Love to make some money without getting a ‘real job’?
The truth is you can make as much money from your home as you can with a real job!
All you need to do is find the right business idea that works the best for you and go with it at full speed.
In this guide, we cover some of the most interesting home-based business ideas that you can start from your home in Canada. While not all business ideas will suit everyone, there will definitely be a few ideas that are just perfect for you. Remember the amount of time and money you’re ready to invest and pick that right one and make high profits!
40 Home-Based Business Ideas
1. Start a Daycare Center
When you’re taking care of your own children at home, then you can make some extra bucks by taking care of the neighbour’s kids too!
You don’t need any investment to start your day center – just a safe space and a lot of time on your hands to take care of the kids when their parents go to their offices. The best part is that you can decide everything about this business:
● Your working hours
● The additional options you provide.
● The number of kids you can handle.
● The age of the kids
You don’t have to complicate starting this business with a business model. You can start on your own and once you want to expand, you can hire another person to support you.
2. Become a Music Teacher
Don’t have a lot of time to spare? You can still start your home-based business in Canada or any other place if you are professionally trained in any form of music.
Take violin lessons, singing classes or any other music lessons that you are skilled at. Based on your level of expertise, you can choose to teach children or adults.
To start this business, you just need to open up your house for a few hours every week. You can even conduct these classes online over Zoom or Skype for your students too.
You can start making good money with just your skills and knowledge as an investment!
3. Start a Travel Planning Business
Many people have difficulty in planning their travels. This is where the travel planner comes in.
A travel planner typically talks to the client, gets to know their requirements and expectations out of the vacation and creates a complete travel plan.
You don’t have to have local knowledge of the place they’re visiting or even to have actually been there. All you need to do is to browse online thoroughly and present good choices based on the client’s specifications.
If you enjoy researching new places and conversing with people, then it’s one of the best businesses for you.
4. Become a Party Planner
People love parties but most have a very definite vision of how their party should be. So, if you’re skilled at managing people and getting work done, you can become a party planner right from your home.
You can conduct most of your business from your home, from meeting clients and vendors to conducting discussions. You can also talk with them through phone calls and video calls. You might need to go out a couple of times to see the venue of the party and for the party prep.
As a party planner, you get to make people happy and give them a beautiful space to enjoy. That’s something that many party planners cherish at the end of the day. Plus, you get to earn good money based on your event management skills.
5. Become a Baker
Love baking cakes and cookies?
Why not turn it into your business?
Baking is one of the most satisfying and enjoyable jobs for many. If your cakes are the favorites for many, you can start baking and selling them from your kitchen.
The only investment you’ll need to make is the packaging items and the raw materials for baking and you can use your home oven to bake cakes and cookies.
You can sell these cakes to local stores or deliver them to the customer’s houses directly. Once you’re gaining popularity and getting more orders, you can get a bigger oven to bake even more!
6. Start a House Cleaning Business
Are you one of these obsessive people who love to clean?
Then, this is the perfect job for you!
You can go to people’s houses and clean them for them and in turn, earn a good amount.
Nowadays, people are ready to pay a high amount for reliable people to clean their houses. So, if this is you, you can start slow and then hire more people and branch out your business right from your home.
7. Begin a Meal Prep Delivery Business
Everyone’s lives are becoming so hectic that they don’t have time to cook and eat healthy meals.
This is why many new meal prep delivery businesses are gaining popularity.
LiveFit is a similar business that offers pre-cooked meals by chefs for those who want to eat fit. Be it keto, vegan or weight loss diet, they deliver cooked and tasty meals as a subscription service.
If you are a good cook, you can get your meal prep delivery business going. You will have complete control over the time you spend, the number of clients you take up and the type of meals you want to focus on.
8. Start a Pet Walking Business
If you love pets, then starting a pet walking business is the easiest job for you!
Many people are so occupied with their profession and household work that they don’t have enough time to take their pets out for a brisk walk.
So, you just need to spend a couple of hours every day collecting the pets from the homes of people in your locality and then take them out for a walk. It’s as easy as that.
9. Become a Jewelry Maker
If you have an eye for arts and crafts, then you can make custom jewelry. Many people are fed up with the same designs and models of jewelry.
So, if you can design and create something unique, quirky and beautiful, you can sell these jewelry pieces to wholesale retailers. Alternatively, you can set up a shop online and sell your jewelry directly too.
You will need a little investment to procure the raw materials for creating the jewelry pieces and spend some time creating the designs. It’s best to start small with a certain type of jewelry and then once you get a good response, you can make more.
10. Resell Vintage Clothes
Vintage clothes are selling like crazy on online markets.
You can procure such vintage clothes from your local thrift stores, house clearance sales or from online places. Once you get the clothes, you can resell them at a good profit online.
