How To Make Money Selling ChatGPT Prompts on Etsy (Real Numbers Inside)

If you have watched one video about making money with ChatGPT, you have probably seen the same two ideas recycled over and over: start a faceless YouTube channel, or create digital products like travel itineraries with Canva. Those ideas are fine. But there is a third market sitting right in front of millions of buyers that almost nobody is talking about yet, and it is still early enough that brand-new accounts are walking in and picking up thousands of sales.

The opportunity is selling ChatGPT prompts directly on Etsy. Not using prompts to make something else, not prompts as a bonus inside a course. The prompts themselves, packaged cleanly into a digital download, sold for three to five dollars each to buyers who want to save time in a specific niche. Two accounts Alston found on Etsy in early 2023 had already crossed 4,000 and 4,600 sales respectively, translating to roughly $12,000 to $16,000 in revenue, and their shops were only a few months old.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Why selling ChatGPT prompts on Etsy is less saturated than most people assume
The real revenue numbers from two accounts Alston found in early 2023
How to use Insight Factory (free version) to find trending prompt categories on Etsy
The exact two-step ChatGPT prompting process to generate 100 niche prompts fast
Which niches are getting real sales signals right now, including teachers, real estate, and Mid-Journey
Why you do not have to use Etsy, and what platforms actually work for gaming and other niches
A step-by-step action plan to get your first prompt pack listed this week
Not sure which online income path fits your actual skills? finder.platformproof.com gives you a personalized answer in under three minutes.

The Etsy Prompt Market Nobody Is Talking About

When Alston pulled up Etsy in early 2023, he found an account that had published its first listing on March 1, 2023. The shop was weeks old. It already had 4,000 sales. The product? Collections of ChatGPT prompts, sold as digital downloads. At an average price of around four dollars per sale, 4,000 sales works out to approximately $16,000 in revenue in just a couple of months.

A second account he checked had 4,600 sales at an average closer to three dollars, putting it at roughly $12,000 over a similar window. Neither of these was a huge established shop riding years of SEO authority. They were new. They picked an early market, listed products, and buyers found them.

The reason this market is still early is simple: most people who know about ChatGPT are marketers, creators, or tech-adjacent workers. The teachers, real estate agents, relationship coaches, and gamers who could benefit most from pre-written prompts have not fully discovered this yet. That gap is the opportunity.

How to Find What Is Actually Selling on Etsy Right Now

Before writing a single prompt, you need to know what buyers are already spending money on. Guessing wastes time. The tool Alston uses for this is Insight Factory, which lives at insightfactory.app. It has a free tier and a paid tier. You can get started without paying anything.

Inside Insight Factory, go to the Etsy Tools section and click on Etsy Keyword Search. Type in “chat GPT” and the tool returns trending titles, popular hashtags, high-traffic keywords, and product descriptions that are actively pulling in buyers. When Alston ran this search, one of the results showed “ChatGPT blog post generator” with a sale recorded that same day. That is a live signal, not historical data. It tells you someone opened Etsy, searched for that product, and paid for it today.

The second feature inside Insight Factory worth bookmarking is Etsy Trends. Type in “chat GPT” here and then filter by beginner friendly. This view shows you categories with great sales signals that brand-new shops can realistically compete in. When Alston ran that filter, he saw results like “ChatGPT prompts for teachers,” “ChatGPT prompts for real estate,” “ChatGPT prompts for Mid-Journey,” and “ChatGPT prompts for marketing.” All of them showed active demand. None of them looked like a closed-off competitive market dominated by shops with thousands of reviews.

Mid-Journey prompts in particular surprised Alston when he first looked. Selling prompts for an AI image generator felt abstract, but the data showed real buyers actively purchasing them. That is the kind of non-obvious niche that early movers pick up before the crowd arrives.

How to Use ChatGPT to Create Your Prompt Pack

Once you have picked a niche, you use ChatGPT to build the actual product. The process Alston walks through has two distinct steps, and the first one is easy to skip but matters a lot.

Step one: Calibrate ChatGPT before you ask it anything. Open chat.openai.com (free version works) and type something like: “Answer questions as an expert ChatGPT prompt writer and a relationship coach that has deep knowledge of every sub-niche. Do not start writing yet. Confirm you understand.” ChatGPT will confirm. This sets the frame for everything that follows. Instead of getting generic output, you are telling the model who it is supposed to be and what domain it should draw from.

Step two: Ask for categories, then ask for 100 prompts. After calibration, type something like: “These prompts will be used by coaches to have a positive impact on all aspects of their business. What are the best categories to create ChatGPT prompts for? Create 10 prompts for each. Remember, our goal is to help relationship coaches grow their online business.” Review the output. If the sample looks useful, follow up with: “Give me 100 prompts.” You now have a full product.

The shops Alston found were dropping all of this output into a spreadsheet, adding a clean cover image, and listing it on Etsy. That is the entire production workflow. No recording, no editing, no shipping, no inventory. The digital file is the product.

Choosing the Right Niche and Where Your Buyers Actually Are

Not every niche belongs on Etsy. This is one of the most practical distinctions in the whole strategy, and missing it burns time. You need to ask yourself: does my target buyer actually shop on Etsy?

