A pickup truck is a huge investment, especially these days when the prices on the most expensive trims can push past six digits. But pickup owners buy them as tools first and foremost and want to get value for their money. And there’s no better way to recoup some of your costs than to figure out how to make money with your pickup truck.
There are plenty of side hustles that let you turn your truck into a source of income. You could offer moving and hauling services, hook up a snowplow, do some Uber or food delivery driving, or even turn your pickup into a rolling billboard.
There are plenty of people out there who don’t need or want a truck themselves but are willing to pay extra money to have access to one occasionally, especially if they can establish a relationship with someone they trust and turn into a repeat customer base. Who knows? Maybe you’d even enjoy these business ideas enough to turn them from part-time into full-time work.
Here are some of the best ways pickup truck owners can use their vehicles to earn extra money. A word to the wise, though: make sure your insurance will cover anything you plan to undertake before you get started. It’s better to negotiate a more thorough insurance policy up front than to have something happen and find out you’re on the hook for any damages.
How to Make Money with Your Pickup Truck
- Hauling Construction or Landscaping Materials
- Furniture or Appliance Delivery Services
- Junk Removal
- Moving Services
- Recreational Vehicle Delivery Services
- Towing Services
- Snow Plowing
- Food Delivery
- Ride-hailing
- Advertise on Your Truck
- Rent Out Your Truck
Hauling Construction or Landscaping Materials
Gardening and home improvement materials can get things really dirty, and hosing out a truck bed is far easier than cleaning upholstery. There are plenty of people who would be happy to let you make money to save themselves the inconvenience of hauling mulch or drywall around, especially if you can be available on short notice and will undercut the truck rental costs at big box stores.
Consider connecting with local construction companies and landscaping businesses to offer your services. You could also advertise on an online classifieds site like Kijiji or Craigslist, on social media such as on Facebook Marketplace or in neighbourhood Facebook groups, or even on websites that connect local handyman services with potential clients such as GoShare. If you can also perform the related construction or landscaping services on top of transporting the materials, your income opportunities are even better.
Junk Removal
Pickup trucks are perfect candidates for junk hauling services. Whether your client needs to move busted furniture, old tools, ripped-out building materials, or bags of trash, you can get paid to haul stuff other people won’t. You may even find people pay you to take things away that still have value, and you can try selling them for a profit, from used furniture to scrap metal. To get into the junk removal business, you’ll need to have a higher tolerance than average for handling cargo that may be dirty and smelly, and you’ll need safety equipment like thick gloves so you can handle heavy and sharp objects.
Furniture or Appliance Delivery Services
Some furniture stores charge significant fees for delivery services on large items like furniture and appliances. This creates another excellent opportunity to make good money with your truck, especially if you bring a dolly along and can help with the heavy lifting. Appliance repair transportation would work for this as well. You could advertise these services through the same channels listed above, either within the same ad or perhaps separately so it gets its own attention.
Moving Services
Advertising your help with moving services for people who are relocating their homes or small businesses can be a profitable side hustle for pickup truck owners. Some people also need a hand with getting household or office items into or out of storage units or to and from a garage sale, a job where a pickup truck is often better suited than a box truck because smaller vehicles tend to have an easier time getting around storage facilities.
Recreational Vehicle Delivery Services
People often buy recreational vehicles like motorcycles, ATVs, and snowmobiles without having their own way to get them home. This is another money making opportunity worth advertising, and you could even take it a step further by reaching out to local stores and dealerships to let them know you’re available for business deliveries so they can offer your services directly to their clients.
Towing Services
If someone really needed to tow something, they would already have a truck of their own, right? Not necessarily. Consider the cottage owner who buys a boat and needs to get it to the lake, or the new rural property owner someone who needs to set up a camper as a vacation hideaway. Directing some advertising toward clients seeking out towing services could reap rewards.
Snow Plowing Services
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you live in Canada. If you’re willing to spend some money up front to install equipment and winter tires on your truck, convert it into a snowplow each winter. This could save you some big bucks through clearing your own driveway, and you can also earn extra income doing it for others. There’s a ton of potential here from homeowners to small business, as long as you can tolerate being on call for long stints at odd hours through the colder months.
Food Delivery
Your pickup truck may be very capable, but you can still use it for more traditional mobile income sources such as food delivery. This can include anything from the old-fashioned single pizza chain to newer business models like Uber Eats, DoorDash, or Skip the Dishes. It’s not unusual for delivery drivers who choose the app method to use more than one at a time to maximize their revenue.
Ride-hailing
Ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft are big business for gig workers these days, especially in urban and suburban environments. If you’re willing to give strangers a lift, you can capitalize on this opportunity, too. Just bear in mind that pickups are less fuel-efficient than other vehicle types, so you’ll need to do the math on how much money you’re actually making. Hybrid trucks such as the Ford F-150 Hybrid or the Toyota Tundra are better suited to this income method than most.
Advertise on Your Truck
If you don’t have a lot of spare time but still want to make some extra money, consider offering your truck up for display advertising. Some local businesses will pay a weekly or monthly rate to use your vehicle as a moving billboard.
You won’t typically need to change how you use your truck to do this, although it can perhaps draw unwanted attention depending on how visually distinct the advertisement is. You’ll also want to ensure you align with a business you trust. Passers-by might associate your vehicle with the brand, which could have unintended consequences with unhappy customers. Still, with the right arrangement, this is a low-commitment way to earn some cash.
Rent Out Your Truck
Of course, the revenue stream that requires the least commitment is to rent your truck out to others so they can perform these tasks on their own. Apps such as Turo make it easy to arrange short-term rentals on your own. In fact, if you love your truck as much as most pickup truck drivers, the hardest part about this idea might be trusting other people to take care of your baby as well as you do.