You don’t need too much money to conduct this business. You would need a couple of hundred dollars to procure the first pieces of vintage clothes and once you’re able to sell them online, you’ll create a rotation of cash flow and make great profits on the way.
The best part is that, if you have some vintage clothes that you own, you can sell those too at high margins!
11. Conduct Online Fitness Programs
Are you a fitness junkie who loves to keep yourself and the people around you fit?
If yes, then you can create a home-based business out of it too!
It’s best to choose a particular niche in fitness that you’re most knowledgeable of. Here are some options for you:
● Yoga
● Zumba
● Weight loss
● Muscle building
● Spin
● Powerlifting
● HIIT
For example, Sarah Taylor created a successful virtual fitness program for plus-sized people with amazing workouts, eBooks and other video resources. She conducts one of the most popular fitness classes for plus-sized people because she chose a very particular set of audience and crafted a program around it.
Based on your skills, you can too choose a fitness niche, conduct some basic classes to see the response and then build over it.
12. Become a Graphic Designer
This is a completely online business that can you run from your home. If you can handle yourself with graphic designing tools, you can attract graphics for many businesses.
You can find clients through freelance marketplaces to start with and slowly build a great portfolio to increase your rates and earn good money with just a few hours of work.
13. Open Your Home for Stay
If you can open your home for tourists to stay in, then you can make money off doing absolutely nothing!
You can rent out a room or a complete floor for tourists visiting your area. You can list it out on online sites like Airbnb and host the people. You can also earn some extra bucks by offering home-cooked meals and renting out your vehicles.
14. Become a Life Coach
Life coaches help people groom life, get clarity with their career options, and improve their professional and personal lives.
You can get certified as a life coach, astrologer, palmist or just a psychic from any authorized organization and start mentoring and helping people lead better lives. You can either conduct the sessions from the comforts of your home or meet the person at their place. You can also speak with them over calls and keep in touch regularly to help your clients succeed in their lives.
This is one of the most fulfilling and beautiful careers, irrespective of your educational or professional background.
15. Become an Online Recruiter
Businesses are finding it hard to search for the right candidates who are perfect for the job.
As an online recruiter, you’ll work from your home scourging through thousands of employee profiles, talking with them as well as the employers to match them to the right roles. You’ll act as the connection between the companies and those who’re looking for new jobs or job change.
For every right candidate you direct to the companies, you’ll earn a good commission from them.
To start this business, you’ll need an online profile or a website to get connected to the company and begin finding the candidates.
16. Start a Senior Home Care Business
We see many old people living alone in their homes and it is a big problem in Ontario to solve specially with this global pandemic.
They’re unable to do the basic jobs and may require some assistance.
You can start a senior home care business where you’ll go to their homes, get some essential work done like cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, etc. daily.
If they need any handyman, you can also take care of these jobs and get paid a decent amount.
If you can spend an entire day with the person tending to their needs, you can do that and earn more money.
All that’s expected out of this job is to take care of the old people. So, if you are caring and loving by nature, this can be the right fit.
17. Become a Novelist
If you have a flair for writing, then what’s better than writing a book!
This career is even better if you like to spend a better portion of your day reading fiction books.
When you have a lot of free time, you can write a beautiful book and make good money out of it. Once you’ve written the novel, you can make money in any of these ways:
● Sell it to a publishing house for a considerable sum.
● Self-publish the physical book (You’ll need to invest some money for printing and take care of the promotions on your side.)
● Self-publish the book as an eBook in online marketplaces (You don’t need to invest any money here.)
● Publish it through a book distribution agency (This is similar to self-publishing, but the agency will take care of the promotions.)
18. Arrange and Sell Gift Baskets
The concept of gift baskets is becoming popular in the last few years. It’s an art to arrange a gift basket in a theme or occasion with the right items and placement along with the decorations.
You can sell such gift baskets of various themes from your home or offer delivery options in your locality. You’ll need to get the gift basket supplies like fruits, chocolates, personal care items, stationery, or anything else that the customer asks for. And then put together the gift basket along with basket decorations and deliver it to their house.
19. Become a Massage Therapist
To become a massage therapist in Canada, you’ll need to get certified from an authorized institution. Many colleges offer massage therapy programs you can get approved in.
Once you get the certificate, you can set up a massage studio right at your home and start your home business.
While you need to shell out some money to get certified, that’s the only investment you’ll ever need. Since this is a field where repeat clients are common, you’ll get a decent amount of money flowing in once you start this business.
If you want to branch out and take more clients, you can offer in-person massage therapy sessions at the clients’ homes.
20. Make and Sell Jams and Other Canned Food
Jams are one of the hottest and most essential parts of most Canadian households.
If you have been praised for your tasty, drool-worthy jams and canned food, then you can actually make and sell those for a good profit!
