These days everyone needs a side hustle. If you’re looking for a way to earn money from home, Amazon offers some of the best opportunities for steady, scalable income.
While it’s easy to say that you can make money through Amazon, how do you actually do it? Here are 10 practical ways to earn money from Amazon.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Potential earnings: From $100 – $20,000 per month

Amazon has one of the best-known affiliate marketing programs in the world. The Amazon Associates affiliate marketing program lets you earn money by recommending products to people. When someone buys a product after clicking on your affiliate link, you get a commission.
You can find the latest Amazon Affiliate Program commissions here.

The great thing about working with the Amazon Affiliate Program is that you have a nearly endless range of products you can recommend and limitless earning potential. There’s no ceiling. It’s a wonderful gig in terms of scalability and longevity!
Another unique aspect of the Amazon affiliate program is the potential to earn commissions even on products you didn’t recommend. As long as someone goes to Amazon through your link, you’ll earn a commission on the first order they place within 24 hours of clicking.
With affiliate marketing, the biggest challenge you face is getting your links in front of people. You can do this through blogging, guest posting, social media, YouTube, email marketing, paid advertisements podcasts, courses, or anything else.
Use your imagination and start making money with affiliate links today!
2. Ebooks
Potential earnings: $150 – $15,000 per month
Amazon offers a unique opportunity for any aspiring or existing authors. With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), you can earn up to 70% royalties for every book sold. Paperbacks from a set royalty rate of 60%, but additional fees are charged for printing and delivery.
If you want to make the most out of KDP, go for high-quality ebook sales.
For ebooks, there are 2 tiers of royalties: 35% or 70%. Make sure your ebook will fit into the 70% category if you want to get the most out of it. You can learn more about KDP royalties here.
How do you choose a good topic for your ebook? You’ll want to follow a similar process to finding a good blog niche. Look for topics that people are interested in, then find a gap that few others are filling. Write and publish an ebook that addresses a unique niche people are interested in, or that approaches a common topic from a new perspective.
If you have an online course with an accompanying workbook or materials, you can also sell that workbook with a code to unlock your video course on a different platform. Amazon doesn’t allow direct sale of online courses, but you can sell an ebook that gives the buyer a code to get your course for free elsewhere.
Note: Ebooks are an effective way to make money–but not an easy one. Don’t go into ebook sales half-heartedly. Amazon has measures that guard against low-quality ebooks, so make sure you’re putting in some effort to make something worth buying.
3. Dropshipping on Amazon
Potential earnings: $1,000 – $25,000 per month
Dropshipping is one of the easiest ways to start selling products on Amazon because you don’t need to manage stock or handle anything but the listings. What you do is partner with a supplier that sells a range of products you’re interested in selling.
As partners, you’ll manage the product listings and everything on the storefront while your supplier will handle the stock, packing, and shipping when orders come through. It’s a good deal for you since you can get started immediately without needing a lot of capital.
Dropshipping is very scalable, allowing you to work with multiple suppliers to offer as many products as you want. You can keep your storefront at a level that’s comfortable to you, whether that’s small or large, and have a high level of control over how much you’re earning every month.
For the best results, sell items that are purchased regularly in a particular niche. The more you can serve a specific market, the better chance you’ll have at making consistent sales.
4. Reselling local finds
Potential earnings: $1,000 – $20,000 per month
As an Amazon seller, you don’t have to list only things that you can sell in bulk. You can sell new or used items you find around you locally, often turning a profit if you find something for a good price at a local store.
With this strategy, you can go around to garage sales, estate sales, thrift shops, supermarkets, or vintage shops to find items at hugely discounted prices. When you stumble on some good finds, buy them up and list them on Amazon to sell at a higher cost.
Depending on what you want to resell, you can get some incredible margins on discounted items. Be picky with the types of items you’ll resell, look for only the best deals, and keep a close eye on the quality of the items you’re listing.
This method of moneymaking is great if you have some free time to go and check for good deals. If you don’t have the free time to invest in it or you have limited access to stores, your profits from reselling might be on the lower end, but it’s still possible to earn regardless.
5. Wholesale flipping (+ Amazon FBA)
Potential earnings: $300 – $25,000 per month

