Passive Income Ideas to Scale Your Online Business in 2023

Want to make 2023 the year you introduce passive income streams into your online business?

Here are some of my favourite ways for online business owners like you to earn passive income in the next year. 

This post is perfect for you if you’re a Coach, or online service provider like a Social Media Manager, Graphic Designer or Web developer and you’re feeling like your income is “capped” right now. 

So, what is Passive Income?

Passive income is defined as “unearned income”. 

In the online space, it’s essentially an asset/resource that you’ve created one time that people can go and purchase whenever, generating income for you when you’re not actively working. 

For example, if you want to earn passive income as a Graphic Designer, you may create Canva templates for online business owners who can’t afford to pay for your done for you Services right now.

Not only does it help you to boost your overall hourly rate but there are other benefits too.

What are the Benefits of Passive Income? 

As a Coach or an Online Service Provider (OBM, VA, Social Media Manager, Web Designer, Graphic Designer, etc.), you’ll find that in the beginning stages of your business you’ll be trading a lot of time for money. 

As you scale I only recommend you actually have around half of your work week dedicated to 1:1 client work to leave room for your own growth and the development of passive products. 

Adding  a passive income stream to your online business is a way to still earn the income you want without taking up too much of your time. Plus, passive products are more cost-effective for your clients because they don’t require any of your time actively.

Is Earning Passive Income Hard?

If you’re searching for easy passive income ideas to help you scale your online business, I want to preface this article with the fact that it does require some level of work up front and it’s not a “get rich quick” scheme. 

However, one of the benefits of passive income is that once you’ve set everything up initially, you then don’t have to do any additional work. 

For example, my online course, Freedom Course Creator, was several months in the making because I wanted to make sure you had absolutely everything you needed to succeed in creating and selling an online course. 

But now, I can just make sales of that course without any extra work. It allows me to serve potentially thousands of clients at once, whereas my 1:1 coaching is capped because my time is. 

Your passive resources don’t have to be as huge as FCC, this is your online business and you can serve people however you want. I also sell another passive offer, my Biz Clarity Mini Course which is just £7.99 and is perfect for aspiring business owners who don’t really know where to start and need something affordable but valuable to point them in the right direction. 

Passive Income Ideas for Online Business Owners

So, what are some passive income ideas you can get started with right away?

Templates

Templates are the ideal passive income for Web Developers, Graphic Designers, Copywriters and even Social Media Managers. 

As a Web Developer you could sell pre-made website templates that allow people to create beautiful DIY websites, as a graphic designer you could sell Canva templates, or even more premium illustrator or in-design templates for fellow designers to make their workflow smoother. 

Online Courses 

The e-learning market right now is HUGE and is still growing. It’s expected to hit $1 trillion by 2028, so NOW is the perfect time to start creating an online course. As a business/course creation coach, I’ve helped my students make tens of thousands of pounds through their online courses and it’s completely changed their lives. 

If you’re unsure where to start when it comes to creating an online course, I have tons of free resources available on the blog to get you started, as well as my free masterclass and checklist. 

Or if you want exact, step-by-step support, Freedom Course Creator is perfect.  

Affiliate Marketing 

Pretty much every product/service you see online right now has an affiliate programme associated with it. Amazon Associates if you sell products, or if you’re a service provider, most scheduling tools have an affiliate scheme. As does Canva, Dubsado, even business bank accounts. 

Although there are people out there that make affiliate marketing a full time revenue stream, it is very saturated because people make it out to be something you can make money from quickly. 

I like to consider affiliates as a bit of a top up for my business income. Plus, if I’m sharing some of the tools I know and use daily, if I make enough money from the affiliates to pay for that service then it’s a win-win. 

Online Masterclasses/eBooks 

A great passive income idea for beginners is selling masterclasses and/or eBooks. 

Plus, the great thing is, if you’ve ever launched, or done a guest expert for someone in your industry, you might already have the assets ready so you could start selling this digital product right now. 

A really fun way to get started with passive income is to take previously recorded masterclasses and sell them on your website for a low ticket price. You could even use this as a bit of a funnel to lead people to one of your higher ticket offers using an email nurture sequence. 

And, moving forward, if you ever do guest expert sessions or masterclasses, be sure to hit record and sell them after. 

That’s valuable information that your audience WILL pay for. 

It’ll also help you when live launching because if the class is only free the first time you put it out there, you might get more sign ups. 

I hope this gives you an idea of how you can get started with passive income this year. Let me know if you enjoyed this week’s post and feel free to drop your passive income ideas in the comments below! I’d love to know what you’re working on over the next few months. 

Claudia xx