How to Make Money Online in Brazil
Let’s face it: Brazil is only a developing country with a developing economy. While the cost of living in Brazil is much lower than in countries such as the U.S. or those in the EU (European Union), the earning opportunities are lower as well. While you could always work in local company, your income would likely be in line with the country’s average earnings.
So why not take advantage of working over the internet to tap into a global audience? By working online, you have much greater control of your own wage and can earn in stronger currencies like the USD or EUR, allowing you greater purchasing power at home.
The possibilities are almost limitless, from creating interactive and educational videos on BlurBay to working as an online writer or graphic designer. You don’t have to go into an office or waste hours commuting. All you need is a laptop, a solid internet connection, and a bit of chutzpah. Read on to learn how to make money online in Brazil.
Best Ways to Earn Money Online in Brazil
Most of the ways to make money revolve around working online and leveraging the benefits of working for a company abroad, usually in the U.S. or in Europe. Typically, these companies are looking for talent at a discount. For that reason, they’re generally happy to pay a person slightly lower wages than employees in their home countries, which is still higher than the average salary in Brazil. For comparison, the average wage in Brazil is around USD$3 per hour while the U.S. median is close to $30. Thus, you can typically find an overseas company willing to provide multiples of a Brazilian salary.
Alternatively, you can make your own company—i.e. be an independent contractor—or earn money through online coaching or sales. The process revolves around two concepts:
- The disposable income of a person viewing your content is high enough for you to price your service at a higher point than if you were to work in the same industry in Brazil.
- Since you’re providing services online, you can reach a much wider audience. With a lower price point, you can attract a lot of viewers that would hopefully convert to buyers or subscribers. You can then take advantage of small recurring payments on a large enough scale to make a significant profit.
With that in mind, let’s go over some of the most popular work opportunities you can leverage if you want to learn how to make money online in Brazil.
Create Educational Content and Courses Online
Do you have any skills, experience, or knowledge that you think are worth sharing with the world? This could be anything from fitness to cooking to fashion to math. If so, you can try to inspire other people with your craft by creating educational or motivational content. The premise is simple—you create photo or video-based content that you can share online (either through social media or directly on BlurBay, a platform designed for educational courses).
One of the main benefits of creating courses is that they can be asynchronous. Your audience doesn’t have to “tune in” to see your latest video, but can just watch it at their convenience after you post. Additionally, BlurBay puts your content behind a paywall that you have complete control over. This allows you to design onboarding strategies where you create a series of videos meant to transform a passive viewer into an active subscriber.
How to Make Money Online in Brazil Through Courses
Preferably, you would need to have some skills worth exploring and sharing with the world. Apart from that, you’ll need to learn video editing and get at least cursory knowledge in marketing and campaign creation. While these might not seem significant at first (and indeed, you can always hire an editor to work on your content), you can save a lot of time and money by learning the basics yourself.
Plus, in recent times, the audience preference has slowly shifted from high-production value content à la Instagram to more personal and on-the-fly content such as TikTok. This type of content creates a stronger personal connection between the viewer and the creator, which can catapult your success on the platform. As a bonus, this has lowered the bar for the camera quality you need to create content, so you can probably make do with a smartphone until you get going.
Start a Social Media Channel
If you have an excellent media presence and are keeping up with the trends, then making a social media channel—such as YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok—can pay off handsomely. For example, data from YouTube suggests that creators earn roughly USD$18 per 1,000 views. A creator with a million subscribers earns roughly USD$60,000 per year.
One of the benefits of using social media over courses is that the viewers have more of an opportunity to connect with the creator. As a result, platforms can be extremely favorable to content creators who decide to work in narrow niches. As a bonus, the social media channel can be used to promote courses and other content you produce, doubling up your earning potential while also diversifying your income channels.
How to Earn Money Online in Brazil via Social Media
Generally, starting a channel is similar, even a bit easier than creating educational content. You can typically find something that you like or have particular knowledge of that others might enjoy. However, YouTube videos usually benefit from higher production values, so the curve between starting out and getting successful might be a bit steeper.
Freelancing
Going back to the concept from before, if you already have skills that are in demand or are already on a particular career path, freelancing can liberate you from working in an office and allow you to improve your earning potential. Freelancing is a somewhat umbrella term for working as a contributor for a company over the course of one or more projects. However, the scope of what freelancers can actually do in a company can vary wildly. Platforms such as Freelancer or Fiverr can provide a full outlook of the industries that are looking for freelancers and their earning potential.
Some of the most common freelancing options are in media and marketing, including writing, music, video editing, graphic design in general, translating, proofreading, or editing. But many of the most well-paid roles can also be on a freelance basis, such as web development and programming.
How to Make Money Online in Brazil as a Freelancer
Due to the sheer range of work that freelancers do, the requirements for the role will highly depend on the industry you’re trying to get into as well as your personal skills and competencies. Typically, copywriting is one of the most straightforward options to get into since you can create a blog post to store your content and build up your portfolio for free or relatively cheaply.
Being a Personal/Virtual Assistant
This role is an evolution of the traditional assistant role common in most companies. However, since the assistant works remotely, they can be online at different times from the company’s regular time and ensure that any pressing matters are resolved or processed in a prompt manner. A virtual assistant (VA) can perform a variety of duties in a company, typically relating to data entry, management, and scheduling. This niche shares many of its facets with the general freelancing gig. You can either be an assistant for a single company or manage a few different companies independently from one another.
How to Earn Money Online in Brazil as a VA
Personal assistants generally don’t require much experience or dedicated knowledge in the industry. However, general management and data management experience will typically be a plus. Apart from that, the requirements for becoming an assistant can also vary by the hiring company. In some cases, you might need to work in the off hours to cover for the company’s non-working hours.
How to Make Money Online as an Expat in Brazil
If you’ve moved to Brazil and are considering a more permanent stay, then learning how to make money online in Brazil is likely one of the only options open to you. This is partly due to the best-paying jobs being in government agencies, which require employees to be native Brazilians.
However, if you know both Portuguese and English well, you can make a career out of teaching English as a second language. You may need an official ESL or TEFL teaching license, so make sure you understand the specific demands that some platforms or companies have.
Alternatively, you can leverage Brazil’s vast nature and create influencer accounts that post high-quality photos from the country. You can also create guides to the country or share content that people outside of Brazil rarely get to see. It allows you to connect with like-minded expats and be a sort of a digital trailblazer.
Bear in mind that you’re unlikely going to be the first person attempting to do this, so you’re already facing stiff competition. Try to design a unique persona or narrative style to make your content stand out. Finally, you can also document your expat experience and share it with the world. This can lead to great success in the social media sphere. Then, you can create informative and inspirational content and post it on BlurBay to fully monetize your expat experience.
