What are the best side hustles for tech workers?

If you’re looking to translate your in-demand skills into an extra income stream, you’re in the right place.

In this post, I’ll share my top tech side hustles based on:

My 15+ years of side hustle experience
Conversations with real tech workers
Schedule flexibility and earning power

Even though tech workers earn an average of $111,000 a year, a side hustle can still be a way to boost your savings, improve cash flow, or pay down debt.

Ready? Let’s do it!

1. Part-Time Remote Work

If you are looking for a tech side hustle, your easiest and fastest option may be to pick up some flexible, part-time work. You’ve got in-demand skills and other companies are looking for your expertise.

This is where FlexJobs comes in — it’s the leading work-from-home jobs site.

FlexJobs has over 50 career categories, including:

Computer and IT Jobs
Engineering Jobs
Science Jobs
Software Development Jobs
Web Design Jobs
and many more

And you can filter specifically for the roles that are freelance, part-time, or flexible schedules.

2. Real Estate Investing

A common question from IT professionals is where to invest their money. It’s the “how can I get paid over and over again from work I do once?” question. 

And a common answer is real estate. My friend who works at Google is a prime example of this, taking a portion of his salary and buying rental properties.

But houses are expensive — and like any landlord will tell you — they still require maintenance and attention.

Thankfully, new platforms like Arrived make it easy to invest in hands-off income-generating properties—with as little as $100.

The company pools money to buy rental properties, manages them, and then distributes the cash flow every month.

3. Web Design Service

You might be surprised, but many businesses have a really outdated-looking site — or they don’t have one at all.

If you don’t have web design skills, it’s easy to learn, especially if you have a tech background.

My advice: pick a niche to specialize in, and become the go-to provider for businesses in that space.

For example, Ryan Golgosky from 180sites.com primarily builds sites for pressure-washing companies. (Really!)

When we spoke, he shared how this strategy — and a unique pricing plan — built his web design business to $100,000 a month.

4. Build a Helpful Website

While building websites for clients is a great tech side hustle, it may be even better to build one for yourself.

Now to be totally upfront, there’s a lot to learn to make this business work, but when it does, it can be extremely lucrative.

For example:

Scott earns 6-figures a year from his bird-watching blog
Shelley earns $50k a month from her travel blogs
Andrew earned over $1.2M from his gift ideas site

Their sites are monetized with advertising and affiliate partnerships, which scale as your traffic increases.

Want to start a blog of your own? Check out my free 6-part video course on how to start your own site.

5. Tutoring

With a nationwide focus on STEM curriculum, tech workers are well-positioned to tutor students in these subjects. 

I’ve met IT professionals — including my neighbor who works at Amazon — tutoring math, science, and coding on the side. And because these are sought-after fields, they command rates of $50 an hour and up.

Platforms like Tutor.com and Wyzant can help connect you with students.

6. Teach an Online Class

While one-to-one tutoring can be rewarding and even pretty lucrative, it’s still trading time for money. One side hustle with a little more scale is to teach an online group class through a platform like Outschool.

The peer-to-peer education marketplace focuses on students ages 3-18, and has courses on nearly every topic imaginable. On The Side Hustle Show, Jade Weatherington shared how she was earning $10,000 a month on the platform, primarily teaching middle school English writing classes.

I even connected with an Outschool teacher with a series of popular video game classes!

You could teach a class on the tech skills you have or on any topic in which you have expertise.

7. Prompt Engineering

AI tools are popping up all over the place. If you have an interest in AI, this could be a great tech side hustle for you.

AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney spit out whatever prompt you give it, but the results vary greatly. For example, if you ask Midjourney to give you an image of a wolf in the forest, you’ll get different images of a wolf in the forest.

But if you asked Midjourney for a wolf in the forest in the style of Synthwave with colors X, Y, and Z, you’ll likely end up with better, cooler-looking results that are closer to what you’re looking for. That’s the type of prompt that people apparently pay good money for.

Marketplaces like PromptBase have already sprouted up to give people a place to buy and sell their AI prompts!

8. Software Consulting

Is there a software tool you’re an expert in? One you’re an early adopter of?

One popular side hustle is to “piggyback” on the popularity of a particular software tool, and provide training and support for it. My friend Brad Rice does this with Salesforce and earns over $200k a year part time!

As more people and companies use the software, there’s a growing demand for qualified training. This could be the perfect compliment to your tech job.

