Best Passive Income Ideas to Earn More Money

Looking for the best passive income ideas to get some extra cash in your pocket?

We’ve got you covered.

Getting regular cash flow is crucial for keeping your business going. But even as individuals, it’s important to have multiple income sources apart from salary. And that’s where passive income comes into play.

This is an income for which you don’t necessarily have to put active effort. And that comes in very handy as you don’t have to put a lot of extra effort into generating the additional income.

And the best part?

It helps you sustain even in the event that your primary income source gets delayed or stops completely.

Passive income is quite popular among all generations. Around 36% of U.S. adults supplement their primary income with passive incomes from side hustles to meet different purposes.

Image via Bankrate

So, how should you generate a healthy passive income?

Let’s find out some of the best passive income ideas you can get started on.

What Is Passive Income?

Passive income is money earned with little to no effort required. As opposed to active income or regular work which needs constant work, passive income streams, once set up, can generate earnings over time.

There are different types of passive income. Some are investment-based, like dividends from stocks or rental properties. Others are asset-based, such as books, online courses, or digital products.

The key to passive income is that it requires minimal ongoing work. However, this doesn’t mean no effort at all. Most passive income streams need time, money, or skill to start. With many of the best passive income ideas, you can start small but grow with time.

Factors to Consider in Choosing The Best Passive Income Ideas

Not all passive income ideas are the right fit for you. The best option might depend on your resources, skills, or even long-term goals. Before committing to any opportunity, consider these key factors:

Initial Investment and Ongoing Costs: Some passive income ideas, such as buying a rental property or investing in dividend-paying stocks, require a substantial upfront investment. Others like maintaining a blog or ecommerce store require ongoing costs, such as maintenance, management, or social media marketing expenses.

It’s important to evaluate whether you can afford these costs without financial strain. A smart choice is one that fits your budget while offering a reasonable return over time.

Upfront Time and Effort Required: Consider how much time you’re willing to invest upfront and in the long run. Picking an idea that demands too much time may turn it into an active job rather than passive income. The best passive income ideas are those that require minimal hands-on effort once set up.

Skills and Knowledge Required: Certain opportunities may require specific skills or knowledge to be successful. If you lack the expertise, you may need to invest time in learning before you can start earning. Choosing an idea that aligns with your existing skills reduces the learning curve. If you’re willing to learn, factor in how long it will take to become proficient.

Market Demand and Sustainability: A passive income idea is only profitable if there is demand for it. Some trends fade over time, while others stay relevant for years. So research the market to consider the best passive income ideas that will remain valuable. A good idea should have a steady or growing demand, ensuring long-term income potential.

17 Best Passive Income Ideas You Should Try

Here are some of the best passive income ideas that you can use to generate a handy passive income and get your cash flow going.

1. Look for Passive Income Apps

You don’t necessarily need to build something from scratch to create a passive income stream. With the right passive income apps, the process can be greatly simplified.

But what are passive income apps?

They’re essentially apps that can help you generate passive income by doing certain tasks. But here’s the thing—these tasks will typically be ones that you already do. So, you won’t really have to take out spare time to do them. If you're looking for the best passive income ideas with a minimal learning curve, using these apps is a great starting point.

For instance, there are apps that give you some extra cash to listen to songs. Similarly, others will round off your payments to the nearest dollar and invest that money to help you build up a significant corpus. For best results, use multiple apps and determine which ones give you the best results.

2. Sell Digital Products

One of the best passive income ideas is to sell digital products. This passive income strategy is pretty convenient as you don’t need to have a huge capital to build and sell these products.

Instead, you just need to invest some time into creating digital assets like engaging graphics, digital arts, ebooks, and others in an area where you have some expertise.

For instance, you could write ebooks and sell them on Amazon. Similarly, you could create a tell-all course and sell that on sites like Udemy. Every purchase would give you some commission.

By scaling your sales, you could easily get a decent stream of passive income flowing into your account.

