Last Updated on September 26, 2022 by Kel Ashley
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Passive income may appear complicated, but there are so many ways to earn passive income in 2022 that you’ll be able to find the perfect fit for your skills, commitments, goals, and passions.
Here are some of the best passive income ideas that almost anyone can use to get you started on your journey to financial independence.
1. Make an App
Creating an app could be a way to make that initial time investment and then reap the benefits in the long run. Your app could be a game or one that assists mobile users with a difficult task. Users will download your app once it is made public, and you will be able to earn money.
Pro: If you can design something that catches your audience’s interest, an app has a lot of potentials. You could run in-app ads or charge users a small fee to download the app.
Con: The most significant risk here is that you could be wasting your time. Your app may not click with the market. It is a crowded market, and genuinely successful apps must provide users with a compelling value or experience.
Check out this 10 step guide on making an app in 2022.
2. Make a Youtube Channel
Are you an expert on travel or a mobile games guru? Turn your passion into videos and create a YouTube channel. You can monetize it with ads or sponsors. You’ll need to develop a suite of content and attract an audience at first, but as you become known for your engaging content, it can provide a steady income stream.
Pro: Youtube is a free (or very low-cost) platform where you can build a following then use your excellent content to grow it. The more distinctive your voice or area of interest, the easier it will be for you to become “the” person to follow. Then you can attract sponsors to you.
Con: You’ll need to create initial content and ongoing content, which can take time.
Check out these 11 steps on how to be a successful Youtuber.
3. Create a print-on-demand store
Print on demand can be a profitable passive income idea and a way to monetize your creativity if you’re an artist, designer, or entrepreneur. It involves working with suppliers to customize white-label products such as t-shirts, posters, backpacks, or books and selling them per order.
You only pay for the product after selling it, similar to dropshipping. There is no need for bulk purchases or inventory.
Pros:
• You can create products quickly and sell them in minutes.
• Your supplier handles shipping and fulfillment.
• You can automate many marketing and sales processes once your store is running.
Cons:
• Reduced profit margins. Because print-on-demand companies handle all aspects of shipping, packaging, and selling, they will take a larger percentage of the profit and pay you a commission for the product sold.
• Product types and quality. While creating your art, designs, and products, ensure that the print-on-demand service you choose prioritizes quality. Some print-on-demand companies are only concerned with the bottom line, and quality suffers. This can hurt your art business and sales. Conduct research to determine which companies offer the highest quality printing. Examine the quality of their website as well as their customer service department.
Check out these ten steps you need to take before starting a print-on-demand business.
4. Start a Dropshipping Business
Dropshipping is one of the best ways to start earning money anywhere, even if you don’t have a lot of money. This business entails setting up an eCommerce store where customers can browse and purchase products.
Pros:
• You don’t have to see the products you sell physically.
• Your supplier handles everything from manufacturing to packaging to fulfillment when you use dropshipping.
• There’s also less cash risk because you don’t have to send money to your supplier until your customers pay.
• There are several platforms you can use to find trending products in different niches to sell in your store.
• Depending on the product you choose and your pricing, you can earn solid passive income and learn how to run an eCommerce business
Cons:
• Even though you don’t carry the cost of warehousing stock, you will pay for dissatisfied customers. The manufacturers and wholesalers you do business with are responsible for managing and shipping your stock. If they screw up, the customer complains to you or buys from your competitor.
• You don’t control your supplier’s inventory. If they run out of stock, YOU run out of stock. This will result in longer lead times and lost customers.
• The hidden “cost” of dropshipping is the lack of bulk pricing. You will likely pay more for each item you sell as compared to paying less for a large inventory of items – leading to less profit.
Check out this great article on how to start a dropshipping business.
5. Sell Digital Products
Digital products are assets or media pieces that consumers cannot physically touch. These include files that can be downloaded or streamed, such as Kindle books, templates, plug-ins, or PDFs. Because of their high-profit margins, digital products make excellent passive income streams. You only need to create the asset once, and you can sell it multiple times online. There is no need for storage or inventory.
Pros:
• No storage space and cost. Because digital products are intangible (they cannot be touched), they do not require storage space. It will only take up space on your hard drive.
• No inventory shortage. If you make hundreds or even thousands of sales, you’ll never have to worry about running out of stock. You also avoid the hassle of updating inventory after a sale.
• No shipping hassle. Customers will purchase products in downloads, so digital products do not include any tangible products. As a result, it eliminates the need to deal with shipping issues.
Cons:
• Maintenance. When dealing with digital products, you must always keep your server up and running. If your server is down, your customer will have to wait until the system is back up and running. As a result, the concept of selling digital products will entail significant server maintenance costs.
• Competition. Selling digital products is an excellent way to make money, so many people are getting into it. With increased competition, digital business owners are seen listing their products at the lowest possible price to gain a competitive advantage.
• Ideas can be copied. Your offering may be unique, not until when they are up on the web for sale. Whether it’s an e-book, video, or music file – the basic idea of the product can be copied easily. This, again, can lead to more competition for your same product line over the web.
6. Create an online course and sell it
It’s easier than ever to sell courses online. Whether it’s marketing, illustration, or entrepreneurship, you can create courses and start selling them. You can sell online courses repeatedly without holding any inventory or stock like digital products.
Pros:
• Very low startup costs compared to other online businesses.
• Earn money, either on the side or (eventually) as your primary source of income.
• Work on things that you’re passionate about, rather than things assigned to you.
Cons:
• You have to learn how to create effective course content that delivers results
• You need to study how to market and sell your course to an audience
• Although startup costs are low, you still need to invest time into building your course
Check out this beginner’s guide to a profitable online course business.
