As a stay-at-home mom, starting a work from home business can be a great way to make money on your own schedule. Here are our 34 best business ideas for moms.
These days, it’s easier than ever to earn extra money while you stay-at-home taking care of your children. Unfortunately, female entrepreneurs make less money on average than their male counterparts, but don’t let that discourage you! There are plenty of Canadian women entrepreneurs to take inspiration from on your journey to starting a business. These awesome business ideas for stay-at-home moms are a great resource for any aspiring mompreneur.
Sell your products and services online
Selling a product or service to consumers online is how many small business owners get started. Before you can run your own small business, you need to decide what you want to sell. If you’re creative or crafty, maybe you could sell handmade goods like polymer clay earrings or home decor. For stay-at-home moms who are passionate about reading to their children, you could curate a selection of kids books that you sell online. Alternatively, you could become a drop shipper so that you don’t have to deal with storage or order fulfillment.
Work from home as a virtual assistant
If you want to start a business as a virtual assistant or VA, the first thing that you need to do is identify your marketable skills. Most businesses hire virtual assistants to take on the tasks they don’t have time for or don’t understand how to do it. That means that they’re probably looking for a virtual assistant who is proficient in a number of areas, from ecommerce store management to administrative assistance to transcription services to customer service management. You don’t have to do it all, but it’s a good idea to have a sense of your skillset and how to pitch it to potential clients.
Invest in a franchise
It may surprise you to learn that you can own and run a franchise as a stay-at-home mompreneur. If you’re interested in being a franchise owner, the most important thing to do is make sure you have adequately researched the market, investment costs and fees, and average annual income and failure rates. It’s also a good idea to invest in a franchise in an industry that you have experience in. Your chances of success as a franchise owner are much higher if you’re already an expert in that line of business.
Look after other people’s children
Offering family childcare services from your home is a great business opportunity for moms who want to spend quality time with kids, whether they’re yours or not. Since you’ll be running your business out of your home, you won’t have to deal with the startup costs associated with opening a daycare centre, making this business idea a low-cost option if you need to make money but can’t invest a lot to get started.
Research the local childcare market and statistics to get a sense of the business and legal issues before you start offering your services as a daycare freelancer. If you’re going to be taking care of more than five kids (including your own children) in your home business, you need to apply for a daycare license.
Work as a pet sitter
If you’re an animal lover, working as a pet sitter might be the ideal business idea for you. If you’re just looking for a bit of extra income to fit around your schedule, many people use pet sitting apps like Rover, where you can choose what services to offer and be connected with pet owners looking for dog walking, drop-in visits, or overnight and long-term pet care.
Alternatively, if you want to start your own pet sitting business, you should register your business and consider buying business insurance since you could be liable if anything happened to your client’s pets while they were under your care.
Sell cosmetics online
One of the most popular home business ideas for moms who love makeup is to sell cosmetics online. Since it’s such a crowded industry, it’s important that you take the time to consider your target audience and develop your brand identity around that.
Selling makeup is one of those home business ideas where you have to be extra careful about ensuring that you are following all of the rules surrounding the resale of cosmetic products. It’s best to research what permits are required in your location before you invest in any inventory.
Start a blog
Starting a blog is among the most common business ideas for stay-at-home moms, partly because it’s so accessible. Even if you don’t think you’re an expert in anything, there’s one thing you definitely know a lot about: parenting full time!
Mommy blogging is extremely popular among new parents looking for advice and support as they adjust to running a family. It’s important that you distinguish yourself from the other parenting blogs out there by finding your niche and focusing on addressing your ideal readers. You’ll want to choose a niche that you’re passionate about so you don’t get burnt out, but you also need to make sure that there’s a market for what you’re writing about. Otherwise, your blog is just a hobby rather than a business idea that will make you money. Eventually, you could even transform your blog content and use it for ebook authoring.
Become a tutor
If you love teaching, online or home visit tutoring is a great way to use your skills to earn money. While technically there are no specific qualifications required to work as a private tutor, you may want to look into certification, especially if you haven’t provided tutoring before. You can also expand your services to create educational content and design and sell downloadable forms and videos.
Work as a remote travel agent
While it helps to be amazing at organizing and booking vacations, the travel industry is actually highly regulated. In Ontario, you need to research any legal requirements around selling travel and related products and services and follow the procedures set out by the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO). Before you invest in your business, download the TICO Education Standard Manual and use it to prepare for a mandatory travel agent exam.
Once you’ve passed your exam, you’ll need to register your business or seek work as an inside sales agent working directly with travel agencies, tour companies, or airlines. In addition to passing the exam, you need to complete the TICO Registration Application, which involves an application fee and bond as well as your credit history and personal finance information to prove that you have access to at least $5,000 in operating funds.
