27 Most Profitable Businesses For 2024 (Ideas + Tips)
Full of entrepreneurial spirit but fresh out of ideas? We’ve got you covered.
In this post, we’ll be revealing the 27 most profitable businesses you can build this year.
Most of the business ventures in this list offer excellent profit margins, limitless growth potential, and a low barrier to entry.
And that makes them ideal for beginners who are looking to launch their first startup without having to invest a ton of money to get their business off the ground.
Let’s get into it.
Most profitable online businesses
We’ll start with some of the most profitable online business ideas. These are businesses that you can build and run entirely from your PC—no physical premises required.
1. Social media management
These days, having a strong social media presence is pretty much essential for every brand.
And that’s created unprecedented demand for social media management agencies.
There are millions of businesses out there looking for help with their social media marketing efforts, so now’s the perfect time to set up your own business offering social media management services.
Those services might include writing and scheduling social media posts, managing and replying to messages and brand mentions across social, running social media advertising campaigns, handling influencer outreach, or anything else.
Social media management platforms like Sendible and Pallyy make offering these kinds of services easy.
Once you sign up, you’ll have all the tools you need to manage the social accounts of all the brands you work with at your fingertips, including social scheduling tools, content curation features, unified inboxes, social listening tools, and more.
Then, all you have to do is create your business website and run ads promoting your services to your target audience. As you get more and more clients, you can start scaling up and onboarding new employees as needed.
2. Ecommerce
Put simply, ecommerce is when you sell products through an online store.
Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar stores, you don’t have to worry about overheads like rent and utilities with an ecommerce business, so it’s possible to achieve higher profit margins.
It’s also much easier to set up an ecommerce business than other types of businesses. All you really need to do is find suppliers and build your store.
And you’re not limited to selling in one specific location either—ecommerce stores can sell internationally and ship their products to customers all around the world.
To get started, you’ll need an online store builder, also known as an ecommerce platform.
Overall, the best ecommerce platform is Shopify. But for those wanting the easiest way to launch a store, check out Sellfy.
Then, you’ll need to do some market research to figure out what kind of products you want to sell, and how you’re going to position yourself in the market.
Check out our data-driven roundup of the 26 Best Products To Sell Online for some ideas.
Related reading: 11 Best Ecommerce Platforms (Comparison + Top Picks)
3. Online courses
Online courses are one of the most profitable online businesses you can start thanks to great margins.
You only have to create an online course once, but you can sell subscriptions to your course as many times as you want. There are no manufacturing costs and no need to purchase any stock, so pretty much all of your sales revenue is 100% profit.
Once you’ve built your course, you can start selling via a marketplace like Udemy and get instant access to their customer base. However, you don’t have control over how your course is sold and they take a cut of your sales.
To keep all of your profits, use an online course platform like Thinkific or Podia instead. Thinkific offers a free plan so you can get started right away without having to invest anything.
4. Digital products
What if online courses aren’t a good fit? There are plenty of other types of digital products you can sell instead. And all of them offer great margins.
For example, if you’re a writer you could sell ebooks. If you’re a musician, you could sell sample packs or synth presets. Or if you’re a designer, you could sell templates, planners, printables, etc.
Platforms like Podia and Sellfy make this extremely easy to do. Just sign up, upload your files as digital products, and customize your storefront.
You can build your whole store in under an hour and be ready to start selling. Then, it’s all about the marketing.
Start driving traffic to your store and product pages through social media, SEO, paid ads, email marketing, etc., and grow your business.
Related reading:
- 12 Best Digital Products To Sell Online (+ How To Get Started)
- 10 Best Platforms To Sell Digital Products
5. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a type of ecommerce business model in which sellers don’t have to hold any stock.
Instead, you sell products from dropshipping suppliers through your store at a marked-up price. When a customer purchases a product from your store, you send the order to your supplier, and the supplier ships it directly to the customer.
The difference between the retail price you sell for and the price you pay your supplier is your profit.
Obviously, the great thing about dropshipping is how easy it is to get started with. All you have to do is build a Shopify store and then connect it to Spocket.
Spocket gives you access to thousands of products from dropshipping suppliers all over the world. Just choose the products you’d like to sell and import them into your store, then start selling. You can fulfill your customer orders by placing orders with your supplier in a couple of clicks.
The main downside to dropshipping is that profit margins don’t tend to be as good as other ecommerce business models. And because there are lots of dropshippers out there, it can be competitive.
Related reading:
6. Print-on-demand
Print-on-demand is a specific type of dropshipping.
Instead of selling random products, you’ll be selling merchandise that’s printed with your own custom designs/artwork, which makes it a particularly good business idea for talented artists and graphic designers.
The easiest way to start a print-on-demand business is to sign up for Sellfy.
