How to Make Money Online Without paying anything in Nigeria

A Nigerian man holding money

Hello beautiful people, in this post, I will show you how to make money online without paying anything in Nigeria, Yes you heard that right, I will take my time to make sure I tell you everything you need to know to start earning money online in Nigeria. 

Also, this is going to be a very long post so you might need to bookmark this page so that you can come back to it whenever you need to, this post is suitable for everyone, whether you have not made any money online before or you have been making money online and looking for new ways

So even if this is your first time hearing the term "make money online in Nigeria". This post will be very useful for you, so I will advise you to take your time and read through this article to the very end

It will really help you a lot. And I should also address that everything mentioned in this post is proven to work, so I didn't make a quick research and rush to write this article, I actually took out a lot of time to test things out for myself

So this post is written out of the experience, so I think you should know this. Now without wasting time, let's proceed to the main part of the article and talk about our main topic, shall we? 

Table of contents

Is it possible to make money online in Nigeria?

Yes, it is very possible to make money online in Nigeria, and in this post, we will see how you can make money online in Nigeria even without paying anything. I know that most people are tired of the fact that there are many websites that pay individuals

But as a Nigerian, you have a very thin chance of making any money out of those sites, because many websites that pay individuals don't allow Nigerian participants

I don't know why it is like that, but that's the reality, so as a Nigerian, to make money online, you need to learn from the right people, People that are actually doing it, people that have a lot of experience about making money online

And this post is written by someone with a lot of experience in the field of making money online, so you are in good hands, many people have tried many ways to make money online in Nigeria but it is not working for them

Some people have tried and gave up eventually, but the reason for their failure is, they didn't seek the right teacher, it is not everybody that writes online that actually knows what they are doing

Some people will just make a few research and then start writing about their experience as if they know what they are teaching, so you should know who is learning from

Some online teachers will promise to teach you how you can earn a living on the internet, and when you develop an interest and start learning a few things, they will then try to charge you for the lessons, 

many people have believed that making money online in Nigeria is hard, but that's not true.

12 simple ways to make money online in without paying anything in Nigeria

1. Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the best ways to make money online, as long as you are a regular internet user, then you will know at least a little about freelancing because it is very popular among internet users. 

Freelancing is when you offer services or work for clients from the comfort of your home, People usually go to their offices every working day to work, but when you are a freelancer, you don't even need to leave your home

You will be workging full time from home without having to go to the office, this is why freelancing has gained popularity over the past 10 years and it will continue to break the internet because many people are considering working from home 

Because of the pandemic and all. But unlike many other ways of making money online, with freelancing, you will need at least one skill that you want to render to clients before you can start working as a freelancer

This skill can be anything from creating wonderful graphics to writing a complete book, you first need to get a skill, then you will showcase your skill on the internet, and then interested clients will hire you to do the job for them. 

How long will it take to make money from freelancing?
If you already have a skill that is high in demand, then chances are, the process will be a lot easier for you, but if you are yet to have a skill, then you will need to spend some time

Learning the skill of your choice before you can actually resume work as a freelancer, if you already have a skill, then it may take less than a month before you start getting orders from clients, that's if you do some certain things right, but without skill, you may need to learn a skill within a month or more before you can start working.

How much can you make from freelancing?

It totally depends on you and how often you are hired for jobs, that is why I mentioned an in-demand skill above because with an in-demand skill, you will easily find clients, but in most cases

The high-paying skills are oversaturated so even if you have an in-demand skill, you may still need to work on your freelance profile in order to get hired fast. Some freelancers are making up to $10,000 a year from freelancing and you too can do the same

Which freelance marketplace is the best?

The best freelance marketplace no doubts are Fiverr, Upwork and freelancer. with these 3 freelance marketplaces, all you need is to create your freelancer profile on the site and clients will start seeing you and hopefully hiring you.

2. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest and most popular ways to make money online as a beginner. As long as you are making research on how to make money online, then you will surely come across the term "Affiliate marketing" 

Affiliate marketing is when you refer products or services to people and when they make a purchase you will get to make a cut from the overall money they spent on the product or service. Surely, referring people to good products and services is very easy

In one way or the other, we all are doing affiliate marketing. Because whenever you tell your friends about a good product that you have used and encourage them to buy the same product, you are doing affiliate marketing

The only difference is when you refer your friends normally, you don't make money from it. Starting affiliate marketing is also very simple, you will need to join one or more affiliate programs online.

There are many affilaite programs that you can join today, some of the affilaite programs offer physical products, like Amazon, while others offer digital products, like Clickbank

To begin, you will need to decide which of these types of products you want to promote, after you have your choice, then you can look for one or more affiliate programs that match your intent and sign up and start referring people. 

You don't even need a computer to start affiliate marketing, with only your phone, you can sign up for affiliate programs and start promoting.

How long will it take to make money from affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a very simple way to make money, as long as you have a product or service that you want to promote, you can start making money within the first week of doing affiliate marketing.

How much can you make from affiliate marketing?

It depends on what you are promoting and your commission per sale. If you are promoting a $100 product and making a $10 commission from each sale, this means you only need to refer 10 people to make $100. Although, many affiliate programs tend to have very small commissions for their affiliates.

Which affiliate program is best?

There are many affiliate programs out there that are willing to pay you for your work, you need to choose the ones you want to work with, if you want to promote physical products, Amazon will be the best for you, and if you want to promote digital products, Clickbank may be the best option for you, although, there are many affiliate programs apart from the mentioned two.

3. Vlogging

Vlogging is one of the most profitable ways to make money online, although vlogging is quite difficult, the effort is rewarding. Vlogging is a short form of a video blog, it is the art of making videos for others to engage with

The videos can be in form of voiceovers on images/videos, they can be just you talking to the viewers in your kitchen, bedroom, or office, depending on the topic of the video, for example, if you are making a video on cooking, then most of your videos will be shot in your kitchen

And if you are making videos about business, then you most likely will be shooting the videos from your office etc. Youtube is the biggest video sharing platform, it is in a form of social media where anyone with a Gmail account can create their Youtube channel based on their interest and start making videos for the public to watch. 

Making money from vlogging on Youtube is straightforward, all you need is to set up your Youtube channel, then start making videos for the public to watch, when your public videos get up to 4000 hours of watch time and 1000 people have subscribed to your channel

Then you can apply for the Youtube partner program and when you are accepted, you will be paid every month for the views that are generated from your public videos.

How long will it take to make money from vlogging?

In order for you to be accepted into the Youtube partner program, and start making money from your video views, all you need is to reach 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time within 365 days on your public videos, and then you can be accepted into the youtube partner program to start making money off your videos, 

How much can you make from vlogging?

When you are finally accepted into the Youtube partner program, you will be paid 65% of the revenue generated by your videos every month, so let's say your channel made $100 in a month, this means youtube will pay you $65, although you need to have at least $100 in your earnings in order to be paid, so if you make $65 in one month, the earnings will remain in your balance until it reaches or exceeds $100 before the earnings will be sent to you either through bank transfer or cheque.

Which vlogging platform is the best?

Youtube is the biggest video-sharing website, and it has the highest number of monthly visitors after Google, although, Youtube itself is owned by Google.

4. Virtual assistant

Virtual assistant as it sounds is when you become someone's personal assistant, but instead of working with the clients physically, you will be working from home, virtual assistant is just like freelancing where you don't get to leave your home

All you need is your laptop and internet connection, then you can present yourself as a virtual assistant, and those in need of one may contact you and hire you. 

One great thing about being a virtual assistant is that you can be working for multiple clients, although you may need to know how to manage your time while doing this. 

The kind of things you will be doing as a virtual assistant is helping clients with setting up their schedule, answering calls etc, this is the reason why anyone can actually become a virtual assistant even without much knowledge of a particular skill. 

After deciding on becoming a virtual assistant, you will also need to create your profile on freelance platforms like fiverr, Upwork and freelancer, in this way, you will get more exposure.

How long will it take to make money from virtual assistant jobs?

As you already know, business people all need personal assistants, so this is a sign that when you become a virtual assistant and make yourself known on freelance platforms and social media, you will easily get hired to work especially if you have a good conversation skill and you are well organised, this will give you more chance of getting hired to work.

