What If You Never Had To Commute Again
I’ve got four work from home jobs that aren’t just flexible. They have income ceilings that most traditional careers will never touch and they don’t need a degree. Some of them take 90 days to get going. But every single one of them you can do in your pajamas and you can get started right away. My name is Austin Zach and I’ve built multiple seven and eight figure businesses across multiple different industries including real estate, pest control, and a couple of others.
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Life Insurance
The income here surprises most people. This is one of the most underrated remote income paths available right now, and it is hiding behind a reputation for being old-fashioned, but those days are gone. The average life insurance agent in the United States earns just under $90,000 a year, according to ZipRecruiter. The top 10% are clearing close to $140,000 a year based on that same data. This is a job that is 100% remote, and you do not need a degree.
Here’s how it works. You got to get licensed in the state that you live in. Most people study for a week or two. They take the test online and then they become licensed in the insurance industry. After that, you’re selling life and final expense policies to clients over the phone or on a video call. What most people don’t know about this industry is there are really two types of agents.
Captive vs Non-Captive Agents
You have captive agents that work for a captive company. Think State Farm or Allstate. Then you have non-captive agents. These agents can offer policies from multiple different carriers. Think of them like a life insurance broker. That matters because you’re not pushing just one product. You’re finding the best fit for every single person that you talk to on the phone. That typically means better results because you’re actually selling somebody what they truly need.
Commission Structure and Top Earners
The commission structure is what makes this career very interesting. Agents typically earn anywhere from about 40% to 100% of the first year premium sold on a policy. If a client is paying $1,200 a year for a policy, $100 a month, and your commission is 75%, then that would be a $900 commission to you the moment you sell that policy.
What separates agents who make real money from the ones who quit in 90 days comes down to one thing, and that is treating this like an actual business and not a job. That means things like tracking your numbers, managing your time like it matters, because idle time in this business is going to cost you money. It also means constantly improving how you present and actually close policies.
The agents who hit six figures aren’t necessarily the best salespeople in the room. They’re the most consistent people in the room and they follow the script day in and day out. The ceiling on this career is real, but so is the ramp up. The first 90 days, you’re in the learning phase. After that, agents who stick with it and build their book are in a completely different income category.
Funeral Sales Specialist
This one might be the most genuinely overlooked job on this entire list, and the data backs it up. There are reportedly somewhere between 15 and 19,000 funeral homes operating across the US right now. Cremation is now, by most accounts, the most dominant end of life choice in the entire country. Every single one of those arrangements needs to be planned, discussed, and sold to a family before that moment actually arrives. That is exactly where you could potentially come in. A remote pre-needed funeral sales specialist educates families about pre-arrangement plans, what they want, what it costs, and what happens when that time actually comes.
It’s done entirely over the phone or video call or some sort of online consultation. The product here sells itself. You’re in front of the right person and you’re talking to somebody that needs what you’re selling. You just have to have a conversation that a lot of people are trying to avoid.
Pay and Requirements
ZipRecruiter shows average annual pay ranging anywhere between 66,000 to over 100,000 depending on the role. Some positions are reportedly posted at about $159,000, fully remote, and pretty much commission-based. You don’t need a degree. Most roles are looking for a background in retail sales or in insurance. Strong communication skills is probably the most important thing that you could have. The baby boomer generation, an estimated 73 million people, is moving through their late 60s and 70s right now. The demand for end of life planning is not slowing down. Most people in sales avoid this industry entirely because of the subject matter. That is exactly why the competition is extremely low and the pay is extremely high.
Real Estate Agent
I can speak to this one because I’ve actually done it myself for over a decade now, and that is being a real estate agent. Let me tell you the version of real estate agent income that nobody online is talking about because there are two very different ways to do the job.
The Traditional Path
Version number one is the version you’ve probably thought of. You get licensed, you hang your license at a brokerage, and then you spend the next 12 months cold calling, door knocking, and begging people to work with you. You’re probably sitting a bunch of open houses, and you’re doing a bunch of different stuff that is really boring and not paying you any money. That’s why most agents in that model earn under $10,000 in their first two years. According to NAR, 87% of real estate agents actually fail within their first two years. Again, it’s because people are doing it the wrong way when they get started.
Building a Team With Zillow Leads
Version two is completely different. In version two, you join a team. That team is obviously with a brokerage, but instead of just joining a brokerage as a solo agent, you actually join a team. What you’re looking for in a team is a team that provides leads. Particularly, I would be looking for a team that provides Zillow leads. There’s a handful of teams across the US. Depending on what market you’re in, there’s a good chance there’s a team that has access to Zillow leads. With Zillow leads, the team has to give those to their agents. If that team didn’t have any agents, then Zillow wouldn’t be partnered with that team.
On my team, Space Real Estate, we have Zillow leads. We’re actually the number one Zillow lead provider in the state of Arizona. With these leads, they’re very, very high intent. A buyer is online. They’re sitting on their couch. They’re searching for homes. They found a home that they want to see and that they probably are going to love. All they do is they put their information in on Zillow, and that lead goes directly to an agent on our team. That agent gets a phone call, a live transfer phone call, and all they have to do is answer their phone, set up a showing appointment, go show the house, and then if that client likes that property, all they got to do is write a contract and close the deal.
