is currently only&nbsp;&nbsp;
in the US, so just keep this in mind here. And&nbsp; of course, it also requires you to have a vehicle&nbsp;&nbsp; so you can pick up these items here and also&nbsp; storage space of course. But if you have that,&nbsp;&nbsp; then this can be a great way to earn by reselling&nbsp; items. If you're interesting in more ways to earn&nbsp;&nbsp;
in the top corner so you can check that out. If&nbsp; you ever shop online, then the next option here is&nbsp;&nbsp; something you should definitely consider and that&nbsp; is to join cashback sites because there are many&nbsp;&nbsp;
both apps and websites where you can join and then&nbsp; when you click the links there to certain shops&nbsp;&nbsp; then you will be able to shop there as you usually&nbsp; would. It doesn't cost extra anything but you will&nbsp;&nbsp; earn a percentage of your what you buy back into&nbsp; your account and then you can take that out as&nbsp;&nbsp;
cash or gift cards depending on the platforms you&nbsp; are using. Some cashback sites or apps actually&nbsp;&nbsp; even allow you to connect a credit card. So when&nbsp; you shop in physical shops also you will earn cash&nbsp;&nbsp;
back. But one example is just my points. This is&nbsp; if you live in the US or Canada. But this is just&nbsp;&nbsp; one example. There are many great cashback sites&nbsp; depending on where you live. I of course also have&nbsp;&nbsp; a full list of the best options like this on my&nbsp; website if you're more interested in this option.&nbsp;&nbsp;
I will leave a link to that below so you can check&nbsp; that out if you're interested in this. One really&nbsp;&nbsp; great side hustle I enjoy is user testing. And&nbsp; there are quite a lot of great user testing sites&nbsp;&nbsp;
where you can sign up and you can then get paid&nbsp; to share feedback. Sometimes where you record&nbsp;&nbsp; your screen and think out loud. Other times it can&nbsp; be one-on-one interviews where you give feedback&nbsp;&nbsp; about something. Sometimes it can be to find&nbsp; bugs in uh new games or new programs. There are&nbsp;&nbsp;
many different types of user testing like this.&nbsp; The great thing is that they can pay quite well.&nbsp;&nbsp; Sometimes it can be hard to qualify for some&nbsp; of them. So that's why it's always a good idea&nbsp;&nbsp; to join several user testing platforms. A couple&nbsp; of examples is for example user interviews here.&nbsp;&nbsp;
And you can see some examples here of the type of&nbsp; tasks they have here. This was actually a focus&nbsp;&nbsp; group in person but they also have online tasks.&nbsp; You can see sometimes it can pay really well if&nbsp;&nbsp;
you end up qualifying. Other times this one is&nbsp; online there. This only takes 10 minutes but then&nbsp;&nbsp; you get $10. That's also quite nice. So that's&nbsp; just one example. Another popular user testing&nbsp;&nbsp; platform is just called user testing.com where&nbsp; you can also earn some nice extra money when you&nbsp;&nbsp;
qualify. I am a member of quite a lot of different&nbsp; user testing platforms uh because then I will&nbsp;&nbsp; regularly get invited because as mentioned it can&nbsp; take some patience. So just joining one then you&nbsp;&nbsp; will likely not get too many tests but I also do&nbsp; have a list of the best usage testing platforms&nbsp;&nbsp;
on my website. I'll leave a link to that below. So&nbsp; then you can check that out and find the ones you&nbsp;&nbsp; want to join if you think this sounds like a great&nbsp; option for you. So the last option I want to talk&nbsp;&nbsp; about is to get paid to be a friend. It sounds a&nbsp; little bit strange. I also thought so when I first&nbsp;&nbsp;
heard about it, but there are a few different&nbsp; platforms where you can sign up and then people&nbsp;&nbsp; are willing to pay you to well in some cases it&nbsp; depends on the platform there. But for example,&nbsp;&nbsp; if we go to one example is Papa.com here where you&nbsp; can see that it help health plans and employers&nbsp;&nbsp;
connect members or and their families to real&nbsp; people for help with companion care, for example,&nbsp;&nbsp; everyday task, transportation, and more. So this&nbsp; is one option. Another one is one that's called&nbsp;&nbsp; RentAFriend where you can see you can earn up&nbsp; to $50 per hour. Of course, there's no guarantee&nbsp;&nbsp;
you'll earn this because people need to be willing&nbsp; to pay that. So you need to look at what people&nbsp;&nbsp; they actually um are willing to pay in your local&nbsp; area. It can for example be to go out for meals,&nbsp;&nbsp; for concerts, sporting events and more if they&nbsp; need companion. But be aware of course it is to&nbsp;&nbsp;
be a friend. There's nothing else going on there.&nbsp; They have very strict rules about that. So just&nbsp;&nbsp; want to make that clear. Personally, this here&nbsp; particular one here I find a little bit strange.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's not something for me. But it is an option.&nbsp; I know some people are making decent money like&nbsp;&nbsp;
this. Of course there's a huge competition and&nbsp; need to do it with the right expectations. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; I also do have, of course, more information about&nbsp; both of these options here on my website. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; if you want to know more details to find out if&nbsp; it's for you, you can also find more information&nbsp;&nbsp;
about this, but I just wanted to present it so you&nbsp; have a wide range of opportunities of different&nbsp;&nbsp; methods and then you can figure out yourself which&nbsp; ones are the best for you. So, as you can see,&nbsp;&nbsp; there are quite a lot of different ways to make&nbsp; some extra money. And I have shown you some very&nbsp;&nbsp;
different options. [clears throat] Some from just&nbsp; sitting at home starting right away to where you&nbsp;&nbsp; have to go out and be a little bit more active&nbsp; where you can then potentially also grow it into&nbsp;&nbsp; something bigger. There is no best method. It&nbsp; all depends on your goals, your interest, your&nbsp;&nbsp;
preferences, all these different things. So that's&nbsp; why I presented so many different options. And for&nbsp;&nbsp; each of these methods, there are many different&nbsp; platforms you can join. So you'll definitely not&nbsp;&nbsp; run out of tasks if you just make sure to join&nbsp; the best of the options within each category. And&nbsp;&nbsp;
I have mentioned throughout this video here also I&nbsp; have more information about the different options,&nbsp;&nbsp; So if you're interested in knowing more about&nbsp; them or anything like that before you decide,&nbsp;&nbsp;
then you can just check that out. And if you have&nbsp; any questions, any experiences with any of these&nbsp;&nbsp; method or any other methods, then please just&nbsp; feel free to share it in the comments. I love&nbsp;&nbsp; to hear from all of you and I make sure to reply&nbsp; to every single comment. Once in a while there are&nbsp;&nbsp;
some people that say why I didn't reply or why the&nbsp; comment get deleted. I just want to make it clear&nbsp;&nbsp; I am not deleting any comments as long as it's not&nbsp; spam and as long as it's not abusive or anything&nbsp;&nbsp; like that. But sometimes the comment system here&nbsp; can be a little bit tricky and sometimes it a&nbsp;&nbsp;
comment can get lost or get deleted uh without me&nbsp; actually knowing it. So just wanted to make that&nbsp;&nbsp; clear because some people have mentioned this.&nbsp; So just want to give an explanation. But anyways,&nbsp;&nbsp; if this video helped you, then also please&nbsp; make sure to give it a like and don't forget&nbsp;&nbsp;
to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the&nbsp; notification bell so you won't miss out next&nbsp;&nbsp; time I release a video with tips and tricks&nbsp; about different ways to make money online.
