Will This Work: How to Make PASSIVE INCOME with ChatGPT & Medium?

Someone online claims you can make passive income by typing prompts into ChatGPT, spinning the output through a free tool, slapping it onto Medium, and dropping in a ClickBank affiliate link. The video making that claim had 38,000 views. So I ran the experiment myself, from scratch, with real starting numbers anyone can verify, and I am going to show you exactly what the process looks like and where the red flags already show up before a single dollar hits an account.

This is Episode 1 of Will It Work, a series where I take popular make-money-online videos that have real view counts and test their methods step by step so you get the truth instead of another recycled screen recording. No hidden accounts. No pre-built audience. Just the raw process and the real numbers over 30, 60, and 90 days.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The exact three ChatGPT prompts the original method uses, written out so you can copy them
How to pick a niche from Wikipedia and why pickleball was the test case here
The role QuillBot plays and why the original creator says you can do this in 10 minutes a day
Where the affiliate link comes from, what ClickBank’s gravity score means, and why a low score matters
The three red flags I spotted before the first post even went live
My real Medium partner program earnings before the experiment started (44 cents total)
Why I think owning your own website beats a Medium account over the long run
How to figure out which online income method actually fits your skills right now at finder.platformproof.com

The Video That Sparked This Experiment

The method comes from a YouTube channel called 10x Income. That specific video had 38,000 views when I found it, which is enough traffic to mean a lot of people are probably trying this approach right now. The pitch is simple: use ChatGPT to write blog posts, use Medium to host them for free, and monetize with affiliate links. The creator says you only need 10 to 15 minutes a day to upload one post, and you do it every day for 30 days.

That sounds extremely achievable. But the question is whether it actually generates income, or whether it just generates activity that feels productive and produces nothing. That distinction matters, because there are a lot of online income methods that look like work but do not pay off at the scale the videos promise. The only way to know for sure is to run it.

My Starting Point on Medium (Before Touch One)

Before this experiment, I had a Medium account in the partner program. My total earnings over the previous 30 days: 44 cents. I am not hiding a pre-built following. I am not running a secret account that already generates income and then layering this method on top. The baseline is essentially zero, which means any signal in the data at 30 days will be a real signal from this method and nothing else.

That 44 cents figure also tells you something about Medium generally. The partner program pays based on reading time from paying Medium subscribers. If you do not already have an audience of paying subscribers following you, your posts start with almost no organic distribution. That is a real constraint this method has to overcome.

Step 1: Pick a Niche from Wikipedia

The original video instructs you to go to Wikipedia and browse the list of hobbies. The idea is to find something with an enthusiastic audience that also has affiliate products available. For this experiment, I chose pickleball. It is growing fast, it is broad enough that you can write dozens of articles, and there is at least one affiliate product on ClickBank in that space.

Wikipedia’s hobby list works as a starting point because hobbies signal buyer intent. People with hobbies spend money on gear, courses, and guides. That makes them a better affiliate audience than general information seekers. The logic is sound as far as niche selection goes. The question is whether AI-generated content can actually capture that audience on Medium without any existing authority.

Step 2: The Three ChatGPT Prompts

The 10x Income creator used screenshots to show his prompts, which meant I had to screenshot them myself and read them off the screen. He did not paste them in the video description. Here is what each one does:

Prompt One sets the role and asks for topic brainstorming: “Take the role of an expert creative writer and use the following formula to help me brainstorm ideas for my blog title or blog article. I want to write a blog article about pickleball. Brainstorm some engaging topics for me that will appeal to the target audience.” ChatGPT returns a list of potential article angles. You pick one and move to prompt two.

Prompt Two takes the topic list and asks ChatGPT to generate actual blog post ideas with full titles. This narrows the brainstorm output into something you can execute. You get ten titles back, you pick the first one, and you carry it into prompt three.

Prompt Three asks for a detailed article: “You are now an expert copywriter and I want you to dive deep into the title. Provide a detailed article outline for the content body that structures the article and gives the reader several distinct sections.” From there, ChatGPT writes a full draft. For this experiment, the title was “Pickleball for Newbies: Your Ultimate Guide to Starting Out.”

The prompts are functional. ChatGPT returns a coherent article in a few minutes. The issue is that every person running this same method on pickleball is sending nearly identical prompts to the same model and getting structurally similar output. At scale, that means Medium fills up with articles that all read the same way, and the platform’s algorithm has no reason to surface one over another.

Step 3: Spinning the Content with QuillBot

After ChatGPT generates the article, the original method calls for running it through QuillBot, which is an article paraphrasing tool. The intent is to make the text less obviously AI-generated by rewording it. The creator admits in the video that he does not read or edit the output. He just pastes it in, clicks paraphrase, and copies the result straight to Medium.