3. Create a YouTube Channel

Yet another passive income idea that’s quite useful is to start a YouTube Channel. YouTube has over 2.53 billion monthly active users, and that makes it a great platform to reach a vast audience through your videos.

Image via We Are Social

You can start publishing videos on the platform to build brand awareness and start gaining subscribers for your channel. Once your channel gets over 1000 subscribers and your content gets watched for over 4000 hours in the past year, you can start using ad monetization. This way, you’ll get a chunk of ad revenue for each view your video gets, making it one of the best passive income ideas to consider.

Additionally, you can tie up with brands and invest in YouTube influencer marketing with your videos. You can give them a shoutout in your video and talk about their products for a short duration. In return, you can get sponsorship fees from the brand.

As your YouTube Channel grows, so will your passive income from the platform. However, this passive income idea requires consistent effort for the best results. You’ll also take time to reach the monetization mark.

4. Make Financial Investments

Investing your money is one of the best ways to generate passive income and grow your wealth over time. All you need to do is find the right place to invest your money, and it’ll start growing.

For starters, you could open a high-yield savings account. Such an account will pay you quarterly interest on the balance you maintain in it. You could also put your money in fixed deposits.

Alternatively, you could invest in government bonds and get paid a fixed interest rate based on the bond duration. It’s a great way to generate stable passive income from your investments.

But if you’re open to more examples of the best passive income ideas, you could consider investing in the stock market. You could opt for high-dividend-yielding stocks or mutual funds to get good returns on your investments every time the company performs well. It’s also a great idea to invest in index funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and stocks of fundamentally strong companies to see your wealth grow. You can sell these investments.

5. Leverage Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can quickly turn into a useful passive income stream for you. If you’ve got a sizable audience online that follows your content and trusts you, then this is one of the best passive income ideas you can use.

Start by finding a brand that offers an affiliate marketing program. Ideally, the brand should sell products related to the sort of content you create so you can smoothly integrate them into your content.

Once you sign up for the affiliate program, you can start promoting the products through your dedicated affiliate links. For every person who purchases using your affiliate link, you’ll get a commission.

The best part about Instagram or Facebook affiliate marketing is that it doesn’t cost you anything. And as your audience grows, you can scale your passive income with it, which makes affiliate marketing one of the best passive income ideas that require minimal involvement.

Here’s an example of an affiliate post by Sherri, an influencer.

Image via Instagram

6. Create a Blog

Blogging is yet another passive income idea that can help you build a sustainable income stream. You can create a blog in a niche that interests you. Start publishing high-quality informational blog posts on your blog to start building a loyal readership. Optimizing your blog posts for SEO, like writing relevant SEO headlines and content, can help you reach a large audience through search engines.

Once you’ve built up a sizable following, you can start monetizing your blog. Some of the ways you can do this include:

Insert ads on your website through platforms like Google Ads.
Use affiliate marketing to drive more passive income.
Write sponsored blog posts to generate more passive income.
Sell your own products by connecting an ecommerce store with it.

The best part about blogging is that you don’t need any technical skills to get started. There are numerous drag-and-drop blog builders available out there to help you create your blog with ease. So this is one of the best passive income ideas that doesnt require you to have prior experience.

7. Become a Dropshipper

If you want to enter the world of ecommerce but don’t want to create and sell your own products, dropshipping is the way to go. It is among the best passive income ideas you can start. It’s also one of the low-risk businesses. In this method, you only serve as a conduit connecting customers to suppliers.

You can connect with the best suppliers and list their products in your store. Whenever a customer purchases a product, you can send the order directly to the supplier, who’ll then work to fulfill the order.

In return, you’ll get a cut from the sale amount. The only effort you need to make is to connect with the suppliers and build your store. Everything else runs on autopilot, enabling you to make a sizable income from this passive income idea.

Here’s a dropshipping store selling cat goodies.

Image via Meowingtons

8. Rent Out Your Car

If you’ve got a car that’s lying unused for most of the week, one of the best passive income ideas you can start is to rent it out to those who need it. You can get a rental permit for your car and then list it on various car rental websites.

