17 Creative Ways to Make Money During Halloween

Halloween is big business, with over $10 billion spent annually in the United States on candy, costumes, decorations, and parties. For creative entrepreneurs, the "spooky season" also brings ample money-making opportunities. Whether you want to sell crafts or treats online, leverage your event planning skills, or capitalize on the Halloween spirit in your community, the possibilities are frighteningly endless.

In this guide, we dig up 17 of the best ways to haunt up some extra cash and turn your Halloween passion into profits:

1. Sell Homemade Halloween Treats and Decorations on Etsy

One of the most enjoyable ways to make money around Halloween is to sell your original creepy creations on Etsy. From ghoulish treats like bloody cupcakes and ghostly cake pops to handcrafted home decor like wreaths, signs, and pet costumes, the market is ripe for your scary-good masterpieces.

Etsy reaches over 60 million shoppers seeking unique items, so focus on quality, eye-catching photography, smart SEO, and novelty to make your shop stand out from the (un)dead. Time your baking and production to ramp up inventory in September and October. You can easily clear over $1,000 in Halloween sales alone.

2. Offer Halloween Costume Rentals for All Ages

Skipping the costume store and renting shop-quality costumes can save families money while earning you haunting profits. Tap into pop culture obsessions by stocking in-demand superheroes, celebrities, movie characters. Mix in scary staples like vampires, devils, and witches.

Advertise your expanded kids, teen, adult, and pet costume sizes across local channels. Grow your party goods inventory to include wigs, makeup, masks, props, decorations, and accessory rentals. A well-executed costume rental service can pull in $5,000 or more in October.

3. Run an Outdoor Haunted House Attraction

For the brave entrepreneurs, a home or community haunted house attraction combines frightful fun with frightening profits. Convenient outdoor setups bypass rental overhead allowing higher margins. Charge $10-$20 per person for a 15-20 minute haunted trail or maze experience. With 100-200 visitors per evening on peak nights, the math easily works to net $10,000 or more for the season.

Enhance your attraction with creepy costumes and makeup, improv acting, spooky lighting/sounds, and dynamic sets and props that leverage surprise jump scares. Spread word across social media to target thrill-seeking teens and young adults with sponsored ads for maximum exposure.

4. Offer Halloween Photo Shoots

Seize sales with specialty holiday photo sessions for families and even pets! Halloween is one of the most popular occasions for professional photography. Adapt mini sessions to a themed backdrop in your home studio or at a local park or pumpkin patch.

Appeal to clients by including free digital image downloads and optional prints starting at wallet sizes up to large canvas gallery wraps. Hourly bookings of $100-150+ per session are reasonable with adequate online marketing. It‘s not uncommon for seasonal pros to book 25-50 sessions and make $2,500-$7,500 during October.

5. Market Your Event Planning and Decor Skills

Halloween party hosts are always seeking spooky ideas and inspiration for over-the-top decor. Offer your services to design, coordinate, shop, and install everything from creepy costumes and makeup to haunted lighting displays and tiny graveyards. Charge by the hour or project.

Expand your client roster by partnering with and promoting venues like bars, restaurants, community centers that benefit from increased traffic and local buzz. Don‘t forget classroom holiday parties and trunk or treats too! Talented planners can easily profit $1,000 to $5,000 helping local businesses and communities get their scare on.

6. Create Online Video Courses on DIY Decorating

If in-person gigs aren‘t your thing, teach your tricks for terrorizing homes with next-level DIY instructional videos. From spiderwebs and boarded windows to scary silhouettes and fog machines, the demand for decor wisdom is huge.

Upload your content to platforms like Skillshare and Udemy that handle marketing and delivery in exchange for a revenue share. Unique courses like "Next Level Yard Haunts on a Budget" or "10 Wicked DIY Decor Projects" can resonate with hungry hobbyists, selling for $50-$200 to subscribers seeking your specialty skills and saving hundreds or thousands in store purchases.

7. Craft Halloween Pet Costumes

Animal lovers go batty for pet playwear but balk at chain store pricing. Selling direct lets you offer stunning, customized costumes at neat profits. Tap into pop culture and nostalgia when brainstorming clever canine, feline, and small pet designs based on movies, cartoons, and iconic personas.

Develop an online presence highlighting past furry clients in your hair-raising handmade hats, superhero capes, pumpkin pullovers and witchy dresses. Ensure proper fit by detailing dimensions and sizes that appeal to diverse pets. Hardcore pet parents will pay premium prices with $20-$50+ per costume being typical.

8. Offer Halloween Face and Body Painting

Showcase your artistry skills by joining local Halloween community events or hosting private paint parties. Charge per cheeky look or by the hour. Up-sell temp tats, stickers, glitter, and accessories to increase the margin on more simple or replicated designs.

Speed up preparation time with quality professional grade paint palettes, accessories, and airbrush kits. Practice on friends to refine your portfolio with vamp fangs, zombie bites, spider webs, witch markings, and masks that wow. Once your creepy creations generate a buzz online, you can book yourself solid with $100-200+ daily bookings.

9. Provide Halloween Makeup Services

Take costume play to the next level by glamming up ghouls headed out for frightening nights. Schedule private sessions or setup a chair at local costume shops and haunted houses to apply sinister face and body enhancements showcasing wounds, scars, gashes, and creatures that appear disturbingly realistic.

