25 Tried & True Ways to Make Money While You Sleep

Want to learn how to make money while you sleep? Look no further. 

We’ve compiled some of the best and most interesting ways to make money while you sleep, both online and offline. 

From relatively simple and blasé to totally bizarre, keep this list handy if you want to start making money any time of day or night. 

How to Make Money While You Sleep

The internet is ripe with ways to start making money at any time of day. Here are 25 of the top passive income ideas to cash in while you’re nappin’.

1. Create a Niche Website

One of the best ways to make money while you sleep is to create a niche website. 

Depending on the amount of work you put in at the beginning, niche websites have the potential to earn anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to well over 6 to 7 figures a year!

And we put together a popular and free guide for how to build a successful niche website here!

You can also get great value from the awesome step-by-step video walkthrough of the Authority Site System (TASS) by the industry experts at Authority Hacker.

2. Start Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to start making money while you sleep. This is a business where you earn a commission for recommending products for sale. 

There are many ways to do it, and some options can have a pretty quick payoff. Here’s how to do it. 

• Pick a niche. 
• Sign up for affiliate programs. 
• Create content in the niche and promote the products. 
• Send interested parties to the product sales page with your affiliate link. 

If you want to see results with this as fast as possible, TikTok is a great place to start. This can be a passive income stream once it gets going!

For more ideas, check out our list of 13 ways to start affiliate marketing with no money invested!

3. Try Amazon FBA

FBA stands for ‘Fulfillment by Amazon’. This is an online business model where you sell products directly on the Amazon marketplace. You purchase the product, ship it to Amazon’s warehouses, and list it on the marketplace.

Then, sit back and relax while you earn passive income while you sleep with Amazon FBA. 

And check out this full guide to growing an Amazon FBA business based on a real success story here.

4. Self-Publish on Amazon

Did you know you can self-publish books of all kinds on Amazon and make money while you sleep? You don’t even have to be a writer! You can hire a writer or sell low and no-content books like journals and notebooks. Publishing on Amazon can be insanely profitable!

Luckily, we have a walkthrough on how to self-publish a book on Amazon here. Check out some other ways to make money on Amazon without selling.

5. Sell an Online Course

One of the coolest ways to make money while you sleep is to create and sell an online course. You literally get paid for your niche knowledge at all hours of the day!

Online courses are a great way to earn passive income. Once you create the course, it can sell on autopilot with the help of ads, automated webinars, SEO, and social media. And we have a full guide on how to build an online course to help you get started!

6. Sell Printables and Digital Downloads on Etsy

Etsy is one of the leading online marketplaces, and digital downloads are a hot seller. 

You can create and sell printables and digital downloads on Etsy and have the potential for massive earnings! Sasha Hutchinson earns $11k per month using this business model. 

You too can learn how to sell digital downloads on Etsy here.

Pro tip: you don’t even have to create the products yourself. Outsource it to Fiverr!

7. Try Your Hand at Dropshipping

Dropshipping has been hot for several years for a reason: it’s a great way to earn passive income while you sleep. You don’t have to worry about shipping or fulfillment because you just act as a middleman. 

This process involves selling goods directly from the manufacturer at a markup, and you keep the extra profit!

And even if you have no money you can learn how to start a dropshipping business here!

8. Start a YouTube Channel

Starting a YouTube channel can be a great way to make money while you’re asleep or at any time of day. Aside from earning passive income from YouTube ads, you can monetize your channel in many ways (just make sure you how to find the right YouTube niche). 

Ideas for monetizing your channel include selling merch, affiliate marketing, selling your own products, online courses, and more. 

9. Start Investing Your Extra Cash

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be a millionaire to start investing and seeing results. You can start investing in the stock market with pocket change! 

The only thing you need to get started as an investor is to literally just get started… And there are many apps and websites out there to help you get started fast!

You can get started with real estate investment trusts (REITs) with a minimum investment of $1,000. Or you can try investing in the stock market!

Acorns is a mobile app that seamlessly (and safely) integrates with your bank account and starts investing your spare change from purchases in the stock market. You are in total control of the amount and how often!

10. Invest in Websites

Yes, investing in websites is a thing, and it can be a pretty popular thing to do, too. If you have a big chunk of change, you can purchase a website that is already making money. This is a great way to start making money while you sleep almost instantly. 

You can purchase a legit website of any age that’s already earning cash on marketplaces like MotionInvest. 

11. Open a High-Yield Savings Account

A high-yield savings account is an account that offers a higher interest rate than a traditional savings account. Ally bank, SoFi, and Capital One are all well-known banks that offer high-yield savings accounts. 

While this idea won’t make you rich overnight or without a large amount in savings, it is a good idea for those who don’t want to try riskier investment options. 

