My 12 Best Ways To Make Money Online For Free

Every single method on this list is one Alston Godbolt has personally used to make money online. No theoretical income streams. No “I heard this works.” Twelve real methods, real tools, real starting points, all available for free. That is the promise of this video, and he delivers on it.

Whether you have a phone and a free Canva account or a laptop and a few quiet hours each week, at least one of these paths fits where you are right now. The goal is not to overwhelm you with choices. The goal is to help you spot the one method that matches your skills, your schedule, and the niche you already care about, then get moving on it in 2022 and beyond.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear breakdown of all 12 ways Alston has made money online for free
The exact tools he recommends for each method, including free options
The rookie mistakes he watched people make on Fiverr and Etsy, and how to skip them
How to build a WordPress website in about three hours and charge $300 to $2,500 for it
The $1-per-contact-per-month email marketing benchmark and how to hit it
Why Alston created his first Udemy course on AWS and what that teaches you about choosing your niche
How to sell old video games and household items on eBay while you build something longer-term
The tool at finder.platformproof.com that matches you to your best-fit method based on your skills and schedule

Method 1: Start a YouTube Channel

YouTube is Alston’s favorite method on this list, and he keeps coming back to it because the opportunity is still wide open. Every niche you can think of has room for a new voice: teaching languages, walking people through affiliate marketing, documenting a weight-loss journey, starting a blog, explaining complicated software. The niches go on forever.

There are at least four ways to make money once your channel grows: the YouTube Partner Program, affiliate marketing commissions, brand sponsorships, and selling your own courses or digital products. You do not need all four at once. Most creators start with one and layer in the others as their audience builds.

You also do not need expensive gear. A smartphone works fine to start. If you do not want to show your face, you can use Canva for slides, free stock footage from Pixabay or Pexels, and a microphone you already own. Record your audio, put b-roll over it, upload. That is a YouTube video. The most important thing is that you start creating and you keep going. Nobody who stayed at zero videos ever built a channel.

Method 2: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means recommending or selling other people’s products and collecting a commission when someone buys. The industry is worth billions of dollars, and most of the people making serious money in it are not in health, wealth, relationships, or technology. They are in categories most people ignore: tires, lawnmowers, widgets, hobbyist gear. Alston made this mistake early in his career, assuming he had to stick to the obvious niches. He did not.

ClickBank is a good starting point. It is an affiliate marketplace with hundreds, often thousands, of programs across dozens of categories. Browse the categories, find a product that genuinely solves a real problem, and start recommending it through content. You can do this entirely free through YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. No website required. A full-time income is possible just from social media content that recommends the right product to the right audience.

Method 3: Build WordPress Websites for Clients

This one surprised a lot of people in the video because it sounds technical, but the actual barrier is lower than most assume. A simple five-page WordPress website can be completed in roughly three hours, which means you are earning $100 or more per hour if you charge $300 for the job. Alston’s wife told him $300 was too low. She was right. The range goes up to $2,500 for a more involved build, and clients pay it.

The process: join Thumbtack, which is a platform where local businesses post needs and service providers respond. When someone needs a website, reach out, build the relationship, show your experience, and collect half the payment upfront. Then go to ThemeForest, find a WordPress theme that fits the client’s industry, download it into their hosting account, and set it up. There are tutorials for every step. You are not writing code from scratch. You are assembling a professional site from polished building blocks.

Other ways to find clients: call local businesses whose websites look outdated, create YouTube content about web design, or use social media to reach small business owners directly. Not one of those requires spending money.

Method 4: Create and Sell Courses on Udemy

Udemy is the biggest online course platform, and Alston’s first course there was on AWS, Amazon Web Services. He searched his topic and found over 565,000 results, meaning demand was real and the niche was proven. Most of his recording was a screen share walking students through specific processes, with his face only appearing occasionally. You can go fully screen-share if being on camera is a barrier.

The niche does not have to be technical. It can be anything you know that other people want to learn. Alston later branched into affiliate marketing courses. The method is the same: pick a topic, study it if you need to, record yourself walking through it, and upload. His goal was one new course per week. He fell short of that pace, but even at a slower rate the model works because each course keeps selling after it is published.

