As years go by and times change, people’s interest in shifting from traditional working models to making a full-time income online is rising exponentially.
Can you blame them?
Earning your living online comes with innumerable perks, such as:
- Time freedom
- Location independence
- No boss breathing down your neck
- Control over your schedule
- No commute
- Increased overall flexibility
- No workplace politics & drama
- No sharing your toilet with coworkers
- & more
The good news is that the internet is swarming with hundreds if not thousands of MMO (Make Money Online) opportunities.
The bad news is that only a tiny fraction of them can be utilized towards building a full-time income from home.
And sadly, if you don’t know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, you might waste a lot of time, energy, and money on money-making ventures that don’t have the potential to take you anywhere near your financial goals.
This article is dedicated to revealing some of the Best Ways to Making a Full-Time Income Online while working from home or anywhere else you might want.
How to Make a Full-Time Income Online:
17 Best Ways
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an online monetization model that enables you to earn commissions for promoting already existing products and/or services.
Here’s an overview of how affiliate marketing works:
Step 1: You join a merchant’s affiliate program (it’s free).
Step 2: The merchant gives you a unique affiliate link that points to their website.
Step 3: You start promoting your affiliate link via one or more online marketing channels such as a website, forums, social media, paid ads, etc.
Step 4: Every time someone clicks on your unique affiliate link and makes a purchase on the merchant’s website, the merchant will pay you a commission.
Generally speaking, almost any product/service that you could imagine, from electronics and toys to sports equipment and online courses, can be promoted in exchange for commissions through one or more affiliate programs.
Affiliate marketing is currently being implemented by some of the largest companies in the world, such as:
- Amazon
- Apple
- Nike
- Ikea
- eBay
- AliExpress
- & more
As a matter of fact, around 40% of Amazon’s total revenue is generated via affiliate marketing.
According to some affiliate marketing statistics I put together a while ago, in 2017, the global value of the affiliate marketing industry was estimated at $14.5 billion.
Furthermore, affiliate marketing is growing at an average rate of 10% per year, so its value is expected to have surpassed $30 billion by 2025.
At that moment, affiliate marketing is the best, simplest, and most affordable way to making a full-time income online.
The video right below offers a pretty straightforward overview of what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
If affiliate marketing sounds like something you might be interested in, you could give it a try completely for free (no credit card required) right here.
Or check out my roundup of the Best Affiliate Marketing Courses.
2. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is an online business model that allows you to have a third-party wholesale supplier automatically process and ship your customers’ retail product orders without you having to deal with any kind of shipping procedure (e.g. maintaining inventory, packing, arranging pickups, labeling, etc).
Here’s an overview of how dropshipping works:
Step 1: Get an online dropshipping store up and running.
Step 2: Locate a dropshipping supplier.
Step 3: List one or more of the supplier’s products in your store.
Step 4: Set your retail prices.
Step 5: Start promoting your dropshipping store via one or more online marketing channels such as social media, paid ads, blogging, etc.
Step 6: Someone places an order on your online store which is then automatically (or manually) forwarded to the dropshipping supplier.
Step 7: The supplier charges you a wholesale price and then processes, packages, and ships the order directly to your customer.
Step 8: The margin between the wholesale price you paid to your supplier and the retail price paid to you by the customer lands right into your pocket.
The global dropshipping market size was valued at over $102.2 billion in 2018 and is expected to have grown to over $550 billion by 2025.
Just like affiliate marketing, the dropshipping business model is considered perfectly suitable for absolute beginners as it’s very simple to utilize and requires almost zero upfront monetary investment.
The video right below provides a pretty solid bird’s-eye view of how dropshipping works.
3. Launch a Blog
Launching a blog, or else “Blogging”, is the process of regularly publishing content in the form of articles (also called “Blog Posts”) around one or more specific subjects of your liking, from yoga, supplements, and cooking to cars, dogs, and video games.
For instance, dearboss-iquit.com is a blog that focuses on publishing articles that revolve around making money online and offering career advice.
Blog posts come in many shapes and sizes, such as:
- How-to guides (How to Escape the 9-5 Grind)
- Entertaining (Job Quitting Stories)
- Product reviews (Wealthy Affiliate Review)
- Roundups (Best Affiliate Marketing Courses)
- Merely Informative (Multi-Level Marketing Statistics)
- & more
Whatever the case, the main purpose of blogging is to cultivate a sizeable audience.
Once you have that audience, you can start monetizing it in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to:
- Display ads
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored posts
- Selling your own services and/or products
- Selling leads
- Renting ad space
- & more
Blogging is one of the oldest and most sure-fire methods for making a full-time income online.
