15 Passive Income Ideas To Help You Make Money In 2021
By: Suraj Pokhrel
Tags: Passive Income, Money, Passive Income Ideas, Online Business, Business

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Whenever we hear the word passive income, the first scene that pops into our mind is, making money while sitting on the beach and drinking mojitos.

But, that’s just an imagination. In reality, making passive income involves a lot of work upfront.

You had to put initial effort and investments to create a successful passive income business. And, the investment can be your time and / money or both.

But what is surprising about passive income is that, no matter how much work you have to invest in advance, you will reap the rewards for years to come without having to struggle for money all the time. And that’s what differentiates passive income from active income.

Here is what I think passive income is.

What Is Passive Income?

You can create your own work schedule and follow that accordingly. There will be no boss or a senior employee who will pressure you to finish the job on time. Because here you are the boss yourself and you can do whatever you want is good for you.

Here are 15 passive income ideas that are best for 2021:

Best Online Passive Income Ideas

These are passive income streams that requires camera, phone and PC with good internet connection. If you have it all, then you are good to go.

1. Start a Blog

If you have knowledge of something and are fond of writing like me then, why not share it with the world?

You can pretty much write about any topic you want. It can be self-improvement tips, fitness tips, healthy eating tips, gardening, parenting and many more. The list goes on and on.

I had even seen a blog that describes various types of soil and is making a 6-figure income, selling soil online. Isn’t that insane?

How the hell can anyone make a 6 figure income selling soil, that we can get anywhere for free? Isn’t this a power of blogging?

I myself have never thought that I will make $205,451 (in 5 years) blogging.

So why don’t you give it a try? You can start a blog for only $3 per month and get a lot of money in return.

How To Start a Blog?

4-step process to start a blog:

Purchase a domain name (Name of your site). Purchase a hosting (Server for your blog). Buy a good-looking WordPress theme. Make money blogging.

I personally recommend you a web-hosting from Bluehost because it provides domain name free for 1 year so you don’t have to pay an extra $15 for it.

The WordPress theme that I’m using are Astra Pro with Elementor which works in combination and are great for creating blogs. What’s best about them is that you don’t have to be a coder or designer to design your site.

They provide you great looking starter templets which you can directly import on your WordPress dashboard. If not, you can create your own costume design using the drag-and-drop functionality of Elementor Pro.

Once all the setup is completed, you had to write at list 10 to 15 blog-post and apply for Google AdSense.

After getting AdSense Approval, you can place their banner ad and start earning money.

Not only from AdSense, there are many other ways to make money blogging in 2021.

2. Affiliate Marketing

You may or may not be familiar with the term affiliate marketing. So just to make you clear, I had explained what affiliate marketing is and how you can start it to make money from today. So, let’s dive right in.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a process of earning commissions by promoting other people’s products or services on your site, emails or videos.

The product or service can be of any person, company or an organization such as Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba, e.t.c.

How To Do Affiliate Marketing?

At first, you had to apply to become an affiliate partner for certain products or services.

Once you are approved, the company will provide you with a link to their product and services which you had to promote to make money.

You can promote them anywhere you want, like on your social media account, YouTube channel or in your blog.

However, you must have some serious followers who blindly trust you & purchase the products that you have mentioned through the links.

Once they make the purchase, you will get a certain amount as an affiliate commission based on the agreement you have signed with that company.

There are people who make a six-figure monthly income through affiliate marketing, you can visit and see their earning report.

3. Start YouTube

YouTube is an exceptional platform which allows craters all over the world to present their ideas with the public for free.

Major YouTube channels make a profit from their videos, and it’s a decent amount of money.

And, to make money from YouTube, you first need to open YouTube channel and upload videos daily.

And once you reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours watch time (Minimum criteria to monetize/run ads on YouTube) you will start making money.

What Video Should I Upload on YouTube?

It is entirely up to you what kind of video you want to upload.

It can be funny videos, tech videos, beauty related videos, tutorial type videos, etc. as per your interest, talent and audience demand.

However, it takes some time to meet the monetization criteria set by YouTube. You can start it for zero investment, all you need is a good camera that you already have on your phone.

4. Sell E-Books

Now is the right time to create your own E-Books and sell them on online E-Books stores like Amazon Kindle Direct publishing, Blurb, Lulu, Smashwords, BookBaby, etc.

Also, you can sell them on your own blog if you already have a good audience.

What Book Should I Publish?

The book type you you should publish is entirely up to you.

This can be business-related books or something else such as beauty-related books, jokes books, food books and so on — depending on your interest and expertise.

Now, let’s talk about how much can you make: selling eBooks?

Your earnings depend on various factors such as the price you set for your books, what your book is about and how many books you can sell.

It is entirely up to you, what price you want to set for your eBooks, it can be $20, $30, $40, $100 and so on according to your mindset.

How can I earn money selling eBooks?

Either you are on holiday with your friends or on a world tour, no matter where you’re and what you doing. You can earn money continuously after your books get published and started selling.

5. Sell Image Online

Multimedia creates a great impact on people’s eyes.

Whether it’s on Facebook, YouTube, or in a blog post, we all love watching high quality pictures and videos everywhere.

And that’s why I always try to put amazing images on my blog posts — so that handsome and beautiful readers like you will love it and share it with your friends.

But I don’t always find images that are best for my audience. And, because of this, I have to buy stock photos from Shutterstock, which cost me more than $200 a month.

Not only me, there are millions of publishers online who buy pictures at the same rate. So from here, you can estimate the earning potential of this business.

I have a photographer friend who earns $15,000 each month and runs his entire family by selling pictures online. Which means, there is a huge profit in this business. And you had to give it a try.