Think about that for a second. That is a fundamentally different business than what most people picture when they think of retail real estate agents.
Real Estate Agent Income Numbers
Most people, probably yourself included, were thinking about that first option that we talked about a little while ago. Let’s break down the numbers of what this could look like for you. The top 10% of agents reportedly earn over $125,000 a year, and high volume agents in markets that are maybe luxury markets or high-end markets earn several hundred thousand a year. The median sits around $56,000, but that median is really skewed because it’s factoring in a bunch of agents that don’t make any money or that are doing option one that we talked about a little while ago.
You have to think about it as if that number is really higher than it actually sounds. The agents on high-performing teams with consistent lead flow are living in a completely different income bracket. I know this firsthand because I have agents on my team that make $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 a year every single year like it is absolutely nothing.
Getting Licensed
To get your license in real estate, depending on where you live, it’s pretty similar to getting a life insurance license. You’re looking at a few hundred dollars. You got to study for maybe a week or two and then you take an exam. Once you pass that exam, you could be licensed within a matter of probably two to three weeks tops, again depending on the market you live in.
If you happen to live in one of the markets that my team operates in, we actually have Zillow leads in every single market that we are in. We’re actually in Houston, we’re in Phoenix, and we’re in San Diego, California. If you’re in one of those markets, this could be a great option for you. But if you’re not in one of those markets, you’re just going to be looking for a team that runs and operates just like mine.
High Ticket Closer
This has the highest ceiling potential on the entire list, and it also is one of the ones with the most noise around it. So here’s the real version of it, and that is a high ticket closer. A high ticket closer is a remote sales job. You see people probably on your Instagram doing this all day long. They’re in Bali, Indonesia, and they’ve got their laptop and they’re making a bunch of money. You’re getting on phone calls and video calls with warm pre-qualified prospects, and then you’re closing them on a high ticket or high value offer. We’re talking about things like coaching programs, consulting packages, masterminds, SAS products, and real estate education.
Pay Structure
These offers are typically priced anywhere between like 5 grand and 50 grand. Most of these roles pay anywhere from 8 to 15% per closed deal. On a $10,000 offer, that’s anywhere from $800 to $1,500 every single time you close a deal. Legitimate remote closer roles reportedly pay anywhere from 60,000 to over 200,000 a year based on close rate and call volume. Now, here’s the honest truth about the industry. The space is a little bit polluted, and you’ve probably seen that if you’re on Instagram or TikTok at all.
Vetting a Legitimate Opportunity
For every real opportunity with a legitimate company that has pre-qualified leads, transparent commission structure, an actual product that delivers real value, there’s probably a dozen Instagram ads from somebody selling a 5 day challenge that promises you to get rich quick, and it’s a bunch of BS. Most of those are not real job opportunities. You got to be really careful if you’re going to go with this one that you join and align yourself with the right opportunity. The real version of this job exists at actual companies that have legitimate offers that are providing legitimate value. So how do you actually vet to know that you’re joining the right opportunity?
One of the questions I would be asking is, is there a base or is there a draw? Are the leads pre-qualified? Are you the closer or are you the setter? Is the offer something that you can verify the results on, like the people that are actually buying the offer? Is there any proof that those very people are having real success on the back end? Another big piece of advice I would give you on this one is to find an offer that you align with. You want to make sure that if you’re closing people and you’re taking appointments and you want to make a lot of money, you need to believe in the thing that you’re selling. You can’t really be selling something that you don’t believe in at all yourself. And just for reference, there’s an offer out there in 2026 for literally everything.
If you want to learn how to knit, I guarantee you there’s a school community teaching you how to knit. If you want to learn how to decorate a cake, there’s a school community. There’s probably somebody out there charging $997 teaching people how to make a cake.
Example: Shelby Sapp
Let me give you a real example of somebody you probably heard of. You probably seen a girl by the name of Shelby Sapp on Instagram or TikTok. She started in door to door sales and she says she was really good at door to door sales, but then she made the shift to remote high ticket closing. By her early 20s, her net worth is publicly estimated to be about $10 million. She eventually built an academy called She Sells Academy. All that really is is a platform of a bunch of women. She shows women how to do exactly what we’re talking about. How to find and identify an offer and then how to align yourself with that particular company or person to be able to be a high ticket closer for that offer.
The takeaway here is to be able to separate the legitimate opportunities from the hype and from the opportunities that are most likely not benefiting anybody. If you can do that and you’re willing to get on calls, handle objections, and improve on your craft, this is one of the best uncapped remote income paths available today.
Final Thoughts
If you’re in a job right now that you don’t like or you just want to make more money, maybe you have an hour commute to work every day and you’re just sick and tired of the commute.
There is so much opportunity out there in 2026 to make real legitimate money. All you really have to do is put your head down, focus, potentially learn a new skill or two, and be consistent. None of these opportunities are that incredibly difficult, but they all have the potential to make a really, really significant amount of money. The amount of money that if you go all in could completely change your entire life and potentially change your name forever.