We’ve create the ultimate list of 50+ work at home jobs that don’t suck. Wondering how to start an online store? If blogging is your calling? Maybe you’re more of an affiliate marketer? We’ve put together all the best jobs for Australian stay at home mums and rated them by awesomeness and suckiness so you can choose a stay at home career that suits your baby, your budget and your sanity. Let’s talk work from home jobs with a website, blog or starting a little online store.
These are the dream jobs…
Yep, the passion jobs, the dream jobs, the jobs that everyone wants to do from home. Sadly, that means that everyone is trying to do them from home. Starting a little online boutique is literally living the dream for a lot of work at home mums in Australia – so there are thousands of online stores out there and they’re all in competition. All these industries are extremely competitive and need plenty of research before diving in!
See also:
Working in a “real job” from home – READ THIS FIRST!
Practising your profession at home
Work from home tech jobs
Work from home personal service jobs
Work from home admin jobs
Do “Take Your Baby To Work” jobs actually exist?
How we’ve assessed these stay at home jobs
We’ve given every stay at home job opportunity some rankings to help you decide if it’s really for you and if it’s going to meet your family’s needs. Here’s how we’ve rated it:
- Set up costs
- Set up time
- Earning potential
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service)
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it)
- Other issues
Where to find your first clients:
You’ll need a website and socials. These will form the basis of your business. Depending on where you plan to find customers will determine how much time, money and effort you need to put into areas like SEO, web development, photography, social media marketing and referral networks. This isn’t fast. It isn’t easy. And even if you do it well, it isn’t guaranteed to pay off! You can try signing up to apps like The Right Fit or Tribe (or agencies like Brand Meets Blog) but you’ll need some minimum numbers to be accepted.
Work from home as a blogger – 2/10
We all know about the bloggers who get $5K for two hours work knocking together a post! What we don’t see is the 10 years of blood, sweat, tears and SEO that went into their blog before they started getting paid the big bucks. As a blogger you’re not getting paid for the post you write, but for the influence and audience that post will attract.
- Set up costs – Moderate
- Set up time – Long
- Earning potential – Low for 99% of bloggers
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Low – most brands don’t think to work with blogs right away and big brands use agencies with very “elite” bloggers on their books
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – Very High
- Other issues – Unless you’ve got something absolutely spectacular to offer or you’re already a celebrity in your niche, this is not a viable way to make money from home with a baby… maybe by the time your baby is a teen you’ll be able to command the income you need!
Work from home as a social media influencer, Youtuber or brand rep – 3/10
So you know how to rock a frock or style a room – you could totally get paid to Instagram, right? While the set up is faster and cheaper than blogging, the overall earn is harder because you need to keep attracting clients – you’re less likely to get ongoing payment from single brands. You’ll need an audience of 100K plus at a bare minimum to earn actual money, otherwise you’ll find yourself working for products you don’t really need or want.
- Set up costs – Moderate
- Set up time – Long
- Earning potential – Low for most.
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Low – most brands don’t think to work with influencers or brand reps and the industry is mostly run via apps – where you’ll be forced to apply over and over for work only to see the brands use your ideas without paying you. These apps also force down the rates of payment.
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – Very High
- Other issues – Unless you’ve got something absolutely spectacular to offer, you have a hundred thousand followers already or you’re a celebrity in your niche, this is not a viable way to make money from home with a baby… maybe by the time your baby is a teen you’ll be able to command the income you need!
Work at home in affiliate marketing – 4/10
Affiliate marketing is where you get paid for sending traffic to buy stuff from other websites. The main source of affiliate income is Amazon but there are literally thousands of affiliate opportunities available to you. Affiliate marketing is treated like MLM in the business world so don’t expect to get a big warm cuddly welcome from Facebook business groups – you’re largely on your own.
You’ll need mad SEO and Social skills to drive traffic to your site and excellent Conversion Rate Optimisation skills to then drive that traffic on to buy the product you’re pushing. All this, for a few pennies unless you NAIL IT. Most affiliate programs don’t pay much return on the time and effort you invest. Keep that in mind and really read the “deal” before selecting affiliate programs to sign up with. Yes, there are affiliate marketers making a killing, but they’ve worked hard to make it happen, you’re unlikely to be rich overnight!
- Set up costs – High – Website/blog with good traffic. This either means buying an existing one from sites like Flippa or building from scratch!
- Set up time – Long, getting high website traffic can really take time. Buying an existing site is better but sites earning a proper income can be rather pricey.
- Earning potential – Low to moderate for most. If you can jump on the next big thing and have the skills to rank for it and fast, that’s where the money is at.
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Depends on product – research products carefully
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – High
- Other issues – Note that Google doesn’t really like affiliate marketers so you’re always at risk of doing all the work to get the traffic and then landing a penalty and disappearing from the internet. Stay on top of Google guidelines for affiliate marketers to avoid disaster.
Work at home as a crafter and Etsy/MadeIt or Ebay seller – 3/10
Making money from your art is always the ultimate way to make money. To quote The Castle, “you should open a shop”…. But hand making products is a very hard way to make money. Even if your products are simply amazing and everyone wants them, the time and resources needed to craft something beautiful, is often more than the money you can redeem in sales. Using Etsy, MadeIt or Ebay to sell your products keeps your set up costs down but in order to get orders, you’ll need to be featured on those sites – which takes more time or money! There are great hand made business networks on Facebook to help you get started on the right foot.
- Set up costs – Low (unless your art has a lot of expensive materials)
- Set up time – Moderate – marketing your product on socials and creating demand for it is going to take time
- Earning potential – Low to moderate. In most cases very low.
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Moderate – the market for handmade items varies greatly depending on the product. Research how many people are searching for your product before jumping into the handmade game.
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – Extremely high. This is the dream gig, so everyone is pursuing their dreams!
- Other issues – Pricing is going to be your biggest challenge. Look at makers of similar items. Determine how long it will take you to make your product and the cost of the materials. What do you need to charge to make it all worthwhile? How much do similar products actually sell for? Make sure your business is viable before investing heart, soul and dollars into it!
Start an online store – 4/10
I couldn’t find the baby products I needed so I opened as store. It’s the “about page’ of every online baby store and it’s resulted in a market flooded with the same products all competing on price. Do your research carefully before you start an online store. eCommerce is a very competitive industry – make sure you’ve got a product worth selling!
- Set up costs – Moderate to high (you will stock and a website to get started)
- Set up time – Moderate to long – it takes time to create a brand that will drive traffic to your store. You’ll need SEO skills, social media marketing skills and networking skills to get customers to your site.
- Earning potential – Low to moderate depending on product
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Varying depending on product
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – High depending on product
- Other issues – You’ll need to understand your customer and industry extremely well. You’ll need reliable suppliers (the biggest challenge with drop shipping) and a brand that cuts through all the noise on Social Media. This is not as easy as it may appear, eCommerce start ups face a lot of challenges. The day to day of running an online boutique isn’t very glam either. It’s mostly about wrapping packages and waiting for couriers.
Working from home with a website, blog or online store in Australia
Australia’s eCommerce and influencer industries are highly competitive and it’s a hard slog to go from start up to money making. In industries like this, it’s usually best to seek out a lucrative and in demand niche where you are the specialist supplier. This is also useful if you’re passionate about a niche area and excited to write, post or hand make around this area. Before you start an online store, blog or site, research everything. Really understand the product, the customer and the market. Investigate competitors and make sure you have a niche for yourself before you spend a cent. As far as work at home jobs go however, this industry is the highest risk for mums wanting more time with their bubs!
