Trying to make $10k a month and wondering where to start?
This is a massiveamount of money; after all, $10,000 a month is $120,000 in annual income! But I truly think anyonecan achieve this sort of income. And it's also a goal you can slowly build up to over time.
I've personally hit this milestone with some of the methods in this article, while some of the other ideas have this sort of income potential. So, let's dive into some ideas to get you started!
How To Make 10K A Month
Table of Contents
1. Make Money Blogging
Out of all the ways to make $10k a month, blogging is one of my favorite recommendations. And it's something I know is completely possible because WebMonkey makes $10,000 to $20,000 a month or more these days.
I started blogging back in 2018. And in my first year, I only made $1,700 afterhundredsof hours of work.
But fast forward to 2021, and WebMonkey earned $92,000. And in 2022, WebMonkey made over $272,000.
Most of my income comes from Mediavine advertisem*nts and affiliate marketing. In fact, Mediavine can make $500 a day alone, which is already over the 10k a month goal.
Other bloggers I know also monetize their websites with strategies like:
- Sponsored posts
- Selling online courses and products
- Selling printables and eBooks
- Private coaching
Now, blogging isn't the right business model if you want to make $10,000 a month fast. This is because it takes years to build up your audience for most blogs.
In my experience, it took over 4 years before I was earning $10,000 a month from blogging. But this business model is incredibly scalable, and it can easily cost under $100-$200 to get started.
As long as you learn the basics of SEO, write consistently, and stick with it, there's no reason why you can't find success in a variety of blogging niches.
2. Make Money In The Gig Economy
Millions of people make money in the gig economy. And this is one of my favorite strategies if you want a flexible way to make more money each month.
You also haveplentyof options to consider, including gigs like:
- Delivering food with DoorDash or Uber Eats
- Becoming a Lyft driver
- Delivering packages with Amazon Flex
- Delivering groceries with Instacart
- Renting out your vehicle on Turo
Again, the beauty of the gig economy is that you can hustle on your own schedule. And in busy markets, earning upwards of $20 an hour should be possible.
3. Online Freelancing
Another realistic way to make $10k a month is to earn money online with online freelancing. And like blogging, this is also something I know is possible from my own experiences and other freelancers I've met.
Personally, freelance writing is how I've made most of my income over the last 2+ years alongside blogging.
In fact, I actually quit my marketing job back in 2020 and then started writing full-time while traveling the world, making money on my laptop.
What I like about selling your skills as a freelancer is that you hourly income potential can get very high.
For example, I was writing for clients in the past who paid $0.15 to $0.25 per word, so a single article could easily be $300 to $500. Write enough content like that each month, and suddenly, you're at 10,000 dollars!
Freelance writing is just one type of freelancing you can explore as well. But there are plenty of other industries and jobs where freelancing is common like:
- Accounting and bookkeeping
- Coding
- Digital marketing
- Graphic design
- Paid advertising
- SEO
- Social media management
- Web development
- Video editing
- Voice acting
- Virtual assistant work
Pretty much all of these fields can land gigs that pay $25 to $50+ per hour, or a lot per project.
The main downside of freelancing is that it can take time to find clients. What I've found helpful is to ask your network for referrals. And you can also use remote job sites or look for beginner Upwork jobs to find your first clients.
4. Invest In Real Estate
Making money with real estate investing is an excellent way to earn passive income. And the best part is you don't need to be rich to get started.
Take companies likeArrived as an example. It lets you buy shares of income-generating real estate properties like vacation rentals and family homes. You then earn dividend income from the rental income these properties generate.
You only need $100 to begin investing which is one reason I love this platform. And even if you don't reach 10k a month with this strategy alone, it's an easy way to begin diversifying while you focus on other side hustles.
5. Social Media Management
Have a knack for growing social media accounts and capturing an audience? In that case, another idea you can explore involves social media management.
I've actually done this briefly while in college, and one of my best friends was actually making a few thousands dollars while in school by running Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook pages for two local furniture businesses.
And even if you have a client that only pays $500 to $1,000 a month, you can schedule a lot of the work upfront in batched sessions.
The video above from Kat Theo provides a pretty good overview of how to find your first social media management clients, how you can price your services, and how to keep clients.
6. Print On Demand
With print on demand, or POD, you work with a manufacturing partner to sell unique products to people. You come up with the designs and graphics for products. But when you make a sale, the POD partner is the one that makes and ships the product to your customer.
This is actually one digital side hustle I tried back in college. I was selling memes by opening an Etsy print on demand store that sold ugly meme mugs.
Personally, I use Printify as my print on demand partner. It has over 100 products you can upload you designs to, and it integrates with lots of online selling platforms like Etsy and Shopify.