Udemy is not the only option. Skillshare is another platform where you can host courses and earn from student watch time. Both are free to publish on. You can also sell a course yourself through your own website, which cuts out the platform fee entirely once you have an audience.

Method 5: Sell Digital Products

A digital product is anything that can be bought, delivered, and consumed online without a physical shipment. That covers ebooks, templates, guides, checklists, printables, and more. The real appeal is that once it is created, delivery is automatic and the product can sell indefinitely without additional work.

Alston created his 60-Second Business Blueprint, a 43-page step-by-step guide showing people how to build a following and gain traction on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. He built it over a weekend. That is the timeline for creating a first product: not months, not a year, a weekend of focused work. He packaged it and sold it, then used it as a foundation for larger offerings.

You can sell digital products through Etsy, Redbubble, your own website, or even directly through PayPal with Google Drive handling delivery. There is no cost to start with PayPal and Google Drive. The product is the only asset you need to build, and the build time is finite even if the revenue is not.

Method 6: Build an Email List

Email marketing is where a large portion of Alston’s income comes from, and he recommends it to almost everyone getting started online. The core mechanic is simple: you set up a free landing page, drive traffic to it, collect email addresses from people interested in your topic, and follow up with them regularly. Each email you send is a new chance to make a sale.

Most email marketing platforms have a free tier. You can often get started at no cost for your first 500 contacts, which is more than enough runway to learn the system and start generating revenue before you ever pay a monthly fee. The benchmark Alston points to is $1 per contact per month. Some people earn more. Some earn less. But that gives you a number to aim for: 1,000 people on your list means a realistic target of $1,000 per month from that list alone.

The long-term advantage of email over social media is ownership. Social media platforms can change their algorithm, suspend your account, or vanish entirely. Your email list is yours. People stay on it until they choose to leave. That makes it one of the most durable assets you can build online.

Not sure which of these 12 methods fits your specific skills, schedule, and starting point?

Answer a few quick questions at finder.platformproof.com and get matched to your best-fit method in under two minutes.

Method 7: Start a Blog

Blogging is not purely free if you want your own domain and hosting, but those costs are minimal and one-time per year. Once you have paid for the domain and hosting, you do not need to spend anything else to run the site. If you want to test the format first, Medium lets you publish for free with no setup cost at all.

The reason Alston lists blogging separately from other methods is that a blog gives you an asset that is very hard to take away. A YouTube channel can be terminated. A social media account can be suspended. But a self-hosted website is under your control in a way that platform-based content is not. On a blog, you can place display ads, do affiliate marketing, sell digital products, collect emails, and promote your own services, all from the same property.

Method 8: Sell on Etsy

Etsy is where you can sell digital downloads without keeping any inventory or handling any shipping. The most common starting product for new sellers is SVG files, which are vector graphics people use in Cricut machines, print-on-demand shirts, and other crafts. You can create SVGs in Canva for free. Alston uses Affinity Photo. Either works.

The keyword research method Alston uses is straightforward: go to Etsy, type “SVG” followed by each letter of the alphabet, and look at what the autocomplete suggests. SVG thanksgiving, SVG christmas, SVG new year, SVG quotes. Each suggestion is a proven demand signal. Create files around those searches and list them in your shop.

The biggest mistake Alston sees on Etsy: people create great products, list them, and then wait for Etsy to bring all the traffic. Etsy does drive some organic traffic, but if you pair your shop with a YouTube channel or social media presence that promotes the products, you can launch faster and charge more because your audience already knows and trusts you.

Method 9: Offer Gigs on Fiverr

Fiverr is a marketplace where you can post a service offering, called a gig, for almost any skill. You do not need a degree, a portfolio, or prior clients. If you speak Spanish, know how to format a spreadsheet, can record a voiceover, or understand basic graphic design, you can post a gig and start taking orders.

The challenge with popular categories is competition. Alston shows in the video that searching “NFT” on Fiverr returns over 23,000 active gigs. Winning new clients by sitting and waiting is very slow in a market that crowded. His recommended approach is to use the Buyer Requests section. Buyers post specific project descriptions there, and you can respond directly to each one. The competition drops dramatically because you are competing for one job, not trying to get discovered among thousands of gigs.

