20 Side Hustles for Teachers to Earn More Money

Tutoring is perhaps the most well-known way to make extra money as a teacher. Tutors are very in-demand across all major subjects.

You can set up tutoring sessions in person, but you can also take to your computer to tutor virtually. This is a great way to make money from home when you aren’t in the classroom.

Tutoring uses the skills and experience you already have while offering a flexible schedule and workload. There are tons of platforms that list online tutoring jobs for freelancers, including:

• Superprof
• Skooli
• Wyzant

Average rates: $20–$30 per hour.

Keep your teaching skills sharp by continuing your classroom work as a summer school teacher. Teaching summer school will often give you the chance to work with a smaller group of students, enjoy a quieter school setting, and work fewer hours than you do during the normal school year.

The first place to look for a summer teaching gig is at your current or prospective school. If there are no openings, consider inquiring with the district about other opportunities in the area.

Average rates: $1,500–$3,300 per month.

If you’d prefer to spend your summer break out of the classroom, consider taking to the great outdoors as a summer camp counselor. This is one of the best ways to make money over the summer as a teacher while getting to soak in some sun.

There are overnight camps, adventure camps, day camps, sports camps, and others that are looking for people with exactly your qualifications. You can find camp jobs on any online job board or on the following sites:

• American Camp Association
• Camp Staff
• Camp Channel
• Camp Gig

Average rates: $23–$29 per hour.

This may be the most convenient side hustle for teachers since it allows you to make money at school. You can bypass the online job hunt and go directly to your school district to find opportunities to work with after-school programs.

These programs vary in duration and requirements, so look for one that aligns with your needs and interests. You can act as a general after-school counselor, supervising kids after hours, or you can work in a specialized program like after-school arts and crafts or music practice.

Average rates: $15 per hour.

If you’re a big sports fan, a fun side hustle you could try out is coaching sports to students after school. Teacher coaches are typically paid through a coaching stipend. The amount varies widely based on your school district, sport, and coaching status (e.g., head coach vs. assistant coach).

While you might not get a huge payout for coaching, it can be a fulfilling side hustle for teachers, and it’s a great way to pursue your passions outside the classroom.

Average rates: $5,000 per year.

Substituting is a great side hustle option for part-time teachers and former teachers who are looking for side hustles in retirement. Your teaching experience will make you a top pick. However, it’ll be less feasible if you’re currently working as a full-time teacher.

Former substitute teacher Kavi Singh told us that in contrast to regular classroom teaching, substituting requires more work controlling kids in the classroom, and you need to be prepared to improvise in case there’s no lesson plan. To get jobs as a substitute teacher, he recommends visiting schools directly and asking to be added to their lists of subs.

Average rates: $70–$350 per day.

Teaching online is among the most popular remote second jobs for teachers. It won’t be much different from your day job, but it does open up more possibilities.

There are three avenues you can take if you want to start teaching online classes as a side job:

1. Teach your usual subject: Continue teaching your specialty through an online school like Outschool.
2. Make your own course: Create your own course about anything you’re interested in—from gardening to developing lesson plans—and market it on platforms like Udemy or Skillshare.
3. Teach ESL: If you need a break from teaching algebra or literature, you can side hustle as an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher. There are tons of platforms for virtual ESL or EFL teachers, like Cambly and English Hunt.

Average rates: $15–$27 per hour.

Help ambitious students excel on important exams by being a test prep tutor. Test prep tutors typically help students prepare for the SAT, ACT, GMAT, and GRE, though there are many other exams you can specialize in.

One of the most desirable aspects of test prep tutoring is that you can do it in person or from home. Most major tutoring platforms have slots for test prep specialists, including:

• Wyzant (linked above)
• Varsity Tutors
• Arbor Bridge
• Crimson Education

Average rates: $36 per hour.

As an alternative to online teaching side hustles, Heick suggested creating online courses to bring in extra cash. “Creating online courses provides a similar opportunity but scales in a way that 1:1 positions like tutoring can’t,” he explained.

As a teacher, you already know how to build a course, create engaging assignments, and outline learning objectives that are in line with a set curriculum.

Use those skills to create and sell courses, lesson plans, and other teaching materials on sites like:

• Teachers Pay Teachers
• Tes
• Teachable

If you want to avoid the steep commissions that these platforms take out of the commissions that are sold on them, consider selling independently through your own website or on sites like Pinterest and Etsy.

Average rates: Variable, often $5–$25 per sale.

This teacher side hustle has some similarities with tutoring since it involves working one-on-one with students. The difference is that instead of helping students learn about a specific academic subject, the goal of educational coaching is to provide students with learning tools and methods that they can use to become better learners.

In this role, you can help students procrastinate less, study more effectively, do better on tests, and retain information for longer. As a teacher, you can offer coaching to students in your classes or advertise your services in local community centers or libraries.

Average rates: $10–$30 per hour.

Start a blog, podcast, or video channel about your life. You can hit the teaching angle by giving advice to other educators, but you can also write or produce content about anything you want.

“I started offering the lessons, units, and related ‘teaching stuff’ that I had created over the years in the hope that a few teachers may find it useful—it’s not like I was using it. I was surprised and grateful that many teachers did, in fact, find it useful,” Heick told us.

He thinks podcasting may be a better route for teachers with “technology know-how and charisma—or at least confidence and ease behind a microphone.” Whatever type of content you create, you can monetize it using affiliate marketing or ads or by using it as a platform to sell products to your audience (like lesson plans or printables).

Heick had a few suggestions for teachers hoping to monetize video content. “A teacher might create a channel that recommends books for students based on grade or reading levels,” he said. “They could focus on hesitant or struggling readers, creating a series of videos that function as a reading list—books for teachers to consider for a range of uses in their classroom.”

