The holy grail of making extra income is being able to work online and get paid instantly. Who doesn’t want flexibility and fast cash!?
But here’s the thing about articles like this, most of them are just lists of survey sites. And yes, you can work online and get paid instantly with surveys, but you’re only making a dollar or two per hour.
We can do that better than that.
This list is more than just apps for taking surveys, watching videos, and shopping online. You’re also going to get some of the best side hustles that pay quickly — at least weekly.
So if you want to work online and get paid instantly, I’m going to make it easy and separate this list into two sections:
Don’t you love choices?
Here are 11 number of legitimate options to work online and get paid instantly!
Get paid in 72 hours or less
1. Deliver groceries for Instacart
Instacart is a grocery delivery service where customers can make online lists, and then Instacart personal shoppers shop for those items and deliver them. Instacart advertises that shoppers can earn $20/hour during busy times, but the average is closer to $11/hour.
Until recently, Instacart paid shoppers weekly, but in June of 2019, Instacart released Instant Cashout. Shoppers can work online and get paid instantly with a quick transfer to their debit card. That means you can pick up a grocery delivery job, complete it, and get paid in about five minutes.
2. Opinion Outpost
Like all of the survey sites on this list, you are helping companies with valuable market research. The survey companies match you with surveys, and the majority of them take only a few minutes to answer.
Through Opinion Outpost, you’ll take surveys for electronics, medicine, sports, politics, advertisements, appliances, food, and more. It’s mindless work, but take the time to answer honestly.
You earn points for each survey you complete, and once you’ve earned 30 points, you can redeem them via PayPal. Each point is worth $0.10, so the minimum you’ll cash out is $3. You’re also entered into a prize drawing for every survey you finish.
3. Pinecone Research
Pinecone Research is an online survey site that pays you in points for taking surveys. You can redeem your points for special offers through Pinecone, or you can cash them out to PayPal. Pinecone says it can take up to five days to receive your funds, but I always received my funds in just a couple of days.
Yep, I made money with Pinecone Research when I was paying off my student loans, and my experience was really positive.
4. Offer Nation
Offer Nation is a GPT site, which stands for “get paid to.” Signing up for Offer Nation takes a minute or two, and you are paid in a few hours of completing tasks. You can cash out at a minimum of $1.
There are no fees to work online and get paid through Offer Nation — you should never sign up for companies that ask you to pay for access to surveys.
5. Amazon MTurk
Amazon Mechanical Turk, or MTurk, isn’t a survey site. You’re getting paid to do short tasks online that have to be done by a human. Some of the tasks you might do are:
- Identifying objects in a photo or video
- Performing data re-duplication
- Transcribing audio recordings
- Researching data details
The way you work on Amazon MTurk is by setting up a free account, browsing through a list of online tasks called HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), and submitting your work.
Once your work is approved, you can immediately transfer your earnings to a U.S. Bank account or receive them in your Amazon account in the form of a gift card.
6. Ibotta
Ibotta is an incredibly popular cashback site where you earn cash by shopping online and in-store for things like groceries, clothes, home goods, travel, and more. Ibotta has already paid out over $680,000,000 to users!
What you’ll love about Ibotta is that it pays cash, not points.
Here’s how you can work online and get paid instantly with Ibotta:
- Earn in-store by adding offers to your Ibotta account and upload a photo of your receipt. Cash back is added to your account within 24-48 hours.
- Link loyalty accounts at participating retailers so you don’t have to photograph your receipts.
- Pay with the Ibotta app at over 50 different retailers for an even easier cash back experience.
Ibotta works with over 1,500 different brands and companies, and they recommend checking the app as often as possible because they regularly add new offers. There are offers for big chain stores, local grocery stores, generic brand items, and more.
7. Mindswarms
Mindswarms is an online market research platform that pays you to record one-minute long video responses to short surveys. All of this happens through the Mindswarms apps, and you earn $10-$50 per survey.
You’ll need to fill out a short application before you are approved for a survey, but Mindswarms will only send you applications if they match your basic information (like age, gender, and region). Surveys are on a first-come, first-served basis, so they recommend applying for as many studies as possible to increase your opportunities to work online and get paid instantly.
Speaking of getting paid, Mindswarms sends out your payment via PayPal within 24 hours of taking the survey.
Work online and get paid every week
If you’re up for making even more cash and are willing to wait just a little bit longer, this section is for you. You can earn $1,000/month or more with at least one of these ideas!
8. Drive for Uber or Lyft
Rideshare driving has serious side hustle appeal for good reasons:
- It’s incredibly flexible — when you have the time, you log in to the app and find riders in your area.
- You earn around $15/hour.
- Uber and Lyft pay drivers every week.
Lyft starts processing their payments on Tuesday morning, and money is directly deposited in your bank account by Friday. Uber processes payments the same way.
While I’ve never worked as a rideshare driver, I’ve talked to a lot of them, and I’ve only heard good things. Rideshare drivers love that they can easily make extra money in their spare time.
M$M tip: If you’re interested in rideshare driving, I recommend checking out these articles to learn more:
9. Facebook ads for small businesses
Running Facebook ads for small businesses is when you create, run, test, and manage ad campaigns on Facebook. It’s digital marketing on the world’s largest social media platform. And it’s my favorite way to make money online… next to blogging, of course.
The reason I love it so much is because in just a few hours a week, you can make an extra $1,000-$1,500/month per client.
Running Facebook ads is how I supplemented my income after quitting my teaching job to run this site full-time. After landing a few clients, I was out-earning what I made as a teacher. After realizing I could teach others to do the same thing, I teamed up with my good friend Mike Yanda (lawyer turned ads guru who earns $30k/month with Facebook ads) to create the Facebook Side Hustle Course.
Now, I never thought I would put this side hustle in a list of ways to work online and get paid instantly but let me tell you a story…
A few months ago, someone in my Millennial Money Facebook Group was asking about the course. They wanted to hear from other students before joining. Comments rolled in from happy students, and then the wildest thing happened — someone in the group hired the original commenter to run ads for their business.
Before this person even took the course, they had a paying customer waiting for them.
These ARE NOT typical results, so don’t think this is a get-rich-quick scheme. But if you are interested in earning an extra $1,000-$1,500/month or more, it’s worth learning more about.
10. Complete tasks for TaskRabbit
TaskRabbit is a website where people list small one-off jobs like moving furniture for $75, mounting a TV for $30, cleaning a house for $60, etc.
Payments are processed 24 hours after the Tasker has completed them, and it takes 3 to 5 business days to hit your bank account. You will need to go through a background check before you can start working.
11. Deliver food
Working as a food delivery driver is a little like rideshare driving but without the people. So if you’re nervous about strangers in your car, this is an excellent way to make money online and get paid fast.
You can earn around $15-$20/hour delivering food, and here’s how fast you are paid with different companies:
The final word on how to work online and get paid instantly
Technology has made it so much easier for you to work when and where you want and get paid as quickly as possible. And the ideas on this list are some of the fastest paying and legitimate options out there.
About Millennial Money Man
Bobby Hoyt is a former band director who paid off $40,000 of student loan debt in 18 months on his teaching salary and then left his job to run Millennial Money Man full-time. He helps other Millennials earn more through side hustles, save more through budgeting tools and apps, and pay off debt. He is a personal finance expert who has been seen on Forbes, Reuters, MarketWatch, CNBC, International Business Times, Business Insider, US News, Yahoo Finance, and many other personal finance and entrepreneurship media outlets.
