How would you like to wake up every day and be able to do anything and everything you wanted to? That is the power of passive income.

Why is passive income desirable? Because when you generate it, you no longer have to trade your time for money, like with your day job. You have the freedom to decide what to do with your time, like spend it with family, travel, or maybe work from anywhere.

Now, you won’t be able to wake up tomorrow and just start living that way. Building extra sources of income can take a lot of upfront time, energy, and resources. But once you are successful, you can earn money for years to come with minimal effort.

How can you generate passive income? Side hustles are a great way to start building job replacement income and allow you to chase any dream you want. Or, if you already have additional resources, consider buying an online business to help speed up the process.

To help you get started, here is a list of the seven best online passive income side hustle ideas to start you on your path to financial freedom.

1. Ads (like Google Adsense)

How often do you search on Google to answer questions or learn about something? Every day, right?! One of the easiest and most passive side hustles is to start an informational content blog. It’s inexpensive, and other than the time devoted to the website setup and content creation can get you on your way quickly.

You don’t even have to be a perfect writer. Or you can hire freelancers to do the writing for you. The best part is, your blog can be about absolutely anything, although you will have a greater chance of success if other people are searching for similar topics.

Once you start generating traffic, you can monetize with display ads using something like Google Adsense, which pays you for showing ads on your blog. And the more traffic you generate, the more you should earn.

2. Affiliate Marketing (like Amazon Affiliate)

What if you don’t want to write informational content? Maybe you like to use products and share your opinions about them. Then affiliate marketing is a great option.

With affiliate marketing, specifically being an Amazon Affiliate, you recommend products on Amazon and get paid a commission for any sales made.

Similar to monetizing a blog with display ads, it takes a good amount of traffic to generate a sizable income but can be lucrative in the long run.

And when it comes to blogs, ads and affiliate marketing aren’t an either/or choice. You can do both to boost the passive income stream!

3. Apps (like creating an app for the iTunes App Store)

Do you own a smartphone or tablet? Maybe you have a fantastic idea for an app that would make your life easier or help you accomplish something faster. 

So create an app. If you’re not a programmer, you could hire one to design the app for you. And then, you could list it for sale on the iTunes App Store and generate an ongoing passive income.

4. Dropshipping (creating a unique brand and finding products that are more difficult to source – high ticket with more strict terms with the suppliers and fast shipping times)

Chances are you’ve received something that was dropshipped, and you didn’t even know it. Dropshipping is when the company you order a product from has it delivered directly from the supplier of the product. Think Wayfair.

High ticket dropshipping (HTDS) is the same thing, but with more expensive products that aren’t as readily available.

When you set up a HTDS store through Shopify, you create your brand, contact suppliers for what you want to sell, list those products on your store, and make sure the supplier fulfills any orders. Then you keep the difference between what the supplier charged you and what you charged your customer.

5. Amazon FBA

It would be shocking if you haven’t already experienced Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) as an Amazon customer. In that situation, you order from a third party selling on Amazon, but Amazon handles the shipping and customer service.

Like HTDS, you create your brand and set up a storefront. But instead of Shopify or a similar platform, it would be on Amazon. You would then buy your products and have them shipped to an Amazon fulfillment center, and when an order comes in, the product is sent to the customer.

The benefit of Amazon FBA is that, for a fee, Amazon handles all of the customer service needs. So your responsibilities would be focused on keeping your products in stock and marketing your store.

6. E-commerce

What if you want to do it all? Then E-commerce is for you! 

There are several similarities to the last two items on the list, but with an E-commerce store, you are responsible for everything from store setup to product fulfillment, including shipping and returns.

If that sounds interesting but overwhelming, you could also consider buying an existing E-commerce site.

7. Software As A Service (SaaS)

Solving a problem. That is the primary goal of a SaaS business.

Setting up a SaaS business is potentially the most complicated on this list, but if you are tech-savvy or have access to the technical skills, either through yourself or someone else, required to build a software product, it can be highly lucrative.

And because the revenue is generated on a subscription basis, it can be pretty passive in the long run.

Wrap Up

There are many ways to generate a passive income, and these are just some side hustle ideas that can help you do that. Or you can buy a side hustle.

Each of them can have different levels of upfront effort involving time and money and ongoing requirements that will make them more or less passive. But that is entirely in your control and can be customized to precisely what is going to best meet your goals.

The most important thing is to take action on something. Your future passive income will only exist if you start a side hustle today!