A home-based business is just what it sounds like – your own business. That means that there are going to be some costs involved with getting started and maintaining it. These costs vary from home-business to home-business, but are normally quite low cost and easy to recuperate. Traditional businesses cost thousands of dollars to start and maintain, and include such expenses as: start-up fees, legal fees, overhead, employee salaries and benefits, legal fees, advertising, and much more. Most home-based businesses are extremely cheap to start and run. If it is a Network Marketing business, the costs are even lower. In these types of opportunities you become an independent marketing associate of the company, and simply plug into the system that’s already in place. Your website, marketing tools, the product or service, legal stuff, etc., has all been put in place for you and your job is simply to market the system/product. The network marketing model has been gaining in credibility more in recent years as more and more people earn significant part time incomes from the comfort of their home. The most powerful element of the network marketing business opportunity as a home-based business it the potential for the associate to earn tens of thousands of dollars per month over time, by building a team of associates whom they train and earn leveraging dollars from. Affiliate marketing does not entail building a team, but involves the affiliate learning marketing methods to drive a steady stream of qualified traffic to their website in hopes that visitors will make a purchase, of which the affiliate then makes a commission.A work from home JOB, on the other hand, is simply an extension of the employee/employer relationship, conducted from the comfort of the employee’s home. Examples of a work at home job could include: telemarketing, customer services, technical support workers, writers and editors who work on salary instead of contract, etc. The benefits of having a work at home job as a opposed to a home-based BUSINESS is that as long as you do the work you are hired to do, there will be a paycheque. In a business there is a paycheque only if you’ve acquired business (sales, recruits, etc). In a home-based JOB, there are usually no costs associated, and there is less work and/or responsibility. However, a job pays the employee for their time only, and there is no way to build a residual long-term, growing income. The income potential is limited and the person is virtually renting their time for money. They are not building equity as in a business.It takes a certain mindset to operate a home-based business and it is not for everyone. This is for the: risk-taker, dreamer, visionary, ambitious, wealth-seeking type of personality. If that fits you, take some time to find a home-based business opportunity that you are happy with, learn how to be an effective Internet marketer, and then take massive action.