9 Passive Income Ideas for Young Adults

Are you looking for ways to make passive income?

But confused about which would be the best option for you, as multiple options are available.

Then you are in the right place.

Here you will find various ways, which will require effort and investment but ultimately show your results in the future.

Some methods will also require an initial amount of money to invest to get started, but their ROI (Return On investment) will also be high.

We will also discuss many more things in this article that will clear all your doubts and help you get the best passive income stream idea that suits your interests.

What exactly does Passive Income mean?

Passive income is defined as income obtained through little active involvement or effort after creating a system that will continue making money for you.

But sometimes initial setup costs would be required to begin.

It can also reduce your dependence on your 9-to-5 job. There are many examples available on the internet of how passive income changed many people’s futures. They have also left their jobs, and they are now earning full-time money from their passive income stream.

As this article focuses on ideas that young adults can try out, all the methods that are mentioned would be free to start but also require skills or some money to start, which would range from $100 to $200 to get started.

Also, an important reminder for you that the ideas discussed below are not for those who want quick money. It requires time and skills to establish a passive income stream. Therefore, it will take a year or longer to see a good amount of money.

So let’s begin.

1. Sell Digital Products

Selling digital products is one of the most lucrative businesses on the internet. We have to create the digital product once and then we can sell it multiple times we want. In the beginning, only we have to invest our time and money and then just multiply it as much as we want.

Unlike physical products, we do not have to pay for manufacturing, shipping, etc., each time. It means there is no expense after the creation of the product.

In addition, there is a high demand for digital products nowadays, so creating digital products is also a good option, and the investment required is also very low.

For creating various digital products, you can use Canva, where you can find various pre-built templates for any of the digital products you want to create.

After creating a digital product, what we need to do is list our product on any of the widely used platforms. And then we just have to generate sales from there onwards.

Platforms to list our digital products:

1. Etsy
2. Envato Market
3. Creative Market
4. Creative Fabrica

How to start selling digital products?

From the above list, you can choose any of the platforms and create a seller account on it. Etsy is a popular platform that you can consider.

After completion of the account creation, you can start listing your products on their platform.

Find out which digital product categories are most in demand. So you can figure out which things are working and which aren’t.

You can also work on multiple platforms to target all the audiences who are interested in purchasing the product.

Best Digital Products to Sell:

1. Printable Planner
2. Digital Art
3. Digital Templates

2. Start a Blog

Blogging is the oldest way of making money. From the beginning of the internet, blogs are running. There are many success stories of people who just started a blog as a side hustle and then made thousands of dollars through their blog.

The blog vpnMentor was sold for $150 million in 2023. It is a very famous blog that provides content related to VPNs. From this, you can see the potential for blogging.

You can start a blog part-time, working a few hours a day, like 2-4 hours. You can also manage your blog easily apart from working full time, as it requires very little time.

Why should you consider blogging?

It is one of the tried-and-tested methods of making money. Also, the money required to start a blog is very little.

The major expense of a blog is hosting, but you can find various hosting companies that provide excellent quality service at low cost.

Once you start writing blog posts, they will begin ranking on various search engines depending on the competition and your writing skills.

From these blog posts, you can monetize your blog and create a passive income stream.

Methods to Monetize Your Blog:

1. Display Ads
2. Sponsorships
3. Guest Posting
4. Selling Own products
5. Affiliate Marketing

How to Start a Blog?

Starting a blog requires you to consider a variety of factors, including your blog name, hosting company, and other things as well.

The first step would be finding a good, eye-catching, and unique name for your blog. As the name would suggest, the user what type of blog it is, so choose it very carefully.

You can add keywords related to your niche Ex- if you are in the food and cooking niche, you can try to use words like recipe, foods, dishes, etc., and then you can register a domain of that name.

The next step would be buying a hosting for your blog.

There are thousands of hosting companies that provide website hosting, but Hostinger offers extremely low-cost hosting with high-quality speed that you should consider purchasing.

You can select the plans that suit your needs; let’s take a look at the popular ones below.

You can buy any of the plans, but remember that if you buy a plan for more than a year, you will get a free domain for a year, so try to buy a longer-duration plan. In all the plans, you can host multiple websites, up to 100.

Click here to visit the official website of Hostinger and get the latest discount on the plan you want.