How much can you make from virtual assistant jobs?

It depends on you, because you will be the one to set your price, but after making research on virtual assistants' salaries, I found out that, virtual assistants usually get paid between $10 per hour to about $20 per hour which is great for a job as simple as becoming someone's assistant and the fact that you can work for more than one person at a time.

Which platform is the best virtual assistant job?

Before you can get hired as a virtual assistant, you need to expose yourself out there, you can make it public on all your social media profiles, and if you have a lot of business owners as friends on social media, I bet you will easily get selected to work. But aside from taking advantage of your social media profiles, you should also leverage freelance platforms because they are specifically designed for things like this.

5. Social media marketing

Nobody doesn't know about social media, social media have dominated the whole world, with only Facebook getting 5 billion users you can easily tell that social media is a powerful tool for business because it is said that, where there are people, there's also money lurking around the corner, 

Business owners have seen the high potential of social media so many of them are taking their business on all the social media that they have access to. 

Social media have helped many startups to reach their full potential by helping them reach more customers easily with ads. so business owners are willing to pay social media marketers to help them promote their business on social media

And if you are good with social media marketing, you will be making a killer without even leaving your home, because you can be hired remotely as a freelance social media marketer, all you need is to understand how to run ads on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on, once you master the art of running social media ads

You will then need to create your profile on freelance platforms and make it known on your profile that you are open to social, media marketing jobs and clients will notice you and start looking for you, although social media marketing is saturated, as long as you know what you are doing when you get hired by one person, they person may hire you over and over again and even recommend your service to others

How long will it take to make money from social media marketing jobs?

If you already know how to run ads on social media, then what you need to do is to make it known to a few people that you can help them run successful social media ads, some people even run ads to advertise their social media marketing skills, which is great, because this will help you get more clients that will pay you over and over. But if you don't already have the social media marketing skills, then you may need to take your time and learn before actually starting out.

How much can you make from social media marketing jobs?

Social media marketers are paid handsomely, especially if you do a wonderful job, you may be hired more than once by a single person. According to the results I found while making research on social media marketers' salaries, I found out that social media marketers make around $20 per hour to about $70 per hour.

Which platform is the best for social media marketing jobs?

There's no doubt, the best platform that you can leverage to get social media marketing jobs is social media itself because the clients you are looking for are all on social media, so the best you could do is play around with your skill to get their attention

You can even run social media ads to help let people know that you are a social media marketer looking to help business owners scale their business through your social media marketing skills, in this way, you will easily get clients, although, you may also need to create your profile on freelance platforms to give you more opportunity.

6. Web Designing

Websites are now essential for any business that want to be present on the internet, in fact, in every 10 businesses, 7 of them have a website where they showcase their products or services.

This is so because the internet is becoming more and more crowded with people from various parts of the world. So this means only one thing for business owners

It means that their customers are now hanging around on the internet, and the best way for businesses to stay connected with their customers, they also need to be available on the internet, and the best way to do this is by having a website 

Because a website is accessible from anywhere in the world, so even if a customer traveled to a new destination, the business owners can still stay connected with them. This has given the opportunity to web designers because it means that business owners will be looking for web designers to help them with building websites

So if you are already familiar with it, you can easily get hired as a freelance web designer to build websites for clients

and the good thing about web designing is that, even though it seems oversaturated, you can still get hired a handful of times almost every week for projects. And if you are good at what you are doing, you will easily get returning clients that will also recommend your service to their friends.

How long will it take to make money from web design?

As long as you have the skill, you can get hired as a web designer almost immediately after you start promoting yourself out there because people are constantly looking for who will help them set up their websites, even freelancers are looking for web designers to help them build their portfolio websites,

How much can you make from web design jobs?

Web designers are also paid handsomely for their services, some web designers charge $20 to $50 per hour, while others charge as high as $100 per hour to $150 per hour, so learning how to design websites is one of the most progressive jobs you can do on the internet.

Which platform is the best for web design jobs?