Every time someone rents your car, you’ll get the rent for it. The more you rent out your car, the greater your passive income will be. It’s also the best way to reduce your car’s mortgage amount, as you’d be making money from the vehicle too.

This passive income idea can become even better if you give your car to someone who needs a car for Uber or Lyft, as it can guarantee consistent rental income.

9. Invest in Real Estate

Investing in real estate assets is aong the best passive income ideas you can try. If you’ve got a good sum of money lying in your account, you could consider purchasing a property and renting it out. This will give you a consistent rental income every month. Alternatively, you could list it on a platform like Airbnb for holiday rentals.

But what if you don’t have a huge budget for upfront investment?

Well, you can still invest in real estate. One idea is to invest in REITs (real estate investment trusts). This way, you’ll own only a small part of the real estate asset and get paid dividends based on your investment. As your investment in REITs grows, you’ll see bigger dividends that could even supplement your primary income source.

Yet another idea is to rent out your home for short durations. For instance, if you’re heading out for a vacation, you could list your home on Airbnb. This way, you’ll generate passive income while holidaying. If you’ve got additional rooms in your home, you could give those on rent as well.

10. Sell Designs Online

Much like digital products, one example of the best passive income ideas is to sell designs online. If you’ve got a creative mind and a knack for making catchy digital designs, this idea is for you. You can create a bunch of digital design assets like website themes using website builders, as well as logos, templates, and even fonts. These can then be sold on websites like ThemeForest and 99designs.

Alternatively, you could make hand-drawn designs and list them on Etsy as well. You can ship these designs to the customers whenever they make a purchase and earn a decent passive income. You could also do this with digital designs, as they wouldn’t require you to ship the product manually.

Image via Etsy

11. Advertise On Your Car

While renting out your car is one of the best passive income ideas for earning passive income, you can make even more money through it by turning it into a billboard.

You can connect with brands that want to advertise their products or services locally and offer your car as a spot where they can put their ads up.

This idea works especially well when you’re renting out the car, as you get both the rental income as well as a consistent monthly fee for putting up the advertisements on your car.

However, make sure you connect only with trusted brands for advertising.

12. Sell Stock Images

This is among the best passive income ideas for photographers looking to make money from their work. Whenever you head out and click photos, you can list them on stock photo websites like Shutterstock and Alamy.

The watermarked images will be visible to everyone on these platforms, and they can then purchase the stock images if they want to use them. For every purchase, you’ll get a commission, which would vary based on the use case and fee paid by the buyer.

By regularly putting your stock images up for sale, you can slowly build a sustainable passive income stream from this idea.

13. Become an Influencer

You could also get on the influencer marketing bandwagon and build a loyal audience on social media. Once you become an influencer, you can start monetizing it by connecting with brands that want to market to your audience.

Based on your deal, you could follow influencer marketing trends by either doing sponsored posts, shoppable posts, affiliate marketing, or even Instagram takeovers. You’d get paid for each of these based on the size of your follower base. Once your following grows, you might get loads of such branded deals, and that’s why this is among the best passive income ideas.

For instance, Alyssa Lynch is an Instagram influencer with over 600K followers.

Image via Instagram

14. Create Audiobooks

One of the best ideas for generating passive income is creating audiobooks. Once you can prove your worth in reading books well, you could start using this method to earn passive income.

Audiobook narrators get paid royalties for each audiobook that’s purchased. Once you can break into the industry, you can start generating consistent income, which is why it's one of the best passive income ideas to explore.

15. Peer-to-Peer Lending

If you’ve got a higher risk appetite, this is one of the best passive income ideas. You can lend money to other people at a higher interest rate. The increased returns will help you generate solid passive income streams.

There are numerous peer lending platforms like LendingClub and Prosper that can facilitate this lending. Due to the higher risk, the returns will be pretty lucrative for you with this passive income idea.

16. Monetize a Mobile App

Creating and monetizing a mobile app is one of the best passive income ideas for tech-savvy individuals.