I think POD is a viable way to make $10,000 a month since it'sextremelyscalable. After all, all you have to do is come up with product designs and handle marketing. You're not getting bogged down with actually making and shipping products.
Plus, if you sell trendy products that take advantage of different holidays or ongoing events, you can make a lot of money with a viral design.
7. Affiliate Marketing
In my experience, one of the most realistic ways for making 10k a month is to make money with affiliate marketing.
With affiliate marketing, you get paid to promote products and services for other companies. If you get someone to purchase, you earn a commission for your efforts.
I like affiliate marketing because there's basically no cost on your side of things. And you don't have to spend months or years coming up with products to sell.
Plus, affiliate marketing is very lucrative. For example, I make $10k a month or more on just one affiliate network, Impact Radius. I promote different paid survey sites and side hustle ideas, and when people from WebMonkey sign up, I get paid.
In fact, affiliate marketing makes $1,000 a day or more for WebMonkey right now. And as you can see in my screenshot above, I actually passed the $10k a week mark with affiliate marketing recently which highlights just how lucrative it can be.
The hardest part of affiliate marketing is to get traffic to your offers. Some ideas you can use to get started include:
- Growing a social media following on TikTok or Instagram
- Starting a niche blog
- Starting a podcast
- Starting a YouTube channel
8. Start A Resale Business
You could always try flipping things for profit by starting your own resale business. People do this all the time by thrifting things and then reselling them on apps like Poshmark or Facebook Marketplace to make some extra cash.
For other resale businesses, the owners purchase a wider range of popular products and then resell them online on marketplaces like Amazon FBA.
I've actually interviewed a side hustling couple who run a million dollar Amazon retail arbitrage business. To get inventory, they purchase discount products from stores like Walmart and Kohl's and then resell them for a profit.
It's clear that you can make $10,000 a month or more with this type of business. Although, the main challenge is growing your inventory and sales volume high enough to hit this amount.
But if you reinvest your earnings into more inventory, you can gradually increase your total monthly sales, working towards the $10,000 a month goal.
Just be sure to stick with popular categories that sell well, like electronics, apparel, toys, shoes, video games, and home goods. And don't be afraid to explore local selling websites as well, like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, to find local buyers who pay in cash.
9. Start An Ecommerce Business
Starting an ecommerce business is one of the fastest ways to make money online.
This is also a business model I've tried a few times. For example, one of my college side hustles was an attempt at running a Shopifydropshipping store. I also have friends who have sold t-shirts online and other apparel.
These are just a few examples of ecommerce side hustles you can start. But there are so many other business models you can explore if you get creative.
For example, one of my friend's sisters runs a Shopify store where she sells clay and ceramic goods that are handmade. She has a few “exclusive” drops per year, during which time she's able to sell out all her inventory and make excellent money.
To attract customers, she posted a lot of content on Instagram and TikTok. In just a few months, she had a pretty dedicated following who now look forward to future drops and new products. This just goes to show how a simple ecommerce business can be very effective.
After all, if you can make and sell a product for $50, you only have to sell 200 of them per month to make $10,000.
10. Make Money On YouTube
If you enjoy creative projects and want to grow an online audience, you can also try making money with YouTube.
Now, like blogging or launching an ecommerce business, you won't make fast money with YouTube.
For example, I started my channelback in 2020, and it took me over two years to pass 15,000 subscribers. The channel now makes about $50 per day, or $1,500 per month, so I'm not even 25% of the way to the $10k monthly goal.
But the beautiful part about YouTube is that the potential to go viral is always there, and it can skyrocket your channel's earnings.
Again, don't launch a YouTube channel in the hopes of getting rich overnight. But for a fun side hustle that has the potential to earn $10,000 a month or more, it's worth considering.
11. Consulting
Out of all the side hustles I've tried over the years, the most lucrative one per hour was definitely online consulting.
Back in college, I actually made decent money by doing some paid marketing consulting and, eventually, running advertisem*nt campaigns for some local businesses.
And, after I graduated, I had some SEO and recruiting consulting gigs for two different companies. One of them actually paid me about $3,000 a month, and I earned well over $10,000 from the contract.
I'll admit, it took a long time to find these consulting gigs, and all of them came from opportunities within my network, not job boards.
But if you have specialized skills and a lot of experience, why shouldn't you monetize them? And consulting gigs or retainers can be very lucrative since companies are willing to spend for the right advice and talent.
SEO and paid marketing have been my go-tos, but other fields like legal, HR, PR, accounting, security, and business development can all have consulting opportunities.