Just bear in mind that building enough of a following for your blog, video channel, or podcast to earn a significant amount of money will be challenging, so this isn’t the best side hustle if you want a quick and easy way to make cash.

Average rates: $29 per hour.

If you have a knack for language and experience reading and analyzing students’ work, you’re a great candidate to become a proofreader.

Proofreaders scan written work to ensure the spelling, grammar, style, and formatting are all correct and consistent. Freelance proofreading jobs usually pay by the hour or word.

There are tons of places you can look for proofreading gigs, including these freelancing platforms:

• Upwork
• Freelancer
• Scribbr
• Proofreading Pal

Average rates: $25–$40 per hour or $.02–$0.03 per word.

If English is your specialty, there are many ways to make money writing on the side, the most common of which is freelance writing.

As a freelance writer, you can take jobs writing about anything, but many companies seek writers with specialized training and certificates—like teachers. Freelancing in this space opens up more competitive opportunities for you to create content about teaching, the school system, and education at large.

Freelance writing jobs are everywhere, but a few good places to start looking for work are:

• LinkedIn
• Upwork
• Fiverr
• Freelancer
• WritersWork
• Contently

Average rates: $25–$35 per hour.

On a similar note, you can share your teaching knowledge with the world by writing and publishing your own ebook. Heick agreed that this would be a good side hustle for teachers. He suggested writing about topics like assessment, classroom management, project-based learning, or anything else related to the broader practice of teaching and learning.

Alternatively, you can let your creativity shine by penning a novel. Whatever you choose to write, you can self-publish your ebook through various platforms (like Amazon Kindle Direct) and earn royalties on every download.

Average rates: 35%–70% of the cost of each download.

As a teacher, your experience working with children would transfer well to a childcare side hustle, where you’d look after babies, children, or teens. You can even charge higher rates if you offer lessons as part of your childminding services.

Babysitting jobs are generally periodic gigs that only last a few hours, whereas nanny jobs can last full days, weeks, or even months. You can even work abroad for a summer between school years by taking a job as an au pair.

This is a particularly good side hustle for teachers because children most often need someone to look after them when they’re not in school, be it in the evenings, on the weekends, or during the summer. An easy way to break into the field is by using one of the many websites and apps for childcare providers.

Average rates: $10–$40 per hour.

If you have a knack for design, you can create and sell your own printables. This is a great side hustle for teachers because of the high demand for printable teaching materials. Assuming you already have your own class materials at hand, it’s also an easy way to make more money as a teacher without much extra work.

Here are just a few examples of high-demand and teacher-friendly printables you could sell:

• Lesson planners
• Classroom worksheets
• Classroom posters
• Alphabet and number charts
• Crossword puzzles
• Grading rubric templates
• Attendance sheets
• Flashcards
• Homework logs and progress trackers

The market for these goods has exploded in the past few years. All you need to make your printables is a design program like Canva, Photoshop, or Templett. Then you can sell downloads of your creations on sites like Etsy and Creative Market.

Average rates: $3–$15 per printable.

Teachers need exceptional organizational and time-management skills, both of which would make you a great virtual assistant. This is one of the best second income opportunities for teachers because it allows you to enjoy varied work and make extra money from home in the evenings.

Virtual assistants perform a range of tasks, which may include the following:

• Managing schedules/calendars
• Setting appointments
• Placing orders
• Collecting information
• Responding to emails
• Managing files
• Basic bookkeeping
• Data entry
• Making phone calls

There are tons of virtual assistant agencies and freelance platforms you can work with, like Upwork, Time etc, and Prialto.

Average rates: $25–$40 per hour.

If you’re a computer teacher or a teacher with a fast typing speed (at least 40–60 words per minute), then consider becoming a freelance transcriptionist. This is a particularly good side hustle option for introvert teachers and those who want a weekend side job from home that doesn’t involve working with other people.

Transcriptionists listen to audio recordings or live speech and write down everything they hear. It’s not the highest paying side hustle in this list, but it’ll be worth it if you find the work enjoyable. To succeed, you need a good ear, strong focus, and a decent computer.

These platforms are great places to start if you want to break into the transcription industry:

• Scribie
• TranscribeMe!
• SpeechPad
• CrowdSurf
• Rev

Average rates: $12–$22 per hour.

A curriculum development side hustle can be a particularly lucrative and exciting way for teachers to make extra money. It’s an ideal second job for seasoned teachers who have experience developing their own curricula while working their regular teaching job.

Teachers are prime candidates for this job because of the pedagogical expertise required. This also means there’s pretty high earning potential. In fact, curriculum developer Lily Jones told us that it’s “one of the most lucrative side hustles for teachers.”

Instead of designing curricula for your own school, you’d be working for educational publishers or ed tech companies. Thankfully, there are plenty of freelance curriculum development jobs out there that you can do outside of school hours.

Average rates: $20–$50 per hour.

Renting out property is an ideal way to earn passive income for teachers, especially those who plan summer getaways when the school year is over. Even if you don’t plan to leave home, renting out a spare room can earn you plenty of cash while you’re doing other teacher side hustles.

The summer break tends to be a particularly good time to rent out your place since this is a peak travel time for many Americans. One of the easiest ways to get started is to post your space on well-known vacation rental and short-term rental sites like Airbnb and Vrbo.

Even if you don’t own a property, there are creative ways to start an Airbnb without owning property that could help you generate income during your time off.

Average rates: $100–$1,000 per month.

As a professional teacher, choosing a related side hustle is a safe choice, but there are also good reasons to pick other ideas beyond your occupation.