How To Earn Money Selling Images Online?

A high-quality camera is the # 1 thing you need, to start this business, which you can easily buy on Amazon.

After purchasing the camera, you can click some high-quality images of the person, bird, animal, flower, sky, etc. and start selling them on Shutterstock.

6. Run Facebook Page

Facebook has now become a source of income for many people around the world, including me. You can now make the same amount of money with your Facebook fan page as on YouTube.

To earn money from Facebook, you first need to create a Facebook fan page and upload videos regularly.

Once your page gets 10,000 followers and 30,000 video views, you can apply for Facebook video monetization and earn a decent amount of money from there.

Facebook pays you money by serving ads on your videos. So, whenever someone sees that ad or clicks on it, you will earn money.

7. Create Online Courses

Nowadays, people prefer to learn things from home rather than by visiting institutions that charge them a lot of money. And, this can be a tremendous opportunity for you, if you love teaching people online.

There are many popular online learning platforms like Udemy.Com where you can upload your courses and start selling. But, this option is only good for those who do not have their own website or do not want to spend too much in marketing.

Otherwise, it would be better to sell your courses on your own website so you can decide the price of the courses yourself and avoid sharing your revenue with others.

8. Buy And Sell domain Names

Businesses are willing to pay you money if you can find the right domain name for their brand. Because having the right name is crucial to reaching out to a targeted audience.

So if you are good at doing market research, then you can definitively help them in getting matching domain name and charge them money.

Offline Passive Income Ideas

These ideas are great for those who want to generate passive income offline.

9. High-Yield Dividend-Paying Stocks

Investing in dividend stock is the best way to generate passive income.

For those who don’t know what dividends is?

Dividend is a cash paid by the company regularly (typically annually) to their shareholders and partners out of its profit.

And, investing in a dividend-paying stock means you are buying a share of that company & becoming the part of their business.

As the company generates profit from the money, you have invested. It provides you some additional cash for being a shareholder.

And because you are a shareholder of that company, you will also receive additional cash as a bonus.

But be sure to invest in the best dividend-paying brokerage and earn money.

You can invest through M1 Finance, which is one of the best investment platform that allows you to build a portfolio and invest for free.

10. Peer To Peer Lending

Peer to peer lending means the practice of loaning money to borrowers who don’t qualify for traditional loans/financing.

Companies like Lending Club and Prosper offer the return in the range from 4 to 6% and that’s much higher than your savings account pays and is passive income.

You simply lend money here and get principal and interest for that.

11. Invest In Rental Property

You may not consider real state rental as a passive income source.

But, you can outsource the running of the property to a management company to make it completely passive.

To find the right rental property, you will need to invest some capital at the beginning.

After that, you will earn more than $2000 per months depending on your property.

Tips For Buying Rental Property

Buy at Right Place. Find Right Neighborhood. Be Aware Of Local Rental Regulations. Ensure Proper Parking is Available. Look Out For Safety Issues.

Check out Roofstock where you can buy a single-family rental online.

12. Start Drop-Shipping

Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method where the store doesn’t keep the product that sells in the stock, which means it allows you to sell the products on your own store without having to purchase large quantities of product in advance.

It has become a major passive income source for various people in the world.

You can build a six-figure income through dropshipping with an investment of $100 monthly which can pay you huge dividends with not an only minimal risk but with minimal effort.

You may wonder how this is possible? But it is possible, and I have my own experience in this field.

During the startup period, I had no money, but now it has turned into a lifetime source of income.

Most of my earnings now come from blogging, affiliate marketing, dropshipping and other minor sources.

And the interesting thing is — I don’t spend even an hour on it.

But I had people working for me.

How Dropshipping Works?

Customer place the order on your website. You receive that order and send the order to the supplier with customer shipping information. The supplier receives the order on their end, packages and ships order to your customer on your behalf. And the supplier sends you the tracking information. You alert the customer that their order has been shipped and supply them with the tracking information so they can keep track on it along the way.

And the most interesting thing about it is, you will be invisible along the way.

This is how you can start dropshipping passively from today.

13. Rent Your Vehicles

After knowing all my story, I don’t think you will be afraid to start an online business now.

But if you are the one who wants to make passive income offline, then this idea is best for you.

You can rent out your car, motorbike, airplane and earn cash without having to drive them yourself.

I rented my car for 1 month just to share my experience with you and, can you guess! It made me $500 that month.

Therefore, renting a vehicle is the best way to earn a passive income offline that you may have being ignoring or unknown before.

14. Rent Out Rooms On Airbnb

If you have a spare bedroom’s on your building then why don’t you use it to generate extra cash?

In Airbnb, you can rent out your spare rooms whenever you want.

All you had to do is set a schedule and only rent your house when you feel like it.

Not only your spare bedroom, you can also rent out your entire house when it is vacant.

If not, you can convert your entire rental property into a short-term vacation rental and list it on Airbnb to generate passive income.

15. Open Secondhand Items Store

If you have unused items like clothes, furniture, jewellery in your house, then why not use them to earn extra passive income?

There are many platforms online where you can sell your secondhand stuff and earn money.

Related Article: 40 Best Online Consignment Shops To Make Money.

All you had to do to is download their app, list your items & sell them to a potential customer’s nearby you.

How Do I Generate Passive Income?

Is Passive Income Real?

How To Make $1000 A Month In Passive Income?

How To Create Passive Income With No Money?

Though, all the passive income ideas that I mentioned here are easy, I suggest you to start with one at the beginning.

Picking more than one may get you into trouble and you may end up loosing all your money. So, it will be better if you stick with one and give it some time to grow.

And, the most important note: Please contact your financial advisor before investing money on any of the ideas mentioned above.