13 Ways to Make Passive Income as a Beginner (and Earn $10,000+/Month)

Most people spend their whole career trading hours for dollars. You work, you get paid, you stop working, the money stops. The idea of making money while you sleep sounds great, but it also sounds like something only rich people get to do. Here is the truth: passive income is not just for people who already have a lot of money. Beginners with zero dollars can get started right now with several of the methods Alston breaks down in this video. Some require a bit of upfront effort. A few require a small investment. All thirteen are real income streams that regular people are using today.

This post walks through all 13 ways from the video, in order, with enough detail to actually take action on whichever one fits your situation. By the end, you will know which method to start with based on your time, money, and skills, and you will have a direct path to figuring out which online income model is the right fit for you.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear breakdown of all 13 passive income methods from the video
The specific platforms mentioned for each method (Amazon Kindle, Empire Flippers, Udemy, Fiverr, and more)
A realistic look at what each method requires in time, money, and skill
Real numbers from the video to help you estimate what you can earn
An honest look at which methods work best for true beginners with no starting capital
A decision framework so you pick one method and actually commit to it
A free tool to help you identify the right income model for your specific skills at finder.platformproof.com

Way 1: Investing in Stocks

The most well-known passive income method is also one of the most misunderstood. Investing in stocks gets a bad reputation because people think about day trading, watching charts all day, and losing money on wild swings. That is not what Alston is talking about here. He is talking about index fund investing, specifically using something like the S&P 500 as a long-term vehicle. The S&P 500 has gone up consistently since its inception. Yes, it dips. Yes, it fluctuates week to week and month to month. But zoom out, and the trend is clear.

There are three core reasons stock investing generates passive income. First, stocks can appreciate in value over time, so the shares you buy today may be worth more in five or ten years. Second, many stocks pay dividends, which means you receive cash payments just for holding them. Third, compound interest works in your favor the longer you stay invested. The money your dividends earn gets reinvested, and then that reinvested money earns returns, and so on. If you are new to these concepts, start by searching for compound interest calculators and running your own numbers. The math alone is motivating enough to open a brokerage account this week.

Way 2: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you recommend a product or service and earn a commission when someone buys through your link. You do not create the product. You do not handle shipping or customer service. You just connect buyers to products they already want. Alston mentions that people are making millions of dollars every single day with affiliate marketing, and while that level takes time to reach, the model itself is completely accessible to beginners.

You can do affiliate marketing on YouTube, on Quora, on Reddit, on social media, or through a blog. The key is recommending products you actually know and believe in. When your audience trusts your recommendation, they buy, and you get paid. The income is passive because the content you create today can keep earning commissions for months or years with no additional work from you. A single YouTube video or blog post can generate affiliate revenue long after you published it.

Way 3: Writing an E-Book

You do not need to be a published author or have a literary agent to make money with an e-book. You just need knowledge that someone else wants. Alston lays out two main ways to make money with an e-book. The first and most popular method is publishing on Amazon Kindle. Amazon handles the selling for you, and you collect royalties every time someone buys your book. The second method is through PLR, which stands for Private Label Rights. With PLR, you create an e-book and list it on a PLR site where other people in the content business buy it at a low price and resell it or give it away.

One of the most liberating things Alston points out about the e-book model is that you do not have to write it yourself. You can hire someone on a freelancing platform to create the content. You handle the publishing and the promotion, and the writer handles the actual writing. This means you could publish 30 e-books in 30 different topics without being an expert in any of them. Once the e-book is live, it keeps selling with no additional work required. That is the definition of passive income.

Way 4: Cash Back from Credit Card Rewards

This one is the most straightforward on the list. You are already spending money. You might as well get paid back a percentage of it. Cash back credit cards let you earn points or cash rewards on purchases you would make anyway. Those points can be converted to airline miles, gift cards, coupons, or straight cash back. Alston recommends focusing on the cash-back option rather than miles or points, since cash gives you more flexibility. You can use it to pay down the card balance or pocket it as income.

This is not the method that will replace your salary, but it is genuinely free money that most people leave on the table. If you are already making $3,000 to $5,000 in monthly purchases on a credit card with 2% cash back, that is $60 to $100 per month in pure passive income with zero additional effort. Pair this with other methods on this list and it adds up.

