Whether you’re interested in long-term opportunities to build and scale new revenue streams or you’re just looking for a side gig to help bring in a little walking-around cash, offering a service that helps your community can be a great addition to your work at home lifestyle. And some of the best small businesses don’t even require a lot of startup cash — just a vision, a marketable skill, and a working understanding of basic social media networking.
As someone who has been working from home for the better part of a decade, these types of service jobs have been integral supplements to my family’s cash flow. Here’s a breakdown of some of the best service-based business ideas you can easily start from home. Because who couldn’t use more money?
1. Babysitting
Ask any working parent, and you’ll find that childcare rates aren’t getting any lower. If you are a patient woman with a heart for kids and flexibility in the face of chaos, babysitting can be a fun way to make money while helping out families within your community. Adding assurances that kiddos will be safe in your care — such as a reputation for understanding gentle parenting principles, testimonials from happy clients, or certifications in childcare and first aid — can also go far toward helping you pick up new clients.
2. Baker
Have a talent for crafting beautiful baked goods? Try selling your products and taking custom orders on Facebook. There’s almost always a kid’s birthday in need of sweet treats. I’ve seen bakers who specialize in cupcakes, birthday cakes, cake pops, and even homemade bread.
3. Body Doubling
Body doubling is a concept where clients pay for someone to stay with them while they’re working on something to help them stay focused and on task. It’s especially helpful for neurodivergent folks who just feel like they work better with someone else around to help keep them from getting distracted, effectively holding them accountable for staying focused with minimal interaction. I’ve seen body doubles used for things like household cleaning, online work, and studying.
4. Boot and Shoe Repair Service
If you’re willing to learn a new skill and invest in some materials, repairing boots and shoes is a service you can do without running a brick-and-mortar store. A quality pair of shoes can easily run more than $100, and plenty of customers are willing to pay to get a favorite pair of boots, heels, or sneakers resoled rather than shell out for a brand new pair.
5. Car Detailing
Affordable car detailing services are another great in-demand business idea that tends to do well with good word-of-mouth recommendations from happy customers. You can easily teach yourself the trade using YouTube tutorials, then detail your friends’ and family members’ cars, and take pictures to use on social media.
6. Cleaning Service
As the recent uptick in TikTok cleaning services highlights, folks with an eye for detail can make a good living picking up cleaning jobs in their community. My local Facebook business group is full of cleaning businesses advertising their services, and yet I’m constantly seeing requests for recommendations on a good household cleaner. Other than your own cleaning supplies, this is a pretty low-cost startup.
7. Consulting
If you’ve got a unique knowledge base or skillset, consider joining the ranks of online consulting business owners. Whether you’ve got a knack for financial management, small business planning and development, marketing, government compliance, public relations, or personal lifestyle development, you may just have the potential for a small business.
8. Dance Instructor
Dance instruction isn’t just for clients interested in taking on a fun new hobby. Weddings, quinceañeras, bar and bat mitzvahs, and plenty of other events can require folks with no previous dance knowledge to cut a rug, and they tend to want to look good while they’re doing it.
9. Dog Walker
With a daughter in the performance arts and a husband freshly out of med school, my friend Jessie is one of the busiest moms I know. But no matter how busy she was, throughout those lean years, she supplemented the family’s income by walking dogs for clients she met on social media and loved every minute of it. This is another zero-startup home business that requires very little skill or ability other than good mobility, reliable transportation, and patience with animals. Of course, a pocket full of yummy dog treats can also help.
10. Driving Instructor
When I was a kid in school, driver’s education was a standard part of every kid’s high school experience. But these days, many parents are left teaching their own kids, and as the mom of three driver’s permit-aged teens, I wish I had an affordable instructor to teach them.
11. Dryer Vent Cleaning
Dryer fires are one of the most common causes of house fires. Dryer vent cleaning is fairly easy to learn and a fantastic service to advertise on apps like Nextdoor.
12. Errand Runner
There’s a woman in my local Nextdoor community who offers errand services for folks in the area, and she almost always seems to be busy. She often lists which area she’ll be in on what day to handle errands for several clients at once.
13. Estate Sale Management
If you enjoy reselling items, particularly vintage items, estate sale management is a good way to help others offload unneeded belongings that can be quite lucrative. Estate sale managers’ work might include hosting auctions and listing items online in addition to hosting public-facing estate sales.
14. Event Planner
Do you love making lists, perusing Pinterest, and planning for special occasions? Are you one of those girlies who loves to host parties and gets serious compliments when you do? Really know your way around a centerpiece? Then event planning might just be the perfect new venture for you.
