How To Make Money Online Realistically 2022 – Is $220/Day Realistic?

When Alston first got started trying to make money online, he was very hesitant. And honestly, that hesitation makes sense. Most people are naturally skeptical because they have seen too many scams, too many “make $10,000 overnight” promises that turned out to be garbage. But here is what he figured out: the skepticism is justified when you are looking at the wrong things. When you look at real methods, proven by real income, the picture changes fast.

In this post, Alston breaks down eight ways he has made real money online, all of which produced some income for him in the last 12 months. None of these involve surveys, handing over your credit card, Telegram groups, or any of that. These are legitimate income streams, some producing a few dollars a day, some producing hundreds of dollars a day. If even one of these clicks for you, this post was worth your time.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The full list of 8 income streams Alston has personally used in the last 12 months
How Udemy course payouts actually work, and why each course can open three or four income streams at once
What you need, and do not need, to earn affiliate commissions through YouTube or a blog
How to build a digital product once and collect income from it around the clock without doing extra work
How Etsy printables let you earn without keeping any inventory or handling shipping
How to charge between $300 and $2,500 for a single WordPress website built in about three hours
Not sure which of these eight paths fits your situation? Find out in two minutes at finder.platformproof.com

Method 1: Selling Courses on Udemy

Udemy was Alston’s very first side hustle, and it is still running today. He has four courses on the platform, including his oldest one, “Mastering AWS Featuring SQS,” as well as an affiliate marketing for beginners masterclass and a course specifically on affiliate marketing with the Bluehost affiliate program. When someone signs up for one of these courses, he earns roughly $4 to $6 per enrollment, depending on how they found the course.

The split with Udemy matters here. If Udemy recommends someone to the course directly, your cut can drop as low as $2. But if someone comes in through your own affiliate link, you keep 50% of whatever they pay. Most buyers pay either $9.99 or $29, so that 50% adds up when you are driving your own traffic. Alston originally planned to upload a new course every single week for a full year, which would have meant 52 courses total. He shifted away from that pace, but even four courses continue generating income without requiring ongoing work on his part.

Here is what makes Udemy even smarter than it first appears: a single course can open three or four separate income streams simultaneously. Inside his affiliate marketing courses, Alston embeds affiliate links to tools and products he recommends. He also collects student email addresses during the course, then follows up through email marketing to recommend additional products or his own digital offerings. So one course becomes an affiliate income source, an email list builder, and a product sales funnel all at once. When looking for a niche, it pays to check what is trending and undersaturated: NFTs had just 464 results on Udemy at the time of this video, while cooking had over 2,000 and cryptocurrency had nearly 1,900. Trending and undersaturated is where the early opportunity lives.

Method 2: Starting a YouTube Channel

YouTube is method two, and Alston showed a channel with just 63 subscribers that was already generating commissions. Most people assume you need thousands of subscribers before making a single dollar on YouTube. That assumption is only true for one income stream: the YouTube Partner Program, which requires 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers before you can earn ad revenue. Affiliate marketing has no minimum subscriber requirement at all.

The way affiliate marketing works on YouTube is direct. People come to YouTube because they have a problem they want to solve. If someone wants to start a medical blog, they need web hosting. Alston creates content about starting blogs, includes his Bluehost affiliate link in the description, and when a viewer clicks that link and buys hosting, he earns a commission. The channel does not need to be large for this to work. It just needs content that answers a specific question for a specific person who is ready to act on it.

Once a channel grows past the YouTube Partner Program threshold, the income possibilities multiply: ad revenue from the partner program, affiliate commissions in video descriptions, sales of your own digital or physical products, merchandise, and Patreon subscriptions from your most loyal viewers. You also do not have to show your face. Alston noted that some of his course content uses only screen shares and slideshows with no face on camera, and it performs just fine. Pick any niche you are genuinely interested in, model a channel that already succeeds in that space, and start creating content that solves real problems for real people.

Method 3: Blogging

Blogging is method three, and Alston’s own site, alstongodbolt.com, is a live example of how it works. The blog does multiple jobs at once: it embeds his YouTube videos to drive watch time and subscriber growth, it displays Google AdSense ads that pay whenever readers view or click them, it features affiliate marketing links to recommended products and tools, and it sells digital and physical products directly to visitors who are ready to buy.

