11 Realistic Ways To Make $20k a Month in 2024

Are you looking for realistic ways to make $20k a month? If yes, you are in the right place.
People look for alternative ways to improve their financial status and secure their future as they don’t get paid that much salary from their traditional jobs.
In fact, 20k per month is an unrealistic number for many, since you are eying on it, you are probably ready to leave your comfort zone and do what most people couldn’t handle.
Well, achieving 20k per month is challenging at first, but it is possible when you work on the right ways and implement the best strategies.
So, if you are wondering how to make $20k a month, this article discusses some possible ways and strategies I’ve tried over the years.
Scroll down the article to read the ideas, tips, and tricks that help you to surpass the target. You can make even more if you stick to these ideas and implement the right strategies.
So, let’s get started without a delay.
 
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Best Ways To Make $20k a Month
If you badly want to make $20k a month but don’t know where to begin, there are many possible ways that have the potential to pay beyond your monthly goal.
And, your earnings will totally depend on the efforts you put in and the strategies you employ.
Some ideas like blogging and starting a YouTube channel require regular effort while others like investing and selling products require less effort and provide a reliable source of passive income.
So, if you want to make 20k per month to pay off debt or buy something expensive, these below-discussed methods are worth trying.
 
1. Start a YouTube Channel
If you like creating videos, then starting a YouTube channel is a great way to earn passive income.
It takes some time in the beginning to create your own fan base and grow your channel to generate full-time income.
We all know that our favorite YouTubers make hundreds of thousands of dollars every month from ad revenue alone. If they are making it on YouTube, why shouldn’t you do it?
Follow the steps to create your YouTube Channel…

Login into YouTube using your Gmail address
Click on your profile picture and then choose “Create a Channel”
Type your channel name
Add your channel bio
Add your profile picture
Finish your profile setup
Start uploading Videos and Shorts

Video quality is the primary thing on YouTube so you must invest in a good quality camera. Initially, you can shoot with your phone and you can upgrade as you gain the traction.
As of now, to be eligible for YouTube monetization, you must surpass 1000 subscribers and 4k watch hours or 10 million short video views within a one-year time frame.
Once you surpass the requirements, there are many ways to monetize your channel. Here are a few ways…

Display Ads
Channel Memberships
Selling Products/Courses
Affiliate Marketing
Brand sponsorships/Collaborations
Super Thanks and Super Chat

According to a report by Influencer Marketing Hub, YouTube pays around $18 per 1,000 ad views on average, which roughly translates to $4 to $5 per 1,000 views.

Video Ideas Where You Don’t Need To Show Your Face. | Source: YouTube

You can see the first video in the above screenshot got 42 million views in just 1 year. If you do the math based on the above stats, this video alone made $210,000 in revenue to its creator in just one year. Imagine its potential.
YouTube in 2024 is a very high-paying avenue for all of us. If you can create high-quality useful content, then making 20k per month on YouTube is just a cakewalk.
 
2. Start a Money Making Blog
Blogging is another passive income venture just like YouTube to make unlimited money with no upper limits.
In fact, it is my favorite way to make money because this has been my full-time income source for more than six years (Full income report here). If you can find a low-competitive profitable niche, you can also start making real money from your blog.
Daily Ad Revenue of My Blog
 
Mediavine Ad Revenue of Dreamshala Blog.
Blogging allows you to follow your passion and make money from it. For instance, if you love traveling, you can start a travel blog. If you love Cooking and Home Decor, then you can start based on that too.
Though blogging is easy to start and has huge income potential, you need huge traffic to your blog to generate 20k a month’s income.
Here is how to start a blog in just a few minutes…

Decide your blog niche
Decide and search for an available domain name
Register your domain name (Free with the below Bluehost link)
Purchase Hosting Services with Bluehost (Just $2.95 per month & FREE domain address)
Install a theme
Customize your blog
Start publishing content

Choose your blog name that sounds relevant to your blog niche. So, it gives an idea to people what your blog is all about.
Pinterest is a great source of traffic if your blog is new. So, make sure you promote your content on Pinterest to get some traffic in the initial days. Read my article on how to make money on Pinterest with a blog.
To make $20k per month from your blog, you must monetize your blog strategically. Here are some ways to monetize your blog…

Affiliate Marketing
Display Ads
Selling Digital Products
Sponsorships
Sell Courses

Making $20k per month from blogging is a challenging thing in the beginning days but it is possible as time goes on. You must employ the right strategies to reach there.
One Day Affiliate Income From My Blog
You can see in the above screenshot that I made around $875 in one day through affiliate marketing and overall $1000 dollars a day combining ad revenue and all. So, create your blog with Bluehost today and start earning.
 
