More than one in four American adults now runs a side hustle alongside their main job, bringing in an average of $885 a month, according to new data from Shopify’s 2026 guide citing a 2025 Bankrate survey. And a separate Shopify survey of its own store owners found that 46 percent of them said their business started as a side project that eventually grew into something full-time. The common thread connecting those who make it and those who don’t comes down to three things: the right niche, early audience-building, and smart tool use from day one.
Shopify’s updated 30 Best Side Hustle Ideas for 2026 breaks down earning potential, beginner tips, and real examples across every major category, from YouTube channels and newsletters to freelance services, digital products, and local gig work. It’s a practical snapshot of where the side hustle economy actually stands right now.
What This Actually Means
The 27 percent figure is not a rounding error. That’s roughly 70 million American adults running a secondary income stream. And the $885 monthly average is meaningful money. That’s over $10,000 a year, which covers a lot of emergencies, loan payments, or reinvestment into a growing business.
What makes the Shopify data particularly interesting is the conversion rate from side project to full business. Nearly half of Shopify store owners started as hobbyists or part-timers. That’s not a coincidence. Shopify tracks this because their platform is built to scale with you, and the pattern holds: the people who treat their side hustle like a real business from the beginning are the ones who eventually make it one.
The specific side hustles getting the most traction in 2026 skew toward digital and knowledge-based work. Blogging and newsletters, YouTube channels, social media sponsorships, freelance services on Upwork and Fiverr, and digital product sales are all showing up as top earners. What they share is low overhead and high scalability, and nearly all of them can be accelerated with AI tools.
This lines up with what we’ve been tracking at Hustler’s Library. As we covered in our breakdown of how AI-native solo founders are making 2.3x more, the gap between operators who use AI tools and those who don’t is widening fast.
The Numbers Behind It
The Bankrate survey number cited by Shopify puts the share of Americans with a side hustle at 27 percent. Earlier Bankrate research had pegged it at 39 percent depending on how side hustle is defined, but the 27 percent figure applies specifically to adults running consistent income-generating work alongside a primary job, which is the more meaningful measure.
The $885 average monthly income matters because 35 percent of those earners are using that money for living expenses, not discretionary spending. This is not vacation money. For a meaningful portion of the workforce, side hustle income is covering rent, groceries, and bills. That context reframes the entire conversation about why people are doing this and what it takes to do it well.
On the business formation side, McKinsey research has found that 35 percent of small businesses have meaningfully adopted AI into their operations, and those that do tend to see faster revenue growth and lower operational costs. For side hustlers specifically, AI tools are the great equalizer. A solo operator with the right stack can now produce content, manage clients, run customer service, and handle marketing at a level that used to require a small team.
The Shopify data also shows YouTube creators can earn between $1 and $30 per 1,000 views, bloggers in the US average $79.65 per 1,000 page views per a 2026 Productive Blogging survey, and nano-influencers can earn $25 to $150 per sponsored Instagram post. These aren’t get-rich-quick numbers, but they add up fast when you have consistent output and an audience that trusts you.
For context on how fast this space is growing: BLS data shows self-employment in technical services grew 14 percent between 2023 and 2025. The side hustle economy is not a pandemic-era quirk. It’s a structural shift in how Americans work and earn.
The Hustler’s Library Take
The most important insight buried inside the Shopify data is the 46 percent figure. Nearly half of their store owners started as side projects. That number tells you the path is real, but it also tells you most people who start a side hustle never get there. The difference is not talent or luck. It’s who takes it seriously early.
What does taking it seriously look like? It means picking a niche with actual demand instead of just starting something you enjoy. It means building an email list from day one, not once you feel ready. It means using AI to multiply your output so you can do in two hours what used to take ten. And it means tracking your numbers weekly so you know what’s working before you waste months on what isn’t.
The side hustles showing the most consistent income potential in 2026 are the ones that build an audience and sell knowledge or skills, not time. Freelancing your hours is a ceiling. Building a newsletter, a digital product, or a YouTube channel is a compounding asset. If you are going to put in the work anyway, build something that scales.
We broke down the tools side of this in our piece on why a serial entrepreneur says 2026 is the easiest time in history to get rich with AI. The barrier to entry has never been lower. The question is whether you show up consistently enough to take advantage of it.
What You Should Do
If you already have a side hustle, this data gives you a benchmark. Are you earning near or above the $885 monthly average? If not, the answer is probably not working harder but working on the right things. Audit your niche, your audience-building, and your monetization model before adding more hours.
If you are just starting out, the Shopify list of 30 side hustles is a genuinely useful starting point for identifying what matches your skills. But do not just pick the most popular option. Pick the one you can produce content or services in consistently for 12 months without burning out, because consistency beats everything else at this stage.
On the AI side: use it to eliminate the low-value tasks that eat your time. Research, drafting, editing, email sequences, social captions, customer FAQs. All of that can be handled or dramatically accelerated with tools you can access today for free or close to it. If you are a freelancer or solo operator, check out our guide on how to use online courses and masterclasses to generate revenue as a complement to your primary offer.
And if you are serious about turning a side project into a real business, the SBA’s business planning resources are free, practical, and underused. Start there before you need them. The people who hit the 46 percent threshold, side project to full business, did not wait until they were overwhelmed to get organized.
The opportunity is real. The data confirms it. Now it’s on you to execute.
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