Introduction
Every day at least $2,000 is earned from passive income through seven passive income ideas. This post will discuss what each of these ideas are, their pros and cons, plus ways that other people can get started with them, too. Some of these ideas are ones that no one else talks about. Passive Income Idea 1 is automated t-shirt stores. There are multiple automated clothing stores running with Shopify and Etsy. Although it is no longer just t-shirts being sold, t-shirts have by far made the most money.
Automated T-Shirt Stores
How Print on Demand Works
On Etsy, when searching for any sort of basic clothing item such as a t-shirt, most of the t-shirts listed are not being printed and shipped by the Etsy seller themselves. Instead, the vast majority are being made through two of the most popular print on demand apps, Printify and Printful. It is free to register for an account on both, and then a catalog of blank items is available to browse and choose an item to customize, such as a t-shirt. Then a t-shirt design is created. A combination of AI Art and Canva works well for creating t-shirt designs. The design is then uploaded onto the blank t-shirt, and the Printify or Printful account is connected to the store.
Automated Fulfillment and Profit
Both of these apps have automated connections to all of the major e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, and Etsy. The item can then be listed for sale at a markup price. Each time a customer buys one, the print on demand app will automatically see the order. The print shop will then charge the card on file the discounted price for the t-shirt, print the design onto it, package it up, and ship it out, while the seller keeps the difference as profit. This is very passive as the print on demand apps take care of fulfillment. Other than answering some emails, there is very little that needs to be done each day.
Pros of Designing with Canva
Starting with the pros: creating designs with Canva is genuinely enjoyable, and it is a great experience seeing someone wearing one of those designs. It also does not take a lot of time. A bestselling t-shirt with a clever design could probably be made in Canva in less than 30 minutes. However, there are two things to consider. Firstly, unless there is a credit card available, this is not a free side hustle to start. T-shirts are sold for around $21 with shipping as an extra charge.
Credit Card and Bank Processing
In total, a customer might pay $25.94 for a t-shirt, and it costs $16.88 to buy and ship the t-shirt from Printful. So overall, it is a great margin. However, it takes time for banks to process the money, so that $25 will not appear in a bank account for usually at least 2 to 3 business days. There are two options in the meantime. Firstly, if there is a credit card available, it can be used to pay the $16 to Printful, and then when the money clears in the bank account, the credit card can be paid off. Or a debit card with $16 already on it can be used. However, not everybody has a debit card with $16 on it and not everybody
Marketplaces and Advertising
has a credit card. In addition, a plan is also needed for how to market and advertise the store. This is why most beginners usually choose a third-party marketplace like Amazon or Etsy, because these marketplaces already market and advertise themselves, allowing sellers to piggyback off of their traffic without having to market products themselves. A case study exists showing a successful store started from scratch on Etsy using their free traffic. A free ebook, The Six Steps That Six-Figure Online Stores Follow to Make Over $10,000 a Month with Print on Demand, is also available and includes personal tips and tricks.
Digital Products on Etsy
Selling Passive Digital Downloads
Passive Income Idea 2 is creating and selling digital products on Etsy. Etsy also features many digital products for sale, not just physical products. When a customer buys one of these, rather than having an item physically mailed to them, an email is sent to them from Etsy containing a download link they can click on to download their digital product. This is a very passive income idea because Etsy essentially does everything.
Three Popular Product Categories
Etsy advertises and drives traffic to their marketplace, handles website maintenance on the store, and even sends the customer the digital product. There is very little a seller actually needs to do day-to-day. The most popular digital products tend to fall into one of three categories. The first are Notion templates. People enjoy buying aesthetically pleasing Notion templates, such as a planner designed to help women with ADHD, which can see multiple sales in a single day. Secondly, there are printable PDFs, with the most popular being decorations such as printable posters, charts, or invitations. A printable poster set is an example of this type of product. Thirdly, there are Canva templates, where a design is created in Canva and shared with customers as a template link so they can customize it themselves, such as a bundle of editable wedding signs.
Pros of Digital Goods
The biggest pro of digital products is that unlike with selling physical products, it is completely free to create and sell a digital product. Unlike with a t-shirt business, there is no need to buy a product to resell it. A digital product is created once and then it is free to make another copy of it to sell. Secondly, if creating Notion templates, PDF files, or Canva templates is enjoyable, then this can genuinely be a fun pursuit.
Comparing Upfront Creation Work
The biggest downside is that unlike a basic slogan t-shirt, it is a lot more work to create these products. For example, a t-shirt creator just needs to create one single design. But a wedding sign bundle requires the creator to have made 70 different designs to sell them as a pack. As a whole, digital products require more upfront work to create and sell. This naturally leads to the next passive income idea on the list, which is
Credit Card Cash Outs
Maximizing Reward Points
Passive Income Idea 3 is credit card cash outs. To make money with automated t-shirt stores. Money has to be spent to make money, as the t-shirts being resold need to be purchased. Credit cards are used to pay for them. Since a lot of clothes are sold, a lot of credit card reward points accumulate. A favorite card for this purpose is the Amex Platinum. Which allows exchanging credit card points for cash, as well as for business class and first class flights.
The pros and cons here are straightforward. If a business or online store has to spend money to make money. Then this is an absolute no-brainer and a really easy passive way to earn extra cash. However, since the best credit cards with the best rewards usually have yearly fees. If running a free business like a digital product store, it is probably not worth getting them.
