Brain Dump of Multiple Ways to Make Money Online

by | Oct 26, 2026 | Uncategorized

Introduction

Sometimes I get sent down a rabbit hole of monetizing all the things and I end up consuming videos/courses/articles on how to have a six figure launch or make a million dollars online this year, etc etc etc. Most of these are a total trap. The creators telling you about how to make money doing X? They’re making money from your attention. Either in content monetization on the platform or on their digital courses or guides. It’s definitely giving MLM vibes. Like, is anyone actually making any money selling something to someone who isn’t trying to learn how to make money? But the cyclical money talk gets eyeballs, and since I myself am also chasing eyeballs, here we are.

Except, I would like to think that I’m attempting to sell real things to real people, and you’re just here because you’re curious. Absolutely no guarantees here because quite honestly, I have NOT quit my day job. Like, not even close.

But I thought I would try to break down the ways that I see are possibilities for making money online. I’m putting them into buckets and kind of stream-of-consciousness writing this thing. Maybe you’ll pick up some ideas for yourself, or learn to monetize the thing you’re already talking about online or the thing you’re already good at. Ready? Let’s go.

Get Paid for the Content You Create

So this is the area where you just like to share the thing you’re obsessed with or the thing you’re good at teaching and the platform or your audience pays you for it. The platform pays because you’ve kept people on their app/website and they’re probably running ads. Or the audience pays because you provide valuable information.

Where the Platform Pays You

  • YouTube Partner Program – You need to have a certain number of subscribers and a certain number of watch hours in order to be eligible for monetization. It’s monetized through ads played on your videos. I’ve tried and failed this one with a BookTube channel. I was posting multiple times weekly for three years. I got enough subscribers, but not enough watch hours. I stopped posting when I realized my time was better spent on other revenue-generating activities.
  • TikTok Creator Rewards Program – You need at least 10k followers and videos are eligible if they’re over a minute long and the audience sees them from the FYP. I don’t have enough followers to be eligible here.
  • Instagram Bonuses for Photo and Carousel Posts – I have no idea what the eligibility criteria is here. My account is eligible for this type of monetization. I get such low views though, my average earnings is $0.02 per post.
  • Facebook Content Monetization – Still unclear on the eligibility criteria here. My account is eligible for this type of monetization. Most of my posts get nothing. Once a month, a fluke reel goes viral and makes about $15.
  • Medium – no experience here, but I think you write articles and then get paid based on view count

Where Your Audience Pays You

  • Patreon – Share your content, set up tiers, then your audience pays you.
  • Substack – Email/blog/social media mix, set up subscription tiers and lock some articles behind a paywall. Could also use with a tip jar format. I have a couple free Substacks, just as a way to organize and archive different things I like to talk about. I don’t make any money here. (Books or Lettering)
  • Beehiiv – Newsletter/archive format. Can put articles behind a paywall. This is what you’re reading right now. I did set up a pay-what-you want support section. I haven’t made any money here yet.
  • Kofi, Buy Me a Coffee, or similar tip jar websites – These are pretty bare bones. There’s no discoverability here. You post things on other places and tell people where they can tip you. (my kofi page) I put the link on the bottom of all my emails and blog posts and I’ve gotten some donations here and there.

Get Paid to Promote Other People’s Stuff

Affiliate Marketing

Someone else made the thing and you tell your people about the thing with your super special link and then you get a commission. This is easy to do and the opportunities and products to promote are endless. However, this also means it’s a pretty low amount of money to make. Have a favorite pen? Great. Tell people about it and link to it on Amazon. But it makes about 4% on a $10 pack of pens, so you get to take home $0.40 when one buyer makes a purchase. It’s a volume game at that point. (this is my best-selling pen I’m promoting right now, btw)

The easiest way to do this is to write blog posts and email newsletters and recommend the things you love. You can also use your social media to share things you like and send your audience to your links. I have a link in my Instagram bio to my ShopMy page where I’ve linked things from my posts. And when I post on Facebook, I’ll add a link to products in the comments. (Right now, Facebook has limited the amount of clickable links you can post, unless it’s to their affiliate partners like Amazon, etc)

There’s a whole bunch of affiliate networks you can join for the products you want to promote. Seriously, just Google the brand and “affiliate program” and you can find it.

Good Programs to Start With

Another way that I make money from affiliate marketing is through shoppable content. For TikTok Shop products, that means making a video specifically about that product and providing the link right there on the video. Amazon has an influencer program where you could apply to create videos that get placed directly on the product page. Both of these actually leverage an audience that is already ready to buy, and not necessarily your own personal brand’s audience.

How I Made Over $19k in One Year with TikTok Shop Affiliate Program

Real Results: Amazon On-Site Commission Videos

Some creators promote higher ticket digital items, which end up making way more money, but here is where the MLM vibes come in. Course Creator A makes a $297 course about how to make money selling courses, sets up an affiliate program for 50% commission, then Content Creator B joins up so they can promote courses to Buyer C, D, E, and F. Then those buyers become Content Creator C, D, E, and F promoting the same course for a 50% commission to even more buyers. Sounds like a lot of money! But no one is actually getting any tangible object. At least I can sleep at night if someone bought pens from my link. They get an actual physical object with value to them.

Brand Deals and Sponsorships

A brand pays you to promote/feature their product on your platform within your content. Negotiate here on the payment structure and your deliverables (how many posts, where to post, for how long). I don’t have any experience here.

User Generated Content (UGC)

Basically, a brand pays you to make a video, then they run it on their platforms (not yours). Usually a flat fee. Kind of like you being hired out as a cheap ad agency, videographer, photographer, combo deal. You can negotiate this as you’d like. I have no experience here either.

