You can be a solo miner or join a mining pool.

If you are a solo miner, that means if you mine a block, you will earn the mining reward alone. But the chance will be small if you do not have enough money to get yourself miners. To be a solo miner may not be gone for because even you need huge amount of money to buy miner to join a mining pool. But if you are rich enough like a multimillionaire, you may decide to begin a mining pool yourself and begin as a miner.

If you join a mining pool, you will use your miner to contribute to the hash rates that the mining pools are generating. There are other miners like you that also join the pool. The mining reward would be distributed to miners that contribute to the hashrates the pool is generating. Minings today are not solo miners but prefer to join a mining pool and earn a steady reward.

Some of the pools have a mining calculator or you can get yourself a mining calculator online to calculate if mining would be profitable for you. You will be able to also use the calculator to calculate the electricity cost.

Mining is still profitable if you get the right miners and also if you are Ina country with cheap electricity.