7 Passive Side Hustles For 2026

So, I have personally tested seven different passive income streams over the last few years. Some of them were total game changers. Others though were a complete waste of time. And in this video, I'm ranking every single method I have tried from S tier down to F tier based on my actual experience. So, by the end of this video, you'll know exactly which ones are worth your time and which ones to skip. So, let's not waste any more time. Let's get right into it. Now, the first one I want to talk about is one of the most hyped income streams on the internet right now. You'll hear a lot of people talking about this, and that is YouTube automation. And look, I'll be honest with you, obviously, as you can see, I have been very successful on YouTube. I've made a lot of money from it. But the honest truth is, most people are not going to be successful on YouTube. It takes a lot of work to grow a channel and there's really no guarantee of success which is why I would be placing this pretty low like maybe down in the D level right here. We're not for three things. First of all, it costs very little to get started on YouTube. So the risk to get started is very low. Second, if you do hit it big on YouTube, you can do quite well. So, while the risk is very low, the potential payoff can be quite high, especially when you consider the fact that you can make videos that will continue to make you money year after year after you first make them. And the third reason why I'm really considering putting this one much higher is just because nowadays, thanks to AI, it's become a lot easier to start a YouTube channel. You can come over to chatgbt and use it to help you create scripts for your videos, get ideas for your videos. And then you can use a service like 11labs. io to actually do voiceovers, AI voiceovers for your videos. Once you have that, you can create some stock footage using Canva and Open AI. put it all together with the voice over that was just created and you can have a full YouTube video that you can then post on YouTube and you never have to show your voice, sorry, show your face and never even have to use your real voice in it. And once you kind of get this entire system down, it can really be automated. You can hire virtual assistants to do all these tasks for you. So, this will require a lot of work to get it up and running, a lot of time on your part, but once you do and you get the system down, it can be quite good. So, I think for that reason, I'm going to put this right in the B category right here, just because it does require a lot more work upfront, but once you kind of nail it down, there's a ton of potential here.

Now, passive income idea number two is the one that was the first online business for me that actually worked. It literally changed everything for me because it allowed me to quit my nineto-ive job and travel the world full-time. And I'm talking about eBay drop shipping. This is a very simple business model that requires no website, no ads, and no upfront inventory. You just find products, list them for sale on eBay, and when they sell, your supplier will ship straight to the customer. But here's what makes it even better. You can now outsource this entire thing. So, if you're not really familiar with what eBay drop shipping is, this is a good example. There is a seller here on eBay selling this item. It's this bed that is a bunk bed that can also be converted into a not bunk bed, like two twin beds. You can see it's being sold here on eBay. A few of these have sold already. Now, if you were to purchase this, all the seller is going to do is turn around and buy the item for less money from walmart. com and have it shipped directly to you. So you see, very simple. You're just grabbing items from Walmart or Amazon, pasting them into eBay, and thanks to some software, this is really streamlined. So this is a software I use to automate my entire drop shipping store. It's very simple to get set up. Once you sign up for it, it links up with your eBay account and then the automation is pretty automatic from there. So for instance, if I wanted to add a product, I'll click on add single product. I'll grab the URL for this Walmart item and I'll just paste it in. And what you'll notice is that it's able to grab all the details from Walmart in like a second. So, it grabs the photos right here. It grabs the title. It automatically adds tags and shipping methods. We also have stock and price monitoring turned on, which means that if the price changes on Walmart, if it goes out of stock on Walmart, that will automatically be updated in your eBay store as well. and auto orderering as well for when orders come in. So, it really just does all that. You can then click the button that says save and import and that will be live in your eBay store. And once you kind of build up your store, you can hire a virtual assistant who can then find the items for you and plug them into this software for you. So, it can really be a passive form of income for you. So, since this is so simple to start, easy to scale, and super beginner friendly, I'm putting this one up in S tier. I really think it belongs there. Like I said, is the first one for me that really worked, and I've seen it work for a lot of other people as well. If you're looking for your first passive income stream, this is a good one to start with. Next up, let's

talk about affiliate marketing, specifically affiliate marketing on Amazon. Now, I think this one is really underrated. Check this out. If you come to pretty much any listing here on Amazon, I just came to a random one here. You'll notice, of course, that we have the product images right here, those are supplied by whoever created this listing on Amazon, probably the manufacturer or the reseller of it. You'll also notice though that there are a bunch of videos. Now, some of these are by whoever created the sales page on Amazon, the listing, but also some of these videos are actually review videos like this one right here. Now, if I watch this video and then purchase this product, the person that made this video actually gets a small commission for it. And you can easily sign up for this by coming over to affiliate-program. Amazon. com or you can easily find this just by googling Amazon influencer program. And what's great about this is that once you sign up, you can easily make these videos just like this person did right here just with their smartphone. Anytime uh you buy something on Amazon, and I mean anything, even stuff you've already purchased or you were going to purchase anyway, shoot a short video reviewing it. You don't have to show your face. It can be very quick. You don't have to really edit it. You upload it directly to Amazon. And when people watch and buy, you get paid. You don't need to edit. You don't need an audience. You just help someone make a buying decision and Amazon handles the rest. Then once you make the videos, you can continue to make money from them month after month. The videos stay there. It's fast. It's scalable. And literally anyone can do this starting today. Now, it's not completely passive. So, I'm not going to put it in S tier, but for how easy it is to get going, I'm going to put it up here in the A tier. I think it's a really great kind of income source. you know, you're not going to make a ton of money from it, but you can make some good money in it. So, I think it deserves to be in uh A tier. Let's shift