If you build a useful or entertaining app, it can generate income for years. And there are several ways to monetize an app, including ads, in-app purchases, and subscriptions.

The first step is finding a niche. Your app should solve a problem or entertain users better than existing options. It can be a payment app, an information search tool, or a gaming app. Regardless of the type, the best apps typically attract regular users who return frequently. With increased engagement, you can generate more ad revenue or subscriptions.

After launching your app, focus on App Store Optimization (ASO). This will help users discover your app organically. Encourage reviews and keep updating features based on feedback. The more downloads and engagement your app gets, the more money you earn.

You can also explore sponsorships and partnerships with different influencers. If your app has a strong user base, brands may be willing to pay to advertise within it. This adds another income stream beyond in-app purchases and ads.

17. Buy and Sell Domain Names

Next on the list of the best passive income ideas you can try is buying and selling of domain names, and this idea is for those who understand online trends.

Many businesses and entrepreneurs are willing to pay high prices for the right name. If you invest wisely in buying a domain name when it has less value, a single sale when it is in demand can bring in thousands of dollars.

The first step is researching valuable domain names. Short, memorable, and keyword-rich domains sell the best. Keep an eye on trending topics and emerging industries; they can be goldmines for the right domain.

Once you own a domain, you can list it for sale on marketplaces like GoDaddy, Flippa, or Sedo. Setting the right price is important. Some domains sell quickly, while others take time to attract the right buyer.

FAQ

Q1. How to make $1,000 a month passively?

A. To make $1,000 every month, some of the best passive income ideas you can try include:

Using passive income apps
Renting out your real estate property
Renting your car
Creating a blog and monetizing it
Using affiliate marketing
Selling stock images

Hitting the $1,000 mark is relatively easy as it’s an achievable amount. It might be possible to even use just one of the above methods to reach this goal.

Q2. How to make $2,000 a month passive?

A. Making $2,000 in passive income is a slightly bigger challenge as you’d need to consistently generate revenue from the ideas you implement. Some of the best ideas that can help include:

Renting out your real estate property
Making substantial financial investments
Using affiliate marketing with a large audience base
Renting your car out for numerous days and advertising on it

Q3. How to make $100,000 per year in passive income?

A. If you intend to make $100,000 per year in passive income, the ideas you implement should help you make at least $8,000 every month. This would involve more effort from your end or greater financial investments. Some of the best ideas you can try include:

Rent out your property
Use affiliate marketing with a large audience
Run a dropshipping business and build high traffic
Scale your YouTube Channel to massive proportions
Make sizable financial investments in high-dividend stocks
Sell numerous high-value digital products
Become a mega influencer

Q4. What is the easiest online passive income?

A. You can follow these best passive income ideas for easy online income generation:

Use passive income apps
Sell digital products
Create a blog or YouTube Channel
Sell designs online
Make financial investments
Invest in REITs
Become an influencer
Use affiliate marketing
Become a dropshipper
Create audiobooks

Q5. What are the best passive income ideas?

A. The best passive income ideas you can implement to supplement your income are:

Look for passive income apps
Sell digital products
Create a YouTube channel
Make financial investments
Leverage affiliate marketing
Create a blog
Become a dropshipper
Rent out your car
Invest in real estate
Sell designs online
Advertise on your car
Sell stock images
Become an influencer
Create audiobooks
Peer-to-peer lending
Monetize a mobile app
Buy and sell domain names

Start Diversification with These Best Passive Income Ideas

Passive incomes can put extra cash in your pockets, helping you elevate your disposable income. They also help you during times of crisis when your primary income source gets cut off.

By implementing one or more of the best passive income ideas outlined in this post, you can start your journey toward income diversification.

With consistent effort, you’ll be able to scale your passive income, and potentially even reach a stage where it can match your primary income source.

The key is to keep experimenting and finding the right mix that’ll work for you. One of the easiest ways to get started? You can launch your affiliate marketing journey with minimal investment by using Attrock’s affiliate services. All the best!