Are there any practical passive income ideas you can embrace to make some extra cash on the side or even turn them into a full-time source of income?
Luckily enough, there are, and you can snatch a few and start making money passively without having to put in extra shifts every single day.
But before we talk about the passive income ideas, let’s first get a better understanding of what Passive Income means.
What is passive income?
Passive income is money earned from a stream of income that requires minimal activity or input for it to generate revenue. This, however, does not mean the stream of income is set up and forgotten just like that.
It needs regular checks and upkeep once in a while to ensure everything is running smoothly – it can be a few hours a day or just a few days a week.
Now that you have a clear understanding of what the term means, how about we dive in and have a look at the best and most lucrative passive income ideas you can implement today?
The best passive income ideas
Let’s have a look at a few of the best passive income ideas you can explore in 2023 and how to get started.
#1. Start a blog
Starting and monetizing your blog is one of the most lucrative ways to make money passively. It is easy and cheap to start a blog and is a highly scalable stream of passive income.
You can start a blog for as cheap as $2.95/mo with Bluehost, which is one of the best web cheap hosting services for bloggers.
You can monetize your blog in different ways, including using display ads (e.g. Google AdSense), sponsored posts, selling ad space, and promoting affiliate products among others.
You can use this step-by-step guide to start a blog and once you have set it up, then you can employ any of these 13 ways to monetize your blog.
But is it expensive to start, run, or manage a blog?
Absolutely NOT.
You need a domain and web hosting, with most of these web hosting companies providing free domain and SSL certificates. As you can see, the monthly cost for web hosting can be as low as $2.95.
However, to be a successful blogger you need to choose the right blog niche, create long-form quality content, and optimize your content in the right way to rank high on search engines.
Just to mention something; there are hundreds of bloggers making more than $10,000 a month and up to six-figure earnings a year. So, I believe that is an achievable milestone for anyone.
#2. Do affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing, in simple terms, is where you recommend third-party products or services to your readers or followers using a custom link (called an affiliate link) and get paid commission each time you generate a conversion, which could be a sale, subscription, or lead.
You can do affiliate marketing with or without a blog, but it’s always better with a blog as you reach more readers and can grow web visitors month after month.
A good example of an affiliate marketing program is the famous Amazon Affiliates, where you sign up, and once approved you can then go ahead and recommend their products.
You can set up a blog and write reviews, comparisons, or recommendations on different items available on Amazon. Then place affiliate links within the content. You get a commission when someone clicks on the link and proceed to make a purchase.
Please note that you can start an affiliate blog in almost any niche/topic – health, travel, education, lifestyle, beauty, dating and relationships, fitness, weight loss, insurance, finance, etc.
I mean any topic you can think of.
Earning potential? Super affiliates are making as high as $100,000 per month with their blogs, so I believe the sky should be the limit for you too.
#3. Sell products on Etsy
In case you’re into crafts and design, then Etsy is the perfect place to generate consistent passive income.
You can sell both handcrafted and digital items, including hand-made jewelry, necklaces, drawings, wrist bands, and digital, downloadable art and designs.
Create an account with Etsy, upload your items, and set prices. When someone buys your item, it’s then shipped to them. Etsy gets to keep a percentage of the sell value and you keep the rest.
With the right items, pricing, and product descriptions, you can make between $1,000 and $10,000 a month. Other reputable alternatives to Etsy include CafePress and Redbubble.
You can sell the same designs such as posters, stickers, and drawings on multiple platforms.
#4. Create digital courses
Do you have a skill you believe can make you a good passive income? If you do, then you can harness the power of digital space by creating a digital course.
It can be a downloadable guide in the form of an ebook or even a video tutorial users can purchase. You can create tutorials in whichever topic you excel in such as;
- Pet grooming
- Digital marketing
- Making cakes/pastries
- Affiliate marketing
- Search engine optimization
- SEO copywriting
Just think of a skill you have you can convert into a money-making gem. But maybe you are not sure how to sell the digital course.
You can upload your digital courses to platforms such as Udemy, Skillshare, or Coursera. These platforms have millions of visits a year. If your courses are great then you will make consistent passive income for years to come.