Teachers? Probably yes. Teachers are already on Etsy buying lesson plan templates, printable worksheets, and classroom resources. A pack of ChatGPT prompts designed for fourth grade teachers fits right into what they already buy there.

Writers? Yes. Etsy has a healthy market for writing tools and templates. A pack of ChatGPT prompts for storytelling or fiction writing would feel natural in that environment.

Gamers? Probably not. Gamers are not browsing Etsy. If you want to sell ChatGPT prompts to gamers, whether that is prompts for building better Esports strategies or prompts for game development, you need a different channel. Alston points to TikTok organic as the fit here. Create content showing how to get better settings for League of Legends using AI, direct viewers to your product, and you can make this work. Or run Facebook ads into a landing page. The prompt product is the same. The distribution is just matched to where the audience actually spends time.

This channel-audience match is one of the things that separates people who try this and get zero sales from people who try this and hit four figures in their first month. The product can be great and still fail if it is listed in a place the buyer never visits.

Specific Niches With Active Sales Signals Right Now

Based on what Insight Factory showed Alston when he ran the research, here are the categories with clear demand in the ChatGPT prompt market:

Teachers (by grade level): Alston specifically tested “create a list of the best ChatGPT prompts for fourth grade teachers” and the output was genuinely useful for someone near the end of a school year looking for fresh activity ideas. Going grade by grade, first through sixth, could produce six separate listings from one session with ChatGPT.
Real estate agents: Trending in the Etsy search data. Real estate agents deal with a lot of repetitive writing tasks, from listing descriptions to follow-up emails, and they are willing to pay for anything that saves time.
Relationship coaches: Alston used this as his live demo niche in the video. The calibration prompt + 100-prompt output works well here because coaching clients ask predictable questions that ChatGPT can handle well with the right framing.
Marketing professionals: High search volume in the Etsy trends data. Marketers already understand the value of prompt engineering but still buy pre-written collections that save them calibration time.
Mid-Journey users: Demand surprised Alston when he first looked at the data. AI image generation is growing fast, and users who are not technical writers will pay for prompts that produce better results without trial and error.
Health and fitness: Broad niche with lots of sub-niches. Prompts for personal trainers, prompts for nutrition coaches, prompts for fitness content creators. Each sub-niche can be a separate listing.
Writing and storytelling: Authors, screenwriters, and bloggers who want ChatGPT to help them generate ideas, outline chapters, or write in a specific genre benefit from curated prompt packs.
Travel and exploration: Travel itinerary prompts, hotel negotiation prompts, packing list prompts. Broad audience with clear use cases.

You can also ask ChatGPT directly: “What are some popular niches for ChatGPT prompts?” It will return a list you can cross-reference against Insight Factory data to find the overlap between what people want and what buyers are actually purchasing.

Why Sub-Niching Gets You More Sales Than Going Broad

The accounts doing the most volume are not selling “ChatGPT prompts for everyone.” They are selling prompts for fourth grade teachers. Prompts for Esports coaches. Prompts for real estate agents handling luxury listings. The specificity is the product.

A fourth grade teacher landing on a pack of prompts built specifically for their grade level and subject area is going to convert at a much higher rate than the same teacher landing on a generic “prompts for education” listing. The title tells them this was made for them. The contents confirm it.

Inside a broad niche like gaming, you can ask ChatGPT: “What are some sub-niches in the gaming industry?” You will get back Esports, game development, content creation for streamers, game narrative design, and others. Each of those is a separate prompt pack. Each pack is a separate Etsy listing. One research session turns into multiple products.

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Step-by-Step Action Plan to List Your First Prompt Pack This Week

Here is the full sequence, compressed to what you actually need to do:

Day 1: Pick your niche. Go to insightfactory.app, run an Etsy keyword search for “chat GPT,” and filter Etsy Trends by beginner friendly. Write down three categories with active sales signals. Pick the one you know most about or find most interesting.
Day 1: Identify your sub-niche. Use ChatGPT to list sub-niches within your chosen category. Pick one specific enough that a buyer would feel the pack was made for them, not for everyone.
Day 2: Generate your prompts. Open chat.openai.com. Use the calibration prompt first (set the role, confirm understanding). Then ask for the best categories for your niche and 10 prompts per category. Review. Follow up with “give me 100 prompts.” Export to a Google Sheet or a simple PDF.
Day 2: Review and edit. Read through the prompts. Remove any that feel too generic or repeat the same idea. Add a few you think of yourself based on your own knowledge of the niche. Quality matters here, especially for the first handful of reviews that will either build or kill your shop’s credibility.
Day 3: Create the listing file. Format the prompts into a clean PDF or spreadsheet. You do not need design skills. A well-organized Google Doc exported as a PDF is enough to start. If you want to add a cover page, Canva has free templates that take 10 minutes.
Day 3: Open your Etsy shop. If you do not already have one, Etsy setup takes about 30 minutes. You will need a shop name, a payment method, and a profile photo. Keep the shop name broad enough to support multiple prompt niches over time.
Day 4: Write your listing. Use Insight Factory keyword data to write a title that matches what buyers are actually searching. Include the niche in the title and tags. Price between three and five dollars to start. You can adjust after your first 20 sales once you have data on conversion rate.
Day 4 onward: Create more listings. Each new sub-niche or grade level or job role is a new product. More listings means more surface area on Etsy’s search. The accounts with thousands of sales were not running on one listing. They were building a catalog.