12. Start A Service-Based Business
Another straightforward way you can make 10k a month is to launch some sort of service-based business.
Like selling a product online, you can work backwards to find a service and price point that reaches $10,000 a month. For example, if you run a grooming business for dogs and charge $60 a cut, you have to have 166 cuts a month to reach your earning goal.
This is just one example of a service-based business you can start. Some other popular ideas include:
- Handyman service
- Dog walker or sitter (you can use Rover to get started)
- Landscaping
- Demolitions
- Makeup artist or hair stylist
- Mechanic
- Painter
- Plumbing
- Private chef or catering service
- Tech support
- Tutor
Websites like TaskRabbit or Thumbtack are excellent websites you can use to start promoting your services to people once you're ready to start selling.
If you offer cleaning or handyman services, you can also become a Handy Pro, which is another useful gig app that helps you find local customers.
13. Get A Higher-Paying Job
Job hopping for a salary increase is an amazing method to build wealth.
Of course, you need to have the experience, resume, and chance to find a job that pays this much. And asking for a raise or going for a promotion at your current company could yield a similar result.
But if you're willing to hit the job market, some jobs that pay $10,000 a month you can research include:
- Ecommerce specialist
- Software engineer
- Airline pilot
- Dentists
- Air traffic controllers
- Sales managers
- Financial managers
The data above is from the Bureau of Labor statistics. As you can see, there are plenty of jobs that can make $10k a month, and some only require completing a college degree and technical certification.
If you're a fresh grad or don't have much work experience, this path might be a bit tough with little experience. But if you've been working for a few years, I think job hopping is one of the best ways to boost your wealth.
Extra Reading – The Best No Phone Call Jobs.
14. Rent Out Your Assets
If you want to make money on autopilot, you can try starting a rental business. In other words, you can rent out things you own for profit, turning some of your valuable assets into an income stream.
Airbnb is a perfect example of this, and it lets you turn a spare room or your property into a source of rental income.
Buying a duplex or series of rental units follows the same concept. And it's definitely possible to reach $10,000 a month if your landlord business grows large enough.
However, both Airbnb and rental properties can take some serious capital to get started. Thankfully, there are other ways to make money renting things out like:
- Renting out your extra storage space with Neighbor
- Renting out equipment like cameras, bikes, and instruments on Fat Llama
- Renting out your RV on platforms like RVshare
- Renting out your car on GetAround or your truck with Fetch
Options like Neighbor are a great starting point since you're just renting out empty space, meaning you're basically getting paid to do nothing. But the other platforms are still excellent ways to monetize some of your assets.
Tips For Getting Started
Now that you know some methods to make $10k a month, I want to cover a few tips that I've found helpful to reach this income goal:
- Set Smaller Goals: Making $10,000 a month is a tall order, so it's helpful to break this goal into smaller chunks that are more manageable. This could be making $100 a day in extra income, then $150, and so on.
- Diversify Your Income: I've found that having a few income streams has helped accelerate my income in the last few years. So, don't be afraid to start a blog, or to try freelancing on the side, while you hold down a day job.
- Stick To What You Know Best: Writing and blogging are where I spend most of my time since my skills align well with both of them. Play to your own strengths since this increases the odds of success and is usually more fun anyway.
Again, it takes time and work to get here. But I certainly think it's possible if you use the right side hustle stack.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Can I Make $10k A Month In Passive Income?
If you want to make $10k a month passively, some of the most realistic options include investing in real estate or renting out your own home or multiple properties to tenants. Dividend income investing can also work, but you need a lot of capital to reach $10,000 a month in passive income.
That said, you can start building up new income streams without much starting cash and work towards your goal.
For example, platforms like Arrived let U.S. investors buy shares of income-generating rentals starting with only $100. And you can begin dividend investing with $10 or even less.
How Can I Make $10k A Month Online?
In my experience, blogging and affiliate marketing are the two most realistic ways to make $10,000 a month online. I've accomplished this with both income streams, and each one is highly scalable without having high startup costs.
Freelancing online can also reach this income milestone, but it takes a long time to land enough gigs and high-paying clients.
Final Thoughts
I hope this guide on how to make 10k a month provides some ideas and inspiration to get you started.
Personally, I've found that it takes a while to grow income to this sort of level. But once you begin, the snowball effect is real, and you can also start reinvesting some of your money into growth.
This has been the case for me and blogging at least, and it took much longer for me to go from $1,000 to $5,000 a month then to go from $5,000 a month to $10,000 a month.
So, play to your strengths, pick a business or hustle that makes sense, and dive right in! You might be surprised at where you end up just a few months or years later.
Looking for even more money-making ideas? Checkout:
