If you’re in a cash crunch, take a breath before applying for a loan. There’s likely a side hustle out there that can help you earn money fast—and even get paid on the same day you work.
Whether you tap the wonders of the gig economy or resources in your hometown, same-day pay could be closer than you think. With many employers adding daily pay options as an employee benefit, you could say farewell to payday Friday and hooray to payday every day.
15 side hustles that pay up to $200 per day
Getting paid every two weeks is pretty much the standard. But daily pay comes with both financial and mental health benefits, says Safwan Shah, CEO of Payactiv, a financial services company.
“Our research shows that by avoiding hefty fines in overdraft fees and predatory lending options, such as payday loans, an average worker can save up to $300 per month,” says Shah. Daily access to earnings can decrease stress by giving workers access to their wages on their schedule, not their employer’s.
A side hustle might be in order if you imagine a cash flow closer to daily than once every two weeks. If daily pay is important for your finances, you can compare gigs and find one that aligns with your talents, time, and expected payment schedule.
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1. Deliver for DoorDash
If you might enjoy connecting neighbors with everything from hot meals to pet supplies, delivering for DoorDash could be the cash infusion you need. With this app, there’s no shopping involved. Instead, when you accept a delivery, you’ll pick it up and drop it off at the designated address.
DoorDash offers two options for daily pay: Fast Pay and Dasher Direct. With Fast Pay, you can cash out earnings once daily directly to your debit card for a $1.99 fee. DasherDirect is a fee-free program that cashes you out after every delivery. To use DasherDirect, you’ll need to sign up for DoorDash’s Visa debit card. But by doing so, you’ll also get 2% cash back on gas purchases.
Average pay: $14–$25 per hour, $112–$200 per eight-hour day
2. Drive for Uber
Uber gives you two different side hustle options: Rideshare driver and delivery driver. Don’t worry—you don’t have to choose. When you sign up for Uber and are approved, you’re eligible to do one or both.
Whichever path you choose, you won’t have to wait long for your earnings. Uber’s Instant Pay feature costs $1.25 per transaction and lets you cash out up to six times per day. You’ll receive funds in your bank account through your debit card.
To qualify, you’ll need a debit card with a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover logo and must complete one trip successfully. From there, you’re good to go with Instant Pay and see your hard-earned cash in a flash.
Average rideshare pay: $15–$25 per hour (varies by market), $120–$200 per eight-hour day
Average delivery pay: $8–$20 per hour (varies by market), $64–$160 per eight-hour day
3. Share your opinion on Swagbucks
You’ve heard that saying about opinions: Everybody has one. Now, you can get paid for yours—and more—through Swagbucks. From the comfort of your home or on the go with its app, you can watch videos, shop online, answer surveys, and play games—all of which earn you points. Then, you can redeem your points for gift cards or cash back through PayPal.
Once you sign up and verify your account, you can start earning Swagbucks that you can redeem for cash. You can cash out whenever you have enough points to redeem for a $5 PayPal reward, which could be daily if you rack up enough Swagbucks.
Average pay: $1 to $5 per day
4. Respond to surveys on Drumo
If you love online surveys and games, Drumo might be an app to add to your daily payday routine. When you download and sign up for the platform, you’ll complete a short profile survey that Drumo uses to match you with survey opportunities.
Here’s the best part: You can cash out of Drumo to PayPal and receive funds within 24 hours when you earn as little as 50 cents. Drumo says that those with longstanding accounts can work their way up to instant payouts. Drumo gives every user a quality score based on their responses in the app. The higher your score, the better your chance of accessing higher-paying earning opportunities and that “instant” payout.
Average pay: Depends on the survey and earning opportunity
5. Be an Instacart shopper
When you become an Instacart shopper, you're responsible for shopping someone's grocery list and delivering them to their door. Retailers vary by ZIP code but can include stores such as Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Aldi, Publix, Petco, Meijer, Walgreens, and more. While this gig surged during the pandemic, plenty still use the service today since it can be so convenient.
Your pay is made up of batch pay, promotions, and tips. Payments are usually paid weekly. However, there is an Instant Cashout option. This allows you to receive your money sooner for a 50-cent fee per transaction, which pays you two hours after delivery.
