10 Realistic Ideas To Try! (2023 Guide)

So, you’re wondering how to make $20,000 dollars a month?

I think setting these sorts of income goals is a good thing since it pushes you to get entrepreneurial and to work hard.

I also think you don’t have to reinvent the wheel either; there are plenty of tried and true side hustles and business ideas out there that have a high earning potential.

That’s why this post is covering some of the most realistic ways to earn 20k a month if that’s the financial goal you’re setting!

I’ve personally reached this income goal with one of the methods in this post. And the other ones all have this type of income potential. Hopefully, one of the methods stands out to you!

Let’s get to it.

How To Make 20K A Month

Some of the methods to make 20k a month I’m going to mention involve making money online.

On the flip side, some of the ideas involve turning a side hustle into a full on business that’s highly profitable.

Pick one or more ideas to test out and then put in the work to get up to $20,000 a month!

1. Make Money Blogging

One way to make 20k a month is to start your own blog. And I know this route is realistic because my blog This Online World earns $20,000 or more per month these days.

Now, most bloggers don’t make any money, and for the ones that do, reaching $20,000 a month isn’t very likely at all.

However, like ecommerce, blogging has an incredibly high earning ceiling; we’re talking about millions of dollars potential for the top blogs.

There are so many ways to monetize a blog, so your monthly revenue is really just a function of how much monthly traffic you get to your website.

For example, This Online World makes money from Mediavine ads and affiliate income. With ads, it can usually make $500 a day in pure passive income. And affiliate marketing can easily match this or even have $1,000 days once in a while.

For some proof, here’s a snapshot of my Mediavine dashboard:

As you can see, the blog is making $500+ per day from Mediavine. That’s over $10,000 a month just from ads, and affiliate networks like Impact Radius and MaxBounty also bring in some serious revenue:

This just goes to show the potential of blogging, and I also want to highlight how fast things can scale if you’re consistent.

This Online World made $22,000 in 2020; I basically made 50% of last year’s annual revenue in a single month this year!

Anyway, developing a successful blog takes time and consistency, and figuring out how to make $20,000 a month in blogging revenue isn’t going to be easy.

But, if you learn the basics of SEO and consistently write the best content you possible can, I firmly believe you can scale your blog into a meaningful income source.

Sure, making $20,000 each month will take years to accomplish, and there’s a chance you might never get there.

But, you can always add in other side hustles or hold down a day job while you grow your blog so multiple income streams reach the $20,000 a month mark.

2. Start An Ecommerce Business

Another realistic way to make 20k a month online is to start your own ecommerce business.

I used to work in a digital marketing agency when I was in college. It was also my first job after school. After doing that for a few years, I eventually worked for an ecommerce startup based in California.

Now, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this over the last 5+ years it’s that there is an insane amount of money to be made in ecommerce.

The fact is that ecommerce businesses are typically easier to scale than traditional brick and mortar businesses since you have fewer fixed costs and can access a much wider audience since you sell online.

And, if you have a profitable product that converts well, paid traffic can basically be a goldmine for you.

Setting up an online business doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive either. For example, you can start an online store in just 5 minutes with platforms like Sellfy.

I’ve used Sellfy before, and I like the platform since it’s beginner friendly and quick to setup.

Plus, Sellfy lets you sell a variety of product types, including:

• Digital products
• Print on demand products
• Physical products
• Subscriptions

Sellfy’s first paid plan is only $29 per month, so it’s a fairly low-cost way for you to begin selling stuff online.

You also have plenty of other options as well.

For example, you can start a Shopify store for just $29 per month or try selling on Etsy, where it costs just $0.20 to list an item.

As for what you can sell, that’s something you have to figure out, but you can get creative and you never know where your store ends up.

I mean, people make money with memes, NFTs, crazy apparel, and all sorts of things.

My advice is to start selling something you’re interested in or passionate about.

This could be your own clothing line, or artwork, or something completely random. And trust me, you never know what can happen!

Someone I know sells really cool handmade, clay home goods, and her Shopify store can easily clear $1,000 in sales in 24 hours just from a single product drop.

This method to make $20,000 a month will obviously take a lot of time to scale and get right, but in my opinion, ecommerce has an incredible amount of potential.

3. Make Money With YouTube

Like blogging, YouTube is another platform that is difficult to grow but offers immense monetization potential.

I started making money on YouTube in 2020, and these days, the channel makes around $50 per day, or $1,500 per month; a far cry from making $20,000 each month.

It takes a while to make money on YouTube since you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time, which can easily take several months for a new channel to reach.

But, once you’re monetized, a single viral video can skyrocket the earnings for your channel and even change your life entirely.