Plus, new software comes out all the time, which means even if you don’t have a software in mind today, it could be a side hustle idea for you down the road.

Check out this free challenge to see if a similar path is right for you:

9. White Label Software

Software businesses are some of the most profitable in the world, but it’s tricky to try and create your own software from scratch.

The alternative is to become a software reseller, like Chris Lollini. The self-proclaimed “recovering engineer” reported earning multi 6-figures a year white labeling reputation management software to local small businesses.

How it works is you buy “seats” to a software product at a discounted or wholesale rate, and resell them at retail prices. Start with an industry you’re familiar with and see what common pain points could be solved with existing software tools.

The advantage of this tech side hustle is you have almost no upfront risk or expense.

10. Online Focus Groups and Paid Market Research

Sites like User Interviews and Respondent help match you up with paid research studies online—and often pay $100+ an hour!

While there are some “general population” studies, most are geared toward industry professionals—perfect for people who work in tech.

The company takes a 5% processing fee, but the rest of the funds you earn will hit your PayPal account within 8-10 days of your study.

I’ve earned $395 through Respondent so far! Check out my full Respondent review to learn more.

11. On-Demand IT Support Service

John Rouda is an IT manager near Charlotte, North Carolina. He’s built a variety “for-profit hobbies,” small side hustles that bring in extra cash.

Among those is a local IT / computer maintenance service business. He charges around $200 a month to be the “on-call” tech guy for businesses like car repair shops.

After an initial set-up, he’ll handle website updates and troubleshoot other issues that come up.

12. Freelance Writing

Freelance writing in the area of your technical expertise could be a great side hustle. Many publishers are looking for people with technical expertise who can write about tech in an approachable way.

Where can you find work? Here are some resources to check out:

ProBlogger – A free remote jobs search site specifically for freelance writers.
BloggingPro – A free job board that is updated daily with paid blogging jobs, blog writing jobs, and freelance writing jobs.
Freelance Writing Jobs – A list of paid freelance writing and writing-related jobs that are hand-picked from various job sites, classified ads, and company websites. 

To learn more about making money as a writer, check out this free guide from the American Writers and Artists Institute:

13. Video or Audio Tutorials

By day, Bryan Orr helps run an air conditioning company in Central Florida, and by night he’s a father of 10. Yet somehow he’s found the time to create the super-popular HVAC School podcast in his spare time.

Tasked with training technicians at his day job, he had the idea to put the material into an on-demand audio format. On a whim, he decided to publish the content online and make it available to a wider audience.

“It just exploded. I never thought there would be an audience like the audience that I found,” Bryan said.

As his audience grew he started negotiating sponsorship deals with large companies in the HVAC niche.

In under a year, he’d built an email list of over 7500 subscribers, generated more than 500,000 podcast downloads, and was earning $11k a month in sponsorship revenue.

Tech tutorials are very popular as people try to learn how to do things for themselves.

14. Test Websites

As a website tester, you record your computer screen and your voice as you use a certain site or app. You may also need to write survey responses as part of the job or use a webcam.

This tech side hustle can be done in little pockets of time you have throughout your day or after work.

Essentially, you’re giving your opinion about the usability of a website or app with the goal of improving the user experience. You discuss your likes and dislikes, suggest improvements, and discuss any difficulties you have with the site or app.

Learn more about remote website testing jobs at these sites:

User Testing – Rewards vary based on the assignment, but average in the $20-30/hour range.
TestingTime – Earn up to $65 per every 30-90 minute study.
Trymata – Earn $5-30 per test.

15. Answering Questions

Sites like JustAnswer offer a flexible side hustle for tech workers, where you can earn $2,000-$7,000 per month.

Once you apply as an expert, JustAnswer connects you with people who have tech questions. You can set your own hours and the types of questions you’re best-qualified to answer.

You’ll get paid for each customer you help, but the big advantage is that JustAnswer does all the marketing for you.

16. Flipping Phones

The concept of flipping phones is simple—people buy used mobile devices and resell them for a profit.

For professional flippers like Jeff Duhon, it can turn into a full-time income stream. He targets $100 in profit per flip, and does dozens a month.

As with other niches, there’s a learning curve to figure out the different models and carriers to know which phones have the highest resale values.

If your tech job deals with hardware, this side hustle might be worth a shot.

17. 3D Printing

Anyone with a 3D printer would tell you it’s a lot of fun to build three-dimensional objects out of a variety of materials.

