Best Passive Income Ideas that Works- A Definitive Guide [2023]

This is the ultimate guide to earning Passive Income in 2023.

And let me be clear about something:

This is not your average “Best Passive Income in 2023” prediction post.

Certainly! I will cover practical and tested methods of passive income sources this year. Additionally, you will discover the latest strategies that are working effectively at the moment.

In this post, I am going to tell you about the 10 best and proven ways to make passive income that really works. And for these, I am going to tell you:

• Efforts it takes to get started…
• How hard it is to make $100/ month from it and the possibilities of scaling the business…
• How hard it is to maintain once you have created the thing in the first place?
• And some useful resources to pursue that elusive dream of earning passive income…

So, if you’re looking to automate that money machine for your future, you’ll love this guide. Let’s dive in.

What is Passive Income?

Imagine losing your job but still being able to limit the damage by having another source of income than just your salary. 

Imagine having enough free time to indulge in your hobbies, to devote to your family, to do the things you love, and to be able to pay for those things you love without worrying about your regular job.

The advantage of having passive income lies in the fact that you no longer need to work 8 hours a day, 35 hours a week to earn money.

Accelerate your path to financial freedom with this ideal solution, and keep in mind that passive income incurs lower taxes than active income.

As Anthony Pompliano beautifully puts it about what the point of financial freedom is:

“I used to be impressed by people who had a lot of money, but now I’m impressed by people who have a lot of free time. Time is the ultimate measure of wealth.”

Besides, who has never dreamed of having money while sleeping?

You can literally be making money while you sleep.

On the other hand, sorry to disappoint you: you will necessarily have to work a little at one time or another.

The starting effort will more or less depend on the chosen activity. Nevertheless, the long run holds the advantage.

So, you have put in the work once and money keeps flowing for a long time.

The way I think is that ultimately Money is just a medium for exchanging value.

In a side hustle, you earn money by trading your time for pay, and your income potential is limited because you can only work so much.

To help you see clearly, here are some examples of passive income:

• The rents your tenants pay if you have rental properties or real estate.
• The income generated by an investment you have made or a product you have created and sold: a mobile application for example.
• The commissions you receive each time your product is sold by one of your referrals.
• Revenue generated from Advertising on a website or blog you own.
• Income generated from Copyrights related to books you have written or a song you have written.
• Dividends obtained from shares you own in a company.
• Interest generated from financial investments.
• Retirement pensions

In the above examples, you don’t need to work as much to get them, otherwise, they would become active income.

What’s the difference between Passive Income and a side hustle?

Passive Income requires upfront time and less regular attention. In contrast, a side hustle requires your ongoing time and effort.

In a side hustle, you earn money by trading your time to pay and your income potential is limited because you can only work so much.

The turnover at the end of the month is directly related to the actual working time and the simple formula is:

One hour of work = XX $$ of income.

Whereas there is unlimited income potential in passive income as you can make money while you sleep.

Tutoring/ Teaching is a great skill.

Consider signing up on a tutoring platform such as chegg.com or tutor.com, where you receive payment at a per-hour rate for your services. This is a side hustle where you exchange your time for money.

Now, consider that you use your subject expertise and develop some eBooks or a small video course. Then you market it on a platform like Udemy.com.

You invested your resources upfront and created the course and then you keep earning with minimal effort. This is Passive Income.

Another example of a side hustle is completing online surveys. Here, your income is directly proportional to the number of surveys you complete i.e., it is dependent on the time you trade.

What are the Types of Passive Income?

There are four types of ways for Earning Passive Income:

One: Make Money with Money i.e., Income from buying cash-flowing assets 

You invest in different shares, mutual funds, etc., and get profits in return.

Other options under this category are business lending, real estate, and such stuff.
However, it is recommended when you already have some money to invest!

Two: Build something of value i.e., Income by building assets

Such as a digital product or website that earns advertising revenue. These things take some time to create and market. But once set up correctly, can run relatively passively often for years. We’ll explore some examples of how other hustlers have done this.

Three: Income from leasing, sharing, or selling assets you own or control

For example, leasing tangible assets, such as vehicles, boats, equipment, and furniture, can lead to earning passively. If you have extra space in your house, you could rent it as a PG or earn some additional income through Airbnb.

Even the data generated by your phone can earn you a passive income. (Sounds Interesting!).

Four: Reverse passive income (A Penny Saved is a Penny earned)

It comes from saving or spending strategically such as cutting your on-going monthly expenses. The best part of this is that anyone can start doing this right away and even better- there’s no tax on this income.

Some ways to earn a Reverse” passive income include using cash-back apps and credit cards. The downside to this is that there is usually a limit to what you can earn—it’s not scalable.

Are passive income subject to income tax

It will not be fair to answer this question in short. Here’s a guide that may answer your queries.

However, we will sail the boat when we reach the waters…

Is there an age barrier to starting a passive income source?

A couple of years back when I launched my website, I was 41 years old. Today as I write this post, I am running in the 43^rd year of my life. And let me tell you I never felt so much better and spirited!

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” Fearless people never grow old.

Founder of KFC, the world’s second-largest restaurant chain by sales, Colonel Sanders was 60+ when he started KFC. And that too when he had faced so many failures in life.

Whether you are on the wrong side of 40 or 50, start a hustle. Even if you run out of time, your kids will benefit from this incredible education. You may leave a legacy behind!