Sell your graphic design services
If you have a degree in Graphic Design or illustration skills and access to a program like Adobe Photoshop or Procreate, you can earn money by selling your graphic design services and taking care of your family as a stay-at-home mother. While it helps to have an education in the field, your ability to make money as a mompreneur graphic designer has more to do with your design skills and ability to deliver on a client’s brief. If you don’t already have an online portfolio where you can showcase your graphic design work and connect with potential clients, that should be your first priority. Even if you’ve never done a professional graphic design assignment, you can bulk up your portfolio using prompts found online.
Become a freelance writer
Freelance writing is a great way for stay-at-home moms to balance family life with running your own small business. Start by identifying the type of writing work you would choose to do if money weren’t an issue. Do you want to use your writing skills for a recurring column on your favourite blog? Maybe you’re always coming up with new ideas for articles, and you want to pitch those ideas to different publications. Or maybe you’d prefer to work with an agency that provides article briefs for their company blog. There are so many different options when it comes to freelance writing.
Offer grant writing services
Grant writing is an ideal way to use your writing skills to help nonprofit organizations get funding and enact positive change. Grant writers generally charge anywhere from $25-$100 CAD per hour, making it one of the more lucrative business ideas for stay-at-home moms. As a grant writer, your job is to successfully prove that your client deserves to receive the grant by explaining what the organization is about and how they will use the money.
Become a mobile hair or makeup artist
Even if you’re already awesome at hairstyling and doing makeup, it’s in your best interest to take a course or certification to brush up on your skills and learn about proper hygiene and sanitation requirements for hair and makeup artists.
Before you make an initial investment in building your makeup kit, you should take the time to decide on who your ideal client is. For example, are you more interested in helping teenagers get ready for the prom or creating a natural, waterproof look for a bride’s big wedding day? The niche that you focus on will affect what cosmetics you invest in. You could even connect with professionals in event planning to find clients.
Start an organic skincare line
If you’re a mom who’s interested in a home health care business, you could start your own organic skincare line. Since what you’re making will end up on people’s skin, you really don’t want to mess around when it comes to creating your products. That’s why it’s in everyone’s best interest for you to invest in a course or certificate on how to safely create organic skincare products. Local regulations regarding skincare will differ depending on your location, so make sure that your practices comply.
All of the decisions you make when creating your organic skincare line should revolve around your niche and ideal clientele. For example, if you want your business to be seen as a luxury brand, your prices, branding, and packaging should all reflect that.
Start a kids’ clothing store online
As a mother of growing children, you’re probably shopping for clothes constantly. Why not put your expertise to good use by starting your own kids’ clothing business? If you love to knit and crochet you could sell handmade clothes and accessories, or you could import kids’ clothing or run a dropshipping business. Whether it’s the designs that you create, the curation of clothes from a variety of brands, or the ethics behind your company, emphasize what makes you unique when you write about your business on your website and social media.
Design and sell funny T-shirts
Are you an expert at puns or funny one-liners? Turn those mom jokes into cash flow to support your family by designing your own humorous apparel and accessories. There are a few different ways that you can go about transforming your two-dimensional designs into wearable art. One way is to set up a seller profile on websites like Redbubble, where you can upload your designs and sell them without having to deal with productions and shipping. The benefit to selling your designs in this way is that there is no upfront investment, and everything is taken care of for you, so once you’ve uploaded your designs, any income you make is entirely passive. However, these sites generally take a large commission on any sales you make. On the other hand, if you have some capital to put into a print run, you have a higher potential for income if you source materials and fulfill orders yourself with a T-shirt printing business.
Source and resell vintage clothing
Do you have an eye for identifying great vintage finds? Many people love the vintage aesthetic, but they just don’t have the time, energy, or expertise to search through racks in the hopes of finding something awesome. This means that people will pay a premium for you to do the work of finding and curating what you sell, and you get to go shopping for a living!
Become a beauty influencer
Beauty influencers don’t just get free makeup in exchange for features. In fact, you can actually make a full-time living as a social media influencer. If you have a large enough following on social media and high engagement rates, you can leverage your reach and get paid to review products for companies who want access to your audience.
Start a cooking or baking business from home
If you love to cook or bake pies and biscuits, selling the food you make is the logical next step. There are laws around selling food, so ensure that you comply with any local regulations before you start getting paid for your awesome cooking skills. Alternatively, if you prefer to source exotic delicacies or curate a culinary experience, you could start a foodie subscription box for regular monthly income.