But what many people don’t know is that you can make money with a 3D printer by creating and selling prints.

As Side Hustle Nation’s resident 3D printing expert, Nikko Mendoza, put it, 3D printing is a high margin side hustle.

“It really depends on the niche, but it’s vastly underrated,” he explained.

Some of his students have earned $2,000 in a weekend selling 3D printed toys. Another earned $30,000 in a month selling 3D-printed cookie cutters!

18. Start an Email Newsletter

An email newsletter is a low-cost side hustle to start. (Tools like Substack, SendFox, and Beehiiv make it easier than ever.)

One model to consider is a daily or weekly “curation” newsletter. How it works is you source the most interesting stories in your niche, and share those with your subscribers.

For bonus points, add your own insight and commentary to each headline.

As the subscriber base grows, most newsletters eventually monetize with ads or paid subscriptions.

A well-known example in the tech space is Dan Ni’s TLDR Newsletter. 

With over 1.2M subscribers, Dan earns up to $30,000 every time he hits send! 

What’s the Best Tech Side Hustle for You?

We’ve thrown out a lot of different IT side hustles in this post. Did any resonate with you? 

As you choose the right tech side hustle for you, your skills, expertise, and interests will help you determine where to focus your time.

For some, it’s about flexibility and freedom. For others, it’s a change of careers or an entrepreneurial challenge.

It’s time to take action. Pick one and start. If your first one doesn’t work, you can always try a different one. Which one are you going to start first?

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

I set out to write the best damn passive income ideas post on the Internet.

Because here’s the thing…

Most “passive income ideas” posts just repeat the same boilerplate ideas—open a high interest savings account, for example.

And yes, that will earn you a small amount of passive income, but my guess is you’re looking for something a little more substantial.

In this post, I’ll:

Share my own actual passive income streams.
Present other legit passive income ideas you can take action on today—and back those up with real-life examples.
Break down the 4 types of passive income and why it’s so important to start building today.

Ready?

Let’s dive in.

1. Earn Affiliate Commissions

I got my start in affiliate marketing back in 2004, and it’s been a significant piece of my revenue pie ever since.

How affiliate marketing works is I earn a commission for referring leads and customers to other products and services.

My first affiliate business was a comparison shopping site for footwear. It helped people find the best price on their next pair of shoes, and earned commissions from Zappos and other retailers when people made a purchase.

Once the site was built, I earned these commissions whether or not I was actively sitting at the computer.

Even today, affiliate marketing is a really important revenue stream for me. This site (and yes, this post too) includes lots of affiliate links to products, apps, services, and software I think will be helpful to my audience.

Here’s an (over-the-top) example of a post monetized with affiliate links. Still, over its lifespan, it’s generated over $40,000 in commissions. From one post!

2. Write a Book

It’s never been easier to create a book of your own and put it up for sale on Amazon.

I received my first author royalties in 2012 and have added several more titles since then. It’s one of my favorite side hustles and one of my most passive income streams. Write the book once and collect royalties for months or even years whenever it sells!

Over my lifetime as a professional self-published author, my books have earned over $75,000.

When you price your book between $2.99 and $9.99, you’ll earn a 70% royalty. Outside of that range, it’s 35%.

For every Kindle book you write, it probably makes sense to add paperback and audiobook editions. Thankfully, Amazon makes this incredibly easy with its KDP Print service and ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange.

Related: Free Self-Publishing Workshop

3. Buy Dividend-Paying Stocks

Investing for dividend cash flow has helped me get off the sidelines and into the market. (I’m the person who always thinks we’re due for a correction!)

My basic strategy has been to buy shares in companies with long histories of paying—and increasing—dividends. These include name-brand businesses like Target, Chevron, AT&T, and Proctor and Gamble.

These “boring” old companies aren’t likely to have explosive share price growth, but they do spin off consistent passive cash flow.

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly built this up to over $2,000 a month.

Check out a service like the modern brokerage M1 Finance to get started yourself.

You can trade stocks for free, or select one of their pre-built portfolios. 

4. Sell an Online Course

In 2014 I created an online video course on Udemy about how to launch non-fiction Kindle books on Amazon. It earned $3500 in the first couple months, and has gone on to earn passive sales ever since.

The total is now over $27,000!

All I have to do is respond to the (pretty infrequent) student questions or comments. Again this falls under the model of “create something once, and sell it over and over again.”