Much like the photography business, weddings and corporate events tend to get all the attention in the event planning business, but you really don’t have to start (or end, for that matter) that big. Pinterest is full of party ideas from event planning specialists with a niche focus on smaller special events like gender reveal parties and kids’ birthdays. Once you’ve got a digital portfolio showing off your professional services, just share them around a few local mom groups on Facebook, and the business will practically sell itself.
15. Flooring Installation Services
If you can teach yourself to install quality tile or hardwood, you should have no trouble finding clients through your local Facebook and Nextdoor small business communities. Quality flooring installation services that look great and don’t cost a fortune are something of a unicorn these days. And if you get good enough at your craft, you’ll eventually be able to charge a fortune and still have no shortage of clients.
16. Gutter Cleaning Service
If you’re not afraid of heights, gutter cleaning is another high-demand service that folks seem to always need. This is especially true in regions where clogged gutters can lead to winter-time ice dams and ensuing roof damage.
17. Hair Styling
You don’t have to run a full-scale salon out of your home to get into the hair business outside of a booth space. Consider getting into professional hair styling, helping clients with everything from special occasion hairstyles to blowouts. You can even set up a hair braiding booth at local events like Renaissance faires and local festivals. I recently ran into a crew of ladies who were braiding colorful hair strands into elaborate braids at a street festival in Tulsa, and they had a long line every time I passed by.
18. Home Beauty Treatments
Are you a licensed aesthetician? Massage therapist? Eyelash application professional? There are plenty of potential clients out there who would love to work with a beauty expert in the comfort of their own homes.
19. Home Maintenance
Are you handy with tools or a fast learner? Home maintenance and plumber requests practically dominate my Nextdoor feed, with locals in search of someone to help with little things like cabinet or drywall repair, dishwasher installation, and ceiling fan replacement. There are a lot of women who would much rather have another woman in their home than a man they don’t know, and you can find potential clients by sharing your repairs on social media with short video reels.
20. Home Paint Party Host
You’ve likely seen those sip-and-paint parties where guests create their own art while sipping a glass of wine or tea. Who is to say you can’t host those for clients in their own homes?
21. Hotel Room Decorator
If you live near a theme park or spend an inordinate amount of time sailing on cruise ships, consider getting into the hotel room decoration business. One of the more interesting trends I’ve run into while writing online travel content is families traveling for special occasions sometimes love splurging to have a decorator show up prior to their arrival to make their travel quarters more festive with things like balloons, rose petals, and birthday banners. It’s a spendy venture, but folks dropping thousands on a high-dollar hotel stay are often more than willing to pay.
22. House Sitter
Put the word out that you’re available to check on folks’ homes while they’re on vacation. A Ring camera is nice, but some people would prefer having a house sitter around part of the time to help ensure the home looks occupied while they’re away.
23. Junk Hauling
If you’ve got a truck bed and a buddy to help share the workload, there’s always plenty of junk to be hauled and taken to the scrapper. And sometimes, some folks just need a room full of junk cleared — junk that could potentially be valuable if you’ve got the patience for it.
Depending on the junk load and the amount of work involved in collecting it, I’ve seen local junk haulers in my area pick up loads for a fee or even for free if it’s all metal.
24. Lawn Mowing
You don’t need a green thumb to get into the lawn mowing business. All you need is a good lawnmower, a tolerance for heat, some sunscreen, a refillable water bottle, and a pair of comfy walking shoes to get a lawn mowing business off the ground.
Depending on where you live, it may be a seasonal line of work, but you can make a lot of good money during that season if you’re willing to get up early and start working. You don’t even need a business name or a website — just walk up and down the block knocking on doors, or put up a few old-fashioned yard sale-type signs around your neighborhood.
25. Makeup Artist
If you’ve got a talent for makeup, makeup styling can be another great niche market that lets you come to your clients, which means you don’t need a brick-and-mortar location. You can easily generate samples of your work by offering discounted or freebie services in exchange for models around the holidays or prom time, and then market your services to ladies looking for special occasion makeup.
26. Meal Delivery Service
If you love driving around in your car listening to your playlist, there’s still plenty of room for more food delivery workers. I know someone who bought a super comfy vehicle for exactly this purpose, and he’s as happy as a clam as he drives around DoorDashing while listening to his favorite sports podcasts. All you need is reliable transportation for this low-cost-entry-point side hustle.
27. Mobile Mechanic Service
Are you the kind of lady who likes to change her own oil and make repairs to your vehicle? Be someone else’s roadside hero and start your own mobile mechanic service.
28. Music Instructor
Don’t let those 10 years of violin or piano lessons go to waste. Make some extra cash teaching other people’s kids how to play for half an hour at a time.