Stock kits with liquid latex, fake blood, rigid collodion, modeling wax, rigid foam, and gelatin for endless evil creations. Charge $60+ for individual makeup applications that can take 30-90 minutes. Partner with theater groups and amusement parks too for seasonal contracts paying even higher rates.

10. Host an Airbnb Halloween Horror House

Capitalize on the rise of entertainment tourism by converting your home into a creepy Halloween destination. Airbnb enables average homeowners to create memorable stays aligned with popular interests. Lean into stereotypical horror themes or develop an elaborate original backstory to share.

Visually transform your interiors with unsettling decor touches, eccentric collections, disturbing dinnerware, ominous music, ghostly sounds, and eerie lighting. Greet guests in character making their stay fully immersive. Nightly rates from $100-$500 are reasonable for exclusive access. Be sure to check local regulations before pursuing this haunting hosting opportunity.

11. Offer Halloween Candy Catering

Fulfill trick or treat sweet tooth cravings without the cavity-ridden consequences. Produce Halloween candy apples, cake pops, cupcakes, rice crispy squares, cookies, and other custom creations for school, office, or private parties. Wrap individually or package cleverly with your logo.

Taking custom orders for event delivery or pickup enables higher profits and minimum waste. Remember to source wholesale ingredients and packaging early as seasonal supplies sell out fast. Hard working home bakers can cook up $2,000-$5,000 in sales working after school nights and weekends.

12. Construct a Neighborhood Haunted Trail

Born from a pandemic pivot and now a permanent attraction, elaborate home haunts represent one of the hottest trends. Transform your yard into an immersive walkthrough for locals seeking seasonal thrills. Utilize lighting, fog, animatronics, costumes, and sets for a sensational guest experience that spreads virally.

Sell tickets online and at the entrance for timed admission slots to control capacity. For extra income, arrange a designated parking area and charge per vehicle. Also boost on-site spending with concessionaires offering food, drinks, souvenirs, and keepsakes. Well-executed neighborhood haunts can scare up $10,000+ in October.

13. Craft Halloween Graveyard Hardscapes

Cemeteries, mausoleums, and creepy memorials are always popular outdoor decor sought by homeowners and merchants. Construct and paint custom headstones, large statues, structural facades, columns, and memorial plaques from foam, wood, and clay.

Sell your ghostly designs at craft fairs, on Facebook Marketplace, and via direct outreach to Halloween stores. Build up inventory in advance and be prepared to take custom orders for specialized memorials. By working evenings and weekends, talented makers can profit $5,000-$10,000 annually.

14. Perform as a Zombie or Scare Actor

Amusement parks, haunted houses, corn mazes, and local theater troupes all utilize performers to maximize frights. Pursue freelance gigs or seasonal contracts paying $12-$30 per hour to put your horror hobby on payroll. The most convincing creatures boast contortionism, physical acting, and improvisation skills.

Many venues handle elaborate costumes, silicone masks, and professional makeup applications so you simply show up in ghoulish character ready to scare courageous visitors. Just one or two prime placements per week can add up to an easy $1,000-$3,000 by November.

15. Sell Horror Sound Effects and Music

Fuel frightening scenes with your original terror tracks written to elicit bone chilling reactions. Compose and mix creepy sounds and sinister scores for haunted houses, escape rooms, theater productions, video games, virtual experiences, YouTube creators, and horror movie projects.

Upload samples to audio marketplaces like AudioJungle and SoundCloud then promote your portfolio to multimedia producers that license audio content. Custom requests for desired emotions, durations, and formats command higher prices. Even selling cheaper stock audio files at just $1 each can quickly generate sales of $500-$5,000 or more.

16. Create Special Edition Halloween Prints

Showcase your darker artistic talents designing giclee prints that celebrate the strange and macabre. Convert original works into limited edition archival quality reproductions signed and numbered for collectors. Subject matter like skulls, ravens, full moons, jack-o-lanterns, and Edgar Allan Poe lend well to the medium.

Sell prints framed locally or unframed via outlets like Etsy and Saatchi for $25-$250 based on size and production run limits. Market more affordable digital downloads to fans less focused on owning wall art. Podcasts, niche blogs, horror conferences, and genre celebrities offer promotional partnerships. Even modest interest can net thousands in October sales.

17. Invent Halloween Party Games

Invent original games for hosting the ultimate Halloween shindig. Conjure your inner Jigsaw marketing to superfans of horror films and immersive entertainment experiences focused on challenges and puzzles.

Simple boxed sets could contain clues, rituals, instructions, props, and surprises customized for different player counts and skill levels. Sell games directly on your own ecommerce shop or pitch to Spencer Gifts and other retailers catering to costume crowds. Securing a retail partner provides wider distribution and greater profit potential into the tens of thousands.

As you can see, making money from Halloween pursuits has never been easier thanks to expanding consumer spending, small business platforms, and higher willingness to pay for unique items and experiences. Whether you love baking, building, performing, crafting or terrifying, carving out your perfect niche creates frightful income potential.

These 17 strategies run the gamut from minimal investment parties to rented warehouse haunts able to deliver stellar seasonal profits. Now it’s time to grab your broomstick, head to your creativity crypt, and conjure up a plan to materialize the monster moneymaking ideas most meaningful to you!