There are these books like The 4-Hour Week and Rich Father Poor Father. They helped me realize there are concrete ways to earn significant passive income. Sometimes, it’s even enough to make a living from it.

The ideas in this article offer legitimate ways to make money while you sleep. These ideas help create something that excites you and utilizes your experience and skills effectively.

But the hardest thing is often to know where to start. What projects to launch to make passive income a reality? There are dozens or even hundreds of solutions, and here are my 10 of the favorites.

So are You Ready to earn Passive Income? Here’s a List of 10 Best Passive income ideas for Success in 2023.

Invest in Index Funds:

Stock market investing (buying stocks that pay regular dividends) is hands down one of the best passive income ideas without involving too much work. However, the problem is that you must buy the right stocks. If the stock price of the company you’ve invested in plummets, you lose money. 

To limit the risks and decrease the uncertainties, you can invest in index Funds. 

Warren Buffett, arguably the most successful investor, recommends becoming an investor in index stocks for passive income in later life. 

Index Funds are investment funds that follow a benchmark index, such as the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq 100.

When you invest, for example, $1000 in an index fund like S&P 500, the fund allocates the money across all the top 500 companies in the US. These are the companies that make up this index such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and so on. This gives you a more diverse portfolio than buying individual stocks or sector-specific stocks.

As the Index funds mirror the same holdings of whatever index they track, they are inherently diversified and hence hold much lower risk than individual stocks.

Despite the fluctuations, Market indexes tend to have a good track record. For example, S&P 500 has historically generated nearly a 10% average annual return over time for investors. (Just remember that future returns are not guaranteed!)

To begin index fund investing, sign up with a stockbroker like Webull in the US or Freetrade or Vanguard in the UK. To find a platform that suits your needs, simply search for “best stockbroker platform” followed by your country’s name on Google.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month by investing in stocks & shares?

It depends on the performance of the stock market. If we take the average historic returns for the last 30-40 years which is 10%, then to earn $100 today, you need approximately $ 12,000 invested in S&P 500.

However, considering the magic of compounding, if you invest $7,500 in S&P 500 and leave it for the next five years, then five years later, you would be making roughly $100 a month.

Once you have set it up in the first place, it almost runs on autopilot mode and there’s very little to do to maintain it.

Thus, in order to earn a passive income of $100 or more every month from index funds, investing can be easily set up.

Start a YouTube channel

The list of best passive income ideas that work, can not be complete without this one!

Do you want to be famous? Do you have a passion for something?

With YouTube, you can show your face to the world while you win. 

Shy of filming yourself in videos? No problem. There’s a whole heap of youTube video ideas that necessarily do not need to show your face.

If you have a new content idea, something to say, ideas to share, some specific problem to solve, or just some fun videos to upload, you can get into the earning spirit with the platform. 

Successful creators can earn money from the ads that play in their videos, as well as from sponsorships, affiliate ads, sales of their own products, and more. 

If you can turn your YouTube channel into an influencer in your niche, you can earn real money and benefit from brand giveaways. 

It’s quite easy to get started on YouTube. Opening a YouTube account is free, and you can record decent videos on most modern smartphones.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from YouTube?

Firstly, to be eligible for monetization on YouTube, you need a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time.

On average, stats tell that on an average, it takes around 90 videos to get the first 1,000 subscribers. If you upload one video a week, it will take you approximately 24 months to achieve this milestone.

However, achieving 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time depends on a lot of factors. Such as your Niche, Upload schedule, Promotions, Content quality, Video Quality, and so on.

For example, if your video topics drive a lot of traffic (or even a viral video), you will achieve 1,000 subscribers for your channel in a short amount of time.

So, once you achieve these milestones, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income?

On average, revenue per thousand views on YouTube is approximately $2. So, for $100 a month, you need 50,000 views. Suppose you make one video a week and assume zero traffic on your older videos, you need 12,500 views per video.

However, there are other factors which affect this average figure. Such as average retention of acquired subscribers, new subscribers, average views from retained subscribers, and nature of content (evergreen or not).

In reality, you can make $100 a month a lot before the above milestones.

Additionally, if you double up with affiliate offers in the YouTube video description, $100 a month in passive income is easy to achieve.

Long story short, stick to producing content that your target audience finds useful. Post it on YouTube at least once a week and repeat this for at least a couple of years. And your life will change in ways you can’t imagine, let alone the $100 a month in passive income. And once you have cracked the code, it’s fairly easy to maintain this source of passive income.

Here’s a very interesting video for VideoSideHustle channel to watch for inspiration.

https://youtu.be/x8z_VdH58Ng

Launch your blog

A blog is the perfect way to turn your existing passion into wealth.

One of the best things about blogging is that you can blog pretty much anything. 

This means, that regardless of what interests you or what you have to say, there will be an audience interested in reading about it.

If you’re a professional in an industry (lawyer, pilot, nurse, real estate agent, driver, technician, teacher, or housewife), all you need is basic knowledge to set up your blog and start writing about the things you already do.

Over time, when you have a certain level of traffic to your site, it becomes quite easy to monetize it through several solutions: advertising, affiliate links, brand partnerships… Then your blog can become a way to build a real source of passive income!

Anyone can launch their blog site. Just start a blog on a topic that you are passionate about and that interests others & helps them solve a problem.

