Ramit Sethi: 16 Passive Income Ideas To Make More Money in 2025

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Last year, Ramit Sethi shared his top 16 ways to earn passive income. These strategies can be a great way to make some quick cash this year too, and they range from investing in the stock market, rental properties or dividend stocks to starting a podcast or YouTube channel.

If you’re looking for ways to boost your earning potential in 2025 and beyond, here’s what Sethi suggested — in no particular order — and how to make them work for you.

Write and Publish eBooks

Writing a successful eBook requires knowing and understanding your audience and what they need. Once you have a handle on that — this can become quite a lucrative side gig. 

Some audiences might look for how-to guides or self-help books, while others simply want a good story. Whatever the case may be, knowing is the first step to making this a lucrative side hustle for you.

It’s also important to be knowledgeable about the topic or niche you’re writing about. That way, you can become an expert and build your own brand, thus increasing your reach and sales.

You can publish eBooks on platforms like Amazon.

Check Out: I Made $10,000 Using One of Dave Ramsey’s Best Passive Income Ideas

Creating Online Courses

If you’re skilled in a specific way, you can create passive income by creating and selling courses related to it online. You’ll need to understand your audience and what they want. It also helps to have some years of experience in marketing and social media management.

Sethi suggested creating a “learning journey,” which starts your audience on the path from complete novice to becoming experts themselves. Over time, yours could become the go-to course for people all over the world.

Create Exclusive Membership Sites or Content Communities

For this one, you’ll need to create a platform or online presence where you can reach and connect with your ideal audience. From there, you can start building members-only sites that individuals must pay a small fee to access.

They get exclusive content, while you earn extra cash. Resources or information on those exclusive sites could include videos, forums, eBooks, and more.

Start a Podcast

Do you have a great voice and something worth talking about? If so, you might want to start a podcast. It can be a slow burn to earn passive income, but it typically comes with no to low upfront cost.

With a podcast, you can generate income through speaking and sharing what you know with your audience. To become successful takes time and a lot of commitment. You’ll need to regularly come up with episode ideas, record them, edit them and promote them.

But once you’re off the ground, you can build a loyal fanbase and make reliable income. You can increase your earnings potential by adding exclusive content to sell to your premium followers, as well as via advertisements and sponsorships.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing entails recommending products you vouch for to your audience. You can do this in many different ways, such as through blogs, videos or social media platforms. Every time someone in your audience uses your referral link to buy a product, you’ll receive a commission without putting in a lot of work.

Be authentic when using affiliate marketing, though. Make sure your audience knows about your partnerships and only recommend products you personally stand behind.

By doing this, you can build even more trust with your audience, while establishing a lucrative system for making money.

Sell Stock Videos and Photos

If you enjoy taking photos or making videos, then consider selling your creations on platforms like Adobe Stock and Shutterstock.

The competition can be tough, especially at first, so be persistent and only put out the highest quality of goods. Try to make everything a little bit your own, a little unique, so that it stands out.

Low-Yield Savings Accounts

A traditional savings account, or low-yield savings account, is a low-risk way of growing your money. It’s slow, yes, but steady. And if you contribute regularly to your account, you can boost your savings more quickly over time.

Make a YouTube Channel

Like having a podcast, creating a YouTube channel is another way to general passive income by creating content. It takes a lot of time and persistence to get started, but it can be worth it in the end.

Start by deciding which niche, field, or topics you want to film or stream and stick with them. You can earn money from advertisements, affiliate marketing and sponsorships.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping involves selling goods you don’t currently have. You can do it through an online platform or store, like Etsy.

Every time a customer buys something you’re selling, their order goes to a third-party supplier that makes that item and ships it to them. All you need to do is maintain your online shop and market the products.

Rent Out Your Things

If you have a lot of useful items that you don’t often use, such as power tools or bicycles, you can rent them out to others for a price. You can do this on platforms like PeerRenters or Fat Llama.

To get started, you’ll need to determine the price and list your item so others can find it.

Use High-Yield Savings Accounts or CDs

High-yield savings accounts (HYSAs) are savings accounts with a higher than usual yield, or rate of return. As with traditional savings accounts, you can access your money at any time. The more you contribute to the account and the longer it remains there, the more money it can generate.

Certificates of deposits (CDs) are similar to HYSAs, but they often have an even higher yield. The trade-off is that your cash is wrapped up in the account until the CD matures, or the term is up.

Both options are low-risk and can help you build small amounts of passive side income.

Invest in Dividend Stocks

Investing in dividend stocks is riskier than HYSAs or CDs, but it can also have greater returns. With these, you buy shares of a specific company and receive a portion of that company’s earnings at regular intervals. Choose companies with a good track record of dividend payouts and growth potential, and it would be wise to diversify your investments.

Get Into Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

If you don’t want to purchase property yourself, you can still invest in REITs and generate passive income that way.

REITs let you invest in real estate without having to manage your properties yourself. They still generate income in the form of regular dividend payments, but they’re more liquid than buying property.

Use Money Market Accounts

A money market account is similar to a savings account, but it generally has a higher interest rate. In exchange, you may have to maintain a higher minimum balance or face more withdrawal limits or restrictions.

The good news is that these accounts are very low risk, making them a good option for building small amounts of passive income.

Purchase Bonds and Bond Index Funds

You can also generate money in the form of bonds and bond index funds.

A bond is essentially a loan that you give to a corporation or the government. In return, you receive steady interest payments.

With a bond index fund, you essentially give investors a set amount of cash that they use to invest in different bonds. These funds offer you more portfolio diversification and can reduce the overall risk.

Since bonds are generally less volatile than, say, stocks, they’re a good option for more conservative investors looking to earn money passively.

Buy Real Estate

If you don’t mind the process of buying, maintaining, and selling or renting out property, you can always get into real estate investing. You can flip homes or rent out buildings for a profit.

Do your due diligence before getting into real estate, though. Research different areas, current market trends, interest rates (unless you’re buying in cash) and property types to ensure you’re getting the best return on your investment.

Caitlyn Moorhead contributed to the reporting for this article.

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