3. Start a Print on Demand Business

Have you ever thought of starting a business without any investment? If yes, then you would love the concept of the Print-on-Demand business.
Here you don’t need to worry about managing inventory or handling the shipping process.
In this business, you mainly work with a manufacturer to produce and supply custom products and merchandise based on your order.
All you have to do is create custom designs and market them online to get the sales. It’s a completely low-cost and low-risk business to make money since the products are manufactured based on customer orders only.
If you are a graphic designer expert or beginner, you can use tools like Canva to create awesome designs and Promote them on platforms like Pinterest, Etsy, and more.
To ease your process, you can simply sign up at Printify to kickstart your PoD business. Here you can design and sell your customized products all in one place.
Steps to create your Printify account…

Visit Printify and complete the signup process
Select the products you are targetting like t-shirts, mugs, hoodies, etc.
Create and upload your custom designs
Connect your Printify account to online marketplaces like Etsy or eBay
Market your products on Pinterest and other social media websites.

When you receive orders, your chosen manufacturer produces the products and ships them to the address. The shipping costs vary based on the print provider you select.
Though it is an automated business, there is one thing you should always be taking care of. The quality of the product your manufacturer is producing. So, it’s better to order a sample first before you select your print provider or manufacturer.
Read – 11 Best Online Jobs That Pay 50k a Year
 
4. Start a Service-Based Business
If you are wondering how to make $20k per month, consider offering services for cash instead of wasting your skills.
There are hundreds of services you can offer without investing anything in learning and building. Once you understand this business, you can even scale this business to $20k or even $50k per month by hiring people to serve more clients.
Focusing on one service cannot make 20k a month but if you can expand your business in various services with the help of employees, you can easily reach that goal.
Here are some common services you can offer for money such as…

Babysitting
Petsitting
Dog Walking
Moving
Plumbing
Laundry services
Tutoring
Painting
Hairdressing
Catering and more.

You can build this as a service agency by hiring more people and doing more tasks every day.
It might not make $20k per month from the beginning but if you offer the best services and maintain good relations with your client base, you can scale this business to $20k or more per month easily.
Read – 27 Best Online Proofreading Jobs For Beginners
 
5. Sell/Flip Items

Another great money-making venture to make $20k per month is flipping items for profit. This business is an excellent way to make money because you can buy and sell a wide range of products and make decent profits.
The best places to find stuff at very cheap prices are flea markets, thrift stores, and garage sales. You can also find and buy items for very discounted prices on Facebook Marketplace, or at physical stores like Walmart.
Once you finish buying stuff, you can start listing them on online marketplaces like Mercari, eBay, and Poshmark to sell them for profit. Selling online is comparatively easy as you don’t need to set up any physical store.
However, you might need to pay some platform fees and shipping charges. And, if you want to avoid those charges as well, you can use online marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist to find interested buyers in your local area to sell directly to the buyer.
Here are some items to flip every day…

You can modify these things a little bit and sell them again for higher profit at flea markets, thrift stores, or a garage sale. There are plenty of ways to sell once you have good products in your hand.
When you start this business with a $20k per month target, make sure you buy and flip products with a significant flipping margin to achieve your targets.
 
6. Start an E-commerce/Dropshipping Business
You can make unrealistic money by starting an e-commerce or dropshipping business as this is one of the high-potential business ideas online.
The main advantage of starting an online store is that you can reach a wide range of people worldwide while a physical store will be restricted to certain areas.
Plus, it costs much low to establish an online store than building or rending a physical store these days.
The business model is simple. You buy trending and saleable items from global vendors like Alibaba, or eBay and then sell them for a profit on Amazon or at your own eCommerce store.

