r/thesidehustle: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

Most posts are from people with no business experience asking what they could do for extra money, often with a few hours a day and a small budget. Replies are short, about 13 words at the median, and tend to be a single suggestion. A basic question is normal here. The risk is not being talked down to, it is the post being removed or getting one reply.

• Students, parents and people between jobs asking for side income ideas that fit their hours.
• Employees with spare time in a remote job looking for something to fill it.
• Freelancers advertising themselves: developers, video editors, writers, drivers.
• People who need money fast, many posting from outside the US.
• Solo builders and affiliate marketers showing an app, a channel or a referral offer.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/thesidehustle.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 100.

• Stayed up68%
• Removed by Reddit's filters13%
• Removed by moderators18%
• Deleted by the author1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   No abusing other members

   No abusing other members. Don't put people down for linking to a product, service or blog even if it is an affiliate link. This will get your banned.

2. 2

   No copy and pasting of blog post content from websites.

   You are not allowed to copy and paste blog post content from websites. If you want to promote a blog post URL use the URL post type, not regular post type.

3. 3

   Pitching your product or service is allowed within reason

   You can self promote if you have unique content, a stunning pitch of your idea, service or product. No copy and paste, no lame pitches. Be unique and treat our audience like everyone is a millionaire and has a masters degree. We are not here to be sold. We are here to grow as a community.

4. 4

   Chinese business promotion will be BANNED

   Any promotion of Chinese business or Chinese investment in international countries results in a ban. This is due torture of Uighur, illegal influence on Taiwan and false claims on the South China sea. On top of this economic and political manipulation through extreme foreign investment in 3rd world countries which is un repayable, which leads to taking over critical assets.

5. 5

   No survey / app sign up link posts

   Temp ban, unless you prove money over months of survey's and give a compelling reason to sign up to your affiliate link.

6. 6

   No posts where the entire post content is just a referral link

   If your post content is hey i make $20 a week by answering questions on this site, here is my link sign up. You will get banned. If you would like to get sign ups to your affiliate link, tell the story, what you had to do, the context of the job and image proof that you actually made money. Then that is fine and we do allow this.

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/thesidehustle has about 240,000 members and roughly six posts a day. The sidebar describes a room of dropshippers and affiliate marketers who make a lot of money online. The feed is different. It is mostly people asking what side hustle they could start, people offering their services, and a handful of small product pitches. The median thread gets six comments.

The written rules are unusually friendly to promotion. Pitching your product is allowed, affiliate links have their own flair, and members are told not to put people down for linking to a product. The enforcement is stricter than the wording. Moderators removed about 18% of posts in our sample and Reddit's filters took another 13%, and the two AutoModerator messages were the most common removal notices.

Scores are low. The best post in the sample has under 70 points, and most sit in single digits. The posts that rise are personal stories with real numbers. Comment sections carry a fair amount of disguised promotion for survey and reward apps, and other members call out scams when they see them.

What lands

• A first-person account of an unusual way of earning, told plainly. The top post in the sample is about being paid to talk people to sleep.
• Real numbers: what a side hustle made, how many hours it took, what did not work.
• A specific small business idea with a question attached, like turning homemade dog treats into a side income.
• A relatable situation that invites suggestions, such as lots of idle time in a work-from-home job.
• A contrarian take, like arguing most people would do better improving at their main job.

What gets removed or ignored

• Generic requests for any side hustle or steady money with no detail about skills, hours or location. Many of the mod removals were exactly this.
• Bare for-hire posts, including local service offers and people asking for any small paid work.
• Make money now posts built around an affiliate or survey app link.
• Posts from accounts below the unpublished karma and age threshold.
• Text that AutoModerator reads as AI-generated or copy-pasted, or that uses disallowed emojis.

The unwritten rules

• Similar posts get different outcomes. Some for-hire and idea-request posts stay up while near-identical ones are removed, so do not assume a post type is safe because you saw one live.
• Go easy on emojis and formatting. The filter does not say which emojis are disallowed.
• Give your situation: what you can do, how many hours you have, where you live, your budget. Posts with that detail get actual suggestions.
• Check anything recommended in the comments before signing up. Some replies are plugs for reward apps, and links are otherwise rare, about 2% of comments.
• Do not attack someone for posting an affiliate link. The first rule treats that as abuse and says it gets you banned.

Self-promotion

The rule is permissive on paper: you can pitch a product or service if the content is unique and the pitch is good, and the rules tell you to treat the audience as smart and not there to be sold to. Affiliate links are allowed when they come with the story, the context and image proof of earnings. Survey and app sign-up links earn a temporary ban, and a post that is only a referral link earns a ban. In practice product posts with a real backstory do stay up, usually with few votes, while quick-cash and link-first posts are removed. The karma gate and the AI and copy-paste filter catch a lot before a human looks.

How people write here

Typical post length

114 words

Typical title length

9 words

Titles phrased as a question

38%

Typical comment length

13 words

Comments that include a link

2%

Posts that carry a flair

100%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/thesidehustle.

• side hustle 55 posts
• side 92 posts
• side hustles 32 posts
• money 54 posts
• income 32 posts
• job 47 posts
• extra 25 posts
• flexible 13 posts
• remote 21 posts
• ideas 23 posts
• earn 15 posts
• hours 26 posts
• pharmd 5 posts
• pay 27 posts
• extra money 9 posts
• full-time 12 posts
• evenings 9 posts
• online 23 posts
• doordash 7 posts
• skills 16 posts
• side income 7 posts
• weekends 10 posts
• side job 5 posts
• pharmd mba 4 posts
• experience 30 posts
• surveys 7 posts
• open 24 posts
• hustle ideas 4 posts
• gig 7 posts
• money online 6 posts
• jobs 14 posts
• side gig 5 posts
• passive income 6 posts
• affiliate marketing 5 posts
• medical writing 3 posts
• flexible hours 3 posts
• youtube 11 posts
• pharma 5 posts
• idea 20 posts
• realistically 8 posts

Recurring topics: hustle, side, side hustle, ai, earn, money, app, business, sell, online.

Posts that did well

• I talk people to sleep for money69 upvotes · 27 comments · life experience :snoo_tableflip:
• i went through the top 20 answers to "what side hustles actually made you money" and wrote down the numbers41 upvotes · 8 comments · life experience :snoo_tableflip:
• Thinking about turning homemade dog treats into a tiny side hustle, any advice?26 upvotes · 15 comments · I need help :snoo_thoughtful:
• Lots of Downtime during WFH Job19 upvotes · 20 comments · I need help :snoo_thoughtful:
• As a shy person what's your side hustle?11 upvotes · 1 comments · life experience :snoo_tableflip:

Growth

1. 20198.7k
2. 202027k
3. 202131k
4. 202342k
5. 2024110k
6. 2025207k
7. 2026242k

Related subreddits

• r/passive_income
• r/LeadGenMarketplace
• r/AppBusiness
• r/SaasDevelopers
• r/sidehustle_ideas
• r/AItoolsCatalog
• r/OnlineIncomeHustle
• r/EcommerceWebsite
• r/MarketingAutomation
• r/SaaS

Common questions