How To Make Money Coding Without a Degree? (For Beginners)

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At times, computer coding can appear to be a mysterious field that only specialists with a four-year degree go into. But the question is, can you really make money with coding without an actual degree? This is exactly what I’m about to reveal!

You can make money coding by educating yourself online, marketing yourself on websites like Upwork and Fiverr, creating an app, and designing websites. Depending on what coding field you educate yourself on, the options vary. 

In truth, coding doesn’t require a degree, and you can earn a good amount of money without one. In this article, I will be sharing some of the ways you can make extra money online with coding without a degree.

So, if you find this post inspiring and useful, share it with your friends, please! (Virtual high fives and hugs to all my sharers out there!)

6 Ways to Make Money Online Coding Without a Degree

The best news is that no matter what field of coding you end up doing, there’s plenty to do without a degree. Let’s talk about some of the ways you can get started with:

1. Educate Yourself Online

When learning anything online, the best choice is usually to use e-learning websites that cater to your needs. A few good examples are: 

More than most, coding is a complicated field to understand. Essentially coding involves learning how to give instructions to computers. However, while its definition is straightforward, the actual practice of coding is anything but.

There are many programming languages, and knowing where to start can be difficult. While the websites above can simplify much of this, there are so many courses on offer that it can be confusing to a beginner programmer.

Although there is a multitude of coding applications, there are two broad classifications— frontend and backend programming. To truly understand each, you’ll need to do much more research, but here’s a quick overview of each one:

  • Frontend: Frontend programming focuses on the user experience. Essentially, it’s an umbrella term that represents all programming activity that the user sees. 
  • Backend: Backend programming generally focuses on server-side code. While the front end manages what the user sees, backend programming refers to the code that keeps the underlying framework running. 

A good analogy to properly understand how both work is to think of the entire code as a restaurant. Here, servers would be the front-end devs. They’re the first contact and they serve as your “interface” with the restaurant.

On the other hand, backend programmers are the chefs in the kitchen. They’re also part of the restaurant and keep it running but they do it from the privacy of the kitchen.

Depending on your direction, there are different coding languages you’ll have to learn. For example, if you choose frontend coding, you’ll need to learn HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, and a few others.

Education is the first step to being able to make money coding. Many of these sites provide you with certificates that are equally as accepted as a degree. They also provide opportunities to do portfolio projects to show future clients. 

It’s important to have patience when learning how to code. You’re essentially learning another language and to make matters worse, having a passing understanding is not enough.

Learning enough to be employable will take varying amounts of time, depending on how much effort you put in but on average, you’ll need at least 6 months of learning and practice to be proficient.

2. Market Yourself To Clients

After educating yourself, the first step to making money through coding is to market yourself. You can apply to companies if you feel you’re qualified enough but one of the best ways to make money coding without a degree is to go the freelance route.

Freelance coders work for themselves and gather clients and projects along the way. Typically they will use sites such as Upwork or Fiverr. However, there are tons of freelance sites. 

After you’ve done some portfolio projects, which are essentially just practice projects to show potential clients, you can begin making proposals to people or listing yourself as a freelancer on social media. 

Typically, employers will hire you on a contract basis. This means that you agree to complete a certain project for them for a pre-registered price. Once the project is completed, the contract ends unless you and the client want to continue with more projects.

3. Create an App

You can always create an app if you’d rather go down a different path to coding. Apps are huge right now, and it seems like new ones are being produced every day.

Apps are difficult to create, but the reward once you can sell them outweighs many other coding options. Usually, once an app is successful, it takes off, and money continues to come in each time someone downloads it or pays for service on the app. 

You can also make some extra money by running ads. When you think about the number of people in the world who could download your app, there’s a ton of money involved.

The caveat is that the app has to be innovative and work properly, but it can be difficult to get to that point, especially if you’re new to the coding world. It’s better to start with other projects and move on to this once you’re a little more advanced.

4. Become a Website Designer

Web design has become enormously popular in recent years. On top of that, it’s relatively easy to learn and pays decently. Since this type of coding is easier to learn, you may even be able to get on with a company after building a portfolio. 

There’s also Web Development, which combines backend coding with design. You can think of developers as the back-end programmers and designers as the front end.

5. Design Themes and Sell Them

Another thing that you can do with coding is to create themes and sell them to big-name companies like Google and Microsoft. Almost all large companies offer a selection of web themes for users to choose from. 

Designing a theme is like a web design, except you create a sample page for someone. Once the theme is applied, their webpage looks completely different. Someone looking for a theme usually already has all the major elements of the webpage put together but just wants something to make it look more professional or give it more of an artistic style.

6. Drop service coding gigs

If you’re not aware, there’s a business model called dropshipping, and it involves selling other people’s products without holding any inventory.

Similar to dropshipping, drop servicing is a business model in which you sell other people’s services online without the need to provide them by yourself! It’s really centered around becoming the middleman between the buyer and the actual service provider!

Even if you don’t have any degree or any coding skills and experience, you can still make money by ‘reselling‘ coding gigs to clients around the world without the need to declare this to anyone. For more information about drop servicing, check out my ultimate drop servicing blueprint here.

Conclusion

Plenty of money can be made online with coding, even if you don’t have any degree in this field!

In this article, we’ve discussed 6 of the best ways that you can make extra money online with coding, even without a coding degree, experience, or skills!

To make money coding, it’s important to follow the steps shared above, especially if you don’t know where to start. Of course, after some time, you will eventually find your feet and be able to actively and properly source clients.

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Thanks for going this far! If you found this post inspiring and useful, share it with your friends, please! (Virtual high fives and hugs to all my sharers out there!)

Cheers,
Odeh Ahwal

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So behind every great blog is usually someone who runs it all. That would be me, Odeh Ahwal. I’ve created the eComDimes blog with a mission to help people provide well for their families by starting online businesses, share my experience, and just introduce you to different ways of making money online! At eComDimes, we help you turn your dimes into dollars!

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