If writing content on a daily basis sounds like something you’d enjoy, then you should definitely consider launching your own blog.
Nowadays, getting a blog up and running requires no coding knowledge and almost zero monetary investment.
Four platforms that can be leveraged towards launching a blog for free are:
- Wealthy Affiliate
- WordPress.com
- Medium.com
- and Blogger.com
4. Start a YouTube Channel
Another venture towards making a full-time income online that’s rising in popularity is becoming a YouTuber.
Running a YouTube channel is pretty much the same as blogging with the only difference that instead of written content you’ll be publishing content in video format.
Just like blog posts, your videos can revolve around any subject you want, from makeup tutorials and cooking to pranking and working out.
Contrary to blogging, getting traction on YouTube is technically somewhat easier as once you start uploading video content, the platform’s algorithm will pick it up and start distributing it across audiences that might be interested in spending time watching it.
Once your YouTube channel gathers 1,000 subscribers, you’ll be able to start monetizing your content via ads that’ll be running on random or predetermined intervals throughout your videos.
Nonetheless, YouTube gives you the liberty to monetize your channel using additional monetization models such as affiliate marketing, sponsored videos, selling your own services, etc.
If you take an interest in making your living by publishing video content, becoming a YouTuber is definitely the way to go.
Plus launching and maintaining a YouTube channel is 100% free.
The video right below walks you through the process of creating and fully setting up a YouTube channel in under 15 minutes.
5. Create & Sell Online Courses
If you’re proficient at a sought-after skill and/or have extensive experience in a specific subject, you could start monetizing your knowledge by passing it on to other people via creating and selling courses online.
There are literally thousands of online courses that are centered around any subject you can possibly imagine, from affiliate marketing and web development to cooking Mexican food and grooming your cat.
Heck, a while ago I attended a webinar hosted by a woman who was making over $10,000 per month selling a course about dealing with iron deficiency in goats.
If you have trouble pinpointing the subject matter of your course, you can always leverage your previous work experience.
For instance, if you’re working as an accountant, you could create a course that teaches absolute beginners how to maintain their financial records (doing their books).
Another option would be putting together a course that walks people through some kind of challenging goal you achieved such as losing 100 pounds in a year or preparing your finances to travel around the world for 6 months.
Nowadays, the vast majority of course creators set up their online courses through Teachable, a platform that allows you to host all your course materials (videos, PDF guides, etc), manage your customers, and handle your payments.
The main downside of creating a course is that you always run the risk of investing tons of time and effort upfront only to find out later that nobody wants to buy it.
To mitigate such risks, before you start developing your course, it’s highly suggested that you conduct some in-depth research by:
- Piecing together just 1-2 short modules that you’ll distribute for free to 10-20 people in exchange for feedback
- Creating polls on a few social media groups
- Leveraging forums to determine if people are facing problems that your course solves
- Running a couple of paid online surveys
6. Lead Generation
Lead generation is the process of capturing the contact information of people who express interest in a specific product or service (leads) and then selling that info to companies that offer such a product/service.
Here’s an overview of how lead generation works:
Step 1: Create a niche-specific website (e.g. Pest Control, Yoga, Wood Removal, etc).
Step 2: Drive traffic to your website. Usually, lead generation sites attract traffic via SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and blogging.
Step 3: Sign up for an email marketing platform (MailerLite, Aweber, SendinBlue, ConverKit, etc).
Step 4: Create a lead magnet (e.g. guide, e-book, report, etc).
Step 5: Set up an opt-in form on your website that’ll be capturing your visitors’ contact info (email, phone, name, location, etc) in exchange for free access to the lead magnet.
Step 6: Reach out to companies that might be interested in purchasing the leads you’ve gathered.
Step 7: Sell them the leads.
Please note that lead generation can be utilized towards making a full-time income online in a multitude of different ways, including without even running a website (see video below).
In general, lead generation isn’t such a popular online business model…
Maybe that’s because it’s considered less flexible, harder to gain initial traction, and more challenging to scale than affiliate marketing, dropshipping, blogging, or running a YouTube channel.
Nonetheless, the model is undeniably viable.
7. Become a Social Media Influencer
Simply put, a Social Media Influencer is someone who’s established such a strong reputation and credibility across a sizeable social media audience that they possess the power to affect, or else influence, said audience’s purchasing decisions (hence the term “Influencer”).
The main job of a Social Media Influencer is to regularly keep publishing and/or resharing written, audio, and/or video content (images, quotes, stories, short videos, etc) that’s valuable and engaging to their social media followers.
The most common technique Social Media Influencers tend to utilize towards monetizing their content is sponsored collaborations.