Way 5: Creating YouTube Videos

YouTube is where Alston himself generates income, so this is not theory. He lays out three distinct ways a YouTube channel can pay you. First, Google ads. When your channel qualifies for monetization, Google places ads on your videos and you earn a share of that revenue every time someone watches. Second, affiliate marketing inside your videos. You recommend products in your content, link them in the description, and earn commissions. Third, brand deals and sponsorships. When your audience grows, companies will pay you to feature their products.

Alston uses the example of a camera review channel. If you build an audience around cameras and Canon or Sony likes your content, they might give you a camera to review or pay you directly to produce a video series about their newest product. The key is that every video you upload is an asset that keeps working for you. A video you made two years ago can still be pulling in ad revenue and affiliate commissions today. The more videos you build up, the more passive the income becomes over time.

Way 6: Real Estate

Real estate is the classic passive income vehicle. Alston acknowledges two separate paths here. The first is owning physical property and renting it out. You buy a house or an apartment, a tenant pays rent monthly, and after your mortgage and expenses you pocket the difference. Properties also tend to appreciate over time, so you are building equity while generating monthly income. The second path is real estate investment trusts, often called REITs. These work similarly to stocks in that you buy shares of a real estate portfolio, and the trust pays out income to investors monthly or quarterly.

Real estate is not the cheapest method to get started with since you need capital for a down payment or investment. But for people who already own property or who have some money saved, it is one of the most reliable income streams available. The reason real estate keeps showing up in every passive income conversation is that people will always need somewhere to live, and that underlying demand supports consistent returns over the long run.

Way 7: Blogging

Blogging is written content on the internet organized around a niche topic. Alston makes an important point here: everything is a niche. You could blog about the best gaming mouse. You could blog about microphones, cameras, meal prep, personal finance, parenting, woodworking, or anything else that people search for online. The niche does not have to be large. It just has to have an audience.

Like YouTube, blogs have multiple income streams running at the same time. Ad networks like Mediavine or Google AdSense pay you when readers visit your posts. Affiliate links inside your content earn commissions when someone clicks and buys. Brands will pay for sponsored posts once your blog has traffic. Other bloggers and publishers will pay for guest posts on your site once you have authority in your niche. Alston’s point is that these payments stack. One strong blog post can earn from ads, from affiliate links, and from a sponsored mention all at the same time, every single month, indefinitely.

Way 8: Start a Web Hosting Business

This one surprises most people because it sounds technical. Alston himself started a web hosting business about a year before recording this video, and he is clear that you do not need to be a technical expert to run it. Here is how it works: you become a reseller for a larger web hosting company. That company provides the actual servers and infrastructure. You rent a block of server space from them at a wholesale rate, then sell hosting packages to your own clients, typically small and medium-sized businesses, at a price above what you pay.

Alston’s web design clients pay him monthly or annually to host their websites on his virtual private server. He does not manage the physical hardware. When a client has a problem, he contacts the upstream hosting company, they fix it, and he relays the solution to the client. His clients pay him recurring fees month after month, making this a subscription-based passive income stream. The best part is that the recurring nature of web hosting means once you sign up a client, the income from that relationship continues without you doing additional work each month. It is a solid model even if you do not know anything about servers.

Way 9: Rent Out Extra Space

If you have a spare bedroom, a garage, a storage area, or any other space in your home that is sitting empty, someone out there will pay you for it. Alston points out that housing costs are at a premium, and there are people who cannot afford to rent an entire apartment who would be perfectly happy renting a single room. You can search on sites like realtor.com to see what rooms and storage spaces are renting for in your neighborhood right now. The numbers might surprise you.

If you are already paying rent or a mortgage, renting out part of your space essentially gives you a tenant who helps cover your housing costs. You are not doing more work to earn that income month after month. The space was already there. You are just monetizing what you already have. Platforms like Airbnb exist specifically for short-term rentals if you want more flexibility, while traditional monthly rentals offer more predictable income. Either way, unused space is a free asset that can become a passive income stream starting this month.