With Instacart, shoppers usually earn a base rate per order, although you can increase your rate during peak hours by completing larger orders or if you get tips from customers.
Average pay: $13.62 per hour
6. Go shopping with Shipt
Get paid to go shopping? It’s not a myth. With Shipt, you’ll shop for customers and then deliver their orders. It’s not just groceries, either. One day, you may find yourself at Target and Sephora. The next, at a wine shop or PetSmart. But wherever you go, you can get paid daily using Shipt’s Instant Pay, which doesn’t require additional fees.
To be eligible for Instant Pay, which sends money directly to your bank account, you’ll need one successful weekly payout through direct deposit. Once you hit that threshold, you can select Instant Pay once every 24 hours inside the Shipt app instead of waiting for the standard weekly payout.
Average pay: $11–$20 per hour, $88–$160 per eight-hour day
7. Complete microtasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk
With Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), workers can earn money by doing menial tasks, such as data entry, surveys, or content moderation. These are often tiny tasks that require human interaction and can't be easily done by AI, and often take a few minutes to complete. For this reason, the pay per task is generally pretty low—as little as a single cent per task. However, if you can complete a bunch of them every day, these can add up.
When you sign up as a worker, you'll have an entire marketplace full of tasks to choose from. These tasks include image and video processing, data verification and clean-up, information gathering, and data processing. Bank your earnings or request payouts up to once per day, which can be done via Amazon gift card or directly into your bank account.
Average pay: $1.77–$6.53 per hour
8. Serve at a local restaurant
If you want to keep things local, consider picking up a few shifts at a local bar or restaurant. While you might need to pass a food handling class to be eligible to apply, daily tips can keep cash in your pocket every day you work.
To maximize your chance for tips, don’t be shy about speaking to current servers where you hope to work. You can inquire about the most profitable shifts and, potentially, average tips for a new server. If you provide table service, you may find that tips are higher than in a cafe where customers pick up their orders at the register.
Average pay: $14–$16 per hour, $112–$128 per eight-hour day
9. Work for a company offering a daily pay benefit
Here’s a tip: Your current employer may already offer a daily pay benefit. Thanks to a new wave of apps that let employees access their pay on a daily instead of biweekly basis, your cash crunch might be on the brink of being solved.
First, your employer needs to partner with one of the many earned wages apps, such as DailyPay, EarnIn, or Instant. If they don’t already have an agreement, you could make the case and see if your employer is game. If you need fodder for your case, Tal Clark, CEO of Instant Financial, an earned wages app, has plenty of data to bolster your argument.
“Having access to pay immediately after a shift has proven to improve employee engagement, with employees more likely to feel a sense of connection and loyalty to their employer,” says Clark. According to Instant’s 2022 Wages and Wellbeing study, the numbers on daily pay speak for themselves:
- 79% of respondents would be more interested in applying for a job that pays them the same day they work.
- 62% of respondents would feel more valued as an employee if their employer provided immediate access to their earned pay after every day’s work.
- 58% of respondents said they left a job in the last two years that they would have stayed at longer if they were offered immediate access to a portion of their pay after every day’s work at no cost.
If your employer is on board, how you receive funds depends on the app. Typically, you’ll link a bank account, payroll card, or debit card during the signup process. Some apps issue their own debit card that you’ll use to access your money. The amount you can advance differs between companies, and fees for daily pay can be none, fixed, or variable. For example, Instant has no fees and DailyPay charges $2.99 per instant transfer, while EarnIn operates on a tipping model where you name your own fee.
Average pay: Depends on employer
10. Find gigs on Wonolo
When you sign up as a Wonoloer, you gain access to a variety of jobs, including merchandising, event staffing, warehouse operations, delivering, and general labor. Wonolo is available in more than 100 markets, including Las Vegas, Miami, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.
There are daily and hourly jobs to pick from, and then as soon as you complete a job, you get paid. If an employer likes your work, they can even mark your profile as a “Preferred Wonoloer,” so when they list a job in the future, you'll see it an hour before anyone else will.
Average pay: Varies by market
11. Donate plasma
If you need some extra cash and are ready to—literally—save lives, donating plasma can be a service to your community and wallet. Your community likely has at least one donation center, and all you have to do to get paid the same day is relax and let the cash flow.