All too often, Influencers with a significant amount of followers get naturally approached by large brands that are willing to pay them handsome fees in exchange for mentioning and/or tagging them within their content.
The cost per sponsored post ranges anywhere between $10 and $10,000 and is usually determined based on a bunch of different factors such as:
- Size of following
- Social media platform
- Industry
- Follower engagement
- Type of content
- & more
Nonetheless, Social Media Influencers have the freedom to leverage additional monetization models towards maximizing their earnings, such as:
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling custom merchandise
- Speaking gigs
- Product endorsements
- & more
The 9 steps to successfully building a full-time income as a Social Media Influencer are:
- Pick a specific niche
- Select your social media platform
- Publish relevant content
- Experiment with both written, audio, and video content
- Maintain consistency
- Engage with your followers
- Pay attention to your audience’s feedback
- Collaborate with other Influencers
- Let brands know you’re open to sponsored partnerships
8. Print on Demand
Print on Demand (POD) is the process of working with a third-party supplier who will print, package, and ship white-label products (t-shirts, hats, mugs, books, etc) with your own custom designs on behalf of your brand only after a customer order has been actually placed.
Here’s an overview of how POD works:
Step 1: Pick your niche (anything you want).
Step 2: Select the products you’ll be selling. Some of the best-selling and most popular print-on-demand products include t-shirts, hats, mugs, hoodies, stickers, stationery, and bags.
Step 3: Create your first designs. If you don’t have the time or expertise, you can always outsource the design process to a freelancer or use designs bought under an extended license from stock websites like Shutterstock and iStockphoto.
Step 4: Choose your third-party POD suppliers. Some of the most popular ones are Printful, Redbubble, TeeSpring, CustomCat, and Printify.
Step 5: Set your profit margins. As a rule of thumb, 5% is considered a low margin, 10% a normal margin, and 20% a high margin.
Step 6: Launch your own website, preferably an eCommerce store (optional).
Step 7: Start promoting your designs via as many online marketing channels as possible (social media, paid ads, blogging, SEO, etc).
Step 8: When someone orders one of your POD products, the order will be automatically (or manually) forwarded to your third-party POD supplier.
Step 9: The supplier will then charge you just for the white-label product and then process, pack, and ship the order directly to your customer.
Step 10: The profit margin you set earlier lands right into your pocket.
Step 11: Experiment, monitor, gather feedback, and optimize.
If you’re interested in getting started with Print on Demand, I strongly suggest that you watch the Full Print On Demand Tutorial For Beginners right below.
9. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a platform launched by Amazon back in 2007 that can be leveraged by individuals towards self-publishing eBooks as well as paperback books that are printed on-demand.
Here’s an overview of how KDP works:
Step 1: Write your book.
Step 2: Upload your book files to the Amazon KDP platform.
Step 3: Set your book’s price.
Step 4: Publish your book.
Step5: Promote your book on the online marketing channels of your preference. Nonetheless, your book is also going to be listed in Amazon’s “Books” category by default.
Step 6: If someone purchases your book in digital form they’ll be able to instantly download and read it on their device. If they purchase it in paperback form, Amazon’s KDP platform will print and ship your book directly to them.
Step 7: Amazon will pay you royalties per book sold on its KDP platform. Amazon’s royalty rate is 35% to 70% for eBooks and a fixed 60% for paperback books.
According to many sources, the average revenue generated by a medium-sized Kindle book could range between $200 and $600 per month depending on its niche, the reviews it has received, its competition, your marketing efforts, your credibility, etc.
Just like creating a course, the main downside of KDP is that you might end up spending quite a lot of time and energy putting together books that generate either very little or no sales whatsoever (especially as a beginner).
10. Feelancing
The fastest and simplest way to making a full-time income online is by leveraging your already acquired work experience as a freelancer.
For instance, if you’ve worked as a graphic designer you could start offering your graphic designing skills to people who’d be willing to pay for them on a per-gig basis.
If your work experience isn’t monetizable in the freelance market or if you’d like to make your living by doing something that fulfills you more, you can always cultivate and monetize new skills.
Nowadays, some of the most in-demand freelance skills on the internet are:
- Web design & development
- Graphic design
- Digital marketing & SEO
- Video production & editing
- Voiceover
- Proofreading & editing
- Blogging & copywriting
- & more
Honing a new skill requires time and practice but you won’t have to spend years becoming an expert to receive your first paycheck for offering it – you just need to be able to utilize it better than your average Joe out there.
For instance, a couple of years ago I started offering SEO services on a freelance basis. Despite the fact that I had little SEO knowledge, I was still able to land a couple of small clients who needed someone to perform SEO on their websites but had no clue about SEO themselves.
