If you've thought about starting a business or launching a serious side project, you've likely wondered whether it's possible to replace a full-time salary with your own income stream. The short answer is yes—but the path depends entirely on which model you choose and how much time you're willing to invest.
In 2026, the barriers to starting an online business are lower than ever. You can launch a dropshipping store, sell digital products, or offer consulting services without needing office space, employees, or significant upfront capital. These models give you control over your schedule and the potential to earn well beyond what a traditional job might offer.
This isn't a promise that every business will hit $10,000 in monthly revenue. Some take longer than others. Some require skills you'll need to develop. But if you're willing to commit the time and make decisions based on real numbers rather than hype, reaching that income level is achievable.
Below, we'll walk through 10 business models that can generate $10,000 or more per month. We'll cover what each one involves, how much it costs to start, and how much time you'll need to invest before seeing results.
What does it take to make $10K a month?
Making $10,000 a month requires choosing a business model with enough revenue potential to support that income level. Not every side hustle will get you there—some cap out at a few hundred dollars per month no matter how much effort you put in.
The businesses that reach $10,000 in monthly revenue share a few characteristics. They solve a specific problem for a defined audience. They have a repeatable process for acquiring customers. And they generate revenue that scales with the time or resources you invest.
Your timeline to $10,000 per month depends on three variables. First, how much time you can dedicate each week—part-time effort yields part-time results initially. Second, whether you already have relevant skills or need to build them from scratch. Third, which business model you choose. A consulting business with an established network might hit $10,000 within six months. A blog building an audience from zero might take 18 months.
Regardless of which business model you choose, strong cash flow management keeps you solvent through slow months and helps you reinvest profits strategically.
10 ideas to make $10K a month in 2026
Idea | Average Monthly Revenue | Average Startup Cost | Startup Needs |
PLR Products | $1,000–$10,000 | $1,000–$2,000 | PLR content, website, marketing |
Dropshipping | $5,000–$15,000 | $100–$300 | Online store, marketing |
Starting a Blog | $3,000–$12,000 | $100–$300 | Website, marketing |
Freelancing | $4,000–$13,000 | $100–$300 | Website, marketing |
FBA Stores | $5,000–$15,000 | $500–$5,000 | Products, FBA account |
Vintage Flipping | $3,000–$10,000 | $500–$1,000 | Flipping tools, products |
Affiliate Marketing | $5,000–$15,000 | $1,000–$2,000 | Website, social media, affiliate network |
Etsy Shops | $3,000–$12,000 | $100–$300 | Designs, Etsy account |
Teaching/Consulting | $5,000–$15,000 | $500–$1,000 | Website, marketing |
Remote Closing | $2,000–$14,000 | $100–$300 | Sales training or education |
*The monthly revenue varies for each model because your earning potential depends on how much time you invest, how effectively you market your business, and how quickly you refine your approach based on what works.
The 10 business models below cover different skill sets, time commitments, and startup costs. Some generate passive income once you've built the initial infrastructure. Others trade your time directly for money—but at rates higher than most traditional employment. Compare the details for each to find the one that matches where you are now and where you want to be in 12 months.
1. Sell private label rights (PLR) products
Private label rights let you buy existing digital products—ebooks, courses, templates, audio files—and resell them under your own brand. You purchase the rights to modify and redistribute the content, which means you can edit it to fit your audience and sell it as your own product.
The original creator makes money from selling the rights. You make money from reselling the edited product. Both parties benefit without having to create everything from scratch.
Startup difficulty: Easy Startup time: Short Overall time commitment: Low
Your main costs are the initial purchase price for the PLR products, setting up an ecommerce website to host and sell them, and any marketing spend to drive traffic. Once you've edited the products and listed them for sale, the business generates income with minimal ongoing work. You'll need to maintain your website and refresh your marketing campaigns, but the day-to-day time commitment stays low.
The more products you list, the more revenue streams you create—but quality matters more than quantity. Focus on PLR products that solve a specific problem for a defined audience rather than buying generic content bundles that don't serve anyone particularly well.
2. Start a dropshipping online business
Dropshipping lets you sell products without holding inventory. You set up an online store, list products, and market them to customers. When someone makes a purchase, you forward the order to a supplier who ships the product directly to the customer. Your job is to handle the storefront, marketing, and customer service—not the logistics.
This model works well if you have strong marketing skills or you're willing to learn them quickly. Your success depends on choosing products that people want and driving traffic to your store through social media, search engines, or paid ads.
Startup difficulty: Easy Startup time: Short Overall time commitment: Low
You can launch a dropshipping store using platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce for a few hundred dollars. Most of your early budget goes toward building the store, purchasing a domain, and testing paid advertising to see what converts.