Here are some starting tips to get started:

Tip 1: Start a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog such as yourblogname.com.

Hosted Blogs are one that you start at places like Blogspot, Wix, Squarespace, etc., and looks like yourblogname.blogspot.com.

Why do I suggest this? Because of two main reasons:

One- you don’t own hosted Blogs and they can be shut down anytime and all your work is lost. This can be very devastating.

Two- when you approach ad agencies to monetize your blog, they specifically ask you if you have a Self-Hosted Word press Blog? Moreover, Self-Hosted blogs look way more legit and professional and are quite easy to do.

To start a self-hosted WordPress blog, you need a hosting service. Start with very cheap ones like Bluehost or Namecheap.

You can change your hosting provider once you start getting tons of views.

Tip 2: Make your website look professional.

Only then your target audience will take it seriously. So how do you get your blog site to look professional if you are not a designer? Simple, Get a Theme. There are several dirt-cheap themes available on Etsy and other online marketplaces. You can change them once you start earning from your blog.

I bought the theme of this website in the Black Friday Sale!

Tip 3: Invest in a Blogging Course, maybe a cheap one.

There are many available on Udemy.com. Later you can take better and pricey courses when you start earning. The idea is to refrain from wasting months and months of time in reinventing the wheel.

So How does a Blogging course help?

It helps you save a lot of time. It will also give you a head start on your blogging journey by cutting those silly mistakes. And you will be able to monetize your blog much earlier.

Believe me, if you put the work in it, the above tips will pay back big time. This is what I have done with this blog (hustlershark.com) and my other blogs. Personally, this is my favorite of the 10 best passive income ideas mentioned in this post!

By the way, websites and ready-made blogs are also offered for sale on the Internet. So, if you have starting capital but no time to build your own blog, you can buy a ready-made one. Buy it and just fill it with new content regularly.

The biggest tip to becoming successful in the blogging business is – to get started and keep going consistently at least for a couple of years. No matter what knowledge level you have, just start a blog site. And every week, keep on adding content that solves problems. The more how-to content you have, the more solution-oriented your blog will become.

Later, when you learn the nitty-gritty of blogging, you may invest money to get the right blogging tools. Or even some training, some promotions, networking and scale your blogging business.

Also, don’t expect to get an audience in a few days. There are times set by search engines, especially Google. Due to this, it takes weeks, months, and even years to position and consolidate.

After a certain level and once you have achieved a target audience that finds your articles from the search engines, even if you do not publish anything for a long time, you will continue to receive visits. 

You will have to periodically feed your blog with relevant content. Also, you have to keep updating old articles so that search engines bring you qualified traffic. 

Your visitors are performing actions on your page. Some buy, others click on ads. They generate income for you without you having to work directly on it. 

This is passive income because most of the money that is made through a blog is through automated processes.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from your Blog business?

So to give you an idea, suppose you start getting visitors to your blog. On average, ad revenue per thousand views on your blog will be approximately $0.2 to $15 per 1000 pageviews. This depends on your niche. For example, Personal finance blog pays much more than a mommy’s blog. It also depends on competition and CPC (cost per click).

Also, if you are using ad agencies other than Google adsense (e.g. mediavine, adthrives etc.), you will earn much more per 1000 pageviews.

Not to forget, if you double up with affiliate offers in your blog posts for monetizing, $100 per month is a meager amount. Start thinking 1000s of $s in revenue per month!

How passive is blogging as source of income once you have set it up in the first place?

A couple of hours every week plus the time taken to publish content on a regular basis is what it takes to maintain this business. This is, unless you have high ambitions and you want to replace it with your job!

To help and motivate you here is a YouTube series on building a live online business via blogging. This channel is from Hassan- one of the most genuine & honest YouTubers I have found. Watch the playlist to have a better understanding.  

Earning Passive Income Through Affiliate Marketing

Surely at some point watching your favorite YouTuber or visiting a blog, you noticed the promotion of a product within these. This action is called affiliate marketing, and it is arguably one of the most popular ways to make money today.

As per the statistics, this industry is expected to reach an estimated worth of $12 billion by the beginning of 2023, thrice its worth in 2015. 

Affiliate Marketing is a business technique which consists of earning a commission by promoting a company’s products or services. 

Precisely speaking, every time someone buys from your partner, thanks to your recommendation, you get a little money.

Let’s say you have a website or blog on a particular topic, such as parenting & product review. You published an article there about Murphy Bed (a brand for wall beds) that is quite useful for parents. 

If that merchant for Murphy Bed has an affiliate program, then you can put a link in your article. This link will take the visitors (who click the link) back to their website and you will earn a commission on all sales that go through that link.

This type of marketing is really popular on platforms like YouTube or Instagram. Content creators join an online store and recommend their products, letting their followers know the benefits it has provided them.

In addition, they invite them to acquire it, leaving the link that redirects them directly to buy it. In many cases, they also provide a discount code to further motivate the purchase intention.

When the user or follower acquires the product through the link or thanks to the promotion he made, he receives a commission from the brand. Affiliate Marketing is done in this way.

Affiliate marketing can be a great source of passive income. However, due to certain bad online practices, it has also acquired a bad name.

As a diligent practice, ensure that the product or service you offer is of good quality. Also, ensure that they are relevant to your content & your audience. Your goal should be to offer real added value to your audience, not to trap them.