29. Notary Public
Notaries public serve an important purpose by helping to prevent fraud on important documents. The rules for notary public requirements can vary from one community to the next. Where I live, notary applicants are required to pay for a background check, an application, a surety bond, and a stamp. But after that, you’re just signing a document, using the seal, and collecting your cash.
30. Online Investigations
Nosy ladies, you know who you are. If you enjoy snooping around on the internet and you’re willing to invest in a handful of people search resources, you could start a part-time online investigation business.
31. Outdoor Grill Cleaning Service
There’s nothing like the fun of an outdoor cookout, but cleaning up while surrounded by guests can be a real drag. Outdoor grill cleaning services take over the hard part, leaving the grills sparkling and clean for the next big summer hangout.
32. Personal Chef
As a former restaurant worker and the wife of a former restaurant manager and sushi chef, I’ve known a few folks who made a good income working as a personal chef. And you don’t necessarily have to be a highly trained chef to land this kind of work, either.
A good friend of mine used to work for an affluent older gentleman who just needed someone to plan his meals, buy his groceries, and prepare his meals so he’d have more time to work on running his businesses. And my husband once worked in a similar capacity as the in-house chef for a local sorority, a job that meant shopping, prepping food, and serving meals for about 30 young ladies and a house mom.
If you’re good at meal planning and budgeting and you’re skilled in the kitchen, you might be surprised to learn just how many local folks are looking for a home chef. Hop onto your local Facebook business groups and start putting out some inquiries to see who might be looking.
33. Personal Shopper
No, I don’t mean the grocery delivery type of personal shopper, although that can be a fantastic side gig. Personal shoppers are folks who shop on behalf of their clients, focusing on each client’s taste, interests, and specified budget.
This might include shoppers with a gifted eye for design who help clients choose everything from clothing to home decor as they curate their image within a paradigm that works with their personal taste. I’ve also seen a growing niche for clients who source local products for online clients — for example, locals living near Disney Parks who travel into the theme parks to pick up specific merch so their clients don’t have to travel all the way to California or Florida.
34. Personal Trainer
Do you love to work out and have a passion for sharing that love with others? There are a lot of busy professionals who want to work out and stay healthy, but don’t have time for the gym commute or may just prefer to work on their physical fitness at home after a long day at work. And there are also plenty of folks looking for professional guidance or help working on a specific area of focus. One of my close friends has been working with a professional trainer for years, and not only are the results very apparent, but she also insists it’s one of the best investments she’s made.
35. Pet Groomer
Between the dog clippers and pet bathing supplies, pet grooming business isn’t a zero-startup business, but for an entrepreneur who loves animals, it’s the kind of job that will rarely feel like work. And you don’t even need to host pets in your home if you’re willing to start a mobile grooming business that brings the pet care to your clients. And if you do good work, you can easily start picking up repeat clients who are happy to schedule regular visits every few weeks.
36. Pet Sitter
If you’ve ever had to board your pet, you know just how expensive a pet boarding kennel can be. That’s why a lot of pet owners, folks like my family, would rather pay for a pet sitter to check on their family pets and keep them fed, walked, and abundant in ear scritches while they’re out of town. And kind of like with pet grooming, once we find a reliable, trustworthy pet sitter we can count on, we’re likely to recommend them to friends and use them for future trips.
37. Photographer
If you have a good camera and a skill for photography and working with photo editing applications, photography businesses are almost always in demand. And although it’s definitely possible to work your way up to a high-end event and wedding photographer, you can easily make a good extra income doing small photo shoots for pregnancy announcements, food bloggers, high school seniors, and birthday milestones. Pick a few good shooting locations in your community, start a website, and build your online presence through promotions.
Back when I was running a small vintage rentals business, I got to know quite a few part-time local photographers who used social media to reach clients, with some generating their entire income from themed mini-sessions. They would set up a custom-themed backdrop — something like hay and vintage school supplies for back-to-school, or an under-the-sea backdrop for little merbabies — and offer a free session in exchange for model services, using those images to generate social media interest, and scheduling all of their mini-session clients the same day.
38. Plumbing Repair Service
There’s nothing to say a woman can’t start her own plumbing business, especially in the age of YouTube, where you can learn how to do just about anything handy on your own. I first started handling my own minor plumbing issues out of frustration, and it’s a lot simpler than most people realize.
39. Power Washing
As someone who has had the pleasure of power washing my own house, I can personally attest to the fact that it’s every bit as fun as those TikTok accounts make it look. Invest in a good power washer and start cleaning sidewalks, driveways, and siding for cash.
40. Private Swim Instructor
If you’re a skilled swimmer with the right Red Cross certifications, you can make good money working as a private swim instructor who is willing to come to their clients.
