10 Flexible Side Jobs for Teachers to Earn Extra Money
Someone’s already told you “must be nice, you get summers off” this year. Probably more than once.
I’ve never taught a class, so I can’t relate to the rest of it — the parent emails, the grading that follows you home every night. What I can do is tell you straight which side jobs for teachers are actually worth an hour you don’t have, and which ones are just extra work with a nicer name.
TL;DR: The best second jobs for teachers don’t ask you to build a new skill from scratch. Selling resources and online tutoring have the lowest barrier to entry. Substitute teaching and proctoring need zero prep — just your time. Freelance and curriculum work pay better per hour but take longer to build. Anything asking for money upfront before you’ve made a cent isn’t on this list for a reason.
1. Sell your lesson plans as digital resources
Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) is the obvious one — upload worksheets, units, or slide decks you’ve already made, and other teachers buy them. Here’s the part that doesn’t get said enough: “free” is almost never free. TPT’s basic seller account has a one-time, non-refundable setup fee, and it only pays out just over half of what you sell. The premium tier costs an annual subscription on top — but pays out a much bigger share per sale with lower transaction fees. (Yes, I checked. The “free” account isn’t really a starting point, it’s a demo of what you’d get if you paid.)
If your worksheets look like everyone else’s worksheets, this one’s a hard sell — literally. It only works if your materials would take another teacher longer to make than to buy.
2. Tutor Online — One of the Better Remote Second Jobs for Teachers
Outschool is the platform that comes up most for teachers specifically, since it doesn’t require formal certification — just subject knowledge and the ability to run an engaging class. Listing costs nothing upfront, a genuinely free starting point for once. Outschool takes a straightforward cut of every enrollment and pays out the rest.
It’s not the cost that gets you here, it’s the consistency: you’re competing with a global pool of educators, and enrollments come from steady listing, not one class posted and forgotten about. It’s still one of the more realistic remote second jobs for teachers, since the whole thing happens on a screen. If you’d rather stay phone-only, this isn’t the one for you — the side jobs you can actually run from just your phone are a different list, and tutoring platforms really do want a laptop and a decent camera.
3. Freelance write or take curriculum contracts
If live teaching over a webcam isn’t your version of a good evening, the same expertise works just as well written down. Teachers write constantly — lesson plans, parent emails, rubrics, reports. That’s a transferable skill most people never think to sell. WeAreTeachers pays for guest posts if you want to start with something teacher-native, and Edutopia takes pitches from pre-K–12 educators across any subject if you’d rather write for a bigger education audience — neither pays like a second income, but both are real. If you are interested in knowing others ways to earn extra money . I’ve written about that too in 8 Passive Income Jobs For Beginners.
Neither one requires a portfolio to pitch — Edutopia says so outright, first-time writers welcome. The real catch is pace and odds, not access: they turn down plenty of good pitches simply because of volume, and pay per piece won’t replace a paycheck. Treat this as a slow-building credibility project, not quick cash.
4. Summer School: The Simplest Answer to How To Make more money as a Teacher
If you’d rather stay inside a system you already know than pitch anyone on anything, this is the honest answer to “how do teachers make money in the summer”: your own district likely runs summer school, credit recovery, or enrichment programs and needs certified teachers to staff them. You already know the paperwork. Applying usually just means asking your district’s HR office.
The honest catch — this is the option that looks easiest on paper and burns people out fastest, since it’s the same job wearing a different hat, with none of the break summer was supposed to be.
5. Score standardized tests for Pearson, ETS, or college board
If you’d rather get paid by a company than pitch one, testing season is actually a pretty good time to look for remote work. Pearson, ETS, and College Board all bring on remote scorers every year to grade AP exams, state assessments, and English-proficiency tests — all using a fixed rubric that’s already been written for you. No pitching. No clients to find. Just you, a rubric, and several hundred essays.
Pay depends on who’s hiring. Pearson and ETS rates vary by contract, while College Board’s AP Reader program pays a flat $30 an hour, whether you’re reading from home or on-site. Most positions require a bachelor’s degree. Teaching experience can give you an advantage, and if you already teach an AP course, you may be a particularly strong fit for the College Board program.
The main thing to keep in mind is that these jobs are seasonal. Hiring usually follows the testing calendar, with most opportunities appearing between February and July and College Board’s AP scoring taking place in June. The work itself can also get repetitive — you might be scoring the same type of response again and again using the same rubric. But if you don’t mind a little repetition, it can be a straightforward way to earn extra money without having to find clients or sell yourself.
6. Offer local test prep or tutoring
Not everything on this list has to run through a platform. SAT, ACT, and state-test prep stay in steady demand, and word-of-mouth through your own school community often fills a schedule faster than any marketplace listing does. You set the rate. You keep all of it — no platform taking a cut before you see it.