12. Rent Out Your Extra Room

Do you have an extra room or living space on your property? Rent it out to travelers or local renters to earn some extra money via rental income! 

While this option involves trusting strangers in your personal space, it can be a great way to earn extra money if you have space available. 

13. Rent Out Your Vehicle or RV

If you have a vehicle or camper that you don’t use that often, why not rent it out to make some extra money? 

Turo is a legit peer-to-peer car sharing platform that works similar to AirBnB. If you have a camper or RV, you can rent it out on platforms like Outdoorsy or RVShare.

14. Make Money By Live Streaming While You Sleep

This is bizarre but it’s totally legit and people do it every single day. Live streaming while you sleep to earn money from sleeping might seem absurd, but it works! 

People on streaming platforms like Twitch and TikTok are literally streaming themselves sleeping and earning money from viewers. Viewers can pay to play sounds to wake the “Sleepfluencers” up, or send gifts that have monetary value for the streamer. 

Learn more about sleep streaming here on Sleeopolis.

15. Sell Your Photos on Stock Photo Websites

Phone cameras have the ability to take incredibly high-quality photos these days.

If you have an eye for photography and a phone full of photos, upload them to stock photo website to earn extra money every time someone downloads them!

And you guessed it! We have a guide to help you sell pictures online here!

16. Create and Sell Your Own SaaS

SaaS is “Software as a Service”, and creating and selling SaaS is a great way to make money while you sleep. Spencer Haws, founder of Niche Pursuits, is a great example on creating SaaS businesses without having to create the software himself. 

Creating a software business is a great way to start making money or to add as an extra passive income stream to your own business or website.

You can even start a successful software business as a non-technical founder as described from experience.

17. Sell Print-On-Demand Products

Print-on-demand or POD is a business model where you sell products with your own graphics and designs on them. When a customer buys, the POD company prints the product and ships it to the customer directly, and you keep the profit. 

You don’t even have to be a designer… There are many marketplaces where you can buy POD designs! Popular products include T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, and more.

Not sure how to do it?

Learn how to start a t-shirt business from home here!

18. Sell Wordpress Themes

If you have an eye for UX and love creating custom WordPress themes, you can sell them on marketplaces like Etsy and Creative Market. 

Bloggers and new website owners love aesthetically pleasing themes, simple to install, and fast. Popular themes for designing on include Astra, Kadence, and GeneratePress. 

19. Sell POD Designs

If you’re a designer or love to draw, you can earn money selling the designs for print-on-demand sellers. There is a high demand for high-quality, unique designs for POD sellers. 

You can sell your designs on platforms like Fiverr, Dribbble, Creative Fabrica, and Creative Market.

20. Resell PLR Products

PLR stands for Private Label Rights. PLR products are pre-made products like ebooks, articles, notebooks, planners, and online courses that you can purchase and legally resell as your own. The beauty of this business model is that you have to do minimal work to get started, and it’s pretty passive once you get going!

High-quality PLR sites include White Label Perks, Piggy Makes Bank, and PLR.me. 

21. Sell Notion Templates

Notion is an organization and project planning powerhouse, and Notion templates sell like hotcakes! Since Notion has so many capabilities, you can create dozens of template types for many different uses. You can sell Notion templates on platforms like Etsy, Creative Market, and the Notion Template Gallery.

22. Start a Vending Machine Business

A vending machine business might not be the first thought that comes to mind to make some extra money, but it can be incredibly lucrative.

If you want to learn how to make money while you sleep with an offline business, check out this article on how to start a vending machine business. 

23. Start a Membership Website

A membership site is a great way to start a money-making website right away. This is a type of subscription website where people have to pay to view the content. Ideas for membership websites include online courses, software, coaching, and more. 

With a membership site you can charge less than you would for an online course, but you’ll have subscribers that pay you every single month to keep their access. 

24. Flip Websites

Flipping websites for profit can be a great side hustle that can earn you money while you sleep. While this method does create work to create the websites, there are a couple ways you can make money with it. 

First, you can earn money from the websites from advertising and affiliate revenue, which comes in passively with traffic. These passive income streams can earn even more money once you sell them! Once you list the website for sale on a marketplace, it can sell any time - day or night. 

25. Get Paid to Sleep (Literally) By Becoming a Mattress Tester

Last but not least, you can get paid to literally sleep as a mattress or bed tester. Occasionally, mattress companies hire professional bed testers to spend a significant amount of time relaxing and napping on their mattresses for a paycheck. One company offers a salary of $33k per year for sleeping on their beds!

That's right: a passive income stream just from sleeping.

But that’s not the only way to become a mattress tester - you could start a mattress review website, TikTok, or YouTube channel and start earning commissions from reviewing and recommending mattresses!

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