This has been the side hustle of choice for many people since hospitals started paying for medical studies. Some studies are related to certain conditions, and you’d be ineligible if you meet the requirements. But there are also other studies that accept any healthy individual. These tend to be studies related to sleep, new medicines, foods or other things that impact the general population.
A quick search online for medical research trials will reveal locations close to you that pay for participants. Some medical trials occur over many visits, so it’s a good idea to find a location that’s close to you. Most websites let you narrow the search by type of condition or research trial to make the search quicker. You can kill two birds with one stone by signing up for a study that’s relevant to your own health, like a sleep-apnea or nicotine study. Most clinical trials are conducted in person, but there are national databases to help you in your search. ClinicalTrials.gov is one of them. We chose this for our Side Hustle Master List because almost anybody can do it.
Concept | |
category | Health Care/Medical |
Takeaways | Requires informed consent; must be willing to participate in clinical trials; clinical studies have specific standards for participation/exclusion; length of studies may vary; safety/effectiveness may be unknown; possible potential for participants to receive direct medical benefits. |
complexity lowhigh  | Capital Required lowhigh |
skill required lowhigh | time required lowhigh |
return potential lowhigh |
 | learn more |
How Much Can You Make?
If you don’t qualify for a certain trial, don’t worry. You can still apply and there’s a chance the researchers will choose you to represent their control group. A control group is a group of healthy individuals that shouldn’t present any effects from whatever medication they are studying. The pay can vary quite a bit for research studies, and recent cuts to medical funding have meant that there’s less money for research participants. The low end would be about $25 for taking next year’s flu vaccine, and the high end would be about $5000 for a condition-specific, multi-stage medical trial. Check out the links below to find out more information.