11 Ways to Make Money with ChatGPT in 2023

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, people were rightly amazed. This tool could do everything – write poetry, code websites and apps, do advanced calculations, simplify complex topics, generate meal plans, and even write full-length articles.

Naturally, it didn’t take long for some of you enterprising folks to figure out how to make money with ChatGPT for free while sipping cocktails on the sandy shores of Bora Bora. You crafty devils, you!

And that’s what this post is all about. We’ve curated 11 ways that you can combine ChatGPT’s capabilities with your own skills and experience to generate income in the fast-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.

I’ve also included some real-life examples of ChatGPT outputs I collected while testing some of these money-making ideas.

There’s no better time to start making money with AI than right now, so let’s get started.

How to make money with ChatGPT: 11 simple ways

1. Start a blog

If generating passive income is your dream, one of your best options for making money with ChatGPT is to start and monetize a blog.

ChatGPT can save time on a ton of tasks related to blogging and content creation, including:

• Developing content briefs and blog post outlines. Whether you write most of your content yourself or get ChatGPT to do it all for you, you’ll need a good content brief. These documents outline key points, structure, SEO guidelines, and supporting information for your blog posts.

• Researching and writing full-length blog posts. The best way to write long-form blogs with ChatGPT is to spend a bit of time training the model and then feed it your blog post outline piece by piece. This very blog post was written with the expert assistance of GPT-4. 🙂

• Keyword research and content planning. ChatGPT is great at brainstorming contextually related article ideas and topic clusters that resonate with your target audience and increase your topical authority.

Once you have your website up and running, there are various ways you can monetize your blog:

• Affiliate marketing. Sign up for an affiliate program for a product or service you like and share your unique referral link to earn commissions for referred sales. If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know that I’m a partner of several AI affiliate programs.

• Sponsored posts. Collaborate with brands to publish sponsored content on your blog that aligns with your niche and audience.

• Ad revenue. Display ads on your blog through advertising networks to generate income based on impressions or clicks. For example, I use Monumetric to generate ad revenue from this blog.

• Digital products or exclusive content. Create and sell e-books, courses, templates, tools, memberships, or other valuable resources to your readers.

• Consulting or freelance services. Once your blog starts generating traffic, it can be a good source of freelance clients.

The purpose of using ChatGPT to help you produce content is to increase your publishing velocity, creating more opportunities for you to generate traffic and earn money from your blog.

However, you’ll still want to personalize every post you write according to Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust). This will make your blog more engaging for your readers and help it perform better in search results.

With a smart combination of AI automation and hard work, you can turn your blog into a sustainable source of passive income over time.

Note: While it’s technically possible to earn money online with “email affiliate marketing” – that is, sending out AI-written email campaigns containing your affiliate link – I wouldn’t recommend doing this. It converts terribly, comes off as super spammy, and can get you banned from your affiliate program.

2. Offer freelance writing or content creation services

Freelancing has always been one of the most lucrative ways to earn money online, and even more so when you can automate or outsource parts of the work.

There’s been a lot of fear mongering lately in writing and freelance communities about how artificial intelligence is going to replace freelance writers/graphic designers/web developers/insert-whatever-freelance-service-here. Despite this, I know people who are killing it with freelance writing services post-ChatGPT.

The freelancers who succeed in the future will be those who see AI as an opportunity rather than an opponent. To that end, here’s how you can successfully leverage ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to grow your freelance writing business:

Niche down

Instead of competing directly with AI-generated SEO content, focus on specialized areas such as explainer video scripts, lead magnets, print brochures, email newsletters, college entrance letters, resumes, or content for social media platforms.

Find ways to automate each step of the writing process

ChatGPT can generate ideas and outlines, conduct research, write rough drafts, and even edit content. One HubSpot study found that on average, AI writing assistants like ChatGPT save people more than three hours per piece of content.

Personalize your content

AI-generated content can sometimes sound a bit robotic (go figure) and lack a personal touch. You can remedy this by customizing your rough drafts with your unique voice and style and sharing your own experience or anecdotes.

3. Build websites and apps

If you have coding experience, consider cashing in on the generative AI and natural language processing revolution by developing an app or Chrome extension that uses the ChatGPT API.

For example, you could create a personalized recommendation app, a digital study buddy, a customer service chatbot, an AI writing tool, a sentiment analysis tool for Google reviews, or a travel planning tool (all ideas generated by ChatGPT).