A word of advice though: do not create an average course and think it’s going to earn you thousands of dollars. Think of it as a long-term investment where you can make multiple tiered courses may be a few months apart.
This way you can have multiple high-performing courses around the same niche.
#5. Sell stock photos
Are you a skilled photographer capable of producing unique, quality photos? Or do you have graphic design skills and wish to put them to good use?
Your skills can earn you consistent passive income by selling your images as stock photos. There are many digital third-party platforms you can use, including Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, DepositPhotos, and Alamy.
In case you still think that selling your images as stock photos won’t make you a lot of money, just think of how many blogs need professional, quality photos to use as part of their content.
Or even better, why do sites such as Shutterstock sell photos for more than $500 apiece?
The beauty of this passive income idea is that you do not have to do any marketing. Just be sure to produce quality photos and upload them with the right tags and descriptions to increase their visibility on these sites.
#6. Start a YouTube channel
Although making it on YouTube is not easy, choosing the right content to focus on can make you thousands of bucks every single month.
It’s great to focus on fun, entertaining, creative, and unique content that can get millions of views a month.
Look at some of the most successful YouTube channels and the type of content they create. Take your time to study the similarities between their content – e.g. how they craft video titles and descriptions.
One of my favorite YouTubers, MrBeast, often use challenge and rewards in his videos. They challenge you to complete a task and if you do you get a reward. Who doesn’t relish a challenge that comes with a reward?
Please note that you can only monetize your YouTube channel with Google ads after you hit their milestone of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours.
Luckily, there are more ways than one to make money on YouTube, which includes using affiliate links or doing sponsored videos.
#7. Start an online store
Starting an online store is one of the most lucrative passive income ideas, with Shopify and print-on-demand store owners making thousands of dollars every month.
With Shopify, you open a store that sells one or different types of items, but you do not keep any inventory.
Each time someone makes a purchase on your store you then head over to a platform that offers dropshipping, such as Alibaba or Aliexpress, and make the same purchase using their order details.
The item will then be shipped to the buyer who bought the item in your store.
When it comes to print on demand, you open an online store and connect it to a printing platform such as Printful. Someone comes to your store, places a print-on-demand order, and Printufl processes the order.
Printful will handle the printing, packaging, and delivery, so you don’t have to worry about any of that. You then get to share the revenue from the fulfilled order.
#8. Start an Airbnb
Another brilliant passive income idea is to rent out your home, apartment, or room. Sign up with Airbnb and specify the type of room you wish to rent out.
Although Airbnb charges just 3% on every booking for their services, you have the liberty to set the nightly rate whatever amount you want.
A good alternative to Airbnb is Vrbo, which charges 5% per booking and an additional 3% if the guest pays with a credit card. You have the freedom to choose your fee, which gives you room to make extra income if your listings are in high demand.
And if you wish to make almost double the amount, then embrace the idea of renting out your car using a rental car agency such as Turo. Join Turo, list your car, and charge whatever you deem fit based on the market prices.
You can make more money by combining home renting with car renting, which can turn out to be a sustainable way of earning passive income especially if you live in a place where Airbnb and Turo’s services are in high demand.
#9. Develop mobile apps
Although technology is there to solve our problems, there are multiple opportunities that come about due to advancements in technology.
Creating apps can be an ideal way to make passive income if you have the necessary coding skills. Just take a moment and think about the number of mobile apps available on Google’s Playstore and why some are premium while others are free.
Is there an app you pay for that has some glitches you believe you can fix? Go ahead and create a better, advanced app and sell it at fairly the same price.
Alternatively, just take your time to observe the way we go about our day-to-day activities and think of an app that could make things easier.
It can be a flight booking app or coupon fetching app or even a photo editing app. It’s great to think of something unique to stand out.
If you do not wish to make the app premium, you can use display ads such as Google AdMob (it’s a Google AdSense alternative for mobile apps).
Conclusion
In a nutshell, these passive income ideas can help you make a decent passive income and could potentially become a full-time thing.
Please note that some, such as affiliate marketing, blogging, and running a YouTube channel will probably need more attention when you start and can take a few months to pick up.
However, once you are generating consistent income month after month, you can scale it as high as it can get.