Freelance platforms are where you will easily find web design jobs on, even though web design is becoming more and more saturated, when you learn and master the skill, you can start raking in a good amount of money monthly from doing the job.

7. Amazon kindle publishing

Publishing a book for the audience to purchase is a lot of work that requires a lot of investment, aside from that, it also takes time to publish your book even after you spend time writing the book, you need to go to a publishing company and spend money for the book to be finally published

All thanks to Amazon kindle publishing, because they have made publishing your books a lot easier and completely digital, which means even without going to a publishing company, you can stay from the comfort of your home and have Amazon help you with the publication

In the past, even after publishing your book, you need to spend money to market your book, but with Amazon, all you need to do is to submit your book to them, and they will do the printing and marketing for you

After publishing your book, all you need to do is to wait for buyers on Amazon to start seeing your book and placing orders, and each time someone buys your book, you will earn a percentage of the total cost of the book, that is how amazon makes money, they share the commission with you.

So if you are good at writing, then amazon kindle publishing will be a great way for you to make money online. Take note that you don't actually need to know how to write, as long as you can pay someone to write a book for you, then you can take it to amazon and publish it and keep all the royalties for yourself.

How long will it take to make money from amazon kindle publishing?

While it is fun to make money from Amazon kindle publishing, the reality is that it is not that easy, we all know that writing a whole book is not something that can be done in a day or two

In fact, if you want your book to sell, you need to actually put a lot of time into work and spend some quality time writing the book, if you are too excited about making the money then you may end up forgetting about providing quality books.

It will take you about a few weeks or even months to start earning anything from your published books, provided you have published a good book that is most likely to be chosen by people.

How much can you make from amazon kindle publishing?

How much you can make from Amazon totally depends on how often people buy your books, so if you want more readers and more money, you need to write books that people will actually pay for. I know some people who are making $1000 a month and some even earn more. from kindle publishing, Take note that these people have more than one book that they are selling, so you cant compare your one book performance to someone else's 100 books performance.

8. CPA marketing 

CPA means Cost Per Action, this is almost like affiliate marketing, but unlike affiliate marketing where you will need someone to buy something before you can make money, in CPA marketing, you don't need people to spend money before you can make money from it

All you will be doing is inviting people to just take a short action, this can be just to submit their email address and some information, install apps or visit a website, and after that, you will earn.

CPA marketing is easier to make sales than affiliate marketing, but affiliate marketing is more profitable than CPA marketing. Most successful affiliate marketers first started with CPA marketing before they move into full affiliate marketing. 

You don't even need a website to start CPA marketing, as long as you can reach people who can complete short tasks you are good to go.

So when talking about the best ways to make money online in Nigeria, CPA marketing has to be one of the best ways, because it is simple and beginner friendly, I have also made a video on Youtube where I talked about how anyone can start doing CPA marketing without having a website or large social following, so if you think you need some sort of clarity on how it works practically, you should check out the video.




How long will it take to make money from CPA marketing?

CPA marketing is really simple, immediately after you join a CPA marketing network, you will find a lot of offers that you can promote on social media or even promote to your friends and family, when you promote the offers, as soon as someone completed the offers you send them, you will receive your rewards, it's that simple, so making money from CPA marketing is almost instant, just join, select an offer, share and earn when people complete the offers.

How much can you make from CPA marketing?

How much you can make from CPA marketing is dependent on the offers you promote, and CPA offers pay anywhere from $0.5 to $10, so this means, you can expect to make from $0.5 to $10 each time someone completes an offer that you promote. The more people complete the offers you promote, the more money you will make.

Which platform is the best for CPA marketing?

Cpagrip.com seems to be the best platform for CPA marketing, this is so because their tracking system is very smart, you will see in real-time how people are reacting to the links you shared, aside from that, they have a bunch of offers that you can promote anytime and anywhere, immediately someone completes an offer, you will see it live in your analytics dashboard in your cpagrip account.

9. Online surveys

Taking surveys for money is one of the most popular ways of making money online, whenever you search for ways to make money online, you will always see online surveys as one of them, this has given it more popularity, although not many survey sites are available in Nigeria.