So, what do you need to do with affiliate marketing?

One: An affiliate product or service to promote

Two:  A platform to promote the affiliate product or service such as a Blog, a YouTube channel, an Instagram account or a Facebook account, and so on.

In order to access an affiliate product or service you have numerous options. Usually, large companies such as Amazon or AliExpress, have an affiliate program and enlist a large number of people. You must join this program to start generating income.

Other than these large companies, there are renowned affiliate marketplaces such as Clickbank, Commission Junction, ShareASale, Impact, etc.

In most cases, the commissions that such companies or other affiliate marketplaces pay on their programs are by conversion, which is when the referred customer makes the purchase.

But you may be surprised to know that there are options where affiliate commissions are earned on the basis of CPA (Cost Per Action). For ex. Per Click where the commission is given by a number of visitors clicking the affiliate link. Per sign-up is where a commission is generated when the referred person completes a form. Interesting, huh?

The entire activity of affiliate marketing depends on the fact that how many target audiences reach your affiliate link through your chosen platform (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Blog or so). And how effectively you are able to motivate them to buy your promoted product.

Reaching your target audience through an organic strategy of publishing helpful content via YouTube videos, blog posts, etc., though a very cost-effective method, is a slow and tedious method. Also, scaling this business in this organic way is pretty tough. 

Here is when advertisements come to aid. Advertisements are a way to meet your affiliate link to more and more target customers. You can do this through a lot of ways such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Native Ads, Quora ads, and so on. It entirely depends on your affiliate product or service.

Promoting affiliate products/ services through advertisements can yield results in a matter of days. However, you need to learn the tricks of trade or else you may lose a lot of money.

Here’s a link to the YouTube channel of a very seasoned affiliate marketer- Ross Minchev. He teaches some tricks of the trade using ClickBank as an affiliate marketplace coupled with organic as well as Facebook ads, watch and learn:

Once you have created your organic affiliate marketing system in place, it is fairly easy to maintain it. However, if you choose the advertisement way, you have to be more involved in the process.

Out of the 10 best passive income ideas mentioned in this post, affiliate marketing coupled with paid advertisements is the fastest way to generate and scale the passive income game.

Rental Investment: A Classic Source of Passive Income

Real estate is one of the most popular sources of passive income. Moreover, the majority of current millionaires have succeeded in creating their wealth by investing at least part of their money in real estate.

And for good reason: rental investment can be a great way to earn money … even while sleeping! Although, of course, it all depends on your strategy.

However, going through traditional financing may be too complicated. Instead, you can use a crowdfunding platform such as Fundrise or Realtymogul.

These crowdfunding platforms allow you to invest in real estate for a much lower sum than what the purchase of a property would cost. And therefore to invest collectively in real estate development projects to benefit from a rate of yield.

Go the Airbnb way:

We presented you with the solution of investing in real estate to be able to offer you a regular passive income. 

A more practical and less expensive approach is renting your apartment/house, your vacation home, or even a single room of your accommodation on online platforms. It can be a great way to earn money passively.

Airbnb is the best-known solution. It allows people to travel all over the world and stay in accommodation much cheaper than traditional hotels.

You can therefore offer your accommodation there on a regular or occasional basis according to your preferences.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from your Airbnb aka rental business?

Well, this can vary dramatically. It depends on where your rental property is based, the frequency of renting out your place, and the quality of your rental place & the services you provide.

However, to have an idea, as per research by low-interest lender Earnest, on average, an Airbnb host easily makes about $924 a month.

The same research reveals that several Airbnb hosts, for example, made $10,000 or more per month.

HomeAway & Vrbo are other options that you can look to as an alternative to Airbnb. Once you understand the nitty-gritty of Airbnb-ing your property and set up the requirements, it’s easy to maintain this business for a steady passive income.

Danny, an ex-Airbnb employee, wrote the best-selling book for Airbnb hosts, here give his advice a try.

Create and sell digital products

This model works best for those looking to make a passive income business out of their existing skill sets & knowledge that you can sell online.

You can create Digital Products once and sell them worldwide, a zillion times, at incredibly high profit margins, and that too without the need to renew the inventory. This is what makes them a very attractive option. This is why they are ideal for artists, educators, creatives, and people looking for new passive sources of income.

Examples of digital products are e-books, virtual courses, Videos, and Printable like Planners, Digital Art are examples of digital products.

Many entrepreneurs develop an entire business from these intangible goods, thanks to their great acceptance and easy commercialization.

A very good example is this fellow on Twitter- @traf. He made an iOS 14 icon set, say a year back, and sold it for $30 each. He ended up making like $300,000 and continues. Phew! Another huge opportunity lies in creating online courses. Distance learning is the future of education. You have an excellent opportunity to expand your business and make an impact with e-learning, an industry that is estimated to reach a value of $325 Billion by 2025.

Just to give you an idea, this guy called Kyle Pew created a course on Microsoft Excel on the Udemy platform and he sells them for $45 each as per Udemy, he has had over 900,000 students and over 270,000 ratings. Even if we consider the no. of ratings as sales (factoring in the discounts, initial free offer, etc.), he would have earned millions of $$$. Isn’t that incredible?

Once again, the creation of these products will necessarily require you to work upstream. But the great thing about creating digital, not physical, products is that you won’t have to worry about inventory, shipping, or delivery – it’s all done right online.