Blogging doesn’t even have this potentially really, since viral blog articles aren’t nearly as common as viral YouTube videos.

Plus, you can also make money on YouTube with things like brand deals or affiliate marketing, so it isn’t entirely centered on advertising revenue.

Some YouTubers also use their channel to funnel traffic back to an online business they run, so again, I think combining YouTube with other income streams is a viable route to making $20,000 dollars a month.

4. Consulting

Depending on your industry and level of expertise, consulting is another way to make 20,000 dollars a month.

Plenty of industries and departments hire consultants, including:

• Advertising
• Business operations
• Finance
• Data security
• Digital marketing
• HR
• IT
• Marketing
• Risk and compliance
• Taxes

And, according to Indeed, some of the top consulting firms in the United States pay well over six figures per year.

These salaries aren’t $20,000 a month salaries, but they’re getting there. And more senior consultants can probably make that much, especially if you factor in bonuses.

I’ve also tried out this side hustle, and I’ve made close to $20,000 by consulting on Upwork for two main clients (about SEO and recruiting mostly.)

This wasn’t full-time work however, and you could make serious money if you had a large enough client roster.

Some agency owners also offer consulting services and charge clients with a monthly retainer fee for their work.

I know a handful of SEO agencies, and some of the owners are definitely making $20,000 a month or much more just from how much they make in retainer fees.

5. Online Coaching

Another way to potentially earn 20,000 dollars a month is to make money with online coaching.

I know a fair number of bloggers and YouTubers who use their existing audiences to get into online coaching, and it’s definitely incredibly lucrative.

However, the way to make $20,000 dollars per month with online coaching isn’t to offer one-on-one coaching, unless you can somehow charge insane hourly rates.

Rather, what a lot of successful online coaches do is to run webinars or group coaching sessions, so they make more money overall per session.

Selling coaching programs and guides is also another monetization strategy, and courses are really where you can make some insane money.

For example, one of the most popular Udemy courses on blogging has over 36,500 students.

At full-price, this is over $7 million dollars in revenue!

And, even if every student took advantage of the sale price, that’s still over a million dollars in revenue.

Realistically, I think you need a sizable audience to make $20,000 a month with online coaching.

But if you have a strong social media following or run a blog or YouTube channel, I think it’s a viable business model you can explore.

6. Real Estate Rentals

There’s no denying that it takes a lot of capital to get into real estate. But, you also can’t deny that running multiple rental properties is a viable strategy to make $20,000 a month or more.

A friend of mine recently bought a Duplex and rents out one of the units to a couple, so that’s his start in the real estate game and it basically pays for a lot of his mortgage.

But, with several units and a steady stream of rental income, you could reach $20,000 or more in monthly income.

Interestingly, I also know some Airbnb hosts who own several properties and basically run their Airbnb listings as a full-time gig or major side hustle.

For example, when I lived in Dubai, I was paying almost $1,000 per month for a room in a shared apartment (with a crazy view in fairness.)

So, my unit alone was making the owner about $5,000 per month since I lived with four other people, and he owned several units in that apartment building alone!

Real estate income is certainly something I want to develop over the next few years, and I think it’s one of the more mathematical approaches to making $20k a month.

People usually start out with house hacking and then branch into running full-on rental units, but hey, the opportunity is there!

Want to start investing in real estate? Checkout:

• Arrived – Invest in income-generating real estate starting at only $100 (U.S. only.)

7. Retail Arbitrage

Retail arbitrage involves buying common everyday products on clearance or at low prices and then reselling them for a profit.

Usually, retail arbitrage sellers source inventory from stores like Kohl’s, Target, and Walmart where you can find a lot of clearance sales.

From there, sellers normally sell their retail arbitrage goods on marketplaces like Amazon or eBay where they can upcharge and turn a profit.

Running a retail arbitrage business isn’t easy, and learning what products sell well and getting in the rhythm of building up your inventory takes a lot of practice.

But, you can definitely make $20,000 or more with this sort of side hustle if you can scale your inventory quickly enough and learn which products sell fast.

For example, I interviewed the owners of a retail arbitrage business that make over $1 million per year through the Amazon FBA program.

You can see this store is making more than $20,000 a month, but again, it takes time to scale a retail arbitrage business to this sort of level.

Additionally, there are also risks to purchasing inventory upfront in case you can’t liquidate it fast enough, so this business model certainly isn’t for everyone.

Extra Reading – How To Flip $500 For Profit!

8. Sell Digital Downloads

If you’re still wondering how to make 20k in a month, one route you can explore is selling digital downloads.

This type of ecommerce can be extremely profitable because you don’t have inventory and shipping costs eating into your profit margin, so every sale you make is mostly profit.