But there is still a handful of them that accepts Nigerians. One thing with online surveys is that third-world countries don't have much opportunity because their conversion rate is very low, considering Nigeria is a third-world country, many online survey sites and apps don't allow Nigerians to participate.

Someone living in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom will have more opportunities for online surveys than someone living in Ghana, India, Nigeria and other third-world countries.

How long will it take to make money from survey sites?

Survey sites are a great way to make money, but the time it takes to actually get surveys is not constant, which means you may get surveys today and not get any survey for days or even weeks, and each survey site has a withdrawal threshold, before you can withdraw, you need to have earned up to the minimum withdrawal threshold before you can withdraw your earnings. Some of the survey sites' withdrawal threshold is $10, and some of them are as low as $2.

How much can you make from survey sites?

Survey sites are a great way to earn some additional money, but you can't make much money from them, because you will get paid from $0.10 to $30 per survey, earning up to $40 for a survey is very rare, the most popular ones pay less than a dollar, so if you are expecting to make some sort of high income online, survey sites are not the right option for you.

Which platform is the best for taking online surveys?

There are many survey sites where you can join and start taking surveys for money, but the most popular ones that tend to pay well are Surveyjunkie, Surveytime, Inbox Dollars, Swagbucks and Lifepoints. Note: some of these survey sites don't accept most countries. If you are living in a third-world country, then your chances of being accepted on these sites are very minimal.

10. Transcription jobs

Ways of making money online are always on the increase, you can now make money online in Nigeria simply by taking some transcription jobs. 

In fact, transcription is one of the most popular things you can do online to get paid, and the amount of money you make for these jobs is quite decent, as long as you are willing to work a few hours every day, you could be earning some good amount while working as a transcriptionist.

One good thing about making money with transcription is that it is available in almost every country, so even if you are living in a third-world country like India, Ghana and Nigeria, you can still work as a transcriptionist and make money online. 

Transcription is also a very simple thing to do, which means anyone can do this, as long as you can spell things correctly and have a good listening ability, you can take a transcription job anytime and actually get paid anytime you transcribe.

If you want to get the most out of your transcription jobs, you need to join as many transcription websites as you can, this will enable you to earn the most. Another smart way to make money with transcription jobs is to create your freelancer profile and offer transcription as a gig, you will find many transcribers on fiverr, Upwork and many other freelancing websites.

How long will it take to make money from transcription jobs?

Making some money from transcription websites is almost instant, immediately after creating your account on some transcription websites you will start seeing jobs that you can take and make money from, not all sites work the same, so on some transcription websites, it will take longer to actually start making money from them, That is why it is advisable to join as many transcription sites as possible, in this way, your chance of working and getting paid is high.

How much can you make from transcription jobs?

You can expect to make $10 to $25 per audio hour of transcribing, these are based on levels, because on transcription sites, there are three different levels, beginner, intermediate and expert, when you first start, you will be a beginner and your level will increase as long as you are completing jobs constantly when you get to the expert level, you will be paid higher and you will also get jobs faster.

Which platform is the best for transcription jobs?

There are many websites you can join to make money as a transcriber, but all of them are good, the best sites to make money as a transcriber are 
1. Transcribeme.com
2. Rev.com
3. Castingwords.com
4. Gotranscripts.com

To increase your chance of getting making money as a transcriber, join as many as you can, and also create your gig as s transcriber on freelancing platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork and freelancer.

11. Sell photos online

You can actually make money online simply by taking photos with your camera or even phone and selling them on photo-selling websites. Bloggers, SEOs and internet marketers are always on the lookout for beautiful pictures they can use for their work

And the thing is, they can't actually go out and start taking the pictures by themselves, for this reason, they prefer buying pictures from photo selling websites, in this way, it will help them save time with their work.

And if you are a good photographer or have ideas for photographing beautiful photos, then you can start selling your photos and getting paid each time someone buys your photos, you don't need to have your own website.

There are many platforms you can join now and start selling your photos. Although having your own website will enable you to get more jobs and be seen as a professional, if you are just starting out, it is better you start with the free photo selling platforms.

How long will it take to make money selling photos online?