There are dozens of online portals that could enable you to connect with clients looking to outsource their needs to freelancers, such as:
- Upwork
- FlexJobs
- Fiverr
- Freelancer
- Outsourcely
- PeoplePerHour
- & more
11. Create a Mobile App
Another opportunity that has the potential to bring in a full-time income online is creating and launching a mobile app.
The process is rather simple…
Just create an app that delivers some kind of value to those who’ll download it on their mobile device (e.g. solving a problem, entertaining, helping perform a specific task better and/or faster, etc).
If you can come up with a promising mobile app idea and you already possess app coding skills, that’s awesome!
If not, you can always hire a specialized app developer to create the app for you.
The 5 most profitable types of mobile apps are:
- Games
- Business
- Education
- Lifestyle
- & Entertainment
As such, since you’re after building a full-time income online, I strongly suggest that you launch an app that falls under one of those categories.
Once your mobile app is up and running you can start distributing it on several app marketplaces such as Google Play Store, Apple’s App Store, and Amazon AppStore, either in exchange for a small fee on a per-download basis or completely for free.
Free mobile apps can still be monetized in a multitude of ways, such as:
- Advertising
- Paid subscriptions
- In-App purchases
- Sponsorships
- Collecting & selling data
- & more
While it may sound counterintuitive, a mobile app that’s being distributed for free can drive much more profit than a paid app (assuming that it’s monetized the right way).
12. Sell Your Crafts
Are you into handmade crafts?
If so, making a full-time income by selling your crafts online is easier and simpler than ever.
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine decided to start leveraging the internet towards selling badges with custom imagery on the side of his full-time job.
He purchased a badge punch press for $30, 1000 blank badges for $50, and with the use of royalty-free images, he started putting together custom badges which he’d then list for sale on eBay and Etsy.
The process of creating, listing, and shipping the badges took him no more than 3 hours/day and within 4 months he was pocketing a $600-$800 monthly profit without even launching a dedicated eShop or promoting his work.
It’s pretty apparent that if he’d invested more time and effort in marketing and scaling his side gig, its profits could’ve easily grown to $4000/month and maybe even more.
About half a decade ago, another old friend of mine developed a passion for making natural soaps.
At some point, he invested some money in purchasing soap equipment and ingredients, made around 1000 soaps in various colors, scents, shapes, and sizes, and listed all of them on Etsy.
His soaps made such a killing that he managed to raise the required capital to launch his own soap brink & mortar business all by himself within just one year.
Having said all that, if the idea of making your living by selling products you’ve handcrafted yourself online sounds appealing, roll up your sleeves and get started ASAP.
Truth is that the demand for high-quality handmade goods throughout the world has never been higher.
Some of the most popular handmade items that sell the best include, but aren’t limited to:
- Beauty products
- Clothing
- Jewelry
- Hats
- Rugs
- Pet toys
- Scented candles
- Home decor
- Knitted goods
- Woodworking items
- & more
13. Sell Private-Label Products
Private-label products are products manufactured by a third-party supplier to be sold under another company’s branding. Such goods are available across various industries, ranging from food and drinks to cosmetics and household.
Here’s an overview of how selling private-label products works:
Step 1: Get clear on what type of product you’d like to be selling.
Step 2: Find a private-label supplier that manufactures the product of your choice. Optimally, you want to pick one that can label and brand your products before shipping them to you. That’ll save you a lot of time, energy, and money from having to locate yet another company to create labels and brand your products.
Step 3: Ask your supplier to send you a sample to see for yourself how their product looks, works, and behaves.
Step 4: If you’re satisfied with what you saw, you can place a bulk order.
Step 5: Set the selling price of your products. Make sure to take into account all the costs involved, such as the cost of the products themselves, the label, the shipping to you, the packaging, the shipping to the customer, the marketing, etc.
Step 6: Start listing your products on online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.
Step 7: Set up an online store and a couple of social media profiles under your brand’s name where you’ll be listing and promoting your products (optional but highly suggested).
Step 8: Invest in marketing (paid ads, content marketing, blogging, YouTube, etc).
Step 9: Ka-ching!
Some of the largest and most popular companies that make a killing selling private-label products include:
- Nike
- Adidas
- Walmart
- Amazon
- Zara
- Target
- & more
14. Offer Consultations
One of the simplest, effortless, and most affordable ways to making a full-time income online is by becoming a consultant.
If you possess in-depth expertise in any particular field, you could definitely get people and/or companies to pay you for consultations.
