According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), 7,118 businesses were created in August 2025 in Spain, equivalent to a year-over-year increase of 3.4%; in contrast, the average investment to create them decreased by 37.5% year over year. These statistics suggest more entrepreneurs are embarking on professional projects that require less investment. One option to start operating with minimal initial investment is to be self-employed because with the flat rate (one of the incentives to set up a business in Spain), you will pay a reduced social security contribution for a certain period of time.

However, to reduce the initial outlay and generate revenue, it is not enough to invest less capital in setting up the business or to take advantage of the entrepreneurship incentives; it is also important to choose low-cost, high-demand products. If you’re wondering what you can sell to make money in Spain without much investment, find several ideas in this guide.

What’s in this article?

• Ideas on what to sell without much investment
  
• How to start selling online with a low budget
  
• How Stripe helps you start selling without much investment
  
• Frequently asked questions about selling to make money without much investment in Spain
  

Ideas on what to sell without much investment

One of the largest recurring investments or expenses when starting a business is usually the purchase or rental of a premises. If your initial capital is small, this could be the first major obstacle for your business: in Barcelona, ​​for example, the average price of renting a commercial premises in September 2025 was €16.31 per square meter, according to the Barcelona Metropolitan Area Economic Development Agency. In this case, you could opt for an online business model that lets you start selling to earn money without needing to invest in a physical location.

When starting your business, whether online or in a physical store, one of the most important decisions is selecting what you can sell with a minimal initial investment. Though it might seem like a challenge at first, this step opens a wide range of possibilities, including selling physical or digital products and offering professional services online. Below are some of the most popular ideas with the lowest economic barrier to entry in Spain:

Physical products

The costs associated with selling physical products in a brick-and-mortar store are high, but the investment is significantly reduced if you manage shipments from your home. If you’re exploring ecommerce opportunities and want to know which physical products are most viable economically in Spain, check out this list:

Consumer electronics

If you don’t have the capital to acquire electronic devices, you can set up a small, profitable business dedicated to buying them secondhand, refurbishing them, and then selling them, for example, on a specialized marketplace such as refurbed.

Though this idea does not require a large amount of capital, specific technical knowledge is needed to diagnose and repair any potential breakdowns. The effort needed to acquire this knowledge is worthwhile because the industry is booming: according to data from the Spanish fintech business seQura, consumer electronics accounts for 28.13% of ecommerce spending in Spain.

Selected secondhand clothing

Clothing is another product that can be bought secondhand at a low price and resold for a higher amount. However, this process involves some effort and specific knowledge about the fashion industry. Buying large batches of garments at a low price to increase your net profit margin is not the best strategy because not checking them could affect the level of customer satisfaction. Instead, you should carefully select clothing and choose items that are free of defects and follow current trends.

Another option is to carry out this selection process in a more customized way, even with new clothing, and sell complete outfits. This concept is similar to the model implemented by Lookiero, a Spanish business that has differentiated itself from the traditional concept of a clothing store and positioned itself as an online personal shopper service under a subscription service. It works simply: customers receive clothing items at their home each month, try them on, and pay only for the ones they keep.

Tailor-made or customized products

These handcrafted businesses are numerous in Spain—38,577 businesses, according to the latest available data—and they tend to be in high demand among customers seeking exclusivity. One of the most profitable innovative business ideas is printing customized 3D figures, like those produced by MyMiniFactory, a marketplace that connects designers and customers worldwide.

Other examples of tailor-made or customized handcrafted products that can generate large profits without much investment are decorative items or bouquets of preserved flowers, which are usually marketed on online handicraft platforms or on social media.

DIY craft kits

Another popular product is DIY (“do it yourself”) craft kits, which are common among customers who want to create a handcrafted product but prefer not to have to buy the materials separately. Designing and selling these kits is a good, profitable business idea that also offers many possibilities. These include wedding invitations, scented candles, and bullet journals, which are diaries that work as a personal organization method and that are becoming increasingly popular in Spain.

The raw materials for making these kits are usually affordable. Furthermore, you can add value to the product by accompanying the DIY craft kits with video tutorials that show how to follow the production steps.