What could you teach? Consider what people already ask you for help with. What do you know more about than the average person?

With services like Teachable, it’s never been easier to create and sell an online course of your own. These can command premium prices ($100-$2000 or more) and allow you to help more people than you could with one-on-one consulting.

Over the years on The Side Hustle Show, we’ve seen people making money with online courses on just about every topic imaginable. Some of the more creative case studies include:

Piano
Sourdough baking
Motorcycle repair
Getting dressed in the morning
Helping toddlers read
and so many more!

How will customers find you? If you don’t have an audience, one method to try is the YouTube-to-evergreen-webinar model, as described by Nate Dodson in this episode.

5. Buy Part of a Rental House

Arrived specializes in matching investors with truly passive rental properties across the country. The site allows you to buy shares in houses for as little as $100, and earn monthly cash-flow from the rent payments.

A couple friends of mine have purchased several houses through this easy-to-use site. I like the diversity of REITs, but if building a real estate empire is your long-term plan, these guys will help you do it—one house at a time.

6. Collect Ad Money from YouTube

If you have over 1000 subscribers and meet a couple other requirements on your YouTube channel, you can enable ads and start to get paid.

Lately this passive income steam has been around $400 a month:

To be sure, it takes time to create the videos, but once they’re uploaded, they can earn passive income for years—as some of mine have.

7. Sell Printables

I believe allocating some of your time to “passive income” pursuits is incredibly valuable. When the assets you build start paying off, you can slowly taper off trading time for money.

One of those is passive income ideas is selling printables through a platform like Etsy. Side Hustle Show guest Rachel Jones reported selling up to $10,000 a month worth of these digital files!

(Think meal planners, intake forms, chore charts, budgeting templates, etc.)

Here’s the online course Rachel credited with helping her get started.

8. Let Banks Give You Free Money

Credit card rewards are one my favorite passive income ideas because I earn them just from spending money like I normally would.

In our house, this stream is worth hundreds of dollars a year in the form of cash back, free Amazon gift cards, and travel.

The magic really happens when you take advantage of certain sign-up bonuses for new cards. You can earn the equivalent of 20%, 30%, 40% cash back or more in travel value or statement credit.

Here’s just a really simple example:

Related: Credit Card Rewards 101: How to Earn Free Cash and Travel by Spending Smarter

9. Get Easy Cash Back

Aside from credit card rewards, I use several cash back apps to earn “reverse passive income” every time I shop.

Among those are:

Rakuten – This free shopping portal has been giving users cash back for over 20 years. Get a $30 bonus through our referral link.
Capital One Shopping – A free browser extension that helps you find better deals and coupon codes when you shop online. (Even if you don’t bank with Capital One.) Plus, you’ll earn rewards you can redeem for gift cards. Disclosure: Capital One pays me when you get the Capital One Shopping extension through my link.
Fetch Rewards – Scan your grocery receipts with the free Fetch app to earn cash back on 250+ brands. Not 100% passive but very painless.
DOSH – Link your bank and credit cards and earn automatic cash back at participating stores and restaurants.

10. Share Your Data

While not a huge money-maker, this simple passive income idea could be worth $200 a year or more. I figured since I’m probably already giving my data away to “big tech” for free, it would be cool to actually get paid for it.

For example, I earned $80 in my first few months on Caden. The app pays a daily “data dividend” for connecting accounts like Amazon, Uber, and Netflix.

Other passive income ideas in this category include Nielsen’s Computer and Mobile Panel, which pays up to $60 a year for sharing your Internet usage habits.

11. Sell a Digital Product

Jodi Carlson reported earning over $5k a month selling digital activity guides for Girl Scout troop leaders. She’d started a blog documenting the activities she was doing with her scouts, mostly just as a reference for herself and other local leaders.

Before long, troop leaders from the other side of the country had discovered her site through Google and Pinterest. They emailed asking what other ideas she had.

That’s when Jodi began compiling her activity guides into PDF documents. She uploaded them to Teachers Pay Teachers, a site to buy and sell lesson plans, and made several sales in the first week.

12. Make Product Review Videos

If you’re accepted into the Amazon Influencer Program, you can get paid to create short video product reviews.

In turn, Amazon displays those on the relevant product pages, and rewards you a commission when someone makes a purchase after watching your video.

I made over $700 doing this in my first few months, with very little effort! (After uploading, it’s totally passive.)