For instance, if you’re an experienced HR Officer you could start consulting other companies on managing their employees more effectively, or maybe help individuals put together stronger resumes and sharpen their interview skills.
Likewise, if you’re a seasoned marketer, you could start offering consultations to small brands that are after increasing their reach and boosting their customer engagement.
Truth is that regardless of the industry you might be in, there’ll always be someone willing to invest money in acquiring knowledge, advice, and insights that could help them reach their personal and/or business goals better and faster.
Heck, I even know a guy who’s making his living by consulting other people on how to become better players at a specific online video game.
Some of the most in-demand and highest-paying consulting services include:
- IT
- Marketing
- Security
- Financial
- Social media
- HR
- Investment
- Business
- & Sales
Most consultants structure their rates in one of the following ways:
- Hourly: Get paid by the number of hours you worked
- Project-based: Receive a fixed rate on a per-project basis
- Performance-based: You charge based on the results of your work
Please note that consultant jobs tend to involve significant amounts of commute and traveling, as well as longer working schedules (50 to 80 hours per week).
15. Video Game Streaming
Video game streaming is the process of playing a video game that’s broadcasted on one or more online live streaming platforms, such as:
- YouTube Gaming
- Twitch
- Facebook Live
- HitBox
- Beam
- etc
At the time of writing, the live streaming platform with the largest community that’s being utilized the most by gamers who’re after monetizing their gameplays is Twitch.
Twitch works kinda like YouTube… You create a channel, broadcast live streams, and gather followers.
Once you’ve reached a couple of minimum requirements (50 followers, 500 minutes of broadcasting, etc) you can start monetizing your Twitch channel in a variety of ways, such as:
- Paid subscriptions
- Twitch Bits
- Video ads
- Donations
- Sponsorships
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling merch
- & more
To ensure the highest financial returns for your Twitch streaming efforts, it’s highly suggested that you experiment with as many monetization methods as possible.
On average, seasoned Twitch streamers can pocket anywhere between $3,000 to $5,000 per month for streaming 40-50 hours per week.
16. Sell Your Photography
Whether you’re an avid photographer or just find yourself constantly snapping interesting pictures with your mobile phone, you can start monetizing your pictures in a multitude of ways.
For example, you may start selling your photos on stock image marketplaces like:
- Alamy
- 500px
- Shutterstock
- iStock Photo
- Getty Images
- Stocksy
- Foap
- Adobe Stock
- & more
According to Improve Photography, a single stock image can generate anywhere between $0.25 and $0.45 per month, depending on many factors such as how many stock websites you utilize, your skill in using the right keywords, the quality of your images, etc.
Or you could set up a photo portfolio website of your own and sell usage licenses to your images to companies and individuals that may want to use them.
For instance, if you specialize in food photography, you could sell usage licenses to food blogs and food magazines.
An image usage license is a contract in which the licensor (photographer) specifies how, when, and where the licensee (buyer) is allowed to use that image.
Your image portfolio can also be leveraged to promoting your own photography services.
Other photo monetization methods include, but aren’t limited to:
- Print on Demand
- Selling them as prints
- & Receiving donations on free stock websites (Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash)
17. Sell Designs
The last approach to making a full-time income online is by selling designs, such as:
- Artwork
- Doodles
- Digital illustrations
- Fonts
- Website layouts
- Web elements & icons
- Video templates
- & more
Designs can be monetized pretty much exactly like photography…
For instance, designs can be sold on dedicated marketplaces like GraphicRiver, Creative Market, Envato Elements, DeviantArt’s Print Shop, Freepik, Shutterstock, and more.
Moreover, you can sell usage licenses to your designs to companies and individuals that may want to use them.
For example, if your designs revolve around cats, you could sell usage licenses to pet shop websites and pet toy brands.
Furthermore, you could sell your designs on print-on-demand items such as t-shirts, mugs, etc.
Or you may also upload your designs to free stock websites (Freepik, Vecteezy, FreeVectors) to boost your exposure as a freelance graphic artist.
Conclusion
As you’ve probably already realized, when it comes to making a full-time online, you undeniably have options, probably more than you thought…
Just pick the one you believe could suit you the best and go for it!
Hell, you could even combine two or more towards maximizing your profits.
For instance, you could launch a YouTube channel that endorses affiliate products, or a blog that promotes your freelance services, or a bunch of KDP books that market a mobile app you’ve created.
I understand that at this moment, making a full-time income online might seem like a far-off dream…
That’s exactly how I felt right before embarking on my very own journey…
However, if you keep your eyes and mind open, experiment, have patience, deal with setbacks, and be consistent in taking action, I can almost guarantee that you’ll eventually make it!