You can even use ChatGPT itself to help you write the code for your application faster.

That said, even if you have zero knowledge of coding, you can still create your own SaaS apps with the help of no-code tools like Bubble, Adalo, and Webflow. These drag-and-drop platforms make it possible for entrepreneurs to build functional and visually appealing applications with little or no coding experience.

ChatGPT can also assist with debugging and refining code. As a web dev student, I’ve found GPT-4 immensely useful in picking out errors and typos in my CSS.

To demo ChatGPT’s creative capabilities for you lovely folks, I asked it to come up with five apps that a novice coder might be able to build using the ChatGPT API. The below screenshot shows my results.

4. Write e-books and self-publish them

If you’re looking to generate passive income with ChatGPT, one way to do it is to write e-books and publish them on platforms like Amazon KDP and Apple Books.

Yes, AI-written e-books are now a thing. You knew it was going to happen.

ChatGPT can come up with book title ideas and create content for your book at scale. I’d definitely recommend the most recent GPT-4 model for such an ambitious task.

But first, you might want to use a tool like Keywords Everywhere or Publisher Rocket to conduct keyword research on Amazon. When I did this, I discovered that some niches that have a proven track record of selling well are self-help, personal finance, health and wellness, and cookbooks.

Based on my research into various niches, I asked ChatGPT for some book titles that would sell well on Amazon, and here are some ideas it came up with:

• Delicious and Easy Weeknight Recipes for Busy Professionals
• The Ultimate Guide to Digital Photography: Capturing Moments with Style
• The Writer’s Toolkit: Essential Skills for Crafting Compelling Stories
• The Digital Nomad Lifestyle: Work and Travel on Your Terms
• The Science of Sleep: Unlocking the Secrets to Restful Nights

Typically, e-books on Amazon are priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Depending on the terms you agree to, Amazon offers a royalty rate of either 35% or 70% on sales, allowing you to earn a decent portion on each sale.

To increase your sales, create an enticing book cover (you can use an AI image generator like Midjourney to make whatever you dream up), optimize your book’s description, and actively seek positive Amazon and GoodReads reviews.

5. Sell AI artwork via print-on-demand

If you’re the creative type, consider starting a print-on-demand business using AI-generated art.

You can use ChatGPT to come up with art concepts for your venture and even train it to write creative and detailed prompts for AI art generators like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E 2 by priming it with the user documentation from these platforms.

You can also use ChatGPT in combination with Etsy SEO tools to generate tons of great ideas for your POD niche and products to sell.

While you’re at it, you might also consider selling purely digital products generated with the help of ChatGPT and AI image generators, such as quilt patterns, meal plans, chore charts, adult coloring books, and even AI prompts.

Here’s a bit more about how the print-on-demand business model works: With POD, you can design original artwork, illustrations, or graphics that can be printed on merchandise like T-shirts, smartphone cases, journals, mugs, tote bags, and more.

When a customer places an order for one of your products, it gets printed, manufactured, packaged, and shipped directly to the customer by a print-on-demand provider.

POD is a flexible and cost-effective way to start an online business, as you can offer a wide range of products to customers in multiple countries without the need for upfront inventory or production costs.

Some popular platforms for selling your POD products and digital wares are Etsy, Society6, Redbubble, Gumroad, and Amazon KDP. POD platforms that integrate with Etsy include Printful and Printify.

When I asked our friend ChatGPT for some POD and digital product business ideas that would likely perform well, here are a few interesting niche ideas it gave me, word for word:

• Coastal Living: Beach-inspired wall art, coastal-themed apparel, or digital travel guides to seaside destinations.

• Vintage Typography: Retro-inspired typographic posters, vintage-style fonts, or printable vintage label templates.

• Fitness Motivation: Workout-themed apparel, fitness trackers, or printable fitness goal planners for fitness enthusiasts.

• Culinary Delights: Recipe cards, food-themed illustrations, or digital cookbooks featuring unique and international cuisine.

• Floral Botanicals: Botanical art prints, floral-themed home decor, or printable floral greeting cards.

• Wildlife Conservation: Wildlife-inspired artwork, conservation-themed apparel, or digital educational resources to promote wildlife awareness.