You can use Sellfy to build your store. Then, browse the built-in print-on-demand catalog to add your designs to products like t-shirts, mugs, bags, etc., and import them to your store.
When you make a sale, Sellfy will automatically receive the order details, print the product, and ship it to the customer from the nearest local fulfillment center.
You’ll be billed for the base cost of the product, and you’ll keep the difference between that and the price you sold it for as profit.
Alternatively, you can sign up for a print on demand site like Gelato instead and sell your products through marketplaces like Etsy and eBay.
7. Affiliate marketing
Don’t want the hassle of managing a store or having to deal with things like customer support? Why not start an affiliate marketing business instead?
With affiliate marketing, you’re not selling your own products—you’re selling somebody else’s.
All you have to do is sign up for an affiliate program, which you can find on affiliate platforms like ShareASale.
Then, you promote the products/services you’re an affiliate for by sharing your unique referral links far and wide. And you’ll get paid a commission on every customer you refer to the business.
You’ll need to consider how you’ll drive traffic to your affiliate links. But there’s no point in having random people click on your links and hoping that they’ll buy the product. You won’t make any sales that way.
The key is to send qualified traffic to your affiliate links—that means people who actually interested in the affiliate offers you’re promoting and ready to buy.
So there are two main ways you can make this work. Firstly, the influencer approach is very effective. Build an audience on social media, and promote relevant affiliate products to that audience.
The other approach is to become a product reviewer. You could start a blog and drive traffic from organic search or use YouTube instead. This approach relies on people searching for reviews of the products you’re an affiliate for, as this kind of traffic is much more likely to convert.
You’ll also need to mix in other content types such as product roundups and comparisons to stand a chance of ranking.
Related reading: What Is Affiliate Marketing? And Is It Worth It?
8. Copywriting and blogging
There are tons of bloggers and brands out there in need of professional writers to help them produce great content and marketing copy.
So why not set up your own copywriting business that caters to this clientele?
You could offer writing services such as blog writing, landing page copywriting, email copywriting, etc.
And you could productize your services by packaging them together for a recurring subscription fee. For example, you might charge $500/month for 2 blog posts, 4 social media posts, and 10 emails. You get the idea.
Initially, you could operate on a freelance basis and handle all of the writing yourself. Then, when you scale up and get more clients than you can handle, you can outsource the work to other freelancers, or onboard writers as in-house employees.
AI writing software can help you to streamline your processes and produce content 10x quicker, giving you the edge over your competitors.
Just keep in mind that a lot of clients won’t want purely AI-written content, so these tools are best used to help with research and make your workflow more efficient. You’ll still need to have your writers heavily edit the content your AI writing software produces to make it work.
9. Video editing
Know your way around Premiere Pro? Why not start a video editing business offering post-production services?
The great thing about this kind of business is that video editing is in more demand these days than ever before, so there’s a huge gap in the market waiting to be filled.
That’s because video marketing is more popular than ever, and the meteoric growth of platforms like YouTube and TikTok means there are now millions of creators and companies out there producing videos every day—a good chunk of which outsource their video editing to third parties.
As with copywriting, you could start by offering video editing services on a freelance basis. But as your business expands and you get more clients, you may want to hire other editors to help you keep up with demand and scale up.
Most profitable offline businesses
Don’t want to run your business from your computer? Here are some of the most profitable businesses that are completely offline.
10. Personal training
Got a passion for fitness? Set yourself up as a personal trainer, or start your own personal training business.
People these days are more health-aware than ever. That fact, combined with an increase in disposable income, has led to an explosion in demand for personal trainers.
In fact, the personal fitness training market size was already estimated to be valued at over $41 billion in 2023, and that’s expected to increase to over $65 billion over the next decade. That should give you some idea of just how much demand there is for PTs right now.
The amount you’ll earn will depend on how you position yourself in the market. Personal trainers earn around $55 per hour, on average, which isn’t bad. But if you position yourself to target the high-end of the market and cater to wealthy clientele, you could be earning substantially more than that.
You could also expand your personal training business by offering complimentary services such as nutritional advice and diet planning, physiotherapy, etc. Or even open your own gym.
11. Food trucks
Food trucks are mobile restaurants on wheels.
It’s a great small business ideas that can be super profitable. And it’s much less costly and easier to get started with compared to opening a restaurant (not to mention, much more low-risk).
To get started, you’ll need to purchase a van or trailer and convert it, or buy/rent a food truck that’s already been converted.
Then, you’ll need to find a place to park it. You’ll get more sales in areas with high foot traffic, such as near tourist attractions or at sports events, but you may need to secure a permit first.
It’s up to you what to sell from your food truck. As you’ll only have limited catering facilities at your disposal, it’s worth sticking to quick and easy-to-prepare foods, but try to do something different to stand out from the crowd. There are already enough hot dog sellers out there.