One of the most underrated parts of blogging is what it does for email list growth. Alston’s site offers a free training to help readers start an online business, and visitors enter their name and email to access it. From there, he follows up with automated email sequences that recommend products, promote his own digital offerings, and keep readers engaged over time. Email marketing consistently produces some of the highest returns in online business, and blogging is a natural way to build the list that makes email marketing possible.

If you want to start a blog but are not sure what to write about, look at websites you already read and enjoy. Alston used CNET as an example of a tech-focused publication you could model at a smaller, more personal scale. Find the questions people are searching for in a niche you understand, build content that answers those questions thoroughly, and monetize through the same mix of ads, affiliate links, digital products, and email that powers established blogs. The income builds slowly at first, then compounds as older posts continue attracting search traffic month after month.

Method 4: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing deserves its own section because it shows up inside most of the other methods on this list. But at its core the concept is simple: you recommend a product or service, someone buys through your link, and you earn a commission. Amazon Associates is the largest affiliate program in the world, and it covers an enormous range of products from consumer tech to kitchen appliances to fitness equipment to books.

Finding affiliate programs is easier than most people realize. Go to any company website you want to partner with, scroll all the way to the footer, and look for a link labeled something like “Become an Affiliate” or “Affiliate Program.” Click that link, sign up (almost always free), and start creating content around the products you are recommending. Alston walked through the Amazon Associates sign-up flow as a live example. Someone searching YouTube for an iPhone 11 Pro review or unboxing video is almost certainly planning to buy one. If your review has an Amazon affiliate link in the description and they buy through it, you earn a commission on the sale.

This approach works across every product category. Stand mixers, wireless mice, weight loss supplements, fitness gear, cooking tools, financial software, outdoor equipment. Every product category has buyers searching for information before they purchase. If you are building content in a specific niche and want to find affiliate programs for it, just search in Google for your niche plus “affiliate programs.” A search for “weight loss affiliate programs” will return a long list of companies that are actively looking for people to promote their products and paying commissions to those who do.

Which of these eight income streams is the right starting point for you?

Answer that in two minutes at finder.platformproof.com.

Method 5: Selling Your Own Digital Products

A digital product is something you create once and sell repeatedly without limits. There is no inventory to manage, no shipping to arrange, and no ceiling on how many copies you can sell. When someone buys your digital product, it gets delivered to them automatically, whether you are awake, asleep, or on vacation. Alston’s own digital product at the time of this video was a blueprint that walks buyers through earning with affiliate marketing and short-format video on TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest.

He built that product using ClickFunnels, but you can build and sell digital products with WordPress as well, along with platforms like Gumroad, Teachable, or Kajabi. The pricing is entirely up to you, and buyers exist at every price point. A $9 ebook, a $47 mini-course, a $197 comprehensive training, a $497 in-depth program. The format can be anything that genuinely solves a real problem: an ebook, a video course, an audiobook, or even a paid podcast series. The creation work happens once, and then the product handles the selling for you around the clock.

Digital products pair naturally with every other method on this list. Your Udemy course can direct students to your own standalone product. Your YouTube channel can promote it in descriptions and end screens. Your blog can feature it with a dedicated sales page. Your email list can be the primary channel you use to launch it, promote it to new subscribers, and re-promote it during sales periods. If you have knowledge or experience that solves a problem other people have, you already have the raw material for a digital product worth selling.

Method 6: Etsy Printables

Etsy is usually associated with handmade physical goods, but one of the most practical income streams on the platform involves digital downloads, specifically printables. When someone buys a printable on Etsy, the file gets delivered to them automatically. You never pack a box, address an envelope, or visit a post office. Alston favors this category specifically because it removes the time cost of fulfillment entirely. Create it once, list it, and let Etsy handle the rest.

The range of printables that sell on Etsy is broad. Resume templates, wall art, calendar pages, monthly planners, planner stickers, weekly checklists, budget trackers, meal planners, habit trackers, and activity sheets for children. Type “printable” into the Etsy search bar and you will see thousands of items actively selling across all of these categories. The files are typically created with Canva, which has a free tier that covers most of what you need to produce a professional-looking downloadable product.