So go ahead, pack your experience on any topic of your expertise into a training or course, and reap the benefits of passive income.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from selling digital products? It may be quite easy to create a digital product but it’s a whole different ballgame to make people buy your e-book, website theme, or course. This is because this market is very competitive.

Making $100 a month is not very easy but it is very much doable.

You may find it difficult to position yourself as an authority on a subject, but I assure you that it is not so much. The secret is to hyper-specialize in a very specific target audience; this reduces the number of direct competitors.

And specifically, if your product solves a particular pain point, you may find scores of opportunities to sell them, and that too on a large number of platforms- Etsy, Udemy, amazon, personal websites, Shopify stores, social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & so on.

In terms of maintenance, it’s quite easy to do this and warrants low efforts to maintain your product.

Launch Your Dropshipping Business

With the explosion of ecommerce, dropshipping has become very popular.

This passive income system works quite simply. You create an e-commerce website (an online store) where you offer for sale the products of certain manufacturers and suppliers with whom you will work.

Then when someone visits your site and places an order, it is sent to the supplier you have tied with. Now the supplier is the one who will send the order directly to the customer – which means that you earn money on the sale without ever having to manage inventory!

The customer pays for the product, you collect the profits, and the manufacturer stores and ships the products to the customer. No need for investments or storage space.

If you are thinking of starting your own online dropshipping business, I recommend the Shopify platform which makes it easy to build your online store without having to develop a site from scratch. 

Careful: Many dropshipping sites simply aim to buy poor quality products in markets (particularly Asian) and resell them for a huge profit so dropshipping often suffers from a bad reputation.

Having an ethical, honest, and transparent attitude in your business is the key to success. And the goal is for your customer to gain just as much as you.

There are programs that send the order data to the manufacturer in real-time. This way you can get the product to the customer without your intervention being necessary.

The main difficulty in this model is to find a reliable supplier/ manufacturer that offers you an adequate margin.

If the shipment does not arrive or you have to attend a return, customers will claim you and you must resolve the incident with the manufacturer.

And that can be a real headache. For this reason, it is important to work with serious and reliable manufacturers, who allow you to synchronize their stock with your product catalog so that no discontinued or exhausted references appear in your store.

Fortunately, there are platforms that put you in touch with manufacturers that work with drop shipping. Some of the best-known are:

• Aliexpress :  a huge Chinese platform with thousands of suppliers.
• Oberlo: an American website where you will only find products that are sold by dropshipping
• DHgate : another Chinese giant, specialized in electronic products.

Amazon also offers a model very similar to dropshipping, called FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon). They are products of external sellers where the distribution and after-sales are in charge of Amazon. You’ll recognize them because the seller’s brand appears next to an “Amazon-managed”). In this case, you will have to send an initial stock to Amazon to save it and make the shipments. Then, you will use a program like Woocommerce to integrate your online store with Amazon FBA and make the shipments from there.

Is Dropshipping Still Worth Today?

Google Trends offers a visual way to understand how dropshipping as a search term has performed when it comes to people’s interest.

As seen above, “dropshipping” as a search term has seen a significant increase over the last 5 years. Although there have been a few lows, the overall trend is still steadily growing.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from dropshipping?

On average 20%-30% is what drop shippers make from each sale and the remaining goes to the product’s wholesale price, dropshipping fees, paying to dropshipping websites, and marketing. So, it actually depends on the number of sales per month to gauge the income.

Overall if you set up the system well in the first place and are willing to spend time securing a few good suppliers and learning Google ads to market it effectively, $100 a month ($500 worth of sales a month with a profit margin of 20%) is a meager amount.

Print on Demand

Print-on demand is similar to dropshipping as you don’t need stock or inventory to sell online. 

This can be an interesting source of income for you if you are passionate about design, have a background in graphic design, or want to share your artwork with the world.

However, you need not be an expert designer to get started. Even text-based phrases sell. You don’t need fancy software to create good designs. 

As long as you have creative ideas and can make basic artwork, you can start with this business model. Therefore, it is easy for beginners to get started.

Print-on-demand is a business model that allows you to sell your merchandise designs (such as t-shirts, hoodies, hats, mugs, etc.) directly to the customers. 

Once a purchase is made, the order is sent to a fulfillment company that prints and ships the order directly to the customer on your behalf but without involving you.

Thus, you need not invest money in printers or buy raw materials in advance. 

Print-on-demand platforms will pay you a commission or a flat fee for each sale.

As printing, shipping, handling returns & payments are taken care of by the fulfillment company (print-on-demand platform), choosing the right one is especially important. The idea of ​​using these platforms is to get your orders fulfilled and shipped. The companies also handle returns and payments.

Choosing the right platform will ensure that you achieve success with regard to product and print quality.

You may also want to see what each platform has to offer in terms of products. For example, there are sites that print on t-shirts, while others focus on prints that can range from shirts to pillowcases to mobile phone cases. You should also choose a platform based on the products you would like to sell.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from your POD business?

The competition in the POD niche is not low so I would say, that generating $100 a month is going to take a good number of efforts especially establishing the proper system for it. But once done successfully, $100 a month is a small target.