There are also plenty of examples of digital products people sell, including:

• Artwork
• Agendas and planners
• Courses
• Digital stickers
• eBooks
• Photos
• Sheet music
• Sound clips

People sell digital downloads like various printables or stickers on Etsy all the time, and some shop owners are definitely clearing $20,000 a month when you look at how many sales they have.

Etsy is just one sales channel for this, but it’s one of the best because if your listings rank well organically on Etsy’s marketplace, you can generate some serious sales.

And, as mentioned, you can also sell digital downloads or subscription products through a platform like Sellfy, so there are plenty of options out there!

Extra Reading – How To Sell Print On Demand Products On Etsy.

9. Start A Service-Based Business

If you have a particularly valuable skill, another way to earn $20,000 per month is to start a service-based business.

The idea here is pretty simple: just think of a service you can offer people, and then go door-to-door or cold call to find your first clients.

Some examples of popular service-based businesses include:

• Cleaning homes
• Handyman help
• Landscaping
• Window washing
• Painting
• Pet grooming
• Dog walking and sitting
• Pressure washing
• Car detailing
• Personal training
• Car repairs
• Catering

Once you know the service you’re offering, you can start thinking about pricing.

For example, if you offer a house cleaning service and charge between $100 to $200 to clean a house, you can probably complete two jobs per day and make around $400. At this pace, you’d need 50 days of consistent jobs to reach 20k, which isn’t quite on-track for the monthly goal.

But what if you hired help for your business, so your operation was cleaning five homes a day instead of two? All of a sudden, you’re scaling a service-based business, employing other people, and are working towards that 20k monthly goal.

This is a very simplified example, of course. In reality, it will likely take months to get enough clients and to get your business up and running.

But I know plenty of plumbers, landscapers, and other service-based business owners who manage a small team and pull in this type of revenue. It just takes time, but the business model and concept works.

10. Influencer Marketing

One final idea for how to make $20,000 dollars a month is to make money through influencer marketing. This idea goes hand-in-hand with blogging and YouTube, and it’s not something you can start over night.

But right now, I know several people within the personal finance niche making six or even seven figures per year through brand deals and sponsorships.

This is just in the personal finance niche! With Instagram and newer channels like TikTok being incredibly popular, brands are willing to cut large paychecks for user-generated, sponsored content.

This YouTube video from YouTuber The Break does an amazing job at covering how much influncers make.

It also shares how she made over 20k in one month just through affiliate links!

Granted, she’s been in the industry for over 9 years, so like I said, it’s not fast cash.

However, if you can grow a loyal following on some platforms or go viral, you might be surprised at how much you make.

Extra Reading – The Best Ways To Make $1,000 A Day.

Advice For Making 20K A Month

Now that you know some realistic ways to make 20k a month, I want to wrap up this post with some tips I’ve personally found helpful in reaching this sort of income milestone:

1. Set Smaller Goals: Earning 20k per month isn’t a small feat. Personally, I’ve found it helpful to break large goals into more manageable chunks so you can track smaller amounts of progress. Even if it’s making $100 a day in extra income first, start somewhere so you can chip away at your main goal.
2. Reinvest Earnings: As you make more money, don’t be afraid to reinvest some of it to accelerate growth. I did this by paying freelance writers to create content for This Online World, and it helped me grow my blog rapidly. Now, much of this older content makes money on autopilot every day from Mediavine ads and affiliate income.
3. Play To Your Strengths: What are your best, most marketable skills? Sticking with these gives you an edge over the competition, and I think this is important if you want to be a top earner in any field.

Final Thoughts

If you want to earn 20k a month, I hope this list of business ideas and side hustles helps you get closer to that financial goal.

Reaching 20k in monthly income isn’t something that happens overnight, but I’m a firm believer that if you set goals and create a plan to get there, you can accomplish this sort of goal if you’re consistent.

I mean, scaling income-generating assets takes time, but over a few years, I think it’s realistic to grow something like a blog and YouTube channel or an online business into a serious cash cow.

For me, it took about five years to cross the $20,000 per month mark with This Online World. But if you never start, you’ll never succeed. And you’d be amazed at where you end up after just a few months or years of consistent effort.

In any case, best of luck on your mission to make $20,000 a month!

Looking for more ways to earn extra cash? Checkout:

Tom is a full-time blogger and freelance writer with a passion for side hustling, passive income, and the gig economy. His work has appeared on dozens of personal finance websites like Money Crashers, The College Investor, Investor Junkie, and more. This Online World is all about providing people with honest ways to make and save more money by using technology. To learn more about Tom, read his About Page!

If you’re interested in freelance writing services or want to partner with This Online World, please use our contact page to get in touch!