Dropshipping

In this business model, the distributor sends the items to the customers, so the store that sells the product does not need to have it in stock. Unlike conventional ecommerce businesses, dropshipping businesses do not manage their own inventories, eliminating the need for a warehouse and for managing the supply chain internally. The main disadvantage of this business model is the increased burden of customer service requests.

Print on demand (POD)

A print-on-demand supplier lets you design customized items to sell through an online store. When an order is received, it is automatically forwarded to the supplier, who handles the individualized production and shipment to the customer. Thanks to the outsourcing of logistics and manufacturing, this model is common in merch businesses and clothing stores that sell products with unique designs.

Digital products

The initial investment to sell digital products is lower than that of physical products. Typically, the only initial cost will be associated with the computer equipment and servers used to create, host, and send the content digitally. These products do not require physical storage space, which reduces business costs and simplifies delivery. In financial and logistical terms, selling digital products can be one of the easiest businesses to start. Furthermore, this type of business allows for the generation of recurring revenue, particularly when using subscription-based business models. Let’s look at some examples of digital products:

eBooks

Unlike physical books, digital book files do not generate printing costs or require storage space. All you need to write them is creativity, a text editing device, and an eBook publishing service, such as Amazon’s, which facilitates self-publishing and gives authors greater control over their work. In 2024, the Spanish-language eBook market generated €71 million in revenue in Spain.

Online publications

Online publications, such as newsletters, can be distributed through content monetization platforms. Besides not requiring a large investment, they can be lucrative if you segment the audience well and write about a topic that usually attracts advertisers willing to pay higher rates to appear in your content, such as finance. In 2024, businesses dedicated to the creation of digital publications in Spain experienced a 4.1% growth in net sales.

Online training

This is another industry that, in addition to not requiring a large initial investment, is expanding: in 2024, net sales for online training amounted to over €2.9 billion. The investment required to deliver courses, workshops, and other training online is minimal because you don’t need a classroom or school materials: to teach, all you need is a camera and microphone, regardless of whether you teach in real time or record the lessons for students to watch on demand.

Software

If you have the required technical skills, you can develop software such as apps and video games without a large investment because no physical materials are required. Furthermore, these products are usually in high demand. For example, in 2024, video games generated net sales of €2.408 billion in Spain, representing a year-over-year increase of 3%.

Professional home services

By adopting a home-based service model, you won’t need a fixed physical space because the contracted work is done at the address indicated by the customer. Though this model might involve higher travel expenses, you will obtain significant savings in terms of rent and maintenance of a premises.

Some professional services, such as exterior painting or moving, require a commercial vehicle such as a van. However, many other services let you travel in a private vehicle, so it is not necessary to invest in purchasing another vehicle. Some examples include doing small repairs, assembling furniture, or providing care services, which generated net sales of €2.65 billion in 2024 in Spain.

Online services

Just like with home services, selling services online doesn’t require a physical store, eliminating the costs of renting and maintaining the store. Here are common examples of online services:

Specialized professional services

In today’s digital environment, more and more specialized professional services can be provided online without a large initial investment. For example, to provide services such as text translation or to set up an online tax advice or legal consulting business—which in 2024 generated revenues of nearly €22 billion in Spain—all that is needed is the investment required to set up a home office.

Technical support and maintenance

More businesses and even individuals need freelance technical assistance and maintenance services, such as website management, IT support, and data recovery. These services can be a good source of revenue: on the one hand, they are usually urgent, which allows for charging a higher fee; on the other hand, they can be offered as maintenance plans, which generates recurring revenue.

Digital marketing

Online digital marketing services are also continuously growing: in 2024, investment in digital advertising exceeded €5.58 billion in Spain. In addition to enjoying high demand, this type of service generates recurring revenue because it is not a one-off service but rather one that requires constant work to obtain good results. In this sector, some of the most in-demand services in Spain are brand strategies, search engine optimization (SEO), and advertising campaigns.

Content creation

If creativity is one of your strengths, you don’t need much more to create content: you can write articles, edit videos, create graphic designs for social media, and create endless other content related to the tech industry, which generated over €138 billion in 2024 in Spain.