You can contact your local retailers to sell the canned food. Or you can even start selling them to your friends, relatives and neighbours and let get that word of the mouth marketing do the work for you. As people come back to you for more bottles of canned food, you can slowly expand and create a brand around it.
21. Become a Dance Instructor
Love dancing and trained in any dance form?
You can make a living out of something you like to do and do it from your home!
As a dance instructor, you can conduct classes for kids or adults based on your skillset. You can set up a studio right in your home to make space or rent the nearest studio.
You can schedule classes for a few hours every day and teach different groups of people. You can plan the class timings based on your availability and earn money by teaching something you enjoy.
22. Become a Photographer
When we say photographer, it doesn’t mean that you must go out often.
You can be a photographer and earn money online without going out much.
There are many online marketplaces on which you can sell your photographs for hundreds of dollars. So, if you’re skilled at taking great photographs, you can try your hand here.
You don’t need to visit exotic locations and post some fantastic photographs. You can photograph even the mundane parts of life like going to a shopping mall, a child playing or clothes hanging in the most artistic way possible and get decent money in return.
23. Start a Niche Blog
Blogging is one of the best ways to create a passive income stream.
The key here is to choose something that you would love to talk about and something that people will actually want to read.
When you find a niche at the intersection of both, you’ve got yourself a blog niche to focus on.
When you start blogging on this niche, you won’t create income immediately. You need to build that initial traction which could take a few months or even a year in some cases. Once you’re regularly blogging and have a committed audience base, you can monetize by including affiliate links, ads, courses and eBooks.
When you want to make money through blogging, the best way is to regularly connect with your audience and blog.
24. Become a Clothes Designer
When you know your way around a tailoring machine and have a pretty good idea of designing clothes that people like, then you can start designing and making clothes!
Instead of trying it all at the same time, you can pick any particular type of clothes you want to focus on. For example, you can design gowns, kid’s clothes, t-shirts, scarves or any other piece of clothing that you like to design the most.
People are willing to pay a high amount for handmade clothing and so if that’s something you want to do, you can specialize in designing knitting and weaving clothes.
25. Start an Organic Fruits & Vegetables Business
A lot of us prefer organic food over the mass-manufactured ones with pesticides.
So, if you have a home garden where you cultivate fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs, you can increase its scale and supply them at a fair price to the local organic store.
First, you can start with a few varieties of fruits or vegetables and focus on selling more of the same stuff. Once you’re gaining good profits, you can then branch out to more types.
26. Sell Collectibles
The antique and collectibles market is evergreen, with buyers always ready to pay quoted rates for valuable ones. If you’re interested in selling antiques and collectibles, you can choose any particular niche and procure such items and sell them on eBay, Etsy or any other marketplace for good rates.
The collectibles can be practically anything from Wonder Women merchandise to the things used by Robert Downey Jr. You can browse through such online marketplaces and get an idea of the different options you have.
27. Become a Beauty Consultant
Both men and women are very conscious of how they look. They are ready to pay someone to help them adopt a good skincare routine and improve their appearance.
To become a beauty consultant, you’ll need to have an excellent social media following, preferably Instagram. When people see you as an expert who knows what they preach, then they’ll be ready to pay money to book your consultation sessions and classes.
You can conduct these classes from home and the added advantage is that you’ll also earn affiliate income from the brands you’re promoting.
28. Become a Drone Trainer
This is a simple business that’s exactly as it sounds – train people to use drones.
Many businesses have started using drones. For example, construction companies are using drones to assess the land condition and look at the construction progress.
So, if you know how to operate drones, you can train the people to learn the ropes of it. It’s a very simple business idea that you can operate out of your home.
But you will need to go out when you’re training people. The rest of the time you spend on consultation calls and promotions can be done from your home.
29. Create and Sell Custom Stationery
Creating stationery things isn’t as difficult as you think. You can start slow by customizing the designs on notebooks, pens, boxes, papers and other stationery stuff with unique designs.
When you want to create a market for your stationery, you need to look hard at the current options in the market and the customer requirements and pick the designs to fill the gap.
You can easily contact local wholesale retailers who manufacture books, papers and pens and ask them to bulk print the stationery things with your designs. Once you have the items ready, you can sell them on Amazon or through any other ecommerce marketplace.
If you’re ready to commit extra time for promotions and outreach, you can even open your ecommerce store.
30. Become a Scrapbook Designer
Scrapbooks are becoming a hit recently, with the pandemic giving people enough time on the hands. But not all are skilled at creating a scrapbook from scratch.
So, you can create custom scrapbooks with photographs, pieces of writing and other small design elements on notebooks for people in just the way they want. Or you can sell custom-themed scrapbooks that people can use to add photos and make them their own.
If you have the habit of creating beautiful scrapbooks or have the knack for them, then you can start making and selling those online. Once many people buy your designs, you’ll get the hang of what works and what doesn’t.