Make and Sell Your Own Stuff

Services

This one is labor-intensive and totally varies based on your skills and expertise. Basically, you trade time for money. Either by coaching or consulting one-on-one or being the worker bee for someone else’s business. If you’re really skilled (or famous), then people are probably willing to pay you a lot of money. Commissioned artwork also falls into this category. I’m thinking Cameo shoutout videos are also part of this section.

Things I’ve tried:

  • Personalized art prints – I got a few sales here and there, this was back in my brush calligraphy days (hey look, the sales page is still here)
  • Commissioned brush lettering artwork – I charged different rates for personal versus commercial use here. This was totally hit or miss. (still online, but very much inactive sales page here)
  • Email newsletter consulting – omg, two years ago, I had this idea that I was going to help influencers/businesses start their email list. I’d do an audit of their social media and then send a really pretty PDF with recommendations and workflows. I thought it was really good! But aside from the few pilot testers I did for free, no one made a purchase. (sales page here)
  • New! I’m going to handwrite people’s book titles and post them on my social media. Does this count as commissions artwork or a sponsored post? It’s a mix of my talent, but also leveraging my audience. I literally just posted about it last night, so we’ll see if anyone bites. I also probably priced it too low. (sales page here)

Digital Products

You can sell an infinite number of copies of a digital product. There is no limit to the income you can generate here if you hit the right product. It also has pretty low risk if you keep your expenses low. If you have a flop of a product, it’s possible that all you’ve lost is time.

One of my early best-sellers was a PDF printable brush lettering guide. It was literally just pages and pages of traceable worksheets that the buyer would print out and practice with. This was in 2015 and 2016, before the launch of the Apple Pencil, so I was doing great. I priced it at $20 to start and incrementally raised the price as I added more features. By early 2016, it was $32 and I sold tons of them. I am planning to write up a full-report on the guide at some point, but it has been long-since retired and I don’t have any of the original analytics anymore. I’ll still write it based on memory though.

The flip side was trying to make a low-ticket printable in 2025. Total flop.

Simple Digital Product: Printable Coloring Swatch Page

Potential products to create

  • PDF downloads – I have both won and failed on these. This will also include craft patterns (knitting patterns, crochet patterns, quilt patterns).
  • Fonts – tried this one and sold very few
  • Digital clip art – ugh, has AI killed this one?
  • eBooks – yes, as an indie author, you can sell your epubs directly to readers
  • Canva templates
  • Notion templates
  • Courses – using Skool, Teachable, Kajabi
  • Swipe files/Scripts

Platforms for selling

  • Etsy – not sure about this one, they’ve recently released a new policy on product photos
  • Gumroad
  • Payhip (referral link)
  • Teachable
  • Kajabi
  • ThriveCart
  • SamCart
  • SendOwl
  • Beehiiv (referral link)
  • Flodesk
  • Shopify
  • Stan Store
  • Beacons

Physical Products

Creating Stuff

This is all about you and your own hands and talent. This is totally going to depend on what you’re into. Personally, I’ve sold handmade crochet blankets and scarves and cup cozies on Etsy. And also bookmarks on a separate Etsy account. For me, the profit here is slim. There’s no way I could do enough volume on my own physical labor to generate enough to quit my job. Might be different for you, if you priced things correctly. You’ll also have to ship things out to customers yourself.

Handmade Corner Bookmarks on Etsy

Platforms for selling

  • Etsy
  • Shopify
  • BigCartel
  • WooCommerce
  • TikTok Shop for Seller

Outsourcing Stuff

Design some stuff and then have someone else manufacture it. This can be anything from stickers to journals to physical books or t-shirts. Your design and vision, with a bit of help. You can choose to work with a manufacturer and get the goods shipped to you to sell or you can use a print-on-demand service where they make and ship for you. The profit margin is better on bulk orders that you receive and then ship yourself, but then you have to deal with storage and all of that. I’ve tried selling stickers I’ve designed and ordered a bunch through Vinyl Disorder, but those are small and didn’t take up a lot of space. I’ve tried print-on-demand stuff before too, but didn’t get many sales.

You’re going to come across a lot of courses that say that print-on-demand is an easy way to make money. Without an audience that already cares, it is not. The market is crazy oversaturated, and at the end of the day, it’s all just an uploaded design printed on a Gildan t-shirt. Don’t fall for it! (Also, I will totally test an print-on-demand biz from scratch next year if you want to see real-person, small-audience results)

However, if you’re a real artist with a following who loves your designs, here’s where you can print your stuff. You will need to link these services to another sales platform to collect payment.

There’s also a few places where you upload your designs to a marketplace and people can discover your stuff organically. The profit margin here is even smaller.

  • Redbubble
  • TeePublic
  • Society6

Reselling Stuff

Here’s where the reselling apps come into play. Ebay, Depop, Vinted. Clear out your closet, your garage, etc first. (Personally, I clear out the free samples I get from doing TikTok Shop) Then start thrifting and finding deals to flip. I’m wary of storing things and of dead inventory, so I haven’t attempted this yet.

Overall Thoughts

If you want to make money online, and all you know is “I want to make money online”, the possibilities are so overwhelming. Like, crazy pants. You’ll spend all day researching instead of taking action. However! Since there’s so many options, that means you don’t need to do it all. Experiment with the things you genuinely enjoy doing or making!

To be really honest, I would love to help creators figure out how to monetize their existing platforms based on their interests and energy levels. This would totally be a one-on-one type of thing, maybe a questionnaire that the creator fills out and then me providing a checklist of recommendations. Let me know if that’s something you would be interested in! I will need some pilot testers if I’m going to launch it as a paid service.

Conclusion

Too many options. Easy to get overwhelmed. Lots of potential. Start small and experiment.

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