You can even use food trucks as a way to test out restaurant ideas. If your menu items sell well from your truck, it’s proof of concept.
12. Car washing & valeting
You might not have thought it, but some of the most profitable small businesses are those that offer mobile car wash and valeting services.
For example, take a look at teenager Zykiah from Manchester in the UK. He started valeting family cars at age 15 in exchange for some pocket money, but it quickly grew from there.
His small business Dirt 2 Clean now scores some incredibly wealthy clients, including high-profile celebrities like pundit Gary Neville and boxer Tommy Furt.
You could set up your own car washing or detailing business and have similar success. Startup costs are low, and the most successful car-washing businesses can earn tens of thousands of dollars a month.
13. Landscaping and gardening
Landscaping, gardening, and lawn care is another profitable business niche that’s fairly accessible to newbie entrepreneurs.
The average startup cost is around $15,000 to $20,000, but it depends on the scope of your business. A single person offering basic maintenance and mowing services can get started for under $5000. But costs will be higher for larger companies offering a broader variety of services.
Average profit margins are around 5-20% according to estimates. And many companies earn hundreds of thousands of dollars—if not millions—in gross revenue each year.
14. Property management
Property management companies handle the general upkeep and maintenance of their clients’ properties (typically the common areas of residential estates).
And in exchange, they collect recurring fees (7-10%) from their client’s rental income as a service charge.
What makes these types of businesses so profitable is their consistent revenue streams. Unlike most other companies, your revenue is very predictable thanks to locked-in contracts with tenant landlords.
Expect to achieve around 20% average profit margins.
15. Cleaning services
Cleaning service businesses are one of the easiest types of businesses you can set up as you don’t need any particular skills, and it’s relatively easy to find customers.
Plus, they’re more profitable than you might think. When you first start out, your margins can be as high as 40-50%.
And startup costs are low too. You’ll need to spend a few hundred dollars on cleaning equipment, but you don’t necessarily need to rent commercial premises as you’ll be going to your clients, rather than having them come to you.
You could start out by putting up flyers in your neighborhood offering basic home cleaning services, or target the commercial market instead.
When you’re ready to scale up, expand your service area, run ads to find more customers, and onboard employees to help you keep up with demand.
Cleaning Ninjas is a good example of a successful cleaning business. They offer residential and commercial cleaning across Nebraska and have grown to over 33 employees. They service over 500 homes and offices per month, so they’re making plenty of revenue.
16. Pet grooming
The pet industry as a whole has been growing rapidly over the last decade or so. Pet owners these days spend more on their furry friends than ever before, so now’s the perfect time to open a grooming business.
Pet groomers typically charge around $50-$100 per session, depending on the dog size, so margins are great. And if you cater to the high-end of the market and position your business appropriately, you could charge even more than that.
A lot of dog groomers operate from commercial premises that they rent out. But you can also set up shop as a mobile dog groomer and work out of a converted van, which you drive to your clients.
Mobile dog groomers tend to earn more, and overheads are typically lower as there’s no rent to pay, so this is the way to go if you want to maximize your margins.
17. Vending machines
Vending machine businesses are more profitable than you might think, and one of the easiest businesses to start.
The average vending machine only earns around $35 a week (over the course of the year, that works out at around $1,800~) but those that are well-stocked and placed in high-traffic locations can earn substantially more than that. In some cases, $300-$600 per month per machine is achievable.
Now that might not seem like a lot. But remember, that’s almost completely passive income. All you have to do is buy the machine, find a spot for it, and keep it stocked.
One machine isn’t going to make you rich, but 10 might.
For example, take a look at entrepreneur Marcus Gram, who started his vending machine business, Joyner Vending, for just $4,000.
For that price, he managed to purchase a snack and beverage machine, some products to stock them with, and two card readers.
In his first year, he only just managed to recoup his initial investment as he made $5,000 in profit.
But just a few years later, he’s scaled up his business and now has 21 vending machines throughout the US. And those machines are set to bring in almost half a million dollars in sales a year. Cool, huh?
18. Delivery and courier services
Delivery and courier services are two markets that are super profitable right now.
The courier services market is expected to reach over $68 billion by 2025. And the delivery services industry will reach over $192 billion.
And while big players like Uber dominate the market, there’s still room for small businesses to compete. So why not start your own courier business in your local area and claim your slice of the pie?
Most profitable businesses that require specific qualifications
Next, we’re going to look at some more profitable business ideas that aren’t quite as accessible as those listed above. These ideas all require a high level of existing knowledge or expertise, but if you’re qualified to do them, they can be very profitable.
19. Graphic design
Graphic design companies help businesses to create their brand identity and produce visual content.
They may offer services like logo design, character illustration, UI design, social media post design, etc.