31. Design and Sell Tie-Dye Shirts
Making tie-dye shirts is not that difficult.
● You take a plain old white t-shirt.
● Add different colors of dye in a base material.
● Rotate and dip the t-shirt in.
● Tie-it in the same way and dry it out.
You’ve got yourself a tie-dye shirt. You can easily sell these t-shirts in online stores. You can create innovative new designs and color combinations with tie-dye shirts.
You can easily start this business in a couple of hundred dollars by getting the dyes and a few t-shirts to begin with.
32. Become a Local Tour Guide
Do you enjoy visiting your local landmark places and know about the history?
Then, you can become a local tour guide.
Of course, you cannot operate this business entirely out of your home and will need to step out to take the tourists out to the spots. But you can promote and contact the tourists and finalize the booking all from your home.
You can create a custom itinerary for tourists based on their liking and the number of days they stay there. You can take them to various places and help them see your place from the eyes of the locals.
This is another joyful and satisfying job that you can start with zero investment.
33. Start a Child-Proofing Business
Childproofing a house on our own is often a challenging and concise task. This is why many people hire others to do the job.
If you know your way around a handyman’s kit and can childproof a home thoroughly without leaving any loopholes, then this is a great option for you.
You’ll need to think of the various ways in which a child can be mischievous and childproof the different openings of dangerous stuff and create a safe place. You can start this business with just your skillset and the necessary tools you have.
If you can attend a couple of houses to childproof every week, you can earn a handsome sum.
34. Become an Online Tutor
Do you know any other foreign language? Do you have a degree in physics, chemistry or mathematics?
If there’s any subject or language that you’re skilled at, you can become an online tutor on various tutoring websites. You’ll need to spend a couple of hours every day teaching individual students or a group of them on any one subject of your expertise.
You would be conducting teaching sessions, evaluate assignments and conduct tests.
You’ll earn a decent amount per hour easily from your house.
35. Start a Local Storage Service
When you have some space in your home or garage, you can turn it into a temporary storage space.
You can allow tourists to store their stuff for a very short time or any other people moving to a new place to keep their stuff. You can charge people on a per day or a per month basis based on how long they plan to keep.
To start this storage service business, all you need to do is make space in your house and have some good security systems installed! You don’t need to even spend a lot of time conducting this business.
36. Become a Personal Shopper
Are you a local fashionista?
Well, then this business is your calling!
You can be someone’s personal shopper and help them pick out the right outfits along with the accessories based on where they’re visiting.
Once you’ve established success in this field, you’ll be getting many return clients and earning money to shop.
To become a personal shopper, you should be aware of the current fashion trends, dress others up nicely, and be a people person to talk people into buying the stuff you believe will work.
37. Start a Junk Removal Business
Not many understand the importance of this job. But it’s vital to remove the stuff from a person’s house after their death or even ordinary junk left in your storage or basement room.
You can either be hired by the family of the person who has died or the landlord if they didn’t have anyone to claim the stuff.
There can be different types of job responsibilities.
● Remove all the stuff and throw it out, or
● Separate the important and valuable stuff from the junk.
Sometimes, you may get to find some real gems in the things that people want to throw, and you can sell it on the side and increase your profits.
38. Become a Florist
Do you have a garden full of flowers or love to arrange the flowers beautifully?
If so, then you can start a flower-arranging business or sell the flowers individually.
People now don’t have time to create a bouquet or arrange decorative flowers for their homes. So, when you have lots of flowers at home or can get it at cheap rates, you can arrange them beautifully at home and then deliver them to people’s houses regularly.
You can start slow by delivering it to the people in your locality and can set up online order pages and expand outside your area.
39. Start a Custom Gift Shop Store
Handmade gifts are a huge rage now and people are ready to pay lots of money for it.
If you have already made some beautiful handmade gifts, you can post them on online stores like Etsy and eBay and sell these custom gifts to others. You can offer services to prepare the gift from scratch based on how the customer wants and include photographs, names and other materials in a beautifully packaged gift.
You can make many types of gifts, like photo albums, wall hangings, birthday blast boxes, etc.
40. Become a Household Organizer
People are so pressed for time that they can’t organize their home in the best way possible.
You can do that for them if you’re the kind of the people who loves everything to be organized and within reach.
You can move around the items in people’s houses and arrange them in such a way that it’s easier for them to access. Word of mouth promotions are essential for this kind of work; so, you need to bowl over your clients with your organizing skills that they recommend you to their friends.
Wrapping Up
We have some pretty great ideas to start a full-time or a side business out of your home in Canada. Based on how much time you’re ready to invest and the money you may need, you can choose any of these businesses that suit you the best and run with it.
Since you work from home majorly, you get to call the shots, decide how you want to work and who you want to work with. It gives immense satisfaction to be your boss and earn good profits.