Honest Drawbacks Worth Knowing Before You Start

This is a real opportunity, but it is not without friction. Here are the honest limitations:

Etsy takes a cut. Etsy charges a listing fee of $0.20 per item, a transaction fee on each sale, and a payment processing fee. At a three dollar price point, your margins are tighter than they look. At five dollars, it is more workable. Factor this in when setting prices.

You will not hit 4,000 sales in week one. The accounts Alston showed were early movers who hit those numbers over two months of consistent listing activity. This is a build, not an instant result. Expecting passive income from one listing published on a Tuesday is not realistic.

Prompt quality matters. Buyers who download a pack of 100 prompts and find that 60 of them are variations of the same sentence will leave bad reviews. Bad reviews on Etsy tank your shop visibility fast. Take the time to review and edit what ChatGPT generates before you list it.

Not every niche is on Etsy. As Alston points out in the video, gamers are not browsing Etsy. If you pick a niche whose buyers are on a different platform, you need to adjust your distribution. This is a solvable problem, but it requires extra work compared to listing on a marketplace where buyers already go.

The market will get more competitive over time. This is always true of early markets. The window where brand-new accounts can get traction without a big marketing budget is open now. Sitting on this idea for three months while you think about it is the one reliable way to miss the early window.

Find Your X

Selling ChatGPT prompts on Etsy works. It is verifiable from real account data, the production cost is time only, and the distribution platform already has buyers. But it is also one of dozens of ways to start making money online, and it is not the right fit for everyone. If you are not sure whether this is the right method for your situation, or if you want to compare it against other options before committing hours to it, the fastest way to get clarity is finder.platformproof.com. It asks you a few questions about your skills and schedule and points you toward the methods most likely to work for you specifically.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need the paid version of ChatGPT to create prompt packs to sell?

No. Alston specifically mentions using the free version of chat.openai.com. The free version can generate 100 niche-specific prompts in a single session. The paid version is faster and has fewer usage limits if you are running multiple sessions per day, but it is not required to get started.

What price should I charge for a prompt pack?

The two accounts Alston found were selling at approximately three to four dollars per pack. That is low enough to reduce purchase hesitation and high enough to add up meaningfully at volume. Starting in that range and adjusting based on your actual sales and review data is a reasonable approach. Some sellers charge more for highly specialized prompts aimed at professionals who have higher willingness to pay.

Is this already too saturated to make money?

Alston addresses this directly. When he recorded the video, he found that new accounts with no reviews, no brand history, and no established shop authority were getting thousands of sales. That is not the behavior of a saturated market. Saturation looks like an established player with 10,000 reviews dominating every search result. What he found was a market with open space. That does not mean it will stay open forever, which is why acting quickly is part of the advice.

Can I sell these same prompts on platforms other than Etsy?

Yes. Alston explicitly covers this. If your target audience is not shopping on Etsy, such as gamers or younger demographics, you can sell the same product through Facebook ads to a landing page, through TikTok organic content, or through your own website. The digital file is the same. The distribution is what you adjust to match where your buyers actually spend time.

Do I need to be an expert in the niche I pick?

Alston says having some knowledge of your niche is an advantage but not a requirement. The calibration prompt you feed ChatGPT establishes the domain expertise. That said, reviewing the output with at least a basic understanding of what a fourth grade teacher or a real estate agent actually needs will catch prompts that are technically on-topic but practically useless. Some familiarity helps you quality-check the output before listing it.

What format should the prompt pack be delivered in?

The accounts Alston showed appeared to use spreadsheets, which are easy to organize by category and easy for buyers to reference. A well-organized PDF also works. Canva has free templates if you want a cover page. The key requirement is that buyers can download the file immediately after purchase, which is how Etsy digital products work by default.

How many listings should I have before expecting real sales?

There is no magic number, but more listings means more Etsy search surface area. A shop with one listing is betting everything on one product appearing in search. A shop with 20 listings covering 20 sub-niches or grade levels has 20 chances to show up. The production time per listing is low once you have the ChatGPT workflow running, so building a catalog quickly is realistic.

Is Insight Factory the only tool that shows Etsy trends for this niche?

It is the specific tool Alston uses in this video, and it has a free tier at insightfactory.app. Other Etsy research tools exist, but Insight Factory is what is demonstrated here. The beginner-friendly filter inside Etsy Trends is the specific feature worth spending time in if you are starting a new shop with no existing review history.

Sources

Alston Godbolt YouTube channel: “REVEALED: How To Make $16,360.00 With ChatGPT | Must Watch” (youtu.be/i7xRx4VKgno)
Etsy marketplace: etsy.com
Insight Factory (Etsy keyword and trends research tool): insightfactory.app
ChatGPT (OpenAI): chat.openai.com