How to Start an Online Business With $100 (My Exact Breakdown)

When I started my first online business, I had no idea what I actually needed to spend money on. I wasted probably $300 in the first three months on tools I never used and subscriptions I forgot to cancel.

If I had to start over with $100 and make every dollar count, here's exactly what I'd spend it on — and what I'd skip entirely.

The Actual Budget: $100 Itemized

Before I break this down, one thing to understand: $100 is enough to start a real business — not a demo, not a landing page experiment, but an actual store that can take payments and deliver products. Here's how.

Domain name: $12–$15/year

Buy a .com if you can get one that works. I use Namecheap ($12.98/year). The domain should be short, say-able out loud without confusion, and ideally include your main topic or name. Don't spend more than $15 — anything priced higher on the primary market is usually a premium domain that isn't worth it at this stage.

Avoid registering a domain you'll need to explain how to spell. If you have to say "it's spelled with two s's," pick a different domain.

Email: $0 (for now)

You don't need a professional email domain on day one. Gmail is fine while you're building. When you start making money, upgrade to Google Workspace ($6/month) — but that's a month two problem, not a month one problem.

Platform to sell digital products: $0 to start

This is where most people overthink things. They spend $30–$50/month on platforms before they've made a single sale, because they want everything to look "ready."

I started on MadeThis.com, which has a free plan that lets you list products, take payments, and deliver files automatically. You don't need to upgrade until you're generating revenue. For a $100 starting budget, this is the right call — spend zero here and put the money where it actually matters.

Logo: $0

Use Canva's free tier to make a simple text logo. Do not pay for a logo at this stage. Your logo doesn't sell products — your copy and your traffic do. I've seen six-figure digital product businesses running logos that look like they were made in 20 minutes (because they were). Ship first, polish later.

Product creation tools: $0

For digital products like ebooks, guides, templates, and workbooks, you need exactly two things: Google Docs (free) and Canva (free tier). Google Docs for writing content, Canva for formatting it into a PDF. Both are free. Both are adequate to ship a $20–$50 product that people will genuinely value.

SEO/keyword research: Free tier of tools

Ubersuggest has a free tier. Google Search Console is free. Reddit is free (and often more useful than any paid tool for understanding what questions people are actually asking). At this stage, you don't need a paid SEO tool.

Total required spend in month one: ~$13

If you're buying a domain, you're spending about $13. Everything else has a functional free tier.

Where to Put the Remaining $87

So you have $87 left over after your domain. Here's how I'd allocate it:

$0 right now. Sit on it.

Seriously. In my first month, I should not have spent money on anything beyond the domain. Every tool I paid for was based on what I planned to need, not what I actually needed. The biggest mistake early-stage founders make is optimizing for hypothetical future problems.

Wait until you've made your first sale. Then look at what's actually slowing you down and spend money on that specific thing.

What Month Two Might Look Like

Once you have your first few sales, here's where $87 actually adds value:

Canva Pro (~$15/month): The AI image generation and expanded template library are worth it once you're publishing content regularly. Not before.

A simple email tool: I use Kit (formerly ConvertKit). Their free tier handles up to 1,000 subscribers — you probably won't need to pay for several months.

Nothing else. Seriously. The default state for your tooling should be "free tier" until there's a specific, concrete reason to upgrade.

The Mindset Around Starting Capital

The reason most people think they need more than $100 is that they're building for confidence rather than customers. They want the site to look a certain way before they show anyone. They want everything "ready."

What actually matters in the first month: Can someone find your product? Can they pay for it? Will they get it delivered automatically? With a domain, a free MadeThis store, and a product you built in Google Docs, the answer to all three is yes.

The $100 budget forces a useful discipline: you build the thing that needs to exist to make a sale, not the thing that makes you feel like a real business.

The One Thing Worth Spending On

If I had to pick one discretionary spend in month one, I'd put $20–$30 toward a Canva Pro month to design a clean product cover and a few marketing graphics. First impressions on a product page matter, and the visual design of your product cover is part of that impression.

But even that's optional. Some of the best-converting digital products I've seen have plain PDF covers. The words in the product description sell it — not the thumbnail.

The $100 budget works. I've seen people build $1,000/month businesses starting with less. The constraint is never the starting capital — it's whether you'll actually ship something and put it in front of people.

MadeThis is where I'd build the store — free to start, no credit card required, and the checkout and delivery are handled from day one →