Tired of trading your time for dollars?
Building passive income streams from home can be a great way to pad your savings account, keep up with inflation, and free up time so you can do more of the things you’re truly passionate about.
From digital products to starting a profitable blogging business and investing in rental properties, there are countless ways you can make money from home — even while you sleep!
In this blog post, we’ll dive into some ideas for income-producing assets to get you started. We’ll also discuss how much you can realistically expect to generate with passive income.
What Is Passive Income?
Passive income is extra cash earned from a source other than a typical employer. The real kicker? It doesn’t require you to actively participate to earn.
If you’re someone who works for an hourly wage, the primary benefit of a passive income stream is that it offers you a way of making more money without working more hours. Sounds pretty sweet, right?
Not only that, but many passive income streams can be managed from anywhere. This means you’re not tied down to any specific location. You’ll have the freedom to travel and pursue your other interests.
So what kinds of opportunities can create passive income? Well, according to the internal revenue service (IRS), it comes from two primary sources:
- Rental properties
- A business that doesn’t require active participation from the earner
While this all might sound too good to be true, passive income isn’t really the get-rich-quick scheme it’s often made out to be.
Passive income streams often require a significant initial investment. And you’ll likely need to spend some time on regular maintenance to keep the money flowing.
While it’s not a magic bean solution to your financial woes, passive income can be a great way to work towards financial freedom if you stay committed to it.
11 Remote Passive Income Ideas to Increase Your Cash Flow
1. Start A Blog
If you like to write or you have a passion for a particular subject, starting a blog can be a rewarding and profitable side hustle to start. Once you’ve done the hard work to get it set up initially, you can write blog posts and promote them in your pajamas.
The great thing about an online business like a blog is that there are so many opportunities for monetization in the more profitable niches.
You can generate income through affiliate marketing, ad revenue from ad networks, online courses, or ebooks. All of these are passive income streams, requiring little active involvement once they’re set up.
And the best part? A blog requires very minimum investment upfront.
A domain and hosting only cost a few bucks per month, and the income potential is practically limitless once you have significant traffic.
2. Start A YouTube Channel
If writing isn’t really your thing, YouTube is a similar avenue to earn passive income from home.
You don’t even need a professional camera to get started, so it requires little upfront investment.
If you already have a smartphone, you can use it to film your first few YouTube videos, making this a side hustle with one of the lowest barriers to entry.
Similar to blogging, you’ll have to spend some time upfront to build a bank of quality content to start getting views.
Once you reach 1,000 subscribers and get 4,000 watch hours on your videos, you’ll be able to monetize your channel with the YouTube Partner Program — meaning you’ll earn passive income from ads on your videos when people watch.
3. Affiliate Marketing on Social Media
An affiliate marketing business involves promoting other people’s products through links. When people click your links and make a purchase, you’ll earn a commission (at no extra cost to them) from the sale.
While affiliate marketing is one of the most common monetization methods for bloggers and YouTubers, you don’t necessarily need your own platform to start.
Many influencers promote affiliate links on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Affiliate link commissions typically range from 10 to 30 percent and they add up over time. If you’re someone who has a decent social media following, a lot of your favorite brands probably have an affiliate program you can join.
4. Sell Digital Designs
If you have an eye for design, selling digital products is one of the best ways to earn money from home.
You can build designs in Canva and then sell them through a platform like Etsy or Creative Market.
If you’re scratching your head wondering what kinds of digital designs will generate income, here are a few popular examples:
- Logo templates
- Branding kits
- Social media post templates
- Digital planners
- Digital stickers
Another option is to create and sell products through a print-on-demand service like Redbubble or Society6. You upload designs to these platforms and then people can purchase them on various products like t-shirts and mugs.
5. Build & Sell Spreadsheets
Even if you’re not design-minded, you can still make extra money from the comfort of your home with digital products. How? One way is by selling pre-made Excel or Google Sheets templates.
Specifically, there’s a market for templates like:
- Budgeting spreadsheets
- Financial analysis spreadsheets
- Project management spreadsheets
- Inventory management spreadsheets
- Goal tracking spreadsheets
- Productivity tracking spreadsheets
You may already have some spreadsheets for personal use (like budgeting) that you can spiff up and start selling.
After building these templates, you can then offer them as digital downloads on a platform like Etsy or Gumroad and sell them again and again.
6. Sell Stock Photos
Have a knack for photography? If so, selling your work online can be a great passive income job.
While it typically requires a financial investment for equipment like DSLRs, it can be easily-scalable if you’re able to sell the same images over and over again.
To get started, you’ll need to sign up and be approved for a platform like Shutterstock, Getty Images, or iStock. Then, you’ll upload the photos you take and license them to be used by whoever downloads them.