QuillBot does change the wording. Whether it changes it enough to avoid AI content detection, or enough to make the article genuinely better, is a different question. In practice, spinning AI output through a paraphraser produces text that reads somewhere between generic and stilted. It is not the kind of writing that earns shares or bookmarks from a real pickleball enthusiast who just discovered the game and is trying to learn. That matters because Medium’s partner program rewards actual read time, not just page views.

Step 4: Finding the Affiliate Product on ClickBank

The monetization comes from ClickBank. I searched pickleball inside ClickBank’s marketplace and found one affiliate product. It sells for $14. The commission rate is 75%, which means each sale would pay out roughly $10.50. That is a workable commission if the volume is there.

The gravity score was very low. On ClickBank, gravity measures how many unique affiliates made a sale in the last 12 weeks. A high gravity score means a product converts and affiliates are actively promoting it. A low gravity score means the opposite. Normally I would not touch a product with a low gravity score because it tells you the product does not convert well in the open market. For this test, I kept it in because switching the niche would mean starting over and the point is to follow the method as described.

To generate the affiliate link, I set my tracking ID to “medium” inside ClickBank so that any clicks coming from Medium posts would be attributed separately. That tracking discipline matters if you are running this in parallel with other promotions and want clean data.

Step 5: Assembling the Post and Adding Images

After QuillBot finishes, you paste the text into a Medium draft. Then you need images. The original method points to Unsplash, which is a free library of high-quality photos. You grab whatever images look relevant to pickleball, drop them into the article, and then insert the affiliate link in the body text where the product recommendation fits naturally.

The creator ran a fourth ChatGPT prompt specifically for the affiliate integration: “Based on my previously written article titled Pickleball for Newbies: Your Ultimate Guide to Starting Out, I want to include an affiliate product and mix it well with the article in a way that offers value to a reader without sounding overly promotional.” He then fed in the product name and let ChatGPT write the affiliate recommendation section. That goes back into the Medium draft alongside the affiliate hop link from ClickBank.

The total time for the first article was longer than the promised 10 minutes because it was day one. The creator expects each session to get faster as the workflow becomes familiar. Realistically, once you have the prompts saved and the process dialed in, 15 to 20 minutes per post is probably achievable. Whether that time investment is worth it depends entirely on the revenue that shows up at day 30.

Not sure if this method fits your skills and situation?

Answer seven quick questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a straight recommendation on which online income path matches what you already know how to do.

Three Red Flags Before the Experiment Even Starts

I do not go into these experiments looking for reasons to say something does not work. But I also do not ignore obvious warning signs, and this method has three worth naming upfront.

Red Flag 1: The proof account has one post. The 10x Income creator pointed to a Medium account called Elra Thornfield as an example of the method working. When I looked it up, that account had exactly one post, published in September, and I could not find any visible affiliate links inside it. That does not prove the method fails. The creator may have other accounts. But if your primary proof that something works is an account with one post and no visible affiliate links, that is worth noting before you invest your time.

Red Flag 2: No one has published verified income numbers from this exact method. There are many videos about making money with Medium and AI. What is missing is someone coming back 90 days later and saying “here is the exact number I made, here is the screenshot of the affiliate dashboard, here is the Medium partner payout.” That gap is part of why I started this series. If the method works, the data will show it. If it does not, the data will show that too.

Red Flag 3: The ClickBank product has a low gravity score. This means other affiliates have tried to sell it and have not succeeded at a meaningful rate. Gravity is not a perfect metric, but it is a market signal. A product with a low gravity score is a product that is hard to convert, which means even if the Medium posts get traffic, turning that traffic into commissions is an uphill fight.

Honest Drawbacks of This Method

You do not own your audience. Medium can change its algorithm, its partner program terms, or its content policies at any time. If they decide AI-assisted content violates their rules, your entire archive of 30 or 90 posts disappears. This is the core reason I recommend anyone serious about online income build their own website first. You cannot be deplatformed from a site you own.

Medium’s distribution favors existing audiences. The partner program pays based on reading time from paying subscribers who follow you. If you are starting from zero, like I am, your posts get almost no organic reach on day one. Growth on Medium is slower than on a platform with algorithmic discovery like YouTube or TikTok. Without an existing following, you are essentially publishing into a void and hoping someone stumbles across your work.

AI content is now everywhere on Medium. That means the platform is flooded with structurally similar articles on every hobby topic imaginable. Standing out requires either genuine expertise or consistent publishing over a long period. Neither of those is what the “10 minutes a day” framing suggests.

The affiliate product has to convert. Even if you get traffic, a low-gravity ClickBank product with a $14 price point means you need a lot of clicks to see meaningful income. At 75% commission, you need about 96 sales to make $1,000. Getting 96 sales from Medium posts on a niche product without any existing audience is a real challenge.