Dropshipping Explained With Images. Image Sources: Amazon.com and Alibaba.com

As you can see in the above screenshot you can buy a bulk pack of the latest iPhone 15 Pro clear TPU case for just $0.38 a piece from Alibaba and then flip it on Amazon for as high as $24.95. Even if it costs $5 for each piece for importing, packaging, shipping, and all, you still get a $20 profit per piece.
Even if you can sell 35 cases a day through your dropshipping store, you can generate $700 a day in profit and over $20K a month.
You can create a storefront on Shopify or Etsy and get started. Besides you can also design your own store with WooCommerce on WordPress. Once you set up the storefront, you can automate the dropshipping process with platforms like Oberlo.
First, you need to sync your Shopify store with Oberlo. You can then run PPC ads (Google) or social media ads (Insta, TikTok, and X) to get some traffic and sales.
Once someone places an order, Oberlo will automatically place that same order on AliExpress. The vendor of AliExpress then ships the items directly to the buyer, and you get your sales commission.
But you need to remember that dropshipping needs initial investment, as Shopify alone will take $29/month after the 3-day trial period.
Read – How to Double $10k Quickly – [11 Realistic Ways]
 
7. Sell Digital Products

Selling digital products online is another excellent idea to make $20k per month. This business requires no investment literally and you can start from anywhere in the world.
There is no need to invest money to buy inventory or set up a store. This makes the business even more profitable and lucrative.
And, the main benefit of doing this business is that you create these digital products only once and you can sell them forever. You just need to make sure they are up to date.
Here are some digital products you can sell online…

Courses
eBooks
Printables
Subscriptions
Paid Webinars
Art & Music
Pictures, and Licenses

Once you decide what to sell, then you need to set up a store on Shopify, Etsy, or Sellfy.
You can even bring more sales by offering affiliate commissions so many online influencers show interest in promoting your products. You can also promote your products on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube using short videos.
Read – How To Make 10K A Month? – 16 Proven Ways!
 
8. Launch a Consulting Business
If you are an expert in any particular field, consider starting an online consulting firm/business. Unlike services-based businesses, here you only offer your expertise and suggestions instead of offering full services.
It has more income potential and a wide range of opportunities all over the world. So, choose your consulting specialty based on your skill set, expertise, and demand.
To dominate in this business, you must be up to date with the trends in your specialty and learn new things to gain the required qualifications from time to time.
You can literally start a consulting business in any field, Here are some popular fields you can start…

Marketing
Finance
Sales
Social Media
Content Creation
SEO Consulting
Paid Advertising
Strategy Consulting
Legal
Human Resource

You must have a proper business plan and strategies before you establish your business in this field. First of all, a nice logo and website are mandatory to represent your company and services.
So, make sure these match what consulting services you offer. Then you’ll need to register your business to start your operations. Don’t ignore your state regulations to find out what requirements you need to meet.
Once you are done with all these setup processes, the key thing you must focus on is determining your rates. Offer different stages of pricing and services. And also keep one-time and long-term clients in mind while deciding your rates.
After that, start marketing your consulting website to get more reach and clients. Optimizing your website for search engines and running paid search or social media ads to get more visitors thus clients are the best strategies you can employ in the beginning days.
When I am not actively writing for my blog, I occasionally provide freelance writing services to selective clients. These days, I charge $0.30 per word ($300/1,000 words) for finance topics.

A screenshot of my earnings from a Freelance Writing Gig.