Not sure which of these 13 methods fits your background and goals?

Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get a personalized recommendation based on your skills, time, and starting budget.

Way 10: Build an App

Think about how many apps are on your phone right now. Alston says most people have somewhere between 20 and 100 apps installed. Every single one of those apps is making money for somebody. The app developer might be earning revenue from in-app ads. They might be charging users a one-time download fee through the App Store or Google Play. They might offer premium features for a monthly subscription. Alston mentions TikTok specifically, which runs ads and generates significant revenue through ad placements inside the app experience.

Building an app sounds expensive or technical, but it does not have to be. There are no-code tools that let you build basic apps without writing a single line of code. If you have a problem you solve in your daily life, chances are other people have the same problem and would download an app that solves it for them. The income from a successful app is genuinely passive once the app is built and live. You are not trading hours for dollars. You are collecting revenue every time someone opens the app or clicks an ad, whether you are awake or asleep.

Way 11: Flip Websites

Website flipping works the same way as flipping houses, but the assets are digital and the price of entry is dramatically lower. You find domain names or websites that are expired, underused, or undervalued, buy them at a low price, and resell them for more. Alston says people spend all day doing this and are turning purchases of 99 cents to $10 into sales of $200, $300, or $400. There are marketplaces where you can check domain name values and then list them for sale, including Empire Flippers and Flippa.

The more advanced version of this strategy is buying a website that already has content and some traffic, improving it, and selling it for a multiple of its monthly revenue. A site earning $500 per month might sell for $15,000 to $25,000 on a marketplace like Empire Flippers. That is a significant return for someone who knows how to grow website traffic and monetization. Even at the beginner level, buying an expired domain for a few dollars and reselling it for a few hundred is a real income strategy that requires nothing but research and patience.

Way 12: Create an Online Course

Alston has personal experience with this one. He learned Amazon Web Services, got certified in it, and then created courses on the topic. He now gets students from around the world purchasing his courses and learning the material. His ongoing work is limited to answering questions and keeping the content updated. The bulk of the course was created once, and it keeps selling. That is the beauty of an online course: the work happens upfront, and the income is largely passive after that.

The platform he mentions is Udemy, which is one of the largest course marketplaces in the world. You can publish a course on Udemy on any topic you have real knowledge about. Alston makes a point that you do not need a formal degree or to be an industry expert. You need to be willing to do the research and put in the time to build something valuable. Once your course is live, Udemy’s existing audience can discover it and buy it. You handle updates and student questions. Udemy handles the payment processing and the marketing to their base. The key is that courses in evergreen markets like business, technology, and marketing can sell for years without needing significant updates.

Way 13: Service Arbitrage

Service arbitrage is the strategy of charging a client for a service and then hiring someone else to fulfill it at a lower rate, keeping the difference. Alston gives a concrete example: you market yourself as a web designer and charge a client $500 for a website. You then go to a platform like Fiverr or People Per Hour and find a freelancer who will build that same website for $50. You pocket $450 without doing the technical work yourself. The $450 is profit for your role as the person who found the client and managed the relationship.

This model scales well because you are not limited by your own time or skills. You can take on as many clients as you can find while outsourcing the actual delivery. Over time, as you build a reputation and a client list, the referrals come in without heavy marketing effort, which is what makes it start to feel passive. Service arbitrage works in web design, copywriting, video editing, SEO, social media management, and many other fields where there is a price gap between what clients will pay and what skilled freelancers charge on global platforms.

Which of These Is Right for You?

Here is a simple decision framework based on the 13 methods above. Think about three variables: how much time you can invest upfront, how much money you have to start, and what skills or knowledge you already have.

If you have no money to start: Focus on affiliate marketing, blogging, YouTube, service arbitrage, or creating an online course. These cost little to nothing to launch and reward consistent effort over time. Affiliate marketing in particular can be done on free platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Quora with no startup cost at all.

If you have a small amount of money to invest: Stock index funds, web hosting reselling, and e-book publishing are all low-barrier options. You can start investing in the S&P 500 with as little as $1 on some platforms. A web hosting reseller account typically costs $20 to $50 per month. Publishing an e-book on Amazon Kindle costs nothing unless you hire a writer.