If design is not your strong point, Alston pointed out that you can hire someone on Fiverr to create the original file, then sell it on Etsy and keep the margin. The upfront cost might be $10 to $30 for a well-designed printable template, and that same file can sell hundreds or even thousands of times without any additional cost or effort from you. Once a listing is live and discoverable in Etsy’s search results, it can generate income on its own indefinitely.

Method 7: Freelancing on Fiverr

Fiverr is a freelancing marketplace where people list services they offer, called gigs, and buyers come to the platform searching for help. Alston made around $200 on Fiverr by offering his Amazon Web Services technical skills. Someone needed AWS help, he had the expertise, they paid him, and he delivered. No audience required, no months of content creation, just a skill meeting a need on a platform that already has buyers looking for exactly that.

The range of services that sell on Fiverr is wide. At the time of this video, one of the faster-growing categories was NFT creation. People wanted custom NFTs and were willing to pay freelancers to make them. YouTube automation, sometimes called the YouTube cash cow model, is another service category where channel owners hire freelancers to handle scriptwriting, voiceover, video editing, or thumbnail design for faceless channels. Voice-over work, translation, social media scheduling, data entry, graphic design, and dozens of other services all have active buyers browsing Fiverr daily.

Fiverr is not the only platform for this kind of work. Upwork, PeoplePerHour, and Freelancer.com operate on similar principles and serve different buyer markets. The income potential from freelancing depends on how specialized your skill is and how many clients you can take on at once, but earning even a few hundred dollars a month from a skill you already have is real progress. It also has the advantage of paying you quickly, often within days of completing a project, unlike most of the other methods on this list that build income more slowly over time.

Method 8: Selling WordPress Websites to Local Clients

This method is the one that surprised Alston the most in terms of how much you can charge per project. He started by reaching out to local businesses that did not have a website, calling them up and simply offering to build one. For a five-page WordPress site, he started at a floor price of $300. That felt reasonable when he began, and it got him his first clients without much friction.

Then he took on a client in Chicago and quoted $2,500. That client did not hesitate. The same skill, the same deliverable, a different market, and nearly nine times more money per project. The reality is that a $300 to $2,500 range is genuinely available depending on the client’s size, location, and industry. Small local businesses in major cities regularly pay more for professional web design than businesses in smaller markets, and you can work with clients in any city remotely from wherever you are.

Here is how the workflow runs in practice. Go to ThemeForest.net and find a professional WordPress theme in the client’s niche. Alston used a plumber theme as a live example, priced at $69. Buy the theme, install it, add the client’s information and contact details, and the project is essentially done. The whole process takes roughly three hours. At the $300 price point that is $100 per hour for work you can do from home. To find clients, any local business appearing in Google Maps without a website is a potential lead. There are more of them in most cities than you would expect, and a single cold call or email to introduce yourself and your service is often all it takes to land the first project.

Honest Drawbacks: What Does Not Get Said Out Loud

All eight of these methods are real. Alston confirmed they all produced income for him within the last 12 months. But none of them are instant. Udemy payouts are small per enrollment and take time to accumulate. YouTube requires months or years to build to meaningful ad revenue. Blogging is notoriously slow to produce returns because search engines take time to rank new content. Freelancing and service work are the fastest to turn on but require active effort every time you want to earn. You stop working, you stop earning.

The practical approach is to pick the one method that fits your current skills and schedule, go deep on it until it produces consistent income, and only then consider adding a second stream. Spreading effort across all eight at once is a reliable way to make zero progress on any of them. The people who actually make these methods work are the ones who choose one, stay focused, and remain consistent long enough for it to produce real results. That window is usually longer than most people expect, and shorter than most people fear after they actually start.

Find Your X

Eight methods is a lot of options, and the right starting point genuinely depends on your skills, your available hours, and what you already know how to do. If you want a shortcut to figuring out which one fits your situation best, spend two minutes with the Platform Proof Finder at finder.platformproof.com. It asks a few short questions about your background and experience and points you toward the income stream most likely to produce results for your specific situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is $220 per day realistic with these methods?