The process for donating plasma is similar to donating blood, so yes, there’s a needle involved. It’s also a bit more time-consuming at 1–2 hours per appointment. However, you’re well compensated for your time. While rates vary by geography, you’re paid same-day via a donation center-supplied debit card, with some donation centers offering bonuses for new donors.
You can also donate up to twice per week, giving you multiple earning opportunities per month until you hit the annual 24-donation maximum set by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Average pay: $50–75 per day; donate up to twice per week and 24 times per year
12. Resell items online
With platforms, such as Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Poshmark, and Mercari, selling unwanted things around the house can add up. Whether you're clearing out your closet of clothes that don’t fit anymore or flipping furniture you’ve thrifted, you can reach a large audience of buyers looking for your finds.
With these marketplaces, you set the prices, and how quickly they sell depends on the demand for the product. You could resell a sought-after special edition book signed by the author for $300 to a niche audience of book lovers and might not get $15 for it on another platform. The idea is to know your audience, price items effectively, and respond to inquiries quickly.
Average pay: Varies by marketplace and item
13. Do basic housekeeping
If you're one of those people who loves cleaning, consider doing housekeeping. You can have a roster of clients each week hiring you to do basic household tasks, such as vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, mopping, dusting, washing dishes, and folding laundry. Advertising your services in local Facebook groups is a popular way to secure regular clients.
Before you go into anyone's home, get insurance to protect you should you get injured or break something on the job. Having proof of insurance can also help you get housekeeping jobs—someone is more likely to hire you if you’re insured.
Average pay: $30–40 per hour
14. Provide child care
If you enjoy working with children and can jump through any legal and regulatory hoops in your state, providing child care can be lucrative and fulfilling. While most regular childcare gigs pay weekly or sometimes even monthly, some childcare opportunities pay daily, such as babysitting gigs, where you're providing parents with much-needed respite so that they can have a date night or maybe you organize a holiday event with several friends who all pool their talent together for the night and watch kids so parents can celebrate.
It’s important to check into any local or state laws and, at the very least, get both first aid and CPR training, even if it isn’t required in your area. It can provide both you and the parents much-needed peace of mind that you’re prepared should there be a medical emergency, such as choking or a fall. There may also be license requirements in your area, especially if you’re watching more than one or two children in your home.
Average pay: $18 per hour, but this varies by state
15. Do yard work
If you don't mind doing physical labor and enjoy being outside, doing yard work can be an enjoyable way to earn money. These tasks include trimming, weeding, raking, and planting flowers. If you can specialize this further into landscaping or permaculture, your earnings potential could increase significantly.
Before you start doing yard work for others, ensure you get proper insurance. The last thing you want is to damage property, such as if a rock hits a window or a tree branch punctures someone's deck. By providing proof of insurance, you’re offering a competitive advantage over someone who isn’t insured.
Average pay: $17 per hour, although this varies by region
Tips for making the most out of your side hustle
By getting the most out of your side hustle, you can save more money and have more wiggle room in your budget each month. Here's how you can get the most out of your efforts:
- Play to your strengths: When you can do something you enjoy, your side hustle will be more fulfilling and won't feel like a burden.
- Try several gigs: Just as they say the average millionaire has seven streams of income, it can take some time to find your stride. Experiment with different gigs to see which is worth the effort and which ones aren't.
- Track your expenses closely: A huge mistake many new business owners make is not planning for profit. If the side hustle is costing more time or effort than it’s worth, consider an alternative.
- Stay organized: The last thing you want is to drop the ball on a big project you've already been partially paid for. Keep organized and streamline your workflow to keep on task.
The takeaway
The options above are a great place to start your search for a side hustle that offers daily pay. Now, you can turn the dials and find the gig, the pay, and the instant payment costs that make sense for your situation.
But before you jump in, it’s important to do your research. Thankfully, with many of the gig economy jobs, there are Reddit forums and gig economy sites that offer honest reviews of what it’s like to work for certain companies—and in your locale.
If you’re in a pinch for cash between the time you read this article and your daily pay gig-in-the-making, you may want to check out a cash advance app to help tide you over.