I’ve recently written a finance insight for a senior journalist. You can see on the above screenshot that I received $630 for writing a 2,100-word article. And, I personally know many expert writers who charge up to 5X my rate.
Read – 31 Fun Jobs That Pay Really Well
 
9. Become an Online Coach

If you are an established expert in any particular field, you can become an online coach and start offering your services to upcoming people.
This is your cup of tea, then you can do this business along with online consulting, podcasting, YouTube channel, and blogging to make $20k per month easily.
As an online coach, you can organize paid webinars and seminars to teach a group of people all at once. Or you can document your teachings as a course to sell it online to targeted people.
You can also offer one-on-one or individual coaching classes so more people will be interested in joining your courses.
By creating a course, you can sell it on Udemy and other platforms to generate income simultaneously without actively working every day.
This is an excellent business idea that allows you to monetize in multiple ways to make money. You can easily surpass making a $20k a month goal if you gain good social media followers and reach a vast audience.
 
10. Start a Retail Arbitrage
Most people don’t know what retail arbitrage means as it is a less popular yet high-paying business idea these days.
Retail arbitrage simply means buying home goods and products from clearance sales at popular stores like Walmart, Home Depot, and Target and reselling them for profits.
Sometimes, you can even find free products where you can make 100% profit selling them.
Once you finish purchasing your arbitrage, you can start selling these products on Amazon, eBay, or Craigslist platforms.
The key to success in this business is investing in products that get sold easily and have good profit margins.
Though, it is a tough task to buy your inventory, you must be consistent in buying and selling to be profitable in this business.
If you buy, sell products in bulk, and repeat the process, you can easily make $20k per month in profits.
To make your work easier, you can contact the store’s personnel to pack the items so you don’t need to do it again. After that, you can use order fulfillment services like Amazon FBA for inventory storage and shipping processes.
 
11. Find a New Job
It’s very rare that our jobs pay $20k a year unless we are very professional in a high-demand field. So, if yours is not paying what you wanted in a month, then consider looking for another job that pays more.
Simultaneously, you can find an alternative side job to supplement your main income.
There are plenty of jobs that pay $80 an hour or $100k a year that are worth exploring. Finding a new job is a tough task but if you are an experienced professional, it would be easy to get a promotion or a new job.
It’s better to start working a high-potential side hustle in your leisure than exploring a new career since you need to start from scratch in a new field. But you can always request a pay rise or shift between companies to improve your salary along with working on a side hustle to move closer to your $20k per month income goal.
Here are some high-paying online side hustles you can try…

Freelance Writing (No special degrees or skills required. You can make $50 – $100 per article as a beginner and $500 – $1000+ as a senior writer.)
Proofreading & Editing (Earn up to $50 an hour or up to $1000+ per project based on your experience. Free Course Here)
Web Designing (Design awesome websites with WordPress or Shopify and get paid accordingly. Around $500 – $2000+ per project)
Voice Over Artist (Lend your voice with online clients on Fiverr, Upwork, or Voice.com. Up to $10000 per project. Free Course Link is Here)
Freelancing (Good at any particular skill? You can offer your services as a VA or Freelancer on Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, and PeoplePerHour platforms. Rates are fixed by you.)

Once, you build your side hustle by employing the right strategies, and building your client base, you can easily make $20k per month from your side hustle alone.
 
Final Thoughts On How To Make $20k Per Month
That’s it. I hope this list of ideas on how to make $20k per month will help you in making money to reach your monthly income goals.
All the above ideas have proven to work for me and most of the people I know in person. So, as long as you put in your efforts consistently and remain patient, they will work for you too.
As you keep going, employ the right marketing tactics, implement the right strategies, and build a loyal client base to achieve success.
Also, do your research before you choose an idea to proceed further to avoid making mistakes. Once you get the confidence in your avenue, you can go further.
You can refer to our high-paying online jobs or quick money-making ways to explore more and quick ideas.
Hello there, I’m Siva Mahesh, an MBA Finance post-graduate and a Remote Career & Personal Finance blogger for 5+ years. Over the years, my work has been featured on US News, Entrepreneur, MSN, Yahoo Finance, GoBankingRates, EverQuote, Legal Zoom, The Simple Dollar, Databox, Business.com, Business News Daily, Venngage, Score.org, and more. My primary mission is to help our readers maximize their earning potential with legitimate online business ideas, side hustles, and passive income ideas we publish on Dreamshala. Currently, more than 100,000 readers from all around the world visit this blog every month and learn new ways to improve their finances.