There is a limit on how many buyer requests you can submit per day, so prioritize the ones that best match what you actually do well. Do not spread yourself thin across categories you cannot deliver on. A few strong, on-time deliveries will move your rating up and make future orders easier to win.

Method 10: Freelance Writing

If you can write clearly, there is consistent demand for your skills online. Platforms like iWriter connect writers with clients who need articles, blog posts, and web copy. When you start on iWriter you begin at the entry level, where rates are lower, and you earn your way up to higher tiers by delivering quality work. As your rating climbs, you unlock higher-paying jobs.

Alston’s tip for speeding up your output is to use an AI writing assistant like Jarvis. It does not write the article for you, but it helps you draft faster and think through structure, which means you can complete more assignments in the same number of hours. More assignments completed means more income and a faster path to higher-tier status on the platform.

Method 11: Sell Old Stuff on eBay

This is the most straightforward method on the list and the one that can put money in your pocket the fastest. Go through your home and find things you no longer use. Electronics, video games, books, sporting goods, clothes, collectibles. List them on eBay. People are buying.

Alston gives a specific example: he sold a copy of NCAA Football 14 for about $20 when he first listed it. The same game now sells on eBay for $34.50 for just the case and inserts, no disc included. A complete copy in used condition goes for $90 to $150 depending on the listing. He wishes he had kept his copy. The point is that items you consider worthless can have real market value, and eBay makes it easy to find out. Scan the barcode with the eBay app or type in the item name and see what completed sales look like before you price your listing.

This method will not replace a full-time income, but it can fund your starting costs for other methods on this list, or simply pay for a few dinners while you build something longer-term.

Method 12: Build and Monetize a Facebook Group

Facebook groups work for nearly every niche. Alston points to woodworking as an example. Search “woodworking” on Facebook and you find dozens of active groups with thousands of members who are passionate about the topic. Those are people who want to buy tools, plans, guides, and courses. A group owner who serves that audience well has real monetization options: affiliate links, digital products, courses, and partnerships.

The strategy for getting started is to join existing groups in your niche first. Contribute genuinely useful information. Build a reputation. Then, once you have some credibility, invite people over to your own group. This approach builds trust before you ask anyone to follow you somewhere new.

To keep the group active without posting manually every day, Alston uses Integromat, an automation tool that can post content to your group on a schedule, including video, images, and text. Setting it to post every four hours means your group always has fresh content even when you are not actively working on it. Automation is not a shortcut around building real community, but it does remove the daily manual effort once the group is running.

Honest Drawbacks for Each Method

Every method on this list is legitimate, but none of them is instant. Here is an honest look at the friction points:

YouTube: Building an audience from zero takes time. Expect months of consistent uploads before you see significant income from the Partner Program.
Affiliate marketing: Without an audience already in place, your first commissions will take longer to arrive. The method is free to start but not fast to start.
WordPress development: Client work requires actually finding clients. Thumbtack and social media help, but you will need to reach out proactively rather than wait for work to come to you.
Udemy courses: Udemy keeps a percentage of each sale and can change its pricing policies. Selling on a platform means accepting their terms.
Digital products: A 43-page guide created over one weekend is a starting point, not a finished business. You will need a way to get traffic to it, whether through social media, email, or SEO.
Email marketing: The free tier on most platforms has a contact limit. Once your list grows past that threshold, you pay a monthly fee. Budget for it in advance.
Blogging: Domain and hosting cost roughly $50 to $150 per year. SEO takes time, often six months or more before a new site gets meaningful organic traffic.
Etsy: Etsy does charge listing fees and takes a transaction percentage. It is not completely free to sell there, but the entry costs are very low.
Fiverr: Competition in popular categories is intense. The Buyer Requests strategy helps, but building a strong seller profile with good reviews takes several completed orders first.
Freelance writing: Entry-level rates on platforms like iWriter are low. You earn higher rates only after proving yourself through completed work.
Selling old stuff: This is a one-time inventory. Once you have sold everything in your home worth selling, the income stops unless you source new items.
Facebook groups: Group growth is slow without consistent content and engagement. Automation tools like Integromat help sustain activity, but they do not replace genuine participation.