The ongoing time commitment depends on how much you want to grow the business. You can run a dropshipping store part-time once you've established your supplier relationships and dialed in your marketing. However, scaling to $10,000 per month usually requires reinvesting profits into advertising and testing new product lines.
Customer service matters. Fast responses, clear return policies, and accurate product descriptions reduce complaints and chargebacks—both of which can tank a dropshipping business quickly.
3. Start a blog and leverage ad income
Blogging generates income through display ads, sponsored posts, and affiliate links. You write content that attracts readers, and you monetize that audience through partnerships and ad networks like Google AdSense or Mediavine. The more traffic you drive, the more you earn.
Blogging works well if you enjoy writing and you're willing to commit to publishing consistently for at least a year before seeing significant income. Most successful blogs focus on a specific niche—personal finance, home improvement, software tutorials—rather than covering everything broadly.
Startup difficulty: Easy Startup time: Short Overall time commitment: Medium
You can start a blog for under $300. You'll need a domain name, hosting, and a basic WordPress setup. Most of your early effort goes into writing content, learning SEO, and promoting your posts on social media or through search engines.
Reaching $10,000 per month from a blog typically requires 50,000 to 100,000 monthly page views, depending on your niche and monetization strategy. Building that level of traffic takes time—most bloggers need 12 to 24 months of consistent publishing before they reach that threshold.
The key is choosing a niche with commercial intent. Topics where readers are looking to make purchasing decisions—product reviews, how-to guides, software comparisons—convert better than purely informational content. Study what competitors in your niche are doing and find the gaps they're not covering.
4. Freelance your skills
Freelancing trades your skills directly for money. If you're a writer, designer, developer, marketer, or consultant, you can offer your services on platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, or through your own website. You set your rates, choose your clients, and control how many hours you work each week.
This model works well if you already have a marketable skill or you're willing to develop one quickly. The income potential scales with your rates and the number of hours you work—charge $100 per hour and work 25 hours per week, and you'll clear $10,000 per month.
Startup difficulty: Easy Startup time: Short Overall time commitment: High
Starting a freelance business costs almost nothing. You'll need a simple website, profiles on freelancing platforms, and a few portfolio pieces to show prospective clients what you can do. Most freelancers spend under $300 in their first few months.
The challenge is building a steady client base. Early on, you'll spend significant time pitching, networking, and taking lower-paying jobs to build your portfolio. As your reputation grows, you can raise your rates and be more selective about the projects you take on.
Freelancing gives you flexibility, but it's not passive income. You earn money when you work. If you want to scale beyond trading hours for dollars, you'll eventually need to hire subcontractors, package your services into fixed-price offerings, or transition into consulting.
5. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Amazon's FBA program lets you send your products to Amazon's warehouses, and they handle storage, packing, and shipping. When a customer orders your product, Amazon fulfills it. You get access to Prime shipping, Amazon's customer service, and the built-in trust of the Amazon marketplace.
This model works if you have products to sell—either ones you manufacture, source from wholesalers, or buy in bulk and resell. The logistics are handled for you, which means you can focus on finding profitable products and managing inventory.
Startup difficulty: Easy Startup time: Medium Overall time commitment: Medium
Starting an FBA business requires capital to purchase inventory upfront. Depending on your product, you might spend anywhere from $500 to $5,000 on your first batch of inventory. You'll also pay Amazon fees for storage and fulfillment, which eat into your margins.
Reaching $10,000 per month in revenue depends on finding products with strong demand and manageable competition. Many successful FBA sellers test multiple products before finding one that scales. The research phase—analyzing sales data, reading reviews, checking competitor pricing—takes time upfront but reduces the risk of ordering inventory that doesn't sell.
Once you've identified a profitable product, the business becomes more predictable. You reorder inventory, monitor your Amazon listings, and adjust pricing based on competition. The time commitment drops once you've dialed in your process.
6. Flip vintage apparel, furniture, and decor
Flipping involves buying undervalued items—vintage furniture, clothing, decor—and reselling them at a profit. You source inventory from thrift stores, estate sales, garage sales, or online marketplaces, then clean, repair, or refinish the items before listing them for sale.
This model works well if you have an eye for design and you're willing to put in physical work. The income potential depends on how many items you can flip each month and how much margin you capture on each sale.
Startup difficulty: Easy Startup time: Medium Overall time commitment: Medium
You can start flipping with a few hundred dollars for tools—sandpaper, paint, cleaning supplies—and your initial inventory purchases. The key is learning which items sell quickly and which ones sit unsold for months. Focus on high-turnover categories like mid-century furniture, vintage band t-shirts, or farmhouse decor.