You’ll earn royalties from stock photo sites whenever your photos are downloaded.
The key to making money with stock photography is taking high-quality images that appeal to a specific audience. Think about what types of stock images people are most likely to download — unfortunately, it’s probably not a photo of your dog (no matter how sweet he may be).
7. Create an Online Course
One of the most popular passive income opportunities is creating a high-end video or audio course in your free time.
If you have a unique skill, you can teach it to others using a platform like Teachable, Coursera, or Udemy.
According to Podia, the average price for an online course is around $137. So let’s say you create an online course and make around one sale per week. That would be over $500 in passive income each month!
While this may sound like a dream opportunity, it’s important to keep in mind that online courses often require significant marketing efforts in order to do well.
Plus, you’ll have to provide customer support for your students and make regular updates to the course to keep it relevant.
8. Write an Ebook
If you’re a natural born writer who can more often than not be found at your keyboard, an ebook is one of the best passive income ideas.
With the rise of self-publishing, many of the barriers to entry created by the traditional publishing industry are no longer relevant. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing makes it easier than ever to get your work out there.
Even if you’re not an aspiring novelist, you can create a short ebook with 50-100 pages about a topic or niche area you’re knowledgeable in.
Consider that the average self-published book sells around 250 copies. Say you write a 75-page ebook priced at $5. If you sell 250 copies, you’ll have made $1250 in passive income.
And, if you make the effort to market and promote it, you’ll likely be able to sell more copies than that.
9. Rent Out Your Vehicle or Parking Space
Rental income and rental properties are some of the best ways to make money passively.
While renting out your car might not be the first thing that comes to mind, it can make for a good stream of passive income, especially if you don’t use it much.
Believe it or not, there are actually services out there that can handle the logistics and streamline the whole process for you, such as Getaround and Turo.
If you’re not so comfortable with the idea of renting out your vehicle, you might be able to rent out your parking space if you live in an area that gets a lot of tourist traffic. This is a lower-risk passive income idea to make some cash without lifting a finger.
10. Rent Out Household Items
Like the idea of renting out your vehicle, but aren’t so sure if you’re willing to take on the risk? Start small by renting out your household items that are taking up much-needed storage space.
Ideally, you’ll want to rent stuff that’s high-value and offers a short-term use for people. This includes things like:
- Power tools
- Lawn mowers
- Camping gear
- Photography gear
Think about what items you have that other people could use but might not necessarily want to buy.
While this is a relatively simple way to make some passive cash, you’ll have to accept that there’s always the possibility that your items will end up lost, damaged, or even stolen.
11. Invest In The Stock Market
Investing in the stock market can be an excellent way to generate passive income, but it does require some knowledge.
There are a couple different avenues you can take with this passive income strategy:
- Dividend stocks: These are stocks that pay out cash dividends to their shareholders on a regular basis.
- Exchange-traded funds (ETFs): These funds can offer a low-cost way to invest in the market without having to select individual stocks.
While investing in the stock market can be a great way to passively grow your wealth, it does carry an inherent level of risk. That’s why we always recommend reaching out to a financial advisor to discuss investment decisions before jumping in.
How Much Money Can I Earn From Home With Passive Income?
The amount of extra income you can earn depends on a few key factors: whether or not you have money to invest, the time and effort you’re willing to put into it, and the type of passive income stream(s) you choose to build.
There’s no tried-and-true formula for determining earning potential, but in general, the more you put into it, the more you can expect to get out of it.
If you’re curious, here are a few real-life examples of how much it’s possible to make with passive income if you dream big:
- Jon Dykstra from Fat Stacks earns around $50K per month from his portfolio of content sites (aka blogs).
- Lifestyle YouTuber Cathrin Manning reported that she made over $300K in 2021 from affiliate marketing and YouTube ads.
- Emeshe, owner of the Etsy shop AdventurePrintables, made $444 in January of 2023 selling digital products.
- Landlords in the U.S. average $73,406 per year from rental property income in 2023.
While these stats may sound encouraging, it’s important to note that these are some of the biggest success stories. These individuals put a lot of time and effort into growing their income streams in order to reach the level of success they’re at today.
That said, they’re a glimpse of what you can aspire to if you stay motivated and committed to the process.
The Bottom Line on Passive Income Jobs From Home
While passive income isn’t easy money or a magic solution to your financial worries, it can be an excellent way to start building wealth from the comfort of your home.
The best advice we can give anyone interested in generating passive income streams is to start now.
Most of the passive income jobs we mentioned in this article start off slow, but become more and more profitable over time. So the sooner you get started building your passive income streams, the sooner you’ll start to reap the benefits.