Selling your photos online sounds fun, but there are very important things you need to do in order to start making money selling photos online, many people have considered this way of making money but not all of them stick to the very end, and this is so because they fail to do the needful. Read more on how to sell photos online for money to get a better understanding and the full steps you need to take.

How much can you make selling photos online?

Some professional photographers are making more than $1000 monthly by selling photos online, beginners can expect to make up to $100 monthly. If you want to make a great sum of money selling photos online, you need to have plenty of photos that people can buy, if you are just a beginner with less than 1000 photos, then you will earn lesser than a professional who has more than 10,000 photos on his photo gallery.

Which platforms are the best for selling photos online?

There are many platforms where you can join to start selling your photos with a few clicks of a button, but you don't need to waste time on too many of them, the best platforms you can sell your photos on are Shutterstock, Dreamtime and Alamy. With these three websites, you can start selling your photos and making decent profits over time.

12. Start writing on Medium.com

Writing has a lot of benefits, writers are always in demand, as the internet is becoming more and more diverse, the need for writers is also on the increase. Today, as a writer, you have multiple options to monetize your writing skills regardless of the type of things you can write, even if you only know how to write poems, you can still make money from it, if you are good at writing interesting stories you can make money with that, and if you are a good copywriter, you will also have the opportunity to be hired by many businesses.

Medium.com is a website where you can join and start writing your content on, and the good thing about it is, it is absolutely free to start writing on medium, you don't need to pay a dime, as long as you are consistently writing your articles that people are reading, you can monetize your writing so that medium will pay you for the number of readers you get across your articles.

13. Shorten URLs and get paid

The internet has come with numerous ways one can make money, some of them are so unbelievable until you actually start doing them yourself, you can now make money online by shortening URLs. Yes, you read that right. 

There are URL shortening platforms that are associated with advertisers, so they are looking for people who have a good amount of following on social media, or people who can get other people to click on their links. 

And all you need to start earning from shortening URLs is to use the platforms to shorten their URLs, and each time you share the link with people, and they click on it, they will see some advertisements before taken to their destination, as long people are clicking on your link, you will be earning.

Although, before you can make any decent money from this, you really need a lot of people to click on your link, if you have a blog or social media that has a lot of followers, then this will be a great way to earn an extra income for yourself, or if you are a member of a forum like quora or other forums with a lot of members, then you can still use URL shorteners to shorten your links and get paid.

How long will it take to make money with URL shorteners?

All you need to start making money from URL shorteners is to create your account on the platform, it is advisable to choose only one URL shortener, after creating your account you can start making money from the first day as long as you can shorten URLs and get many people to click on them.

Which platforms are the best for shortening URLs?

There are many URL shortening platforms that you can join and start making money with, however, not all of them are great or worth spending time on, some of them pay higher than others, and some of them have better payout options than the others, so it is best to choose just one and stick to it, below are the best URL shortening websites you can use to make money online.

1. Shrtfly.com
2. Adf.ly
3. Shrinkme.io
4. Shorte.st
5. Exe.io

There are more than 100 URL shortening websites out there, if you want to see more of them, click here to see the best URL shortening platforms that actually pay.

14. Start a podcast

A podcast is another awesome way to make money online, as long as you have a topic that people are interested in, you can start your own podcast and make money from it. A podcast is when you create a series of audio-based content for other people to listen to.

The audio you make should be focused on a particular topic that people are interested to listen to, it can be about business, lifestyle or almost anything you can think of. You can then monetize your podcast through affiliate marketing, paid content or sponsorships. Many people are looking for a source of information that they can relate to and also trust, if you can create a podcast and make it known to people, it will start attracting even more and more audiences.

15. Start blogging

Blogging is a great way to create a source of information for people, but apart from that, blogging is also one of the best ways anyone can make money online from anywhere in the world, because a blog can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world.

Blogging is when you create a website and write content known as blog posts on, these contents can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world that is if you make your blog public because apart from making your blog accessed by the public, you can make it private or exclusive to only a specific people, either way, you can monetize your blog through many monetization methods.

You can monetize your blog with affiliate products, Ads, sponsorship, paid membership etc. You can start blogging and grow it gradually by writing more content on it.