How to start selling online with a low budget

Once you’ve decided what to sell, the next step is to launch your project. Though some businesses do not need an operating license, brick-and-mortar stores involve many more expenses than ecommerce businesses. Therefore, if your priority is to make money without much investment, the most recommended option is to sell online. Below, you will find the necessary steps to start selling online with a low budget:

Meet the requirements

In Spain, certain requirements must be met when carrying out any economic activity regularly. Therefore, you will have to complete several procedures to regularize your professional status and reduce the risk of incurring possible penalties. These are the most important:

• Register as self-employed using Tax Agency Form 036. This process is necessary because, as a regular, profit-making, and self-employed activity, it would not be included among the few exceptional cases that allow selling online without being registered as self-employed in Spain.
  
• Indicate what type of professional activity you will carry out with the corresponding economic activities tax (IAE) category.
  
• Register as a self-employed worker filing the appropriate Social Security form.
  
• Have the necessary permits in some cases, such as prior registration to sell food online or authorization to market personal care products.
  

Choosing how to sell online

Most entrepreneurs who want to sell to make money without much investment choose to do so using their own website, though it is possible to take advantage of external platforms. Each option has advantages and disadvantages. Let’s look at them:

Own website

If you choose this option, in addition to the products in the catalog, you will be able to control all of the content on your online store (for example, you will be able to customize any aspect involving branding). Though this process is usually more complicated and involves an initial investment in development resources, there are ecommerce platforms that let you create a website without having to write your own code, which considerably reduces the investment. Among the most popular are Shopify, PrestaShop, and WooCommerce. Here is a brief summary of their main features:

• Shopify: This is one of the most popular platforms because of its ease of use. As of January 2026, it has more than 50,000 online stores in Spain (a figure that has more than doubled since the beginning of 2022).

• PrestaShop: This open-source platform offers unique customization options, though that makes the learning curve for PrestaShop a bit more difficult than with other alternatives.

• WooCommerce: This ecommerce plugin for WordPress is the choice of almost 100,000 businesses in Spain. WooCommerce is free, but using WooCommerce Payments, its tool for accepting payments, involves a consumption-based cost, so you have to pay only the fee for each payment you receive from your customers through your website.

External platforms

If you decide to sell your products through an external platform, the process will be much simpler, but you will give up the customization options offered by managing your own website, and in many cases, you will have to pay higher fees on your sales. Below are some of the most popular options:

• Marketplaces: These are online sales platforms that let other businesses register to sell products or services on their website. The marketplace that is used the most in Spain is Amazon. If your main customers will be other businesses, note that there are also B2B marketplaces focused on business-to-business transactions.

• Social media: It is possible to sell from an Instagram profile even if you do not have a website. For example, you can add a Payment Links link to your product listings so customers can easily purchase from a hosted payment page.

• Buying and selling apps: These are platforms—such as Etsy or Wallapop—aimed at individuals and professionals who want to sell goods.

Fulfill obligations

Once your business is ready to start selling online, you will have to fulfill various obligations, such as handling customer information in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and charging the appropriate value-added tax (VAT) rate for each product or service you offer. The list is extensive, so we recommend you read our guide on how to sell online from Spain, where you can find detailed information about the most important obligations.

How Stripe helps you start selling without much investment

Stripe is the financial platform used by millions of businesses worldwide, from newly created startups to some of today’s leading companies. Among other factors, this is thanks to its ability to simplify the collection process as much as possible, which in turn allows you to gain new customers, increase the conversion rate, and generate more revenue. Below are some of the solutions Stripe offers to help you receive payments easily:

How Stripe Payments helps you accept payments from minute one

To accept online payments, it is essential that the online store integrates a payment gateway that is easy to use, secure, and complies with all current regulations.

Here’s what you can achieve with Stripe Payments:

• Optimize the checkout experience: With Payments, you can offer a streamlined and intuitive shopping experience. You will also save thousands of hours of development work thanks to its predesigned payment interfaces, which give you access to more than 125 payment methods and Link, the digital wallet developed by Stripe.

• Expand into new markets faster: Reach customers around the world and simplify foreign exchange management with international payment options that support 195 countries and over 135 currencies.

• Integrate online and in-person payments: Create an integrated commerce experience between your online and in-person channels to personalize your relationships with customers, build customer loyalty, and increase your revenue.

• Improve your payment performance: Increase your net sales with configurable and easy-to-deploy payment tools, including no-code fraud protection solutions and advanced features to improve authorization rates.

