Start a Home Based Business for Under $100

It's really true; you can start a home based business under $100, or even as little as no money at all. The Internet is the resource that makes it all possible, and starting an affiliate business - where you sell the goods and services of existing merchants - means you can have legitimate, profitable products to sell and make money on.

The affiliate business is the perfect way to get started online with a home based business under $100. Affiliate sales are huge, making billions of dollars for its merchant members and their affiliates. It's a very simple system: You sign up to be an affiliate, or partner, to an existing merchant. The merchant gives you tools - links, graphics, and page locations - for you to use to market their products. You handle the marketing of the products and drive sales and leads to their site, receiving a percentage of each transaction you are responsible for. Huge companies use affiliate programs to increase sales - companies such as eBay, Quicken, Eddie Bauer, J.Crew, Citibank, Lending Tree - the list goes on an on. Every time you visit a web site and see a flashing advertisement, it's very possible that is an affiliate link, and the website owner will be paid if you click and buy from the merchant's ad!

You can start a home based business under $100 as an affiliate simply by signing up with affiliate management companies such as Commission Junction or LinkShare Network, which represent hundreds of major retailers and service providers. You can sign up and get started with just an email. Although some companies want you to have a web site, it is not by any means required to begin to represent many quality products and services. Some companies will even help you by making an entire site for you - you only have to register a domain name and point it to their site! A domain name costs about $10 as of this writing - and some domain registration companies offer free web hosting and email too.

Once you start making sales by marketing the products and services, your partner company will send payment by check or sometimes direct deposit. You may have to generate a certain amount of sales to trigger a check, but if you are serious about building a home based business under $100, you'll find the checks start coming as your efforts start to pay off. By using affiliate programs, you can get started building a real online home based business with far less than $100.