Find out how to start an online cooking school
If you want to combine a love of cooking delicious meals and teaching, you could offer online courses to teach people how to cook your favourite recipes. Choose recipes that are simple enough for your customers to follow at home without additional instruction. Provide the menu and ingredient list in advance, or include a meal kit delivery with your online cooking courses. If you’re interested in helping people do more cooking for themselves at home, you could also create and sell online meal plans to help your clients with meal preparation in addition to teaching them new recipes.
Run your own cake decorating classes
If you have experience decorating cakes, you could run your own business offering cake decorating classes in person or online. Create your lesson plan so that it isn’t overly complicated for beginners. You should probably do a trial class to figure out how long everything will take and what you will need to provide. Create a finished example of the cake decoration techniques you will be teaching so that your students have a visual of what they will end up with.
Start a small business selling jewellery online
If you’re interested in starting your own jewellery making business, you need to start by deciding what type of jewellery you want to make. You will require different supplies if you want to sell fine jewellery as opposed to costume jewellery. Next, you should focus on perfecting your processes and products. Once you have a small line of jewellery that you are ready to introduce to the world, it’s all about marketing your products to your ideal clients using search engine optimization, targeted ads, and organic reach on social media.
Make and sell gift baskets
Want to start a business where you create and sell gift baskets? First, decide who your target market is and what the theme of your gift basket will be. For example, do you want to include a variety of food products, or would you prefer to make self-care spa day gift baskets for moms who need a day off? Be sure to consider the startup costs that you may not think of, like specialty equipment for shrink wrapping your gift basket, in addition to expenses for the products themselves.
Start a business making and selling candles
One of the best things about making and selling your own candles is the extremely low upfront investment required. The materials to create candles are very inexpensive, they are easy to make for complete beginners, and there is a large market for them. You can differentiate your candles from the other options on the market when selecting your materials, packaging, and branding.
Make and sell essential oils
Many people love essential oils, which means that it’s a business that you can make good money from. Since essential oils are produced naturally, you can save on expenses by learning to extract the product directly from its source, rather than paying someone else to provide the finished product. You could also choose to purchase bulk quantities of essential oils at wholesale prices, and then you could mix your own custom blends and bottle them in your branded packaging.
Create and frame your art for sale
The first step to starting a successful career as an artist is to put your artwork online. Choose your best work and create a website or social media profile that you can dedicate to showcasing and selling your art. Make use of local SEO and relevant hashtags to connect with potential buyers and grow your business.
Get into affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you create content about a company’s products in exchange for a commission. Many companies offer affiliate marketing, where you can use personalized links on your website or social media that will earn you a percentage of any sale made through your link.
Start your own resume writing business
If you have a history of getting every interview you’ve sent your resume in for, you may want to use your skills to help others with perfecting their resumes. Identify your target audience and market to them in the places they are likely to frequent online.
Sell your photography to stock image websites
As a photographer, a low-effort way to make money is to sell your photos to stock image websites. Depending on the website you use, you may be paid outright for your images, or you may receive a royalty every time someone downloads one of your photos.
Design stationary and sell it online
If you’ve always wanted to design birthday and wedding invitations and sell them online, this is your chance. Create a collection of products and launch them on your own ecommerce store or through a third-party website like Etsy.
Become a home organization professional
Even if you don’t have a background in interior design, if you have an eye for home staging and organization, you could start a business as a professional organizer. Real estate agents often partner with home organizers to stage homes to look their best before they’re put on the market.
Evaluate websites
It always helps to get a second opinion. Sometimes, when people create their own website, they don’t get the opportunity to experience it as an unbiased consumer would. That’s why website evaluation is a valuable service to provide for other businesses.
Become an Uber driver
If you have a valid driver’s license and don’t mind driving people around, working for a ride-sharing company like Uber might be the perfect fit. You get to choose your schedule so you can work around being a stay-at-home mom, and everything is arranged through the app, so you don’t have to worry about marketing your skills.
Grow plants for resale
Not everyone is blessed with a green thumb when it comes to gardening. If you have the magic touch, you could make a living selling plants, flower arrangements, and even botanical wedding favours.
Now that you have a long list of great business ideas for moms, it’s up to you to choose what business you want to get into and become the successful mompreneur you know you can be!
This article offers general information only, is current as of the date of publication, and is not intended as legal, financial or other professional advice. A professional advisor should be consulted regarding your specific situation. While the information presented is believed to be factual and current, its accuracy is not guaranteed and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the author(s) as of the date of publication and are subject to change. No endorsement of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressly given or implied by RBC Ventures Inc. or its affiliates.