gears now to something a little more long-term. Index fund investing. If you're not familiar with what this is, uh index funds are basically baskets of top performing companies. The most popular one out there is the S& P 500, which includes like the biggest companies, Apple, Google, Microsoft, for instance. So instead of trying to pick winning stocks that might just lose value over time, you're investing in the entire market. It's lowmaintenance and it's lower risk as well. And what's beneficial about this is that you don't need a ton of money to get started. Even if it's just a few dollars a month, start with what you've got and build up from there. And the earlier you begin, the more your growth is going to compound, the faster that is going to happen. That said, it it's still a long game. You're not flipping cash overnight, but it's one of the smartest financial moves you can make with the money you already have. So, I'm going to go ahead and put this one in B tier because you do need some money to get started with it. It's not fast, but it is solid. It does work if you give it time. For the fifth passive income

stream, let's talk about Amazon FBA, but with a twist. I'm not talking about launching a private label brand here. I'm talking about flipping products from eBay to Amazon FBA. Here's how it works. You or a virtual assistant, you're going to find underpriced items on eBay. You're going to buy them. You're going to send them to a prep center and they will ship everything to Amazon for you. And once it's at Amazon, they handle everything else. The storage, the shipping, the customer service, all of that. Now, admittedly, this will take a lot of work to get set up and running. It's going to take some money to do it as well, but once you do, the entire process can be outsourced with virtual assistants, with some software, and with those fulfillment centers. You just need the capital and the time to get it started and to scale it up. Now, I actually learned this entire strategy from my good friend Steve Raiken. Definitely check out his channel, Raiken Profit, if you want a deep dive into this business model. He's been killing it lately with eBay to Amazon and makes well over a full-time living doing this. And he's been doing this for years now. So, for those who have a little money to invest and looking to get started on Amazon, I think this is a great one. I'm going to put it a tier, not quite S tier just because it does require that capital to get up and running, but once you do, it is a solid business strategy.

Let's talk about the sixth way I make money online, which is with digital products. Now, in theory, this one sounds amazing. It sounds pretty easy. You create some kind of digital product, whether that's a downloadable PDF guide, an online course, or a template for Etsy like we see right here. And then you just sell it over and over again. There's no shipping, there's no inventory, just digital file files being delivered automatically. But here's the problem. The competition for this is getting tougher and tougher. Standing out is tough. Getting noticed is even harder. So, for example, you can use AI. You can use Chat GBT together with something like Canva to create something like a vacation guide to Paris or a kids Paris journal like we see right here. Pretty easy to do and pretty easy to throw up for sale on Etsy. But you still need good SEO. You need people to find your product. you need them to actually purchase from you. All that marketing, it's a great business model once it's working, but getting that traction, it's not as easy as it sounds. So, I'm going to put these digital products in the S tier just because of how fierce the competition has become for this. Last up, let's look at Tik Tok Shopipping. This is one of the newer models I've tried, and it's actually got some real solid potential. The idea is simple. You list products for sale on Tik Tok shop, which is built into the Tik Tok app, and you get creators, people who are already making videos to post videos about your products. If that content performs well, you can get flooded with orders. So, this is super powerful when it works, but it does take some effort up front. You either need to create the content yourself or you need to work with these creators. Once you gain that traction though, this model can be insanely profitable. So that's why I'm going to throw this up here on A tier. Just requires a little bit of hustle, but it's definitely worth exploring. All right, so let's recap the rankings real fast. In C tier, we have digital products. In B tier, we have creating a YouTube channel and we have investing in index funds. In A tier, we have affiliate marketing, Amazon FBA, and Tik Tok shop drop shipping. And S tier, the one at the very top, is eBay drop shipping. Like I said before, these are all income streams I've tried myself, and I've only included ones on here that I've actually made money with and have done myself. So, if you're just starting out, I wouldn't overthink it. Pick one or two of these, focus, then scale up. You don't need to do 10 income streams all at once, but stacking a few over time, that's how you win long term. Now, if this video helped you out, make sure to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel. Then, if you want to see step by step how I started my first passive income stream, which was eBay drop shipping, click on this video right here and I'll see you there in just one second. Bye for now.