Plus, I’ve connected with other side hustlers earning $2,000 a month sharing their opinions on Amazon products.

13. Create Print on Demand Designs

This is a low-overhead, low-investment way to build a little passive income. In our house, Merch by Amazon is a fun little side business and generates around $50-200 a month for us.

How it works is you upload t-shirt (and now other product) designs to Amazon, and the e-commerce giant does the rest. When someone orders it, they’ll print it in the size and color selected, and ship it to the customer. You earn the spread between whatever price you set and the cost to print it.

Our best month was over $500 in profit, which I think we could hit consistently if we dedicated more time to creating new designs. 

14. Buy Commercial Real Estate

Fundrise is a cool “alternative” way to invest in real estate.

With just a $10 minimum investment, you can start building a portfolio of pre-vetted commercial properties. I’ve been investing with them since 2015 and they’ve paid dividends every quarter so far.

(Disclosure: when you sign up, I earn a commission. All opinions are my own.)

Check out my full Fundrise review to learn more.

Curious about other alternative investments? Play around with this cool tool to see what else is out there:

15. Earn More Interest

Our free checking accounts with Chase are paying .01% interest. What’s even the point?

That’s why we keep most of our cash in higher-yielding savings accounts with Capital One and Betterment.

To add diversification and cash flow to my portfolio, I’ve also taken up a small position in Worthy Bonds.

These small business bonds pay 7% interest, and you can buy them for only $10 apiece. The bonds are used to fund inventory or asset-backed loans to small U.S. businesses.

Since the loans use inventory as collateral, they’re considered safer than other personal or business loans. You can also automatically re-invest your interest and make penalty-free withdrawals at any time.

16. Make Short-Term Real Estate Loans

With Groundfloor you help real estate flippers fund their acquisition and rehab costs. In return, you earn 6-9% passive income on your investment.

The big advantage over other peer-to-peer lending is the loans are backed by the real property. That means if the borrower stops paying, you have some recourse — namely foreclosure.

The loans are shorter term, generally 1 year or less, instead of 3-5 years.

17. Play the Substitution Game to Save Money

I’ve been a Mint Mobile customer for years. It runs on the T-Mobile network, and when you pre-pay, it costs just $15 a month:

Compared to my old provider, Ting, and my even older provider, Verizon, this represents savings of $180-500 a year.

Similarly, if it’s been more than 2 years since you last shopped for car insurance, you’re paying too much.

Check out Insurify for a quick and painless comparison on car and home insurance. It’ll take just a few minutes and users report saving an average of $489 per year!

What other recurring monthly costs could you cut by negotiating with your service provider or by shopping for a similar service?

18. Refinance or Pay Down High Interest Debt

According to Nerd Wallet, the average household with debt is facing:

$7,800 in credit card debt
$29,000 in vehicle debt
$59,000 in student loan debt

If you’re paying any non-mortgage interest right now, I would prioritize reducing or eliminating that monthly expense before exploring these other strategies.

19. Flip Raw Land

To be fair, this passive income idea is a ton of work upfront, but done right, you’ll be collecting payments for years.

The basic idea, as explained by Roberto Chavez on The Side Hustle Show, is to buy parcels of vacant land at a discount, and then to re-sell that property on a monthly payment plan.

20. Rent Out Extra Stuff

I love creative rental businesses, like Lenny Tim’s mobility scooter rental business. It brings in $3,000 a month as a side hustle.

What’s even more interesting is he didn’t go out and buy his first scooter until he had proven the demand. He built out a website and waited until it started to get a steady flow of booking requests!

Here are some other items you could potentially rent out for a profit:

Your car. The average vehicle sits idle about 22 hours a day. Sites like Turo make it easy to get started.
Your RV. The “idle time” stats for RVs are even worse than for cars. RVShare facilitates peer-to-peer rentals and covers insurance, with prices ranging from $150-300 a night!
Your boat. Rates range from $230 to $950 per day on sites like Boatsetter.
Your gear. Babyquip rents quality used baby gear to traveling families. Meanwhile, FatLlama has gone broader, using the slogan “Airbnb for your stuff.”

21. Subcontract a Service Business

Chris Schwab started a residential house cleaning business back when he was still in college. In less than two years, he’d grown it to $60,000 a month—all while never mopping a floor or dusting a shelf himself.

