How To Make Money Selling ChatGPT Prompts on Etsy (Step-by-Step)

During a live stream, a YouTube viewer who goes by the name “peach cobbler” typed something in the chat that stopped Alston mid-sentence: “By the way, my ChatGPT prompts have been selling on Etsy. Thanks for the video.” No ask for a testimonial. No DM. Just a viewer confirming, in public, that the method works. That moment is what this post is about.

Selling ChatGPT prompts on Etsy is one of the lowest-barrier ways to create and sell a digital product right now. You do not need a following. You do not need a website. You do not need any design skills beyond what Canva gives you for free. What you do need is a system, and that is exactly what this post covers: how to find a niche, how to use ChatGPT to build your prompt pack, how to package and deliver it, and how to create Etsy listings that actually convert.

What You’ll Walk Out With

An understanding of why people pay for ChatGPT prompts and what drives that purchase decision
Three free tools for finding profitable prompt niches before you create anything
The exact ChatGPT prompt sequence Alston uses to generate a complete prompt pack in one session
How to organize, deliver, and package your prompts using Google Sheets and Canva at zero cost
How to create professional Etsy mockup images without hiring a designer
How to embed affiliate links inside your digital product so you earn beyond the initial sale
The PLR Repository shortcut for anyone who wants done-for-you prompt packs to skip the creation step
If you are still deciding whether selling digital products is the right model for you, get a personalized answer in under two minutes at finder.platformproof.com

Why People Buy ChatGPT Prompts

Before you build anything, you need to understand the purchase psychology behind this product. People buy things when those things save them time, save them money, or help them avoid frustration. ChatGPT prompts do all three.

Alston makes this concrete in the video. If you do not know what to type into ChatGPT to get useful output, you have two choices: spend hours experimenting with prompts yourself, or quit and not use the tool at all. Buying a well-organized set of prompts is the shortcut that removes both options. The buyer pays a few dollars and skips straight to the result they wanted.

Alston also admits he has bought ChatGPT prompts himself. He was not making a sale when he said it. He said it because it is true, and it illustrates the point cleanly. Even people who understand how ChatGPT works will pay for curated prompts because the curation is the product. Knowing that gives you permission to create these packs without feeling like you are selling something obvious or low-value.

Step 1: Find a Profitable Niche Using Three Free Tools

The best niches are specific enough to attract a defined buyer and broad enough that there are multiple types of prompts you can build within them. Here are the three research approaches Alston walks through in the video.

AnswerThePublic.com

Go to answerthepublic.com and type in “ChatGPT prompts.” The tool returns questions people are actually searching for around that phrase. Alston finds options like “ChatGPT prompts for resume,” “ChatGPT prompts for business,” “ChatGPT prompts for writing a book,” “ChatGPT prompts for copywriting,” and “ChatGPT prompts for social media.” Each of these is a potential prompt pack. The tool is free and gives you signal about what people are actively looking for.

Ahrefs

Alston checks Ahrefs and notes that there are 76 keywords related to ChatGPT prompts, with 1,900 searches per month at the time he recorded the video. He expects that number to grow. One example that shows up: “funny ChatGPT prompts.” That is a prompt pack you could build today. You would compile 500 prompts designed to generate funny responses, and buyers who want to entertain their audiences or just enjoy playing with the tool would pay for it.

Etsy Search (The Best Starting Point)

Alston recommends starting with Etsy itself because that is where your product will live and that is where your buyers already are. Type “ChatGPT prompts” into the Etsy search bar and then go through the alphabet, one letter at a time, to see what autocomplete suggestions come up.

He walks through several examples in the video: ChatGPT prompts for real estate, for teachers, for nurses, for social media, for small business, for e-commerce, for weddings, for writing, and for email. Each of those is a real audience with a real problem that well-organized prompts can solve.

He clicks into the real estate category and finds a listing with 25,000 prompts. The price point is around $5. Real estate agents are always looking for ways to grow their client base and improve their marketing, and a prompt pack that addresses those specific problems is something they would spend $5 on without thinking about it twice.

Step 2: Use ChatGPT to Build Your Prompt Pack

Once you have a niche, you go into ChatGPT and build the prompts. Alston uses YouTube creators as his live example in the video. Here is the sequence he walks through.

First, calibrate ChatGPT for your niche: “Act as an expert in ChatGPT prompt writing. Act as an expert in YouTube content creation.”

Second, ask it to map the territory: “List the aspects of being a YouTube content creator.” ChatGPT will return a structured list of everything a YouTuber has to manage, things like content strategy, video quality, audience growth, monetization, and SEO. This list becomes your table of contents for the prompt pack.

Third, generate prompts for each area: “We want to help new YouTubers start a successful YouTube channel. Please create 30 prompts to help them develop a great content strategy.” ChatGPT works through the list and returns 30 structured prompts. Alston lets it run, reviews what comes back, and makes sure the prompts make sense and are actually usable.