Evergreen Videos
Ad Revenue and Platforms
Passive Income Idea 4 is evergreen videos. TikTok and YouTube have good monetization programs. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat do not really have proper ones currently. YouTube and TikTok are great because they split ad revenue with their creators. The YouTube monetization program allows earning money when people watch videos. As ads are shown alongside them and YouTube splits the ad revenue.
Focus on Evergreen Content
To earn passive money doing this, it is strongly recommended to focus on evergreen content rather than trendy topics. Evergreen content is when a video is made that people are likely to watch months, if not years, into the future, usually because it is educational and helpful. For example, a tutorial for Canva on how to create a t-shirt design made 3 years ago remains just as relevant today as it was then, because people are always creating t-shirt designs in Canva every day. People keep watching it as a result.
Passive Earnings Over Time
Over the past 3 years, that video has gone on to earn anywhere from $5 to $20 a day passively on average. On the other hand, a news announcement video related to a print on demand website called Zazzle initially made a lot of money when the news was fresh, but now it barely earns even 5 cents a day. Depending on the video topic chosen, YouTube can be passive or not passive. Running a news YouTube channel would require uploading videos basically every day because previous videos would go out of date fast, requiring constant replacement with new content.
YouTube vs TikTok Creation
With a library of evergreen videos, passive income is earned every day even without uploading a new video for a long time. YouTube is not the only platform that pays creators. TikTok has its own monetization program, paying eligible creators on average 20 cents to $2 per 1,000 views on eligible videos that are 1 minute or longer. Many people prefer making videos for TikTok because they find it much easier to create a quick video on their phone than to make a proper YouTube video. If a creative person enjoys this, it can be a lot of fun and is free to start. There are lots of great free video editing apps like ClipChamp and CapCut, and a phone can even be used as the video camera. However, compared to a t-shirt which can take just minutes to create, a YouTube video can take days to create.
Affiliate Marketing
Referral Links and Commissions
Passive Income Idea 5 is affiliate marketing, which is another way to earn money from YouTube. In that Canva tutorial video, there is a link to sign up for a subscription to Canva. This is an affiliate link, which is essentially a referral link that tracks whether somebody clicks on the link and then goes and buys something. If they do, a commission is earned. Having tutorials for favorite apps and websites means that combined, these videos add up to a steady stream of passive income each day from affiliate commissions.
Finding Affiliate Programs
A common question is how to find affiliate links to promote products. The website Impact is a primary resource for this. Most popular brands have affiliate programs run through Impact’s website. In addition, many people make a lot of money on YouTube and TikTok through Amazon’s affiliate program, called Amazon Associates. It allows signing up and creating affiliate links directly to Amazon products, earning money when people click them and buy something. Many creators make money on TikTok and YouTube by creating educational or helpful videos about products, such as review videos or unboxing videos.
Low Follower Requirements
Probably the biggest pro of affiliate marketing is that money can be made with very little following. To prevent spam on YouTube, minimum monetization requirements were introduced. To turn ads on, at least 1,000 YouTube subscribers are needed. On TikTok, 10,000 followers are required. However, it is possible to start making money through affiliate marketing even before reaching 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. On the flip side, not everybody wants to create tutorials or helpful videos on products or apps, which is completely understandable. For those who would rather create fun and entertaining videos on any topic, it may be better to focus on ad revenue instead.
Leveraging Tax Money
Business vs Salary Taxation
Passive Income Idea 6 is one that very few people discuss, which is leveraging tax money. In most countries, when working a job and earning a salary or wages, tax money is automatically deducted and withheld from that money and paid directly to the government, meaning the tax money never appears in a bank account. Whereas, when running a business or being self-employed, all of the money is kept.
Earning Interest on Withheld Funds
Then, two to four times a year depending on location, taxes are paid on the profits of the business in a single lump sum. This means that financially, business owners are at a huge advantage compared to people earning money from a job, because that tax money can be leveraged to earn money in the meantime. For example, in New Zealand taxes are paid three times a year. While holding that money in preparation for paying it, it can be leveraged in multiple ways, with one of the easiest being putting it into a high yield savings account and earning interest from it. There are really no cons to this. If self-employed or running a business, this is just an easy way to earn additional money. The only limitation is that it cannot be done if the only source of income is a regular job.
Automated Emails
Newsletter and Lead Magnets
Passive Income Idea 7 is automated emails, another idea that is rarely discussed. A free ebook on print on demand tips and tricks is available to download. There are two reasons why this ebook was created. Firstly, many people wanted a free beginner guide to print on demand, and creating an ebook was the easiest and simplest way to provide that. But secondly, to get the ebook, signing up to an email newsletter is required. This is valuable because if YouTube ever shuts down, the connection to subscribers through emails remains intact.
Email Autoresponders
To avoid having to write emails for the newsletter every single week, a series of educational emails has been created containing links to helpful videos. These automatically get emailed out to new subscribers and are called email autoresponders. For example, on day 1 of subscribing, subscribers automatically receive an email previewing a YouTube video that reviews the three most popular print on demand apps, along with a link to watch the video. Whenever anyone clicks the link to watch the video, passive money is earned from YouTube ads by having viewers come back to the channel.
Conclusion
These are the seven passive income ideas used to earn money every day. Each one has its own pros and cons, and some require more upfront work than others. Whether it is automated t-shirt stores, digital products, credit card rewards, evergreen videos, affiliate marketing, leveraging tax money, or automated emails, there are options available for different types of people and different levels of investment. Read More