It depends on the method and the time you have invested in it. Alston confirmed that some of his streams produce a few dollars a day while others produce hundreds. $220 per day works out to roughly $80,000 per year, which is achievable with well-established affiliate marketing, a successful digital product funnel, or a monetized YouTube channel with strong viewership. But it is not where most people start. A realistic early expectation is a few dollars per day that grows steadily over months and years, not something you will see in the first week or two.

How long does it take to start making money with these methods?

Selling a WordPress website service or landing a first client on Fiverr can produce income within days if you reach out to people right away. Publishing a Udemy course can generate its first enrollment within a week or two. Etsy printables depend on how fast your listings get discovered in search, which can take a few weeks or longer. YouTube and blogging are the slowest of the eight, typically taking three to twelve months before consistent income starts building. The good news is that some of the slower methods produce passive income once they hit their stride.

Do I have to show my face on YouTube to make money?

No. Alston mentioned that some of his course videos and content use only screen shares and slideshows with no face on camera, and they perform well. Faceless YouTube channels that use voiceover narration, animations, stock footage, or screen recordings are a growing and established format on the platform. You can build an affiliate marketing income stream on YouTube without ever appearing on video, which removes one of the most common barriers people cite for not starting a channel.

What is the easiest method to start with zero prior experience?

Etsy printables have one of the lowest barriers to entry because the tools (Canva) are free to use, the platform (Etsy) handles payment processing and automatic file delivery, and you do not need an existing audience to get started. Etsy has built-in search traffic from buyers already looking for what you are selling. Freelancing on Fiverr is another low-barrier option if you have any marketable skill, because the platform brings buyers to you rather than requiring you to find them on your own.

How much can I realistically earn on Udemy?

Alston earns roughly $4 to $6 per enrollment. If Udemy promotes your course internally and sends organic students to it, your share can be as low as $2 per sale. If students come in through your own affiliate links, you keep 50% of their payment, which is 50% of $9.99 or $29 depending on how they buy. A course that gets 100 enrollments per month through your own links at $9.99 would produce roughly $500 a month. Adding affiliate links inside the course content and using student emails for follow-up email marketing can increase the effective income per student well beyond that base enrollment fee.

Do I need technical skills to earn money on Fiverr?

No, though technical skills generally command higher rates. Alston used his Amazon Web Services expertise on Fiverr, but the platform has active demand for writing, proofreading, translation, graphic design, social media scheduling, video editing, voiceover work, and many other skills that do not require programming or engineering knowledge. The key is identifying tasks that buyers consistently need done and that you can deliver reliably. Search Fiverr in your area of experience and look at what existing gigs are priced at and how many reviews they have accumulated. That gives you a real picture of demand before you invest time building your profile.

Is affiliate marketing free to get started?

Yes, in almost every case. Amazon Associates is free to join. Most other affiliate programs are also free to apply to and participate in. The cost involved comes from how you choose to promote your affiliate links. A YouTube channel is free to start. A blog requires web hosting, which typically costs $3 to $10 per month. Some affiliate marketers spend money on paid advertising to send traffic to their offers, but that is optional and introduces additional risk for beginners. Starting with free organic traffic methods like YouTube videos or blog posts keeps the upfront cost minimal and teaches you the fundamentals before any money is at risk.

Can I run multiple income streams at the same time?

Yes, and Alston does exactly that. Most of his eight streams work together: his Udemy courses feed his email list, which then promotes his digital products; his YouTube channel feeds his blog; his blog drives affiliate commissions and AdSense revenue. The connections between methods are real and powerful once each individual stream has some momentum behind it. But trying to run all eight from day one splits your attention and slows progress across all of them. A better path is to pick one, build it until it generates consistent income, and then layer in a second stream that naturally complements the first.

Sources

Udemy course platform: udemy.com
Amazon Associates affiliate program: affiliate-program.amazon.com
Bluehost affiliate program: bluehost.com/affiliates
ThemeForest WordPress themes: themeforest.net
Fiverr freelancing marketplace: fiverr.com
Canva design tool: canva.com
Etsy marketplace: etsy.com
ClickFunnels funnel builder: clickfunnels.com