In order to make Print on Demand truly passive, focus on the following tips:

• Evergreen content over trending topics. focus on design niches that are evergreen in nature and that don’t rely on trends. Focusing on seasonal such as Christmas, Halloween, etc. or trending ones leads to fatigue easily.
• Text heavy product descriptions for SEO and external traffic
• Pinterest each design using mock-ups for long-tail traffic
• Copywriting skills are needed to successfully incentivize sales from potential new customers.
• Invest in design assets such as mock-ups and ad templates for promoting your products.
• Choose platforms that have an inbuilt system for attracting customers because the last thing you want to worry about is marketing and bringing targeted traffic to your products.

RedBubble is arguably the best Print-On-Demand site that successfully markets your products from the beginning.

So, how passive is POD business as a source of income once you have set it up in the first place?

Once you have set it up properly in the first place, Print on Demand can be a very passive way to earn additional income, especially if you have a creative bend or if you already have an audience (e.g., influencers, Instagrammers, YouTubers). All you have to do is create a digital artwork and upload it to the appropriate platform.

POD platforms will take care of everything else, from shipping to returns, as long as there is demand for your products, you can continue to make money from them.

Invest in Vending Machine & Other Self-Service Machines

Self-service machines such as Vending Machines & Internet kiosks at places like break rooms, gas stations, and shopping malls airports, hospitals, etc., can result in a steady passive income source.  

Vending machines have gained a lot of ground in the United States and in European countries. Also, these self-serving machines have a wide variety of products to offer. Though this requires an upfront investment, it can be recovered quickly with a good strategy.

Also, some product distributors may lend you or give you the vending machine with the condition that you buy a minimum amount decided by the distributor, from time to time.

Besides, you can always invest in a used or refurbished machine rather than buying a new one. For example, eBay has thousands of vending machines for sale with reputable sellers offering warranties on their machines. Some of these sellers also offer free shipping.

As your business grows, gradually invest in new and more vending machines and you’ll start generating passive income without having to go into debt.

Internet kiosks: These are usually self-contained and completely automated. Additionally, these kiosks operate 24/7, allowing consumers to use them whenever they choose. It finds use in Internet browsing and emailing, gaming, laser printing, and various office software applications.

Not only this, but through an Internet Kiosk, you can digitally sell ad space and even post adverts using the kiosk software. To maximize profits, you can place the kiosk in a high-traffic area with high consumer demand. You can introduce the pay-per-use facility and also, you can configure the payment processing software in the kiosk to accept payment by coins, credit cards, or cash without the need for a cashier.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from your Vending Machine business?

The amount of money you will make with a vending machine business will depend on:

• Machine location
• Number of potential buyers / Flow of people
• Price of the products you will sell

Ideally, you should have an achievable average of 25 to 30 sales per day. Therefore, the combination of products, prices, and demand at a given price is going to greatly influence how much money you can make with a vending machine business.

In our experience, a well-placed vending machine can earn more than $100 each week.

Multiply this income with 2, 3,4, or more Vending Machine units and you can create a living from it.

So even with a pessimistic estimation, making $100 a month in passive income from the Vending Machine business is very achievable.

How passive is this business as a source of income once you have set it up in the first place?

Though you’ll need to spend some time and energy storing, maintaining, and collecting money from your machines on a regular basis, once set up, it will generate relatively passive income for a long time.

Passive Income from Cryptocurrency: A Sunrise Industry

Most of us already know about Stocks dividends, REITS, and Real Estate as sources of passive income. But very few people realize that they can make passive income with Cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency is a sunrise industry. In our view, it is bound to become a substantial source of passive income/ side income or even full-time income and will generate a huge no. of jobs too. The only hindrance is a lack of understanding about the way cryptocurrencies work. It’s not a Ponzi or get-rich overnight scheme. We can go on and on but let us stick to making passive income from this sunrise industry. And there are several ways to do so.

Here we will discuss four of those with which you can start earning passive income with cryptocurrency as a complete beginner and may be immediate. However, you must take note that the entire crypto-currency space is full of a whole bunch of sketchy people who claim to make you a millionaire overnight.

So, before trying any of these you must understand and thoroughly research yourself.

Open an Interest-Bearing Account

Probably the easiest, quickest, and most straightforward way of making passive income with cryptocurrencies is through what’s called an interest-bearing account.

In a normal bank deposit account, your money gets a lovely half-a-percent interest rate. In the case of Cryptocurrencies, you could deposit your cryptocurrency throughout several exchanges and earn a pre-set return depending on the amount you hold. Crypto service providers that offer such products include, ‘Nexo’, ‘Celsius Network’, ‘SwissBorg’, ‘BlockFi’ etc.

Believe it or not, the return is actually pretty good. For example, BlockFi pays as high as 4.5% on Bitcoin, 5% on Ethereum and 9% on USDC.

Celsius pays even more at up to 8% on Bitcoin, 7% on Ethereum and nearly 11% USDC, and Voyager pays the same interest rate regardless of how much you hold on the platform.

However there are some downsides, and in addition to that, there is no FDIC insurance, and putting your savings into crypto can still be really intimidating for many new beginners.

However, there are some good exchanges such as Gemini which are considered one of the safest exchanges. Here you can buy, sell, store, and earn interest in your cryptos because they are heavily regulated by the NY State Department of Financial Services and industry-leading security on your account.

Earn a higher interest rate with cryptocurrencies in an interest-bearing account.

Additionally, the value of the underlying cryptocurrency (assuming it’s a good one) may appreciate substantially over the long term.