Despite dozens of competing cleaning services, Chris discovered there was still opportunity. He figured that out while perusing Yelp reviews of existing cleaning companies.

“No one complained about the cleaning itself,” he said. “What people complained about was the customer service. They didn’t know when the crew was going to show up; they couldn’t get a quote; no one was answering the phone. I knew I could do that, and find cleaners to do the actual work.”

Since then, he’s delegated much of the customer support as well. When we caught up, the business took just a few minutes a day for him to manage.

22. Build a Helpful Website

Now to be totally upfront, there’s a lot to learn to make this business work, but when it does, it can be extremely lucrative.

For example:

Scott earns 6-figures a year from his bird-watching blog
Shelley earns $50k a month from her travel blogs
Andrew earned over $1.2M from his gift ideas site

Their sites are monetized with advertising and affiliate partnerships, which scale as your traffic increases.

Want to start a blog of your own? Check out my free 6-part video course on how to start your own site.

23. Buy a Cash-Flowing Website

As I can attest, blogs and websites can earn great semi-passive income without your direct involvement. But you also usually can’t stand still for long before that income starts to fade.

Things break, content needs updating, and Google rankings are always changing.

Still, if you have web skills, you might like this interview with Stacy Caprio. She bought enough cash flow in the form of existing websites from the Flippa marketplace to quit her job.

24. Buy a “Boring” Business

Since half of all new businesses fail within the first 5 years, perhaps it makes sense to buy one that’s already proven successful.

And if online businesses aren’t your thing, take a look around your town.

For example, Hannah Ingram bought a local car wash with no money down using seller financing. When we spoke, it was profiting an average of $5,000 per month, with just a few hours a week of work.

You can shop on sites like BizBuySell to find opportunities near you.

Expect to pay 2-3x the annual earnings as a purchase price, but you can often finance up to 90% of the deal with an SBA loan.

25. Set Up a Vending Machine

Vending machines are one of the oldest passive income ideas. They’re literally robots that collect money when you’re not around!

The challenge is managing inventory and keeping the machines stocked, especially if you have several locations. Still, the thought of returning to a machine and finding it filled with money is pretty motivating.

For more on how the vending machine business can work, check out my interview with Matt Miller, whose passive income empire started with just $36 and a bag of gumballs.

26. License Your Ideas

Product licensing is a unique way earn residual income from your ideas—while letting someone else do the work.

For example, Nate Dallas and his brother split $300,000 in royalties from a Pictionary-inspired card game they licensed to Mattel.

The duo (a dentist and a preacher) didn’t have to design it, produce it, or sell it—but they found someone who could—and they cashed the checks.

Other things you can license:

Photography
Music
Voice over work

27. Set up a Drop Shipping Store

Drop shipping is a unique type of e-commerce where your supplier actually ships the products to customers on your behalf. As the seller, you don’t have to purchase any inventory until you have a buyer. Your profit comes from spread between the retail price you charge and the wholesale price you’ve agreed upon with your supplier.

In one of the most popular Side Hustle Show episodes of all time, Rene Delgado broke down how he sold $300,000 worth of bounce houses in his first year as a drop ship store owner.

Although there is a lot of upfront work in building the site and securing supplier relationships, drop shipping can be relatively passive after that.

28. Develop an App or Software

Could you solve a problem with software? It’s the ultimate scalable business in that the same underlying code can be sold to an unlimited number of customers.

A premium software tool can be sold either as a one-off purchase or a recurring monthly subscription.

As a customer, I’ve bought both smartphone apps and desktop software. If you don’t have the technical chops to build something like this yourself, you could always partner or hire someone who does—or white label software that already exists. The biggest consideration is to do your homework upfront and make sure there’s a hungry market demand for what you’re building.

Look to tools like AppSumo or ProductHunt to gain initial traction.

29. Develop an Alexa Skill

There are a couple ways side hustlers can make passive income with Amazon’s popular Echo devices.

The first is like Apple’s app store. You can build special Alexa voice apps, called “skills.”

As a skill developer, you can set your own price and earn 70% of the revenue when users buy it. For example, Nick Schwab has 10,000 paying customers for an ambient noise skill. He created a free version for people to try, and priced the paid version between $0.99 and $1.99 a month.

Amazon also has a rewards program to encourage developers to build out the ecosystem of skills. The rewards are based on the popularity and engagement of your skill, and some developers report earning thousands of dollars a month.

