The watchdog for your side hustle · research cutoff 2026-07-10
Check it before you chase it.
Meet Scout. earn.wiki is a source-backed wiki of 240 earning opportunities, 14 guides, and an 18-signal red-flag checker — so verifying a hustle feels like joining in, not panicking.
Scout already checked — waves you in when it is safe to look closer.
Most advice about making money online is either hype or vague caution. We name the fee, threshold, or pattern — with official, regulator, and first-party citations. Community report counts start at zero on purpose. Reading is always free.
Researched catalog
240 opportunities across 8 categories and 24 subcategories. Platforms, methods, jobs, investments, offer patterns, and known scam patterns — each with a Scout risk read.
Red-flag checker
18 FTC/SEC-backed rules with hard stops for task deposits, fake-check forwarding, reshipping, and gift-card rails. Free — nothing you enter is stored.
Guides
Seed guides on 2026 taxes (72.5¢/mi, 1099-K thresholds), real hourly math, platform fee stacks, classification, and licenses — plus long-form deep dives.
Fee-stack calculator: what is left after the cut?
Pick how you would earn and your expected monthly gross. We stack the platform cut and estimated self-employment tax using only our recorded fee data — where the record is a range, you see the range.
Estimates only, before your deductible expenses and income tax. Ranges are the effective takes documented in our fee-stack guide; single rates are the real-hourly estimator's conservative midpoints. SE tax ≈ 15.3% on 92.35% of net per the 2026 tax playbook.
Check this opportunity: matched, never invented
Tell Scout your constraints and get 2–3 fits pulled only from our 240 verified records — each with a link to its full record page and a one-line caution.
Matches come only from the verified records — zero invented community data. If nothing fits, we say so. Open each record page for fees, sources, and red flags before spending money.
From the guides
2026 Side-Hustle Tax Playbook
The current federal numbers, the records worth keeping, and the difference between taxable income and an information form.
The Two-Minute Side-Hustle Scam Check
Five mechanics that justify an immediate stop—and the checks that lower uncertainty without promising safety.
Calculate Your Real Hourly Earnings
One worksheet for gigs, freelance work, microtasks, and local services—without laundering gross revenue into an hourly wage.
What earn.wiki is not
We do not guarantee any opportunity is legitimate or that any income figure is achievable for you. We do not sell courses, coaching, or "systems." Scout scores and checker results are heuristics based on documented fraud patterns and public data (FTC, BLS, IRS, first-party policies) — they reduce risk; they do not eliminate it. Always verify independently before sending money or personal financial information.