Experienced graphic designers can charge upwards of $100/hour, but you may find it easier to price your services by project, rather than by hour.
You can find clients by running paid ad campaigns, advertising on social media, email outreach, or bidding for jobs on platforms like Upwork.
It may be worth starting out solo and working on a freelance basis, Then as your list of clients grows, you can consider expanding into an agency and onboarding new designers or outsourcing work.
20. Website development
Web design businesses and web developers can make a lot of money.
There’s plenty of demand out there for web design/development services (pretty much every business in the world needs a website, after all). And because it’s a highly-skilled industry, you can charge top rates. Plus, there are few overheads so margins are excellent.
It’s up to you what kind of services you want to offer. For example, you might offer custom websites built from scratch to exact specifications. If so, you’ll need a good knowledge of website development/programming. Or at least, you’ll need the funds to hire people that have those skills.
Alternatively, you could offer WordPress website building services, in which you create websites on the WordPress CMS using pre-made themes and plugins.
This is slightly easier and doesn’t require as much technical knowledge, but big brands will usually want a custom-built site so if you go down this route, you won’t be able to reach the top end of the market.
21. Game development
Video game companies tend to be very profitable. Games are digital products, so margins are sky-high. And of course, the gaming market is huge so the sky really is the limit.
You can start out as a solo indie game developer, or open your own indie studio.
You’ll be competing with double-A and triple-A studios with multi-million dollar budgets. But fortunately, those studios pretty much only work on games with high production value, so there’s always a gap in the market for indie devs to fill.
For example, look at Stardew Valley. The iconic, simple farming simulator game was created by one solo indie developer, Eric Barone (AKA ConcernedApe), and it’s sold over 20 million copies to date. As a result, Eric Barone is now worth over $30 million.
22. Photography services
If you’re a skilled photographer, you could set yourself up a business offering photography services.
For example, you might offer wedding shoots, portrait photography, commercial photography, etc.
All you’ll need to get started is some commercial-grade photography equipment including a high-quality camera and lens kit, lighting rig, and tripod.
You could also upsell other complementary services, like photo editing and retouching. Or even sell stock photos separately online through your website or sites like Shutterstock or PhotoDune to increase your revenues.
Most photographers charge around $100 to $300 per hour, so if you can keep your schedule fully booked up, you could be making over $10,000 a month, minus expenses. Not bad, huh?
Related reading:
23. Online consultancy
Online consultancy involves offering advice and sharing your expertise with other business owners.
The most successful consultants make millions of dollars a year, especially those who specialize in mergers and acquisitions.
You’ll need to choose a specific niche to focus on, which should be an area you’re a bonafide expert in.
For example, Ryan Gromfin (known as the Restaurant Boss) is a consultant specializing in the restaurant industry. Through his business, he helps restaurant owners and operators to increase their profits. And it’s been such a roaring success that he’s earning over $35,000 a month.
24. Financial advisor
Financial advisors help businesses and individuals to plan their personal finances, plan investments, and build wealth.
They often charge a percentage of the assets managed as a fee for their services, usually around 3%-5%. For example, if you help a client invest a million dollars, you might charge $30,000-$50,000 as your fee.
As you can imagine, then, you can make a lot of money by setting up shop as a financial advisor. The catch is there’s a high barrier to entry.
At a minimum, you’ll probably need to hold a bachelor’s degree in finance, business, or other applicable field. And you may need further qualifications, approvals, or licenses to practice.
25. Legal services
Lawyers and legal service companies are another one of the most profitable businesses.
However, if you want to practice law, you’ll have to put in a lot of study hours first. You’ll need to study at law school and pass the bar to get qualified.
But once you are, you’re likely to make upwards of $100,000 a year as a practicing lawyer. And if you start a highly successful firm, you’ll make a lot more.
26. Bookkeeping and accounting
Certified accountants and bookkeeping companies are very profitable, but it’s not an easy industry to get into.
Accountants need a bachelor’s degree and in the US, you’ll need to pass the Certified Public Accountants exam to get a CPA license.
If you can make it that far, you can start your own company and make a fortune offering services like tax preparation and tax returns, auditing, payroll services, bookkeeping, quarterly minimum filing, etc.
27. Translation services
Fluent in more than one language? Start your own company offering translation services.
There are lots of different angles you could go down with this one. For example, you could offer diplomatic translator services and work alongside diplomats as they handle foreign affairs.
You could offer game localization and translate game text/dialogue to different languages, or you could become a book/novel translator. You get the idea.
Final thoughts
That concludes our roundup of the most profitable business ideas to consider.
Hopefully, this has given you some inspiration for your next business venture.
Just remember that the most important factor that will decide whether or not your business will be profitable is you.
All the ideas on this list have the potential to be successful, but equally, all businesses can fail. You’ll need a solid strategy in place if you want to make sure yours is a success.
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