After buying the hosting, you can install WordPress CMS on your hosting so that you can manage your blog easily.

Various YouTube videos are available that you can refer to if you are finding any difficulty in the technical part.

Now your blog is live on the internet, and you can access it anytime through the internet.

It’s not that your work is now over; now you will have to constantly write blog posts so that search engines will trust your content and eventually rank it high on the results.

You will have to learn SEO (search engine optimization) to rank higher on the SERP.

Keyword research is an important thing to keep in mind. If you try to rank on a very high-competition keyword then at starting it would be very hard and you won’t see any results, as many authority sites are ranking on it. So try to find long-tail keywords which are easy to rank.

Keyword research tools like SemRush can help you find low-competition keywords, or you can use Google AutoSuggest features to find keywords for free.

Also, remember that it’s not like you will publish a blog post today and it will start getting views from the next day.

Ranking factors depend on various factors as content quality, competition, backlinks, and many more things.

Consider that it will take 6 to 8 months to see some results on your blog, so stay motivated and stay consistent as well.

You can also create social media accounts for your blog and receive direct traffic on your blog through it. Facebook and Pinterest are the best platforms from where you can get direct traffic to your blog so don’t miss to promote your blog there.

3. Start a YouTube channel

YouTube has over 2.49 billion active users. It means nearly half of the global online audience uses YouTube. Also, a user spends an hour per day watching content on YouTube.

Starting a YouTube channel can be a good idea for earning passive income.

Just use your Gmail to make a channel on YouTube. Create a logo for your YouTube channel that will be displayed on the YouTube page.

You can use Canva to create creative thumbnails for your YouTube videos.

How much does YouTube pay us?

To make money on YouTube, you must first have 1000 subscribers on your channel and 4000 hours of video watch time in the previous year. And for shorts, you need to have 10 million views in the last 90 days.

YouTube earnings mainly depend on the niche (topic) of your video. YouTube pays low RPM (Revenue Per Mille, or 1000 views) for topic-related entertainment, vlogs, etc.

On the other hand, topics such as finance, insurance, and technology have higher RPM than other niches.

It also depends on where your audience is located; if your views are from Tier 1 countries, the RPM will be higher as well.

A creator receives 55% of the revenue generated by their channel through YouTube ads, with the remaining 45% going to YouTube.

Depending on your niche, you can earn anywhere from $2000 to $5000 per million views.

Now go ahead and create your own YouTube channel.

4. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can be a good option for those who do not have any products to sell but have a target audience that is willing to buy the products that you are recommending.

In affiliate marketing, you promote other people’s products and earn a commission when someone buys them through your link.

You can do affiliate marketing using a blog where you can promote products or services related to your niche or through social media sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok.

From affiliate marketing, we can generate passive income by promoting recurring commission affiliate products.

What are recurring affiliate programs?

Recurring affiliate programs are those that pay us a commission each month until the customer is using their services or products.

Most SaaS products offer recurring commissions that can be as high as 50%. In general, you can earn 20-30% commission passively through recurring affiliate programs.

How to find affiliate programs?

You can find affiliate programs by manually searching on Google. Just search the keyword with the word affiliate. From this method, you can find various companies that offer their affiliate programs. You just have to sign up to become an affiliate through it.

Otherwise, you can also sign up for affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate and Impact. Many company’s affiliate programs are listed there you join them.

After applying for a suitable affiliate program, the company will check the details that you have filled out and if you meet their requirements they will approve your application.

Later, After getting the confirmation you can promote their products through your affiliate links.

Is it Possible to Earn Passive Income through Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, you can earn passive income from affiliate marketing. You just have to promote products to your audience through blogs, Facebook, Pinterest, or even through Email Marketing.

To succeed in Affiliate Marketing, you need a targeted audience willing to buy that product. So firstly you have to create your audience base related to any niche.

You can start a blog or can grow your social media profiles on Facebook, and Pinterest to gather an audience.

So that you can add a new income stream to your earnings while blogging or using Social Media.

5. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a good option for selling products without worrying about manufacturing or managing inventory and shipping the product.

Generating online sales is your only task; your supplier takes care of the rest, including production, shipping, and handling returns.

Create a Store on Shopify, add relevant niche products, and start your dropshipping journey.