Reaching $10,000 per month requires either flipping high-value items like furniture or moving large volumes of smaller items like clothing. The challenge is balancing the time spent sourcing, refurbishing, photographing, and listing items against the profit margin on each sale.
Selling locally through Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist works well for large items like furniture. Selling online through eBay, Poshmark, or Etsy makes sense for smaller items that ship easily. Many flippers use a mix of both channels to maximize their reach.
7. Become an influencer and use affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing pays you a commission when someone buys a product through your unique referral link. You promote products you use or recommend, and you earn a percentage of each sale. The model works whether you have 1,000 followers or 100,000—though larger audiences generally earn more.
This business model requires building an audience first. You can do this through a blog, YouTube channel, Instagram account, TikTok, or email newsletter. The key is creating content that attracts people interested in the products you're promoting.
Startup difficulty: Medium Startup time: Medium Overall time commitment: Medium
Starting an affiliate marketing business costs between $1,000 and $2,000 if you're building a website and investing in content creation tools. If you're focusing on social media, your costs drop significantly—you'll mainly invest time rather than money.
Reaching $10,000 per month from affiliate marketing typically requires consistent traffic. A blog might need 30,000 to 50,000 monthly visitors. A YouTube channel might need 10,000 to 20,000 views per video. The exact numbers depend on your niche and the commission rates you're earning.
Many affiliate marketers start by promoting products from Amazon Associates, which pays 1% to 10% commissions depending on the category. Higher-ticket affiliate programs—software tools, online courses, financial products—pay significantly more per sale, which means you need less traffic to hit your income goals.
As your business grows, consider how many business checking accounts you should have—separating revenue streams makes tax time significantly easier.
8. Start an Etsy shop
Etsy lets you sell handmade goods, vintage items, and digital products. The platform handles payment processing and provides a built-in marketplace where millions of buyers search for products every day. You create listings, set your prices, and fulfill orders.
Digital products work particularly well on Etsy because they require no inventory and no shipping. You create a printable, template, or design file once, and customers download it instantly after purchase. This makes digital products almost entirely passive once you've built a catalog.
Startup difficulty: Medium Startup time: Medium Overall time commitment: Medium
Opening an Etsy shop costs nothing, but you'll pay a $0.20 listing fee per item and a transaction fee on each sale. If you're selling physical products, you'll also need to factor in material costs and shipping. If you're selling digital products, your only costs are the time spent creating the designs and any software subscriptions you use.
Print-on-demand services like Printify integrate with Etsy and let you sell custom-designed products—t-shirts, mugs, tote bags—without holding inventory. The service prints and ships each item as orders come in, and you pay only for what sells.
Reaching $10,000 per month on Etsy requires strong product photography, well-optimized listings, and a clear understanding of what your target customer searches for. Most successful Etsy sellers test multiple product lines before finding one that gains traction. The platform rewards consistency—the more listings you have, the more opportunities customers have to find you.
9. Teach others via online courses or consulting
Online courses let you package your knowledge into a product that students can purchase and complete at their own pace. Platforms like Udemy, Teachable, and Coursera host your course, handle payments, and provide the infrastructure for delivering video lessons and assignments. You create the course once, and it generates income every time someone enrolls.
Consulting trades your expertise for direct payment. You work with clients one-on-one or in small groups to solve specific problems. This model generates higher income per hour than most other businesses on this list, but it requires more direct involvement.
Startup difficulty: Medium Startup time: Medium Overall time commitment: Medium
Creating an online course requires an upfront time investment to record lessons, build a curriculum, and set up your course page. Most instructors spend $500 to $1,000 on equipment—a decent microphone, screen recording software, and possibly a camera. Once the course is live, it generates passive income with minimal ongoing effort beyond occasional updates.
Consulting requires less upfront work but more ongoing time. You'll need a website, a clear description of your services, and a way for clients to book calls with you. Most consultants charge between $100 and $500 per hour depending on their expertise and the problem they solve. Reaching $10,000 per month means billing 20 to 100 hours, depending on your rate.
The challenge with consulting is that your income caps at the number of hours you can work. Many consultants eventually transition to group coaching, productized services, or online courses to scale beyond one-on-one client work.
Once you start generating consistent income, understanding the difference between a business account vs personal account becomes critical for liability protection and tax purposes.
10. Become a remote closer
Remote closing is a sales role where you finalize deals for high-value products or services—real estate, coaching programs, software subscriptions, or consulting packages. You work remotely, speaking with prospects who have already expressed interest. Your job is to answer questions, address objections, and guide them to a purchase decision.