If you have skills in a specific field: Online course creation and service arbitrage are your fastest path to income. You can package what you already know into a Udemy course or start taking on clients this week and outsourcing the work at a margin. These methods turn existing knowledge into a system that earns while you are not working.

If you own property or extra space: Renting out space is the most immediate passive income available. There is no learning curve, no platform to master, and no skills required. You have a bedroom or a garage, and someone in your city will pay for it starting this month.

Find Your X

The biggest mistake beginners make is trying to pursue all 13 methods at once. Pick one. Go deep on it for 90 days before considering anything else. The platform that will help you figure out which of these income streams matches your actual skills, schedule, and budget is at finder.platformproof.com. Answer a few questions and get a clear starting point built for your specific situation, not a generic list of options.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money do I need to start making passive income?

Several methods on this list require zero dollars to start. Affiliate marketing, YouTube, blogging, service arbitrage, and online course creation all cost nothing or very little to launch. Stock investing and real estate require some capital, but you can begin index fund investing with as little as $1 on certain platforms. The methods you choose should match the money you actually have available right now.

How long does it take to start seeing passive income?

The honest answer is that it depends on the method and how much consistent effort you put in. Credit card cash back is immediate. Renting out space can start generating income within a week. Affiliate marketing and blogging typically take three to six months of consistent content creation before income becomes significant. Stock dividends depend entirely on how much you have invested. There is no shortcut, but the methods on this list are all real and used by real people today.

Is affiliate marketing still worth starting in 2024?

Yes. The affiliate marketing industry continues to grow because more commerce is moving online. Platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and niche blogs are still strong channels for affiliate income. The key is choosing products you have genuine experience with and building an audience around a specific topic rather than trying to promote every product to everyone. Focused, trust-based affiliate content outperforms broad promotional content consistently.

Do I need to be an expert to create an online course?

No. Alston is direct about this in the video. You do not need a degree or an industry credential. You need to know more about a topic than the person you are teaching, which is a much lower bar. If you have spent a year learning about Amazon Web Services, personal budgeting, watercolor painting, or any other subject, you have enough knowledge to create a beginner course that helps people who are just getting started. Platforms like Udemy give you access to millions of potential students once your course is published.

Can I run a web hosting business without technical skills?

Yes, as Alston explains from his own experience. You become a reseller for an established hosting company. They manage the servers. When a client reports a problem, you contact your upstream provider, they fix it, and you relay the update to your client. Your job is to sell and manage client relationships, not to understand server architecture. The technical support is handled by the company whose infrastructure you are reselling.

What is the fastest way to start making money online with no experience?

Service arbitrage is one of the fastest paths for true beginners. You do not need to build an audience, wait for a product to rank, or acquire technical skills. You market a service you can fulfill through freelancers, land your first client, and complete the transaction at a margin. The challenge is finding that first client, but once you do, you have a proof of concept you can replicate. Combine this with the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com to find the model that fits your current skills.

How does website flipping work for beginners?

At the beginner level, website flipping starts with buying expired domain names that have some existing search authority or brand value. You can find these on domain auction sites and check their estimated value using free tools. Then you list them on marketplaces like Empire Flippers or Flippa at a higher price. The gap between what you paid and what you sell for is your profit. More experienced flippers buy websites with existing traffic and revenue, improve them, and sell for a multiple of monthly earnings.

Is renting out a room in your home worth the hassle?

For most people, yes. If housing costs in your area are high, a room that was going unused can bring in meaningful monthly income with almost no ongoing effort. The setup requires finding a tenant or listing on a platform, setting a price based on local market rates, and signing an agreement. After that, the income arrives each month without additional work on your part. Check what rooms in your area are renting for on sites like realtor.com to get a realistic number before deciding.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “13 Ways to Make Passive Income for Beginners,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/QZzfJYrAE7k
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing: kdp.amazon.com
Udemy course marketplace: udemy.com
Empire Flippers website marketplace: empireflipper.com
Flippa domain and website marketplace: flippa.com
Fiverr freelance marketplace: fiverr.com