Fourth, close the gaps: after the initial output, he asks “Are there any additional prompts we should include?” and then “Is there anything else we missed?” These follow-up questions pull out a few more prompts per section and help ensure the pack feels comprehensive rather than thin.

Repeat this process for each aspect that ChatGPT listed in step two. By the time you work through all of them, you have a full prompt pack covering every major area of your niche.

Step 3: Organize Your Prompts in Google Sheets

Once ChatGPT gives you the prompts, copy them and paste them into a Google Sheet. Alston shows a sample sheet in the video. He says not to worry about the specific organization for now. The key is that the prompts are in one place, readable, and accessible via a shareable link.

Google Sheets works well for this because you can organize prompts by category, add column headers for the prompt type, and make the whole document easy to scan. A buyer who purchases your prompt pack should be able to open the sheet, find the type of prompt they need, copy it, and drop it straight into ChatGPT. That ease of use is part of what they are paying for.

Step 4: Package and Deliver the Product Through Canva

This is where the product becomes something you can actually sell. Etsy does not let you share raw links in your product delivery. You have to share the actual file. So the workflow is to embed your Google Sheets link into a Canva document and then export that document as a PDF.

Here is what Alston does. He opens Canva and creates a document sized appropriately for a PDF delivery. He goes to the share settings, clicks on copy link to get his Google Sheet URL, then in the Canva download section he finds the link field and pastes the Google Sheet URL there. The exported PDF will have a clickable link that takes buyers directly to the prompt sheet.

To make the link more visually clear, he adds a rectangle element from Canva’s shapes library and styles it to look like a button. He places text over it that says “download” and makes it white so it reads clearly against the background. When buyers open the PDF, they see a clear button, click it, and land on the Google Sheet with all the prompts.

He also adds additional affiliate links inside the Canva document. For a YouTube creator prompt pack, he includes a Canva affiliate link (if a buyer upgrades from free to Canva Pro, he earns a commission) and a link to his website hosting recommendation. These extra links turn a one-time $5 sale into an opportunity for additional commissions from the same buyer without any extra effort after the initial setup.

Not sure if selling digital products on Etsy is the right move for your situation?

Answer eight quick questions and get a personalized business model recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Step 5: Create Etsy Mockup Images in Canva

Digital products on Etsy need mockup images because buyers cannot physically hold what they are purchasing. A listing with no images does not convert. Alston creates four mockup images per listing, all inside Canva.

Mockup 1: The cover. He creates a 2000 by 2000 pixel canvas in Canva, fills the background with a brand color (he demonstrates with gray in the video), and adds a large title like “5000 ChatGPT Prompts for YouTubers.” He then adds a free icon or graphic from Canva’s elements library that relates to the niche. For YouTube, he searches for YouTube-related graphics and places one on the canvas alongside the title.

Mockup 2: The product preview. He takes a screenshot of the actual Google Sheets document and places it on a second Canva canvas. This shows buyers exactly what they are getting inside the sheet. Transparency builds trust and reduces refund requests.

Mockup 3: What they’re getting. He creates a third image that lists out the specific sections or categories covered in the prompt pack. For a YouTube creator pack, this might be a list like: content strategy, originality and creativity, consistency, production quality, audience engagement, and so on. Buyers read this and know exactly what problems the prompts address.

Mockup 4: The process. A simple graphic showing the three steps: purchase the product, download it, and implement the prompts in ChatGPT. This removes friction from buyers who are not sure how digital Etsy products work.

Step 6: List on Etsy and Get Your First 40 Listings Free

Etsy charges $0.20 per listing. Alston mentions that he has a coupon that gives new sellers approximately 40 free listings. He points to the third link in his video description to access it. Using that link means you pay nothing to get your first batch of listings up, and Alston gets free listings in return. He is transparent about that arrangement in the video.

The target price for these prompt packs is around $5. That is the price point Alston names based on what he sees performing on Etsy. It is low enough that buyers do not overthink the purchase and high enough that a modest volume of sales adds up meaningfully.

Once your listing is live, the key is consistency. Alston says this directly and with some emphasis: do a new prompt pack every single day. Upload a new listing every single day. With 40 free listings, you could go a full month without spending anything on listing fees. At 30 days of daily uploads, you have 30 listings covering 30 different niches or angles, and you have real data on which ones are getting clicks and which ones are converting.

The PLR Repository: Done-for-You Prompt Packs

If you want to skip the creation step entirely, Alston has a product called the PLR Repository. It is a one-time payment of $110. In exchange, you get access to done-for-you digital products that you can sell however you want: on Etsy, through YouTube ads, through Facebook ads, on your own website. He adds three to five new digital products every month, which means the library keeps growing after your initial purchase. The library includes ChatGPT prompt packs, digital planners, Notion planners, and other formats.

