Report ranks TikTok’s most popular side hustles, with 8 of 10 claiming six-figure annual earnings

As TikTok side hustle content continues to explode in popularity, concerns are growing over how honestly creators portray their actual earnings, with many side hustle videos showcasing exceptional income claims that are difficult to verify or replicate…by Paul Hoffman

In light of this, I am sending our newest report, examining the most popular and most profitable side hustles in 2026, focusing on both their income potential and the gap between online perception and real-world outcomes.

To compare some of the most viral side hustles today, the team at BestBrokers selected leading examples across four categories: app-based gig work, freelancing, e-commerce (inventory and non-inventory models), and content creation. Each was evaluated using key metrics, including average earnings, income ceiling, stability, scalability, platform fees, startup costs, and burnout risk. Drawing on platform reports, freelancer marketplaces, worker surveys, and industry research, the report highlights which side hustles are genuinely viable, and which are oversaturated, unstable, or less profitable than social media trends often suggest. It also identifies the 10 most viral side hustles in 2026 based on combined hashtag activity across their top TikTok tags. The complete dataset is available on Google Drive via this link.

As of May 2026, e-commerce freelancing is the most visible type of side hustle on TikTok, with about 3.59 million posts across its three most popular hashtags, followed by digital art (2.73M) and dropshipping (2.33M). Other popular categories include life coaching (1.75M), print on demand (623.7K), eBay selling (388.8K), and Shopify stores (287.5K). However, a common feature across all of these niches is that highly visible content often emphasises exceptional income and a simplified path to success, which may not reflect typical earnings or the full costs, risks, and variability involved in actually building these businesses.

Here are a few key takeaways from the report:

• Based on combined hashtag post counts as of May 2026, e-commerce freelancing is the most visible side hustle category on TikTok, with approximately 3.59 million posts across its three most popular hashtags. It is followed by digital artist content at around 2.73 million posts and dropshipping at approximately 2.33 million. Together, these categories form the dominant side hustle ecosystem on the platform, with significantly higher content volume than all other observed niches in the dataset, indicating a strong concentration of creator activity and audience interest.
• Other highly visible categories include life coach content (1.75 million posts), print on demand (623.7K posts), eBay selling (388.8K), and Shopify store ownership (287.5K). Content in these niches commonly features step-by-step tutorials, personal success stories, and income claims ranging from five-figure monthly earnings to six-figure business revenues, often accompanied by calls to action such as free guides, training sessions, or links to paid products and coaching offers.
• E-commerce and dropshipping narratives are frequently built around speed, automation, and lifestyle transformation. Creators often present success as achievable within a matter of months, using AI tools and simplified workflows, with claims such as ‘$100,000 a month with AI dropshipping’, ‘a completely different life in three months’, and ‘making money in your sleep’. However, these videos typically omit key operational realities, including advertising costs, product testing failures, market saturation, the time required to reach profitability, and the distinction between revenue and net profit.
• Videos related to selling digital and semi-digital products online present highly scalable income streams that can be created quickly using tools such as Canva, ChatGPT, and Printify. Examples include claims that a single Etsy product generated $61,000 in one month, or that AI-assisted e-books produced $25,000 in monthly revenue and $65,700 in one quarter. These videos tend to emphasise peak revenue figures rather than typical performance, while offering limited context on platform fees, production costs, marketing effort, and intense competition.
• Unlike e-commerce or digital product content, life coaching videos monetise personal expertise and audience trust rather than physical or digital products. Creators often frame coaching as a natural extension of viral content, claiming they turned free advice on dating, spirituality, and mental health into six-figure businesses by converting followers into paying clients, with session prices starting at around $150. While this model can be highly profitable for creators with strong personal brands, the videos rarely address the difficulty of building credibility, maintaining client demand, and scaling a service-based business.
• Other viral formats include ‘income stack’ videos that combine earnings from affiliate marketing, UGC, ad revenue, and brand deals to present monthly totals of $15,000 or more, as well as gig economy content emphasising unusually strong short-term returns, such as earning $119 in 30 minutes with Amazon Flex. While some videos offer more grounded career narratives, such as a copywriter documenting the transition from ESL teaching to earning around $1,000 per month, these examples still tend to highlight successful outcomes rather than the longer timelines, inconsistent workloads, and competitive pressures that shape most freelance careers.
• Tutoring and Copywriting are the only side hustles among TikTok’s 10 most popular categories in which the sampled videos did not feature claims of six-figure annual earnings. Instead, content in this niche tends to focus on practical advice, including improving writing or teaching skills, finding clients, setting rates, managing workloads, and building long-term freelance careers, resulting in a more grounded and realistic portrayal of income potential than seen in most other side hustle categories.

 

‘TikTok tends to reward the most attention-grabbing outcomes, not the most representative ones. Claims of earning $25,000, $61,000, or even $100,000 a month are not necessarily false, but they often reflect exceptional cases, gross revenue rather than net profit, or income generated across multiple business models rather than a single side hustle. In many cases, the creator may also be monetising the audience itself through affiliate links, coaching programs, or paid courses, which means the real business is selling the idea of financial success rather than the side hustle being promoted.

More realistic opportunities are typically those that rely on established skills and offer a clearer path to consistent demand, such as tutoring, copywriting, or freelance design. These side hustles rarely generate six-figure monthly incomes, but they can provide sustainable supplementary income over time. Consumers should treat social media earnings claims with caution, looking for creators who distinguish revenue from profit, discuss costs and setbacks, and avoid presenting unusually strong results as typical outcomes.’

– comments Alan Goldberg, lead data analyst at BestBrokers.

More detailed information about the most viral and widely discussed side hustles in 2026 is available in the full report. It also includes the full methodology behind these findings. The complete dataset is available on Google Drive via this link. Feel free to use any data or graphics for publication by providing a proper link attribution to the original report.

Paul Hoffman
BestBrokers.com