Side hustles aren’t always the easy money they seem. Many come with hidden expenses that can dramatically impact the amount of money you take home. Before you dive in, know what you’re really signing up for and how to hustle smarter. Here are some hidden costs of popular side gigs and how to avoid being hurt by them.
Hidden Expenses
Most side hustle platforms highlight the income you could earn, but ignore the expenses that come along for the ride. These add up quickly. And unfortunately, not all the costs are obvious.
Let’s break down a few of the hidden costs of popular side gigs:
Driving gigs
Driving and delivery gigs through sites like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, Instacart, Spark, Shipt, and GoPuff are ubiquitous, with literally millions of freelance drivers making money this way each week.
Most drivers are sensible enough to track their expenses for gas, insurance, maintenance, cleaning, parking and tolls. But the single biggest expense of these driving gigs is a hidden one: depreciation.
The IRS estimates that every mile you drive in 2025 costs you 70 cents in expenses — and a whopping 33 cents of that is for depreciation. What’s that? In short, that’s the diminishing value of your car. The more miles you drive, the more depreciation costs you.
To be sure, you don’t see this diminishing value on a daily basis. But, it will jump out at you when you sell.
According to KBB.com, a 2014 Acura MDX in good condition would be worth more than $12,500, if it has only been driven 100,000 miles. But delivery and ride share drivers are likely to put at least twice as many miles on their vehicles. And the same exact car with 200,000 miles on it is worth roughly $8,000 — or $4,500 less.
Solution
You can’t avoid depreciation. But you can account for it when you’re deciding what gigs to accept. If you find that you’re being under-compensated when you account for all of your expenses, including depreciation, decline the job.
But what if you have such a great need for immediate income that you can’t afford to decline? Then understand you’re making a short-term decision that has a long-term price This can make sense only if you have a long-term plan that makes this worthwhile.
What might that be? Maybe you’re driving for Uber while you complete your education, which is likely to land you a higher-paying job in the near future. In a case like this, the long-term cost of depreciation may be recovered in higher income from your future profession.
Likewise, if you’re hustling to earn a set amount for, say, a downpayment on an income-earning asset — a laundromat; a vending machine; car you plan to rent out — it can also make sense to take that short-term hit for the long-term gain. Just make sure you have a plan that makes sense.
E-commerce
Amazon has made free shipping a near expectation with many buyers, so most e-commerce sites, such as Etsy, eBay and Amazon, encourage sellers to eat the shipping expenses.
On the bright side, both Etsy and eBay do provide sellers with commercial shipping rates, which can be as much as 30% cheaper than consumer shipping rates. Still, the costs can be substantial, particularly for those shipping large and bulky items.
Worse, if you sell anything breakable, you’re likely on the hook for a pile of packing materials, like bubble wrap, too. And, of course, there’s the time expense of doing all that packing and shipping — and the possibility that items could be returned, if they’re broken in transit.
The fix
You can address this by employing print-on-demand companies, like Printful, to make and ship the products for you. But, if you want to do it yourself, you can (and should) adjust your sales prices to account for these expenses. But in a world where it’s easy to price-compare, it’s important to estimate your costs carefully.
If you sell a standardized product, stock up on the shipping materials you need and weigh your product — in the box or bag — so that you can get a real estimate of the shipping costs. Also standardize your process to reduce the amount of time you spend packing and shipping. Finally, set your retail price based on your full cost, including your time, materials and postage.
Notably, if you regularly ship large and bulky items, also check with some of the less traditional shipping companies, such as Roadie, uShip and CitizenShipper. These sites enlist freelancers to provide on-the-way deliveries and can often provide far more affordable prices.
Course-based and coaching hustles
One popular side hustle involves creating online courses and coaching. The appeal of this side gig, which you can do through sites like Udemy, Teachable, and Thinkific, is that once you’ve created your course and posted it online, you can continue earning income from it indefinitely. Popular courses can literally earn millions.
Better yet, all of the course-creation sites above will allow you to create your course completely for free. No set-up costs. No cost for using the software (until you make some sales, that is). They’ll even provide you with suggestions and sample course materials to make your course-based hustle look more professional and complete.
The catch is that you may need to spend thousands of dollars marketing your course before you make a single sale. And, even then, making enough sales to make the course break even isn’t assured. That can make course-creation a high-risk side hustle.
Solution
Successful course creators say the key to selling courses without spending a fortune on marketing is to build your audience before you create your course. That is best done by finding a niche market that you are passionate about, whether that’s vegan eating, dual-income parenting or crafting.
Join popular groups in your target area to get to know your fellow enthusiasts. Listen and participate. As you get established in the groups, use these marketplaces to do research on what types of courses and coaching services would best serve your target market. Is that a course you can create? Is it something your fellow enthusiasts need enough that they’d pay for your course? If so, ask them how much they’d be willing to pay.
Test out your idea by creating a social media or Substack account, where you can gather followers and continue to build the content of your course and momentum. If you do this right, you’ll have sales before your course is even complete. And your avid followers could turn your course into a viral hit, without any additional advertising and marketing expenses at all.