The PLR Repository is not the focus of the video, and Alston makes clear you do not need it. Everything he teaches in the video is doable for free. But if saving time is worth money to you, a ready-made library of products cuts the creation time to zero and lets you focus entirely on listing, marketing, and scaling.

Honest Drawbacks of Selling ChatGPT Prompts on Etsy

Results are not immediate. Alston is direct about this in the video. He anticipates that some people will try this once, not see money fall from the sky immediately, and assume the method does not work. That is not how it works. Etsy listings need time to accumulate views and favorites before they start converting. New sellers are not immediately trusted by the algorithm. Consistency over weeks or months is what builds traction.

The market is growing but so is the competition. The viewer who went by “peach cobbler” confirmed it works. The Etsy search results Alston shows have real listings with substantial libraries. But that also means you are not walking into an empty market. To stand out, your mockups need to look good and your niche targeting needs to be specific enough to speak to a defined audience.

You still need to review the prompts ChatGPT generates. ChatGPT can produce prompts that are off-topic, redundant, or generic. If you sell a pack of 500 prompts and 100 of them are essentially the same question worded differently, buyers will notice and leave a negative review. Read through what ChatGPT gives you. Remove the weak ones. Replace them with something better. The editing step is not optional if you want a product that gets good reviews and repeat buyers.

$5 is a low price point. To earn meaningfully from a $5 product, you need volume. That means a lot of listings and consistent traffic. The method is not a shortcut to high income from low effort. It is a method for building a digital product library over time that earns across many listings simultaneously.

Find Your X

Selling ChatGPT prompts on Etsy is a real path to income, but it is not the only one. If you are trying to figure out whether digital products, affiliate marketing, content creation, or something else fits your specific situation, skip the trial-and-error phase. Go to finder.platformproof.com, answer eight questions about your schedule, skills, and goals, and get a recommendation that actually fits how you live and work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need any design skills to sell ChatGPT prompts on Etsy?

No. Everything Alston demonstrates in the video uses Canva’s free tier. Canva has pre-built shapes, font options, and free graphic elements that are enough to create the four mockup images you need for a listing. If you can click and drag, you can create these images.

How much does it cost to get started on Etsy?

Etsy charges $0.20 per listing. Alston shares a coupon link in his video description that gives new sellers approximately 40 free listings. Beyond those free listings, the only cost is the $0.20 per listing fee plus Etsy’s standard transaction fees when a sale happens. There is no monthly subscription fee to open an Etsy shop.

What should I charge for a ChatGPT prompt pack?

Alston mentions a price of around $5. That aligns with what he sees performing on Etsy at the time he recorded this video. Some sellers charge more for larger packs or more specialized niches. If you build a pack of 1,000 highly specific prompts for a professional audience like lawyers or real estate agents, you may be able to price higher. Start around $5, watch how it converts, and adjust from there.

Can I use ChatGPT to generate prompts for any niche?

Yes. The video shows the method working for YouTube creators, real estate agents, teachers, nurses, copywriters, and email marketers. Any professional audience or hobbyist community that could benefit from faster, better outputs from ChatGPT is a candidate for a prompt pack. Alston recommends using Etsy’s own search autocomplete to discover which niches are actively being searched.

How do I deliver the product to buyers after a purchase?

You deliver a PDF file that you create in Canva. The PDF contains a clickable link or button that takes buyers to your Google Sheet, where all the prompts are organized. Etsy allows you to upload digital files directly to a listing. When a buyer completes a purchase, Etsy automatically gives them access to the download. You do not need to manually send anything.

Can I sell the same prompt pack on multiple platforms?

Yes. Etsy is where Alston starts because of the built-in traffic, but the PDF product you create can be sold anywhere. If you build a following on YouTube, you can sell directly from your own website. The PLR Repository products Alston mentions can be sold through Etsy, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, or any other channel you choose.

How many prompts should be in a pack?

The Etsy listing Alston highlights has 25,000 prompts, which is at the extreme end. That number comes from covering a broad topic with many subcategories. A focused pack for a single audience might have 100 to 500 prompts. The right answer depends on your niche. More prompts in a pack can justify a higher price point and give buyers a stronger sense of value, but quality matters more than raw quantity.

How long does it take to create and list one prompt pack?

Alston says to expect about 30 minutes per prompt pack. That includes the ChatGPT sessions, organizing in Google Sheets, building the Canva PDF, creating the four mockup images, and setting up the Etsy listing. With practice and a repeatable workflow, that time will shrink. The goal is to build up to one new listing per day, which at 30 minutes per pack is a realistic daily time commitment.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “THIS WORKS: I Tried It REVEALED: How To Make $16,360.00 With ChatGPT | Must Watch,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/-lh-rQ4c1Us
AnswerThePublic, keyword research tool (answerthepublic.com)
Ahrefs, keyword explorer (ahrefs.com)
Etsy, digital product marketplace (etsy.com)
Canva, free design tool (canva.com)
OpenAI, ChatGPT (chat.openai.com)

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.