Personally, I think an interesting way to earn money with ChatGPT and Midjourney would be to create custom AI portraits in fantasy settings for individuals and couples.You can find tutorials for creating self-portraits here and here.

6. Create online courses

Monetizing your expertise and interests by creating and selling online courses is one of the best ways to earn passive income online.

Here’s how you can use ChatGPT to create valuable online courses:

Brainstorm course ideas

Look for topics where you have expertise and there’s market demand. Our artificially intelligent friend suggested the following course ideas:

• “Digital Marketing Mastery: Strategies for Online Success”
• “Introduction to Web Development: Building Your First Website”
• “Photography Fundamentals: Capturing Stunning Images”
• “Personal Finance 101: Mastering Money Management”
• “Yoga for Beginners: Mind, Body, and Soul Alignment”

Develop course content

Online courses typically include a variety of content formats to engage learners. ChatGPT can help you create high-quality content for all of the following formats:

• Text-based lessons
• Video lectures or tutorials
• Audio content
• Supplementary resources such as PDFs, quizzes, or assignments

Market your course

ChatGPT can help you promote your course to your target audience by writing social media posts, course landing pages, Facebook ads, lead magnets, email blasts, and influencer outreach emails.

If you don’t already have an online following, you can easily sell your course through a popular platform like Udemy, which will handle all the marketing and sales on your behalf.

7. Sell AI prompts or offer prompt engineering services

If you’re looking for a super straightforward way to monetize your prompt engineering skills and make money with ChatGPT, selling prompts is it.

PromptBase, AiFrog, and Socialdraft are just a few of the marketplaces that exist for buying and selling prompts for models like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and Midjourney.

(If you’re a prompt engineering wizard, you can also sell your services on PromptBase and write custom prompts for clients. This guy is crushing it selling prompts at $500 a pop!)

Now, you might wonder why anyone would buy a prompt when you can create them for free using an AI language model like ChatGPT.

But the fact is, the best prompts tend to be highly detailed and lengthy, with a lot of context or background information to train the model, and take a lot of testing to achieve the desired output.

Because most of the prompts that sell on these marketplaces only cost around $3-6, many people consider it worth their time to purchase a high-quality, proven prompt that they’d have to write and test themselves otherwise.

Other people purchase prompts to learn from and improve their own prompt writing skills.

Some top-selling prompt categories include:

• Art (watercolor, anime, etc.)
• Coding (website and app generation, etc.)
• Writing (SEO, copywriting, etc.)
• Graphic design (logos, icons, etc.)
• Realistic-looking photography and stock photos

As noted in the print-on-demand section, you can train GPT-4 to write highly detailed art prompts by feeding it the user documentation from image generator tools like Midjourney.

To round out this section of the blog post, I asked the language model to come up with a random art prompt for fun. I present it to you now:

Calm down there, ChatGPT.

8. Create and sell lesson plans

ChatGPT is brilliant at coming up with lesson plans, homework, and quizzes for various types of tutoring sessions or online lessons, such as:

• Core subjects like math, language arts, and science
• Test preparation for standardized tests like SAT, ACT, or TOEFL
• Foreign language study
• Music lessons

If you enjoy teaching and creating lesson plans, you can also use ChatGPT to assist with developing worksheets, printables, lessons, tests, and other study materials to sell on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers and Etsy.

9. Start a YouTube channel

If you’ve ever looked into starting your own YouTube channel, you’ll know that there’s a big learning curve and a lot of work involved.

Fortunately, ChatGPT can automate a ton of the work in producing and promoting video content, including:

• Generating video ideas
• Writing the title and script for your YouTube video
• Optimizing video descriptions for SEO
• Coming up with ideas for viral thumbnails
• Creating AI art prompts for said thumbnails
• Writing social media posts to promote your channel

You can also take advantage of other AI tools like voice generators for professional narration, AI video editors for easy editing, and AI art generators for creating eye-catching thumbnails.

To automate content promotion, consider using a social media content automation tool that can create graphics and automate posting to your social accounts.

Below are five YouTube video ideas that ChatGPT gave me for a cooking tutorials channel, along with five corresponding AI art prompts for my video thumbnails.

(Note that these art prompts are straight out of the box – I didn’t train ChatGPT on Midjourney before doing this exercise, but I would recommend you do if you go this route.)