7. Start a Blogging Business
Starting a blog can be a challenging venture, but it’s an industry that’s becoming more successful as a passive income stream. You don’t need to be an internet celebrity anymore to earn money online. All you have to do is find your people on one or two platforms, then send them to your website. It takes a little bit of time to build a blog. But if you create quality content and promote it through your platforms, you’ll build an audience big enough to monetize.
Pros:
• Straightforward Income Opportunity. Blogging is pretty straightforward. To make money with blogging, you can simply start creating content and learn on the fly. You can try many marketing tests to see what works and what doesn’t work.
• Low Startup Costs. There are no barriers to entry. Anyone can start based on whatever idea they want.
• Worldwide Audience. A blog can serve as a megaphone for your voice. It can bring you closer to people you’ve never met before but love learning from your perspectives and stories.
Cons:
• Time Consuming. To find success with your blog, you need to put in the work. You are going to need to put in significant work to achieve success.
• Requires Significant Patience. To find success, you’ll likely need to have the patience to see your traffic compound over time.
• Requires Significant Persistence. With blogging, you will need to be persistent as can be. You may not get your time to shine for months or even a year. You can’t stop or quit. You’ll need to continue to stay active no matter what.
Check out this great article on starting a successful blog in 2022.
8. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing involves recommending a product or service to an audience. It’s a great source of passive income because you earn a commission whenever someone uses your referral link to buy the recommended product or service. With affiliate marketing, website owners, social media “influencers,” or bloggers promote a third party’s product by including a link to the product on their site or social media account. You could also consider growing an email list to draw attention to your blog or otherwise direct people to products and services that they might want.
Pros:
• It’s easy to execute. You just handle the marketing side of things. The brand will develop products and fulfill orders.
• It’s low risk. There’s no cost to join an affiliate program. You can sell established profits without any upfront financial investment. You’ll have to invest time in creating traffic sources, so more people click on your links. Once that’s set up, you can earn relatively passive income through commissions.
• It’s scalable. Affiliate marketers typically don’t hire extra help. You can introduce new products to an audience and create campaigns while your past work makes money in the background.
Cons:
• It Takes Awhile To Get Established. Affiliate marketing is not a solution if you need money quickly. It is a LONG TERM business strategy.
• You May Run Into Bad Affiliate Partnerships. Not every affiliate partner will be a good partner. Sometimes your affiliate partner will decide not to pay you for your work or may even change leadership or go out of business.
• You Have No Control Over Pricing Or Commissions. You usually can’t negotiate product pricing. This also ties into having very little control over commission rates, which the company often sets.
Check out this beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing.
If you’re ready to start your affiliate marketing business in a super simple way (seriously, if you can order a pizza, you can follow this system!) check it out here.
9. Sell Stock Photos Online
If you’re a full-time photographer or own a good camera, you can create an extra revenue stream by selling photos online. Stock photo sites like Pexels, Shutterstock, and other online media houses will pay for high-quality photos and videos.
To get started, you’ll have to be approved by the platform, and then you license your photos to be used by whoever downloads them. The platform then pays you every time someone uses your photo. You’ll need photos that appeal to a specific audience or represent a particular scene, and you’ll need to tease out where the demand is. Photos could be shots with models, landscapes, creative scenarios, and more, or they could capture real events that might make the news.
Pros:
• Wide client base. Stock photography sites have a wide base of clients who buy photos from them regularly.
• International reach. Millions of people can access, see, and buy your photos! You don’t need to speak their languages or contact them. They will find you through the stock websites.
• Passive source of income. Even if you don’t work one day, a week, months, or more, they will work for you once you have your pictures there.
Cons:
• Low price. Most of the stock photography websites pay a low commission per image sold. It is usually about 15% of the sales they make. This percentage can be higher if you give exclusive rights to sell your photos on a particular stock site.
• Strict requirements to become a contributor. Stock photography platforms are getting stricter when accepting you as a contributor. It would help if you had a decent camera, and your photos must be technically perfect. Also, it takes time to get accepted, so you need to be patient and wait for the answer.
• Slow income growth in the beginning. Your income grows with the number of pictures in your portfolio. In the beginning, many people get disappointed and stop uploading photos because they don’t sell anything or they make very little money.
10. Be a Social Media Influencer
Do you have a strong following on social media such as Instagram or TikTok? Get growing consumer brands to pay you to post about their product or feature it in your feed. You’ll need to keep filling your profile with content that draws in your audience. And that means continuing to create posts that grow your reach and engage your followers on social media.
Pros:
• Opportunity to Work With Awesome Brands. Once you are recognized as an influencer, it allows you to build and strengthen your relationships with the brands from your niche.
• Turn Your Passion into a Profession. You could be your own boss. You could set your own working hours. The freedom to work on your own terms is probably the best advantage of being an influencer.
• Use Your Success to Inspire People and Make a Difference. You can leverage your success and voice to talk about real issues like climate change, gender equality, health, or education to increase awareness among your audience.
Cons:
• Career Uncertainty. One small wrong move and your career as an influencer can be over. So, being an influencer doesn’t guarantee job security.
• Internet Bullies and Faceless Haters. Influencers put themselves out on social media and often share their insecurities with their loyal followers. The chances of them getting attacked by internet haters and bullies are higher than others.
Check out these seven easy steps to becoming a social media influencer today.
If you’re eager to break free by starting your own profitable business but don’t know how, our plan will show you – get it here now!
Hey! If you liked this article you might also be interested in these other popular related posts:
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