The one thing worth thinking through first is whether you actually want your school life and your side income mixing. Some teachers are perfectly fine tutoring a colleague’s kid or a neighbor’s teenager. Others would rather keep a cleaner line between the two, and there’s nothing wrong with that either.
7. Run workshops or consult for parents and homeschoolers
Your classroom experience is worth something to parents figuring out homework routines, school readiness, or homeschool planning entirely on their own. It usually starts small — one workshop through a local parent group or homeschool co-op — and can grow into recurring sessions if there’s real demand.
If public speaking drains you more than it energizes you, this is the one to leave alone. Nothing about a good side job should feel like a second version of the parts of teaching you already find exhausting.
8. Substitute Teach at a Different School
Substitute teaching pays an average of around $20.31/hour, according to zip recruiter, depending on your district, and it comes with a perk your actual job doesn’t: no grading, no lesson planning, no parent emails. You show up, follow someone else’s plan, and leave when the bell rings.
The catch is scheduling — you’re at the mercy of a call list, and days aren’t guaranteed. If you already sub within your own district, this isn’t really “extra” income so much as more of the same job for slightly different pay. Best fit for teachers with genuinely unpredictable free days who don’t want to think about work once they clock out.
9. Proctor the SAT or ACT
Test centers pay proctors $18.30 per hour on average, as per Indeed to hand out booklets, watch a clock, and make sure nobody’s texting their answers to a group chat. It’s about as low-effort as this list gets — no planning, no grading, no relationship-building required.
The tradeoff is frequency: shifts are occasional, usually a handful of Saturdays a year, not a standing schedule. Treat it as a top-up for test-day weekends, not a real second income stream.
10. Rent Out a Room on Airbnb During School Breaks
If you’ve got a spare room, or you’re out of your place for a chunk of summer, hosting on Airbnb during breaks turns dead time into income without adding anything to your plate during the school year.
Two honest caveats: earnings vary wildly by location, so this isn’t a predictable number the way an hourly gig is, and there’s real upfront work — photos, a listing, cleaning turnover between guests — plus local short-term-rental rules worth checking before you commit. Not for everyone, but it’s a genuinely different kind of income than everything else on this list.
What I’d actually try first
If you’ve already got decent lesson materials sitting on your laptop, start with #1 — the work’s done, you’re just packaging it. If you’d rather use your evenings live instead of building a product, #2 fits more naturally. And if you don’t want to build anything at all — no product, no client relationship — substitute teaching or proctoring are the closest this list gets to genuinely zero-prep: you show up, you’re done, no evenings owed afterward. Airbnb is the wildcard — only worth setting up if you’ve already got the space, not something to build from scratch just to make it work.
Most “how to make money as a teacher” advice online assumes you have hours to spare. You don’t. So whichever of these side hustles for teachers you pick, treat the first month as a test, not a launch. There’s no perfect starting point — there’s just the point where you start, messily, and fix as you go.
FAQ
What’s a good second job for a teacher? The best second job depends on your schedule. Substitute teaching and proctoring need zero prep time; tutoring and Teachers Pay Teachers sales take more effort but scale higher.
How much extra money can a teacher realistically make in a month? Most teachers can realistically add $200–$1,000 a month depending on the side hustle and time invested. Low-effort options like substitute teaching or proctoring add a few hundred dollars; a consistent tutoring schedule can push past $1,000.
How can I make extra money on Teachers Pay Teachers? Selling lesson plans and classroom resources works best as an actual store, not a one-time upload. Consistent new products, clear previews, and a specific niche make the biggest difference in TPT income.
How can I find a side job as a teacher? Start by picking the type of work you want, then check job boards like Indeed for openings. TPT and Outschool both have straightforward sign-up flows if you’d rather sell or teach directly. And don’t skip your own coworkers — the faculty lounge still knows about openings before any job board does.
What are some side jobs I can do from home during the summer? Tutoring, selling resources, and freelance writing all run entirely from home. Summer school and local test prep don’t — those get you out of the house, if that’s actually what you want out of the break.
What’s the easiest side job for teachers with almost no free time? Selling existing resources (#1). The work’s already done, and listing takes an evening. Live tutoring needs a recurring time block, which is the harder thing to find during the school year.
How can I boost my salary as a teacher overall? Boosting your base salary usually means additional certifications, an advanced degree, or moving districts — that’s different from side income. Everything on this list adds income outside your salary, not to it.
Pick one. Actually try it for a month before deciding it’s not working. The lesson plans already sitting in your folder are doing less for you there than they would anywhere else.