The time math is real. Ten to fifteen minutes a day times 30 days is five to seven hours of work. That is a real time investment. Before you commit to it, you should have a realistic sense of what five to seven hours of your time is worth and whether this method has a reasonable shot at returning more than that.

The Plan: 30, 60, and 90 Days of Data

Here is how the experiment runs. Starting with this first post, I publish one article per day on Medium. Each article follows the same process: ChatGPT prompts, QuillBot spin, Unsplash images, ClickBank affiliate link. At 30 days I report the full numbers: total posts published, total Medium partner earnings, total affiliate clicks, total affiliate commissions. Then again at 60 days and 90 days.

I am also tracking which articles get the most reads and whether any of them show up in Google search results. If a post starts ranking organically, that changes the calculus significantly. Medium posts can rank in Google, which is one of the stronger arguments for using the platform despite its partner program limitations.

If you see this video and want me to test a different method, leave the video name and creator in the comments. Do not include links because those get flagged automatically. The video needs at least 10,000 to 20,000 views for me to consider it, because I want to test methods that are actually reaching a wide audience, not obscure ideas that nobody is acting on.

Find Your X

The ChatGPT plus Medium method is one approach to making money online. It may work for some people depending on their niche, their patience, and their willingness to keep publishing for months before seeing results. But it is not the only approach, and it may not be the right one for where you are right now. If you want a straight answer on which online income method fits your actual skills and situation, go to finder.platformproof.com. Answer seven questions and get a clear recommendation instead of spending 90 days on something that was never the right fit to begin with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you actually make passive income with ChatGPT and Medium?

The honest answer is: maybe, over a long time frame, with the right niche and consistent publishing. The method is not a scam in the sense that Medium does pay partner program revenue and affiliate links do generate commissions when products sell. The question is whether AI-generated content on a platform with limited organic distribution converts fast enough to justify the time investment. That is exactly what this experiment is testing over 30, 60, and 90 days.

How much does the Medium partner program pay?

Medium pays based on reading time from paying subscribers who follow you or discover your content through the platform. Rates vary, but most writers without an established following report very low earnings in the early months. My own Medium account earned 44 cents in the 30 days before this experiment began. Partner program income becomes meaningful primarily for writers who have built a genuine following over time.

What is QuillBot and why does the method use it?

QuillBot is a paraphrasing tool that rewrites text while preserving the meaning. The method uses it to put a layer of human-sounding language on top of ChatGPT output, with the goal of making the content less identifiable as AI-generated. Whether it achieves that goal in practice depends on the specific text and how aggressively Medium or Google flags AI content.

What does ClickBank gravity mean and why does it matter?

ClickBank’s gravity score is a rolling metric that measures how many unique affiliates made at least one sale with a given product in the past 12 weeks. A high gravity score signals a product that converts and that other affiliates are actively and successfully promoting. A low gravity score signals the opposite. The pickleball product in this experiment had a very low gravity score, which is a warning sign about its conversion rate.

Why did you choose pickleball as the niche?

Pickleball showed up as an option when browsing Wikipedia’s hobby list, which is the niche-selection method the original video recommends. It is a fast-growing sport with an enthusiastic player base and a reasonable amount of gear and training resources to promote as an affiliate. It also had at least one affiliate product available on ClickBank, which is the affiliate marketplace the method uses.

Is Medium better or worse than having your own website?

For long-term income, owning your own website is better. With your own site, you control the platform, the content, the monetization, and the audience relationship. Medium can change its policies, reduce its partner program payouts, or flag your content at any time. A self-hosted blog cannot be taken away from you in the same way. The tradeoff is that a self-hosted blog requires more setup and does not have Medium’s built-in distribution to paid subscribers.

How long does it actually take to produce one article with this method?

The original video claims 10 to 15 minutes per article once you know the process. The first article in this experiment took longer because it was day one and every step required reading instructions and figuring out the interface. A realistic estimate for someone new to the workflow is 20 to 30 minutes per article until it becomes habitual, and then perhaps 15 minutes with practice.

Where can I follow the 30-, 60-, and 90-day results of this experiment?

The follow-up videos will be published on the same YouTube channel where you found this one. Subscribe so you get notified when the 30-day update drops. I will show the actual Medium analytics, the actual ClickBank affiliate dashboard, and the real earnings numbers with nothing edited out. If the method works, you will see it. If it does not, you will see that too.

Sources

10x Income YouTube channel, video on making passive income with ChatGPT and Medium (38,000 views at time of filming)
Medium Partner Program payout structure: medium.com/blog/partner-program
ClickBank marketplace, pickleball affiliate product, gravity score reviewed at time of experiment
Wikipedia List of Hobbies, used for niche selection per the original method
QuillBot paraphrasing tool: quillbot.com
Unsplash free image library: unsplash.com

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