Now, the question is – how are they able to pay out such high-interest rates when banks are barely able to pay out anything?

When you deposit money in one of these platforms, they lend this money to retail and institutional investors at a higher interest rate. It’s like you give us your money and we will pay you a 5% interest rate. Then we could lend that money to somebody else at 8% and we profit from the difference. Moreover, in the cryptocurrency lending space, middlemen & expenses, as in the case of lending fiat currencies, are minimized to the lowest level. This allows us to pass on the benefits to the end user. 

And precisely, that’s why Stable coins pay significantly more than the rest, because there’s universal demand for a Stable coin which is pegged one to one to the USD or another fiat currency. Also, they’re a lot less volatile. 

Stablecoins are essentially Cryptocurrencies where prices are pegged to fiat money, cryptocurrency, or an exchange-traded commodity.

Passive Income With Cryptocurrencies Through Staking

The second option for earning passive income with cryptocurrency is what’s known as Staking.

With cryptocurrencies, since there’s no central authority overseeing all the activity, these transactions are processed in two ways:

• one is proof of work and the (PoW)
• second is proof of stake (PoS)

Proof-of-work relies on computing power to solve complex algorithmic problems that reward users with cryptocurrency although the problem with proof-of-work is that it’s energy-intensive.

It could take a lot of money to start up and as algorithms get more and more difficult to solve it could take longer and longer to get paid.

The second solution is what we call Proof-of-Stake. Proof-of-Stake is a way of reaching consensus (being able to verify those transactions themselves) on certain blockchain networks. It is considered a more efficient method of bringing about consensus on the blockchain than the classic proof-of-work that Bitcoin uses. With staking, small investors can participate in this consensus process and earn interest.

In other words, by staking you help the growth of cryptocurrencies. 

Staking is an excellent way to earn passive income with cryptocurrencies. Here, you have to lock up your Cryptocurrencies for a predetermined period of time. The interest rates mentioned here are called staking awards and are paid to you as rewards in the form of the corresponding coins. 

In this case the more money you stake the higher the chances of validating the next transaction and the higher the chances you’ll get paid.

You could also join what’s called the staking pool. It combines forces and then shares the collective reward of placing more money within the network in the simplest form. Imagine staking like you’re putting money in a CD for 1 to 24 months, and in return for that, you get a slightly higher yield.

The easiest way for most beginners to get started is by simply signing up for a reputable exchange like FTX, Coinbase, Binance, or a variety of other options. Compare the differences between the interest rates, period, and the amount you want to invest, and then just follow their instructions.

However, there are certain associated risks with staking.

For ex:

• When staking, the value of your cryptocurrency will continue to fluctuate as long as it is deposited. You will put your money in the blockchain for, sometimes, an indefinite period of time, during which the market could fall and you’ll be unable to sell.

As a solution, more and more options are emerging for staking with stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies linked to fiat money, such as dollars, and their volatility is lower.

• The reward will depend on the cryptocurrency you are staking with. Among the most used cryptocurrencies are Binance Coin, Cardano, Polkadot and Ethereum 2.0.

Overall Staking could be a great way to earn passive income with cryptocurrency that you were planning to hold for the long term anyway, as long as you don’t need to sell anytime soon.

Crypto lending

The third way of making passive income would be lending. Crypto lending is also a way to earn passive income from cryptocurrencies. You lend your crypto to other parties and get them back with corresponding interest. However, it is important to do good research here, because the risk of loss is higher with crypto lending than with staking but the reward might be worth it.

As with staking, the value of the cryptocurrencies you lend will continue to rise or fall as long as you keep them on the platform. Again, the profitability depends on the crypto asset you deposit, and, again, if you want to avoid volatility, the expert recommends using stablecoins. 

Also, the biggest risk of this system is that you are lending your money to a third party for all purposes. One of the keys to avoiding problems is to choose the platform with which it is done well. In addition to the best known, there are specialized services such as Celsius or Blockfi. 

NFTs

A better alternative to making money with cryptocurrencies could be NFTs. NFT stands for “Non-fungible Token”, a digital, unique, non-reproducible work. 

Since 2021, NFTs have primarily revolutionized the art market. There are now an extremely large number of NFT collections of digital artworks that you can buy, sell, and trade on platforms such as OpenSea.

Explore platforms like renft.io. They provide a protocol allowing NFT owners to lend their assets for a specific period and price. After the agreed time, the owner gets their assets (NFT) back.

You might ask, why would anyone do this? Well, it’s just like people rent a Lamborghini for a day to show off to their friends or even rent a Rolex for an entire month.

People could rent NFTs to display or there’s also the possibility of renting out gaming NFTs to different players as a way to level up their character. There’s also the chance to earn NFT royalties, when it changes hands in the secondary market.

In order to have a clear understanding on NFTs and to know 7 real ways to make money from NFTs, Read Here.

Overall, building a passive income with cryptocurrencies is not that difficult. You have to be aware that it takes some time and your passive income will be rather small at the beginning. 

Explore the above strategies for passive income. For many, Staking or Holding coins in an interest-bearing account is the easiest and least risky approach.

Of course, nothing is risk-free and there’s always a chance you could lose money.

However, to minimize risks, use multiple exchanges and spread your money across different places.

Consider these methods for earning passive income without active involvement. This is how I’ve generated passive income by holding onto my cryptocurrencies and staying invested.