This model works well if you have sales experience or you're willing to develop it. Most remote closers work for companies that provide the leads, training, and commission structure. You focus on closing deals rather than generating your own pipeline.
Startup difficulty: Medium Startup time: Medium Overall time commitment: High
The barrier to entry depends on your current sales background. If you're new to sales, you'll need to invest time in training—either through online courses or by working in an entry-level sales position to build your skills. If you already have sales experience, you can transition into remote closing relatively quickly.
Remote closers typically earn commissions ranging from 5% to 15% of the sale value. Closing $100,000 in sales per month at a 10% commission rate generates $10,000 in income. The exact numbers depend on the product you're selling and the commission structure your employer offers.
This is a full-time commitment. Remote closing requires consistent availability for scheduled calls, follow-ups, and pipeline management. The flexibility comes from location—you can work from anywhere with a stable internet connection—but the hours are comparable to a traditional sales job.
Which business model should you start?
The right business model depends on three variables—how much time you have, how much capital you can invest upfront, and which skills you already possess or you're willing to develop.
If you're working full-time and can dedicate only 5 to 10 hours per week, focus on businesses with low ongoing time commitments—dropshipping, PLR products, or blogging. These models let you build the infrastructure upfront and generate income with minimal daily involvement once you've established the foundation.
If you have more time but limited capital, freelancing or consulting makes sense. You can start for under $300 and scale quickly if you already have a marketable skill. The trade-off is that your income depends on the hours you work—there's no passive income unless you eventually transition to courses or productized services.
If you have both time and capital, FBA or vintage flipping can generate strong returns. These businesses require upfront investment in inventory, but they also offer faster paths to $10,000 per month if you choose products with strong demand and healthy margins.
Many owners using the Profit First method allocate their revenue into separate accounts for operating expenses, profit, taxes, and owner pay—a system that works especially well when revenue fluctuates month to month.
How to start your journey toward $10K per month
Start by clarifying why you want to build this business. Are you looking to replace your full-time income, add a secondary revenue stream, or build something you can eventually sell? Your answer determines how much time you'll need to commit and which business model makes sense.
Make a list of the skills you already have and the ones you'll need to develop. If you're a strong writer, blogging or freelancing might be the fastest path. If you have design skills, Etsy or affiliate marketing could work well. If you have sales experience, remote closing offers a clear route to $10,000 per month with minimal startup costs.
Next, set a realistic timeline. Most businesses take at least six months to generate consistent income. Some take longer. Don't expect to hit $10,000 in your first month—focus instead on making your first dollar, then your first $100, then your first $1,000. Each milestone validates that the model works and gives you data to improve your approach.
Talk to people who are already running the business you're considering. Find them on LinkedIn, in Facebook groups, or through industry forums. Ask about their day-to-day work, the challenges they face, and what they wish they'd known before starting. Most people are willing to share their experience if you approach them respectfully and make it clear you're not asking for free consulting.
Finally, test before you scale. Don't sink $5,000 into inventory or advertising before you've validated that people actually want what you're selling. Start small, measure what works, and reinvest profits into the strategies that generate the highest return.
If you're building a business with multiple revenue streams or expense categories, Relay lets you open up to 20 checking accounts1—each with its own account number—so you can keep each income source separate from day one. Open your account in minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Can you really make $10,000 a month from a side business?
Yes, but it depends on the business model and the time you invest. Businesses like consulting, freelancing, and dropshipping can generate $10,000 or more per month, but most require several months of consistent effort before reaching that income level. Part-time commitments typically yield lower returns initially.
What's the cheapest business to start if I want to make $10K a month?
Freelancing has the lowest barrier to entry, often requiring less than $300 to start. You'll need a basic website and marketing presence. The main investment is your time and skill development. However, reaching $10,000 per month usually requires building a strong client base over several months.
How long does it take to reach $10,000 per month in revenue?
The timeline varies widely by business model. Freelancers and consultants with existing skills might reach $10,000 per month within six to twelve months. Businesses like blogging or affiliate marketing often take 12 to 24 months due to the time needed to build an audience and establish credibility.
Do I need to quit my job to start a business that makes $10K a month?
No. Many of these business models can start as side projects while you keep your day job. Dropshipping, blogging, and selling digital products require lower weekly time commitments initially. However, businesses like remote closing or full-time consulting typically require more hours to reach the $10,000 threshold.
What skills do I need to make $10,000 a month from an online business?
The specific skills depend on your chosen business model, but most successful online businesses require basic digital marketing knowledge, customer service skills, and financial discipline. Learning SEO, copywriting, or social media marketing will help nearly any online venture. Focus on developing one core skill deeply rather than spreading yourself thin.
1 Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply.