Find Your X

Twelve methods is a lot to process. If you are sitting with the question of which one to actually start, the fastest path to an answer is not reading more articles. It is answering a short set of questions about your specific skills, time, and situation and getting a recommendation that actually fits you.

That is what the free tool at finder.platformproof.com does. Fill in your details and it matches you to the method most likely to work given where you are right now. Takes under two minutes and gives you a real starting point instead of another list to scroll through.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do any of these methods actually cost nothing to start?

Most of them genuinely cost nothing to begin. YouTube, affiliate marketing, Fiverr, freelance writing on iWriter, and selling old items on eBay all have zero upfront cost. Etsy charges a small listing fee per item. Blogging requires a domain and hosting, which runs $50 to $150 per year. Even there, Medium lets you publish for free if you want to test the writing format before committing to a self-hosted site.

Which method on this list makes money the fastest?

Selling old stuff on eBay is the fastest path to cash because there is no audience-building phase. You list an item, someone buys it, you ship it. WordPress development can also move quickly once you land a first client, since you collect half upfront before you build. Freelance writing on a platform like iWriter can produce a first payment within days if you complete assignments promptly. The methods tied to content creation, like YouTube and blogging, take longer because they depend on building an audience first.

How do you find clients for WordPress development without spending money on ads?

Alston recommends Thumbtack as a starting point. It works like a local services marketplace where businesses post needs and service providers respond. You can also call local businesses directly, look at their existing websites, and point out specifically what could be improved. Creating YouTube content about web design and WordPress can also bring inbound inquiries over time. None of those approaches require an ad budget.

What is the best niche to pick for affiliate marketing?

Alston’s honest answer is that the best niche is one you already know something about or care enough to learn. The assumption that only health, wealth, relationships, and technology pay well is wrong. People earn affiliate commissions in automotive, outdoor sports, home improvement, crafts, and hundreds of other categories. The key is matching a product that solves a real problem to an audience that has that problem, not picking the niche with the biggest commission rate.

Can you build a YouTube channel without showing your face?

Yes, and Alston specifically addresses this in the video. You can create voiceover videos using free stock footage from Pixabay or Pexels, slide presentations in Canva, or animation tools, all without appearing on camera. The audio quality matters more than whether you are visible. A decent microphone, even one you already have, combined with b-roll footage and clear narration is enough to build a legitimate channel in almost any niche.

Is there a realistic income benchmark for email marketing?

The figure Alston references is $1 per subscriber per month. Some email marketers earn more, some earn less, but it is a useful target to aim toward when building your list. At 500 subscribers you would be targeting $500 per month. At 1,000 subscribers, $1,000 per month. Getting there requires consistent content, a valuable lead magnet to grow the list, and follow-up emails that actually help people and occasionally promote products or services. Email income rarely starts at that benchmark and grows into it over time as you get better at writing and understanding your audience.

What should a brand new Fiverr seller do first?

Create a clear gig for something you can deliver well, then immediately go to the Buyer Requests section rather than waiting for clients to discover your profile. Buyer Requests are where buyers post specific project needs, and you can respond directly. The competition is much lower than competing for organic gig discovery. Alston notes that there is a daily cap on how many requests you can bid on, so be selective and respond only to projects that genuinely match your skills. Early reviews matter a lot on Fiverr, so it is worth taking slightly lower-paying jobs at first in exchange for completing them perfectly and earning strong ratings.

How do you pick which of the 12 methods to start with?

Start by looking at what you can do right now with what you have. If you own a smartphone and have knowledge about any topic, YouTube or affiliate marketing on social media is immediately available. If you have items around the house that are unused, eBay is the fastest path to a first dollar. If you have a skill someone would pay for, Fiverr or freelance writing can get you a first client without a portfolio. Pick the method with the lowest friction given your current situation, start there, and add a second method once the first one is producing consistent results. Trying all twelve at once produces results in none of them.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “My 12 Best Ways To Make Money Online For Free 2022,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/JKpC4YxeziI
ClickBank affiliate marketplace: clickbank.com
Thumbtack local services platform: thumbtack.com
ThemeForest WordPress themes: themeforest.net
Udemy online course platform: udemy.com
iWriter freelance writing platform: iwriter.com
Integromat automation (now Make): make.com