Many products you use every day can be bought in bulk for huge discounts and resold on Amazon at retail prices. This is called wholesale flipping and it can be an incredibly profitable venture on Amazon!
To start, you need to narrow down what you want to sell and look for a manufacturer who sells it wholesale. You can usually find manufacturers by simply searching for a product type in Google with the word “wholesale” after it. Sellers often require potential buyers to apply to make a purchase. If you’re approved, the sale will go through and you can begin selling the items on Amazon with your margin on top.
For scalability, Amazon FBA can be helpful as you start to get more orders. With Amazon FBA, you can sell whatever you want without having to store, package, or ship it yourself. Simply ship your products to an Amazon fulfillment center and they’ll handle everything when you get an order.
Wholesale flipping can be one of the most cost-intensive ventures to start, but the investment potential is higher. You generally need to have a registered business in order to purchase wholesale from sellers, and you need to have some capital to pay for the goods upfront. Once you’ve started, the goods you sell can begin to pay for your new stock.
6. Amazon Services
Potential earnings: $100 – $10,000 per month
Did you know that Amazon sells services along with products? You can sell services in your local area through Amazon, giving you a consistent pathway to leads around you.
The list of services you can provide is extensive but limited mainly to in-person services like assembling, cleaning, pet care, device repair, painting, IT service, and other similar services. While you can’t sign up to offer digital services, it’s a good way to bring new leads to your existing business or start a side hustle.
Start an Amazon seller account and sign up for Amazon Services to get started. To sign up for Amazon Services, you need to provide a business name (freelancing is accepted) and have general liability insurance coverage. Some services that require you to go to customer homes may require a background check as well.
You can register a business quickly and affordably through ZenBusiness.
ZenBusiness Registration
Register a business in the US through a reliable agent for an affordable rate.
7. Amazon Merch
Potential earnings: $200 – $5,000 per month
Selling physical products can be very profitable, but it’s way easier when you never have to deal with the products themselves. Amazon Merch gives you the opportunity to sell designs on clothing, bags, mugs, and other types of products without having to do the printing and shipping yourself.
This program is similar to Amazon FBA, with the main difference being you don’t have to source any products yourself. All you have to do is upload your designs, choose the product the design will be printed on, and start selling it.

One of the best ways to make this strategy work for you is to define a specific target audience and create designs with them in mind. This can be anything from a fanbase for a game, people who do a specific hobby, or people from a certain area.
Make sure you’re only selling designs you have the rights to, whether you make them yourself or commission an artist to make them for you. You can also purchase the rights to designs through a PLR deal to get started with this quickly.
8. Selling Digital Products
Potential earnings: $200 – $20,000 per month
If ebooks aren’t your thing, you can still get similar results selling other digital products on Amazon. There are plenty of opportunities to sell digital products, including:
- Digital art
- Printables
- Photography
- Digital templates
- Icon packs
Depending on the niche you’re selling in, digital products can be very lucrative. The best part about them is their scalability and stacking effect. The more products you’re selling, the more you can make each month.
To get started, all you need is an Amazon seller account. Create your free Amazon seller account and start building out your catalog of digital products on the same day.
Choose a product niche that’s not overly stuffed and competitive already. Stick with products you can do well. Selling bad products is a quick route to getting bad ratings on your account, which can hinder your future selling opportunities.
9. Becoming an Amazon Influencer
Potential earnings: $100 – $10,000 per month

Joining the Amazon Influencer program is like a step up from the affiliates program. With a following on any major social media platform, you can create a curated store full of the products you love. Your followers will see all these products on your storefront and can purchase them directly from a single page.
How do you actually earn money as an Amazon influencer?
Influencers can set up a branded storefront and earn commissions off any products that sell through it. Commissions range from 1% on grocery and healthcare products up to 20% on Amazon Games.
The average commission is 3-4% on every product sold.
Set up your storefront, maintain a list of items related to your content, and point your followers to your store whenever you can. This is a great way to control what you’re recommending and how you’re earning from Amazon.
Amazon Influencer earnings are only available to those who have an existing social media following, even if it’s small. No specific limit is given.
10. Mechanical Turk Tasks
Potential earnings: $50 – $5,000 per month

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online marketplace where you can do tasks for third-party requesters and earn money for each one that’s approved. Tasks are referred to as Human Intelligence Tasks, or HITs, and can be completed at any time by anyone who is qualified.
In order to work on MTurk, you have to apply and get accepted into the program. It’s available to people from around the world, but only US citizens can get paid in cash. Anyone who is not a US citizen or legal resident can only get paid in online Amazon gift card balances.
MTurk HITs are usually small chunks of simple work. They can be anything from audio transcription and writing to data collection or categorization. These are tasks you don’t have to be an expert to do. As long as you pay attention to the instructions and complete the work as requested, you can do well in the marketplace and earn a decent income every month.
Long story short, while you probably won’t get rich off of Mechanical Turk, it can be a great way to make some consistent money in your free time without any significant commitment.
Now that you’ve been equipped with 10 potential ways to make money on Amazon, it’s time to pick one and get started! The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll earn.