Title: “Perfectly Fluffy Chocolate Soufflé: A Decadent Dessert Delight”

Thumbnail: Generate a visually enticing image of a chocolate soufflé in its beautifully risen and delicate form, capturing its indulgent nature.

Title: “Savory Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breast: A Healthy and Flavorful Dish”

Thumbnail: Create an illustration that showcases the mouth-watering combination of spinach, feta cheese, and tender chicken breast, highlighting its appealing presentation.

Title: “Homemade Fresh Pasta with Creamy Mushroom Sauce: A Taste of Italy”

Thumbnail: Produce an artwork that captures the essence of fresh pasta, complemented by a rich and creamy mushroom sauce, evoking the flavors of Italian cuisine.

Title: “Mouthwatering Beef Wellington: A Classic and Impressive Main Course”

Thumbnail: Generate an artistic representation of a perfectly cooked Beef Wellington, highlighting its golden-brown crust and tender beef filling, making it a show-stopping dish.

Title: “Fluffy Pancakes with Maple Syrup and Berries: A Breakfast Delight”

Thumbnail: Create a visually appealing image of a stack of fluffy pancakes topped with maple syrup and vibrant berries, inviting viewers to enjoy a delicious breakfast treat.

I thought the thumbnail descriptions were so cute!

10. Offer ChatGPT services on Fiverr and Upwork

In recent months, major freelance platforms like Fiverr and Upwork have recognized the growing demand for services related to AI and natural language processing and have introduced dedicated categories for it.

In the below screenshot, you can see some ChatGPT-related gigs on Fiverr:

In addition to services offering to create chatbots, AI editing services are also rising in demand. For example, here are some AI writing and editing gigs that have recently started to sell on these platforms:

• Writing articles using ChatGPT and optimizing them using AI search engine optimization software like Surfer SEO
• Paraphrasing or spinning content to pass AI content detector tools like Originality.ai
• Proofreading and fact-checking AI-written content
• Editing the style and tone of AI content to give it a human touch and helping it conform to Google’s E-E-A-T standards

Several of the above tasks can be sped up by using an AI paraphrasing tool like QuillBot.

In addition to using freelance sites and job boards, you can also pitch your services directly to SEO agencies and affiliate marketers, helping them rewrite content to meet SEO guidelines or pass AI content detection.

11. Generate personalized business ideas

If you haven’t found any money-making ideas in this list that appeal to you, then my mission has sadly failed – but know that you can always go straight to ChatGPT to generate custom business ideas for you.

The benefit of this approach is that instead of getting all the generic business ideas that everyone else is getting, you’ll get suggestions based on the skills, experience, and interests that are unique to you.

To do this, you’ll need to start with a good prompt. Instead of just typing in “how to make money with ChatGPT” (that’s what Google is for), take the time to describe your interests, background, and any criteria you’d like for your ideal business.

You can also use ChatGPT to brainstorm business name ideas or domain name suggestions. In your prompt, provide a few relevant keyword ideas or try including some business names that you like.

Once you’ve settled on your new business idea, you can use ChatGPT to create any startup documentation you’ll need, such as business plans, pitch decks, marketing materials, website and social media content, product descriptions, policies, and customer support scripts.

To demonstrate how the language model can help you come up with personalized business ideas, I asked it for some side hustle ideas with a low upfront cost for an audiologist who works full-time. Here are the results:

• Virtual hearing consultations. Offer remote hearing consultations and personalized recommendations to clients via video conferencing platforms.

• Custom earplug manufacturing. Create and sell custom-made earplugs for musicians, swimmers, or individuals with specific hearing needs.

• Audiology blog and affiliate marketing. Start a blog that provides educational content on audiology topics and monetize it through affiliate marketing partnerships with relevant products or services.

• Online hearing test services. Develop an online platform where users can take hearing tests and receive immediate results and recommendations.

How do I start earning from ChatGPT quickly?

To start earning from ChatGPT quickly, consider offering high-demand services like content creation, AI editing, or chatbot development. You can proactively find clients with the help of cold email outreach. ChatGPT can even help you write your cold emails and follow-ups.

Go ye forth and start making money with ChatGPT

I hope you’ve gained some exciting ideas for how to make money with ChatGPT while adding value with your own interests and skill set.

By harnessing this free and valuable tool and exploring diverse money-making avenues, you’ll be well on your way to launching and growing your dream business.