So, how hard it is to make $100 a month in passive income from Cryptocurrencies?

The amount of money you will make with any of the options mentioned above will clearly depend on:

• Amount invested
• Choice of method- Lending/ Staking/ NFT etc.
• choice of Cryptocurrency e.g., Ether / Aave/ Bitcoin, etc.

Let’s take the example of Staking as a method, stablecoins as the chosen cryptocurrency, and $10,000 as the invested amount.

In the current scenario, you can receive an annualized yield as high as 12.3% if you stake Tether coins (USDT) or a slightly lower yield of 12% with USD Coin (USDC).

An investment of $10,000 in either of the cryptocurrencies could easily and passively generate an annual income of $1200 or $100 a month.

Besides stablecoins, there are other cryptocurrencies using the PoS consensus mechanism that offer much better yields plus the opportunity for price appreciation.

For ex. when you stake Solana (a popular PoS cryptocurrency), annualized yield can be as high as 15%. Besides, Solana’s price has risen more than 120% in the past 12 months.

Earning potential from cryptocurrencies is directly proportional to the amount of risk you can take. Before even considering this mode of passive income, you must understand the basics and risk-reward proposition of Cryptocurrencies. And believe us, there lies immense earning potential in it (and so is the risk of losing everything!)

How passive is this business as a source of income once you have set it up in the first place?

Once up, it almost runs on autopilot mode and there’s very little to do to maintain it.

Thus, depending on your investment amount, chosen method, and cryptocurrency, setting up a passive income of $100 or more per month through cryptocurrency investing is achievable.

Other Ways to Make Passive Income

There are numerous other means of making money that the internet gurus are touting to be passive in nature such as:

Tutoring,

• Advertising on your car,
• Local lead generation website,
• Selling stock photos,
• Investing in a food truck,
• Leasing equipment,
• Flipping furniture,
• Online Surveys,
• Opening an Only Fans account.
• And many more such

However, most of these may be better classified as side hustles where you trade your working hours with income i.e., no. of hours of work = XX $$ of income. In our experience, setting them up and expecting them to earn you an income passively is much tougher than thought.

Hence, we haven’t discussed them in this post. We listed only the ones we genuinely found to be passive when set up properly.

The Big Mistakes of Passive Income

One- People don’t believe it

 Anything that involves making money on autopilot on the Internet sounds like a scam or a haircut, so it’s no wonder that many people are wary of it.

Our damn mind prefers the certainty of the known, however bad, to the insecurity of the unknown.

The only thing I can tell you is that, once you’re on the passive income bandwagon, you’re continually surprised that so few people are jumping on it.

Two- People don’t act

Then there are the people who do believe it but never end up launching their project because they fear failure, and nothing seems good enough to them.

Maybe they spend months looking for the perfect theme for their blog or the most suitable niche for their website. But how you really learn is by doing, not by reading.

You may not have the best theme or niche, but you’ll only discover what really works as you work on your project. And, even if no one talks about it, you are always in time to change your business model.

Think less. Act more.

Three- People don’t get involved

Gurus often claim you can effortlessly create a passive business and live a carefree life on a beach.

Then, a legion of Followers join in on Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram, looking for tricks and formulas.

The guru shares success stories on social media, fueling the enthusiasm of fans.

However, most of them end up leaving within a few weeks. Why?

Because the guru has omitted two truths:

1. Building a source of passive income requires an initial effort
2. A passive business is never 100% passive

Before starting any of the above mentioned passive income sources, consider some crucial and practical advice:

• Try different sources of passive income

It’s like dating where until you’ve spent some time together, you won’t know whether you want to fall in love.

The plan is to find a suitable passive income source you like from what you do after hours. Till you develop the system of passive income, Keep your boss at your job happy.

• Eliminate debt

Debt is a distraction that limits your possibilities of developing a Passive Income source. A Debt will make me try harder at my job, get the bonuses, and pretend to love “my Job”.

• Build an emergency fund

Make sure you have an emergency fund that is appropriate for you.
I prefer keeping one year’s salary as a buffer. This is important for me because I tend to make more business mistakes than others.

• Invest enough time and be patient enough for the magic to occur

A passive income takes time to figure it out. It doesn’t happen in a week or a month.
Be patient. As a matter of fact, most people quit in the first year. It reminds me of the cartoon below:

Here, the miner gives up, mere inches away from hitting the treasure. Most people don’t persist because the initial few steps are difficult and have a higher risk of failure. So, stick at it for a year and you’ll do well. If you can do it for 4 years or more, you’ll likely become a millionaire. Give your passive income stint at least a year.

TL;DR Conclusion

There isn’t a magic formula for a passive income.

The trick is to have a plan and a genuine intention.

Make sure that you know what you want. Research the above list and choose a topic that sparks your interest.

Intentionally experiment with passive income sources after hours while having fun with it.

When you’ve stacked up enough income to match or even come close to your current source of income say salary, then think of replacing it.

From there, don’t dream of a life of luxury.

Build a life where you’re financially free and you are a master of your own time!

What do I do next?

Still on the fence and want to explore some other ideas, check out these articles:

Best Side Hustle Ideas for Earning Fast Money in 2023

5 Legit Ways For Passive Income from Cryptocurrencies NOW!

How to earn fast money by 2024? (It’s Simpler Than You Think!)