Market Research is one of the important things to consider when starting dropshipping. Research the demand for your product that you want to sell.

How does Dropshipping Work?

In dropshipping, you do not have any products that you have created yourself. You find a supplier or a manufacturer who do all the things on behalf of you.

Also, you do not have to worry about how the product will be delivered, production cycles, etc. Your manufacturer will take care of all these things.

Take an example that a product costs $50 for you after adding all the expenses like Paid Ads and online store costs now you will sell the product at a final price of $70 this means the addition of $20 is you margin that you are going to take back home.

When a customer places an order in your online store after completing the payment process you will forward all the details of the customer to the manufacturer. Then they will fulfill the order by themself without involving you.

You can also take the help of Paid Ads to get sales on your store through Facebook and Google Ads. However, you must invest the initial money required to run advertisements to get initial sales.

6. Start an Online Course

Online courses are among the most profitable passive income sources since they just need to be created once and will keep on bringing in income for you forever.

You can create your course on platforms like Udemy. Or can host your course on self-hosting platforms like Teachable, and Thinkific.

You can create courses that are related to your expertise or areas of knowledge, such as technology, coding, fitness, or anything else that you are good at.

Also Read: 10 Fantastic Online Course Ideas to Make Money

To promote the course you can make use of social media platforms to get more enrollment in your course.

Additionally, you can provide your audience with free samples of your course materials, such as videos and ebooks, by uploading them to YouTube.

How much money can we make from selling online courses?

The demand for the course and the cost of the course are the only factors that determine this.

Enrollment will rise if you set the price low since more people will purchase it; but, if the price is a little too high, you will need to identify a target audience for enrollment who can afford your course.

If you use Udemy to host your course then the revenue sharing will be like that If you sell the course on your own then you will earn 97% of the course price and if the enrollment is done through Udemy Ads or marketplace the revenue share will be only 37% that the downside of Udemy.

If you are serious about creating a course, then I recommend you self-host it on Thinkific. Where you can host unlimited courses starting from $36 monthly.

7. Become an influencer on Social Media

Content consumption through the Internet is increasing daily, and the people creating it are also making a good amount of money through it.

Also, Influencer marketing is now the most used technique by brands to promote their products and services.

Have you ever seen a video on YouTube where the influencer says This video is sponsored by a brand?

The influencer is paid to promote the products that the brand wishes to promote to its target audience.

Also, the platforms where you are creating content pay you money for engaging your audience. All of the popular platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, have partner programs that pay creators when ads appear on their content.

You can set up a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, or a TikTok account to share your content with your audience.

This will be a fantastic combination for you if you want to boost your revenue by combining it with affiliate marketing. From this, you can also earn through sponsors as well as affiliates.

In addition, you can create products that you can sell to those who are your audience. This allows you to monetize your audience without depending on any other brand or product.

8. Start a Podcast

Podcasting is an excellent choice for people who are uncomfortable in front of a camera but want to express themselves through audio.

Podcasts allow you to share anything you desire, such as technology, news, history, and comedy.

Selling your products and subscriptions is one way to make money from podcasting. You may also include affiliate marketing in your podcasting and product recommendations to increase your revenue.

To earn a respectable income, you must first build a loyal base of people who enjoy the content you produce and are ready to listen to your podcast.

To manage and host your podcast, you make use of Buzzsprout. It helps you host and manage your podcast while also assisting you in monetizing it by connecting you with brands.

You can also try it for free or start with a premium plan beginning at $12 per month.

9. Sell Stock Photography

Selling Stock image is one best ideas that you can try to earn money passively. It also does not require much money to start as you can start it with your smartphone.

If you like to click aesthetic images of nature or you just love it you must give a chance to try it.

Many websites allow you to sell photographs and earn money if someone buys them. To take creative photographs, you will also need some experience with camera angles and color combinations.

Platforms to Sell Stock Photographs

1. Adobe Stock
2. Envato Elements
3. Shutterstock
4. iStock

Conclusion

These are ideas that you can attempt so that you can find what works for you. Additionally, keep in mind that you should not lose hope because it will take effort and time to see results, so you should not be discouraged.

Finally, if you find this post useful, please share it with your friends so that they can also discover new ideas as well.