How Payment Links lets you collect payments from your customers even if you don’t have a website

You don’t need a website to sell products and services online because you can sell through external platforms, such as social media. Though they offer fewer customization options, they are recommended for their affordability and their ability to reach new customers and close sales quickly, especially if you use Payment Links in your profiles.

Here’s what you can achieve with Payment Links:

• Get paid faster: Share customized payment links with your customers and accept one-time or recurring payments instantly, without integrations or complex billing requirements.

• Improve conversion: Increase conversion rates with a mobile-optimized design and a simplified shopping experience.

• Save time: Easily create, customize, and share checkout pages from the Stripe Dashboard with minimal coding.

How Stripe Billing simplifies recurring payments

After researching what to sell to make money, you may have reached the conclusion that a good strategy is to offer products or services that require recurring payments and, therefore, periodic billing.

Stripe Billing lets you bill and manage customers the way you want, from recurring payments with a simple flat rate to usage-based billing or contracts negotiated with your sales team. Start receiving recurring payments from anywhere in the world in just a few minutes, without writing a single line of code, or develop your own application programming interface (API) integration.

Here’s what you can achieve with Stripe Billing:

• Offer flexible pricing: Respond to your users’ needs faster with flexible pricing models, such as pay-as-you-go fees, tiered pricing, flat rates with additional usage charges, etc. In addition, it natively supports coupons, free trials, pro rata payments, and extensions.

• Increase revenue and reduce churn: Improve revenue generation and reduce involuntary churn with Smart Retries and automation in recovery processes. Stripe’s recovery tools helped users recover over $6.5 billion in revenue in 2024.

• Increase efficiency: Centralize tax management, revenue reporting, and Stripe data analytics on a single platform with our modular tools. Furthermore, you can easily integrate other third-party software.

How the Stripe App Marketplace offers solutions to your specific needs

Even with minimal investment, some technological solutions offer highly customized results. By working with Stripe, you’ll have access to its App Marketplace, a library of apps that integrate seamlessly with your payment platform and are tailored to the most specific needs of your business.

One of them is Invopop, an electronic invoicing solution developed in Spain that allows you to automate the issuance of invoices and all invoice management and complies with VERI*FACTU and other European and regional Spanish regulations. It also offers options to customize your workflow and syncs with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Another recommended app is Billit. This electronic invoicing platform, focused on compliance with the various electronic invoicing regulations of the EU, has automation functionality that allows you to link your company’s bank account to simplify the reconciliation of your invoices.

How Stripe Checkout makes it easy to accept payments at your business

The goal of every business is to generate revenue. And if you’ve just started yours, you’ll have to recoup the initial investment, however small it may be. One of the best strategies to maximize revenue is to offer the best possible experience to customers when making a payment.

Stripe Checkout is a predesigned and fully customizable payment form that makes accepting payments from your website or app much easier.

Here’s what you can achieve with Stripe Checkout:

• Increase conversion: Checkout’s mobile-optimized design and one-click payment flow make entering and saving payment details much easier for your customers.

• Expand globally: Adapt pricing based on your customers’ location with Adaptive Pricing, which supports over 100 currencies, is translated into more than 30 languages, and dynamically displays the payment methods most likely to improve conversion.

• Maintain control: Fully customize the checkout experience, allow your customers to save their payment methods, and set up follow-up actions for when they’ve completed their purchase.

Frequently asked questions about selling to make money without much investment in Spain

How much money is needed to sell products or services and make a profit?

If you choose to sell goods online, beyond the fixed costs of starting a business (such as the €80 monthly social security contribution for self-employed individuals if you can opt for the flat rate), the rest will depend on the type of product or service you decide to offer. For example, if you sell online services such as private lessons or content writing, you can start your project with less than €200. If you sell products, the minimum investment varies depending on the amount you have to pay suppliers, but there are some low-cost items, such as handmade decorative elements, with which you can start generating revenue.

What to do if the products or services you sell do not generate the expected revenue?

First, make sure it’s not a temporary situation and it has been going on for a long time. To verify this, analyze metrics such as cart abandonment, how many customers decide to exercise their right of withdrawal, or the percentage of negative reviews given to your products. If the results of this analysis are negative, you might want to change your marketing strategy or modify your offering.