Knowledge is power, or so goes the old saying. But it can also translate to cold hard cash with these side gigs that pay for knowledge.
And, while some specifically pay for academic smarts, others pay for the kind of knowledge that you gain through experience. Better yet, the pay is good and the working conditions are whatever you want them to be. Most of these gigs are done remotely from wherever you are.
Armchair consulting
For instance, a myriad of market research firms pay individuals to opine about a wide array of topics. These range from kid’s drink preferences to accounting software and health care choices. Unlike the survey sites that pay pennies to answer questions, these firms often pay $50 to $100 an hour or more.
However, before you’ll be invited to participate in a paying survey, the site will likely ask a variety of questions to make sure that you’re the right match for their research. Generally speaking, they’re looking for deep knowledge gained through personal experience.
The best sites to find these gigs? For general business and consumer-oriented gigs, check out WinnWinn Research, Respondent, and Maven. If you want to opine about health care matters because you or someone you care for has a chronic ailment ranging from eczema to Alzheimers, your best bet is Rare Patient Voice, which pays an average of $120 an hour to patients and their caregivers.
High-end Consulting
If you have consulting credentials, there are even better paying opportunities with boutique consulting firms such as Catalant and SMA Inc. Both sites enlist business leaders, project managers, engineers, marketing specialists and other knowledgeable experts in a wide array of fields.
Expert Witness
Doctors, nurses, medical technicians, public safety experts and engineers can earn hundreds of dollars per hour serving as expert witnesses and as case evaluators in legal disputes. Initial gigs are usually done from home and involve reviewing a legal complaint that falls into your area of expertise. If the case proceeds to court, you may be asked to attend in person. Often, pay for testifying at trial is twice as much as the rate for reviewing a case.
Nurses, for example, typically charge $250 an hour to review a case, but about $450 an hour to testify.
What would you be doing? That depends on the suit. But generally speaking, you’re using your knowledge of best practices in the field to determine whether the plaintiff has a good case. For instance, if you’re a nurse asked to opine in a wrongful death case, you’d be asked to review medical records to see whether the defendant had followed proper medical procedures and provided a reasonable level of care.
Public safety experts might be asked whether there were obvious slip-and-fall risks or building defects that made it treacherous to visit a public building.
There are three good sites to find expert witness gigs — Expert Institute, Round Table Group and Gerson Lehrman Group. For the best chance of getting a gig, sign up with them all.
Teaching
Have an idea for a great class that could be enjoyed by hundreds of students online? Several online platforms can help you turn this idea into a lucrative side gig.
Outschool is an online teaching platform that focuses on kids from age 3 – 18. Teachers decide what type of class to offer — academic or imaginative. And they also decide when to offer their classes, how much to charge and how many students to accept.
Teacher earnings depend on how much that teacher decides to charge per pupil and the number of students who sign up. (Typically teachers charge around $12-$15 per class, per learner and can open their classes to between one and 18 students.) The site does the advertising, booking and payment collection in exchange for a 30% fee that’s deducted from the teacher’s earnings.
If you have a class that’s better suited to adults, check out Teachable, Thinkific or Udemy. All three sites help teachers create class offerings, market and sell them. Better yet, these sites have you film your class, so you do the work once and get paid every time someone buys the course.
Tutoring
Tutoring is another great side gig that pays for knowledge. And dozens of tutoring sites enlist freelancers to offer tutoring in everything from math and science to English, foreign languages, dance, music — almost anything. Some of the best tutoring sites for freelancers include Wyzant, LessonFace, TutorOcean and Varsity Tutors.
Answering questions
Finally, a site called JustAnswer enlists freelancers to provide detailed answers to consumer questions online. These questions could involve anything from car repair to law. Freelancers are paid by the answer at rates that vary widely depending on the topic and the freelancer’s experience.
Since you’re paid by the answer, not by the hour, the most successful freelancers on this site have substantial experience in the topic that they answer questions in. Thus they’re able to answer quickly and accurately.
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