30. Rent Your Bandwidth

A new app called Honeygain has been building a lot “buzz” lately. According to the site, you can earn up to $30 a month when you share “your unused net traffic with data scientists.”

(Figures based on sharing 10 GB a day, which is a crap-ton of data!)

After you install the app (available on Windows, MacOS, and Android), connect it to the Internet, and earn rewards passively. On average, it takes users 48 days to reach $20.

Get a $5 bonus to start.

Before you get started though, make sure you’re truly on an unlimited plan as it sounds like this could chew through a lot of bandwidth in hurry!

31. Rent Out Your Extra Space

You’re probably familiar with Airbnb and similar sites, where you can turn the extra space in your home into extra cash. Check the calculator on their site to see how much you could earn.

This gets more passive if you have a second property and hire a 3rd party service to manage your bookings, guest communication, and cleaning.

But if you don’t want to deal with guests at all, the Neighbor platform might be worth a look. Neighbor lets you store people’s extra stuff where you have space for it.

This is likely to be very passive monthly income after the initial drop off. Some hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations.

Check out our full Neighbor review to learn more.

The 4 Types of Passive Income Ideas

The allure of passive income is exciting. I mean, if the idea of making money in your sleep doesn’t get you excited, I’d check your pulse.

On top of that, passive income is important.

I’ll let Warren Buffett explain:

“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”

I think we can all get on board with that.

So how can you get some that sweet, sweet passive income—or “mailbox money”—for yourself?

Here’s what you need to know.

In general, passive income is the money you earn from assets you control. (Assets are simply things that other people value; cash, real estate, physical goods, attention, etc.)

The drawback is assets usually take either time to build or money to acquire.

Here are the 4 types of passive income you can start working toward today:

1. Buy cash-flowing assets

This is the “make money with money” option. Under this category you’ll find options like dividend investing, business lending, real estate, and stuff like that.

It’s great—if you already have money to invest!

2. Build assets

Building something of value—say, a digital product or website that earns advertising revenue—is a viable path to passive income. These things take some time to create and market, but can run relatively passively often for years if set up correctly.

3. Share or sell assets

There are ways to make relatively-passive income renting or selling assets you control.

This could include extra space around your house, stuff you have collecting dust, or even the data generated by your phone.

4. “Reverse” passive income

“Reverse” passive income comes from cutting your ongoing monthly expenses. A penny saved is a penny earned, right?

Well, because of taxes on earned income, it’s actually better than that! And there’s no extreme couponing required.

Why Passive Income Ideas Matter

I’m not an investment guru or financial wizard, but the vast majority of my income is “passive”—or at least time-leveraged.

By time-leveraged, I mean I don’t punch a clock or trade my time for money in any direct way.

I started my career the way most people do—with a job. But over time, I’ve consciously built up more passive income streams, while growing the overall size of the income pie as well.

The tiny sliver of “active income” on the chart comes from one-on-one consulting calls.

Unfortunately, here’s how the chart looks for most people:

They have a big chunk of active income—from their job—and (if they’re lucky) a little slice of investment income.

Let’s work toward shifting the balance to the green!

It’s important to note I’ve built these up slowly over time, starting while I was still working a 9-5 job. I don’t want to paint the picture that I’m raking in millions sitting in a hammock on the beach, either—because I’m not.

I still work a few days a week on growing my business. But I get to do it on my own terms and have a ton of fun doing it.

Conclusion: Start Building Your Passive Income Today

To recap, we’ve covered a couple dozen ways I earn passive income and shared a ton of other ideas for you to get started with today. These income streams didn’t happen overnight for me; they took years of dedicated effort to build.

But that effort is worth it. In fact, it’s required if you ever want to stop trading time for money.

My recommendation is to pick a few of the options on the list that seem most appealing and doable to you, and get started with those. Let me know how it goes!

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 4 types of passive income?

Passive income comes in 4 main varieties. 1. Investment returns. 2. Residual earnings from assets you build yourself. 3. “Renting” assets you already control. 4. “Reverse” passive income; that is, saving money on recurring expenses.

How do I generate passive income?

The most common way to generate passive income is through investment returns, such as share price appreciation, dividends, or real estate rental income. But perhaps more accessible is to build income-producing assets — like websites — of your own.

What are some examples of passive income?

Stock dividends, real estate rental income, advertising revenue, affiliate commissions, savings account interest, book sales, private lending, and tons more!

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