6 Ways I Made Money from Coding (without a job)
If you can’t get a job as a programmer, try these options.
Getting a job as a programmer is tough. Sometimes you might not have enough experience for the job or the salary offered isn’t what you expect.
However, that doesn’t mean we can’t make money from coding. There are different reliable options that can help you earn money while waiting for your dream job (and can even become your main income).
Here are 6 ways I made money from coding. I’ve tried all of them, so I’ll also share the pros, cons, and potential income based on my own experience.
If you don’t feel like reading, you can watch my video below.
1. Freelancing
Websites such as Fiverr and Upwork make the life of freelancers easier. We don’t need to actively look for clients anymore, but they come to us on these platforms. Of course, both websites will take their cut for every service we deliver, but this still is worth it.
I have some experience on Fiverr as a buyer as well as a seller and I think it’s a good option if you already have some clients, so you don’t start from scratch but have someone who can help you start off on the right foot. Good ratings and reviews attract new clients on Fiverr.
On Fiverr, you only need to create an account to start offering a service (aka gigs). You can create as many gigs as you want from web development to web scraping, but I recommend you start in a small niche.
For example, Fiverr has already many gigs in web development, so you might find it hard to get clients in that niche because there is too much competition. However, if you’re in a small niche within web development, your chances to get a client will increase.
Pros: You don’t have to actively look for clients.
Cons: There’s already too much competition, so you have to choose your niche wisely.
Potential income: You can set the price. Some people’s gigs start at $20 while others at $100.
2. Making online courses
Selling online courses is very profitable, but there are so many online courses out there that only a few get a good piece of the pie.
Again, you need to find a niche where there is little competition. If there aren’t many bestseller courses in a field, probably that field is worth it.
Also, you need to check what are the strengths and weaknesses of the other online courses. How? Just check out the feedback section of the course. For example, on Udemy, there are many positive and negative comments on the “students feedback” section of any course. Try to read some of them and keep them in mind when building your own course.
If it’s your first time making online courses, you could buy a cheap course and learn the structure of it. If the course you’re getting belongs to the competition, then you could see firsthand what you should do and what you should avoid.
Pros: Online courses are good for building a passive income.
Cons: Some fields are so crowded that is too hard to sell courses
Potential income: I started making more than $450/month with my first course.
3. Making video tutorials (without showing your face)
Everyone knows that people make money on YouTube, but only a few know that you don’t need to have many subscribers (or show your face) to earn a decent amount of money.
Yes, YouTube videos make money through ads, but the thing is, this isn’t the only way (or the most profitable way) to make money on YouTube. You can also make money with affiliate links and sponsored content.
If your channel has a small, yet valuable niche like technology or artificial intelligence, companies could contact you to sponsor one of your videos or to make a dedicated video about their platform. The payment for a single video tends to be more than for the other options listed in this article.
Pros: You not only get paid for making videos, but you build your own brand.
Cons: Growing on YouTube might be slow.
Potential income: If it’s sponsored content, it depends on the client’s budget and how you negotiate. If it’s ads, depends on the Revenue Per Mille, which is a metric that represents how much money you’ve earned per 1,000 video views. Programming channels have an RMP above $3.
4. Tutoring
You can make money by teaching others what you know either in your city or online.
There are many school and university students who need to learn how to code for an exam, project, or homework. Here’s when you can use your skills to teach others. The best part about this is that you learn twice by teaching.
Also, there are some platforms that allow you to connect with students to teach them stuff live. One of them is Lighthall. This is a live-streaming platform that enables instructors to offer live interactive classes at scale. It’s in beta mode but there must be other platforms out there with the same functionality.
Pros: It’s not as complicated as creating content or working for clients.
Cons: You could get bored of teaching the same things over and over again.
Potential income: You can set your hourly wage.
5. Technical Writing
Think of the last time you had a problem with your code or didn’t know how to solve something. Where did you find the solution? Probably on Google.
Nowadays developers search for solutions on the internet. This is why websites need to have content in the form of articles or guides that help them increase the number of visitors to their websites. You can use your technical knowledge to write an article and get paid for it. Websites usually paid a flat fee of $200-$500 per piece.
Here are some websites that pay developers to write technical articles.
- Digital Ocean: You can write about cloud hosting, OSS, software development, etc.
- Auth0: You can write about frameworks, programming languages, and more.
- LogRocket: You can make tutorials about React, JavaScript, Vue, etc.
Pros: You develop an online presence and get paid for it.
Cons: There are a limited number of topics you can talk about. Your article can be rejected and never get published on a specific website.
Potential income: $200–$500 per piece.
6. Sharing knowledge online
If the idea of technical writing seems interesting to you, but $300 per article is little, you can try blogging. This is similar to writing for a company or website, but instead of getting a flat fee, you get paid based on the number of views, reads, etc.
There are some blogging platforms that have this type of pay-for-performance model. In this model, the more people spend time reading your articles, the more money you’ll earn. This can be good because you might earn a lot of money from a single article, but also the earnings can be low. That’s up to the readers.
The topics you can write about when blogging are endless. You can write guides, share your opinion about something, write about your working experience, etc.
Pros: You can write about anything you want and the payment can be huge.
Cons: The payment can also be little to almost nothing.
Potential income: It’s up to the article. An article can earn you $10, $100, or even $1000 or more.
Bonus: Hackathon
I’ve never won a hackathon, but this is another way to make money while putting your coding skills into practice.
Obviously, just very few people would make money in a hackathon, but if you’re good at what you do, you should definitely give it a try.
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