41. Professional Editing
English and Communications majors, this one’s for you. I’ve been side-gigging as a professional proofreader and editor for years, editing everything from emails to college dissertations and books. I love doing this kind of work because I’m able to do it with 100 percent virtual communication, which means I never have to leave home.
42. Respite Care
Similar to babysitting, respite care — that is, care for individuals with disabilities or special needs to give their regular caregivers time to recharge — is an important service that can get prohibitively spendy. Providing quality respite care at an affordable price point means you’re sharing a vital service within your community while helping out a family, and it’s generally in high demand.
43. Resume Writing
I’ve been writing resumes professionally since I was in college, and I really enjoy it. I’m constantly surprised at the number of clients who have a long, impressive set of marketable skills that simply don’t translate on paper. And more and more, even the better resume writers are having trouble getting through that pesky applicant tracking software (ATS) most human resources departments seem to be using these days.
44. Social Media Management
If you’re good with social media content creation and you’re highly organized, social media management is one of those essential tools that most business owners need but are more than happy to outsource. This work includes things like creating a posting schedule, monitoring engagement, writing posts, and responding to comments.
As someone who works in content creation, I highly recommend investing in a few online courses to learn tricks of the trade, like search engine optimization and content calendar creation. Once you’re ready, just start reaching out to companies online to get started.
45. Tailor Service
Do you own a sewing machine and possess a solid understanding of basic sewing principles? Offer your services as a tailor hemming pants, altering dresses, and making repairs. If you’re a geekier girly, you can do pretty well with a tailor service in the Renaissance faire and cosplay communities.
46. Tax Preparation
Are you good at math and have experience self-filing your own taxes? You might just be a few bookkeeping courses away from a good-paying side hustle in tax prep.
47. Travel Planner
If you’re the GOAT when it comes to planning your family vacations, consider going into business as a travel planner, taking on the hard part of vacationing for other folks.
48. Tutoring
Are you good at academics like language arts and math? There’s always a market for affordable tutors. Working both as an independent contractor and a hired tutor for a tutoring company, I’ve tutored students ranging in age from elementary school through graduate college, meeting them at their homes or local libraries, and even tutoring virtually via voice calls and Google Docs. With the post-pandemic uptick in online schooling, the demand for virtual tutors is as high as I have ever seen it, and it really doesn’t get much easier than connecting with students virtually from the privacy of your own home.
49. Virtual Assistant
Organized women of the world, your skills and expertise are needed to help the rest of us stay on track. Virtual assistants help streamline and organize the lives of other working professionals and business owners, generally drawing on clerical and administrative skills.
Although I’ve never worked full-time as a virtual assistant, I’ve occasionally helped support a colleague when her virtual personal assistant was unavailable, and I was surprised to learn just how much work there can be. Tasks might include things like screening and organizing emails, transcribing notes, crafting business letters and email replies, data entry, making phone calls, printing and sending mail, editing documents, summarizing documents, scheduling appointments, and assisting with forms, just as an example.
50. Wedding Officiant
I first registered as a wedding officiant years ago on a whim, just for the heck of it. Years later, when a friend was looking for someone non-denominational to officiate her wedding, we were both pleased as punch when we realized I was legally set up to do just that! I had so much fun hitching my friend that I started doing it as a word-of-mouth side hustle. Although I don’t advertise, I still find myself tagged on Facebook every now and then when couples are looking for someone to officiate their whimsical, offbeat, or atypical weddings.
In my work as a wedding officiant, I start by communicating with the couple online before meeting either by phone or in person to go over the plans. On the day of the wedding, I simply show up, give an emotional ceremony that leaves everyone in tears, sign the marriage certificate, wish everyone well, and collect a check. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy…not to mention a ton of fun.
A Note About Starting a Service Business
Before you drop everything and start advertising your new service company, be sure to look into local regulations on your chosen niche. While there are plenty of cities where you can just plunge right into a new trade, some communities and professions require licenses or have regulations governing specific trades. For example, the community where I live only recently made it legal for salon industry workers to operate out of their homes. Because the last thing you need is a hefty fine or restriction, it’s worth the time it takes to perform a quick Google search and make sure your new business model is on the up-and-up.
Final Thoughts and Good Luck
Working for yourself can be incredibly rewarding, affording you the time and flexibility that lets you focus on what’s most important, like binge-watching guilty pleasure shows with your favorite people. Most service businesses don’t require an elaborate business plan, website design, or the kind of startup investment you’d have with product-based companies. Just head over to social media and start connecting with your target market to get started.
Do you have a recommendation to add to my list? Let me know in the comments, and I wish you the best of luck in your new service endeavor!
