6 AI income streams that made me $637K in 2024 (all because of a $3 digital product)

these six aid driven income streams made me over $637,000 in 2024 and I know all of you have seen tons of passive income type videos and this is definitely not one of those and instead I want to show you how I built these over the last 2ish years so not 5 to seven years which is usually what it takes people and how they were actually started individually and just stacked onto each other one after another all with Central focus of AI I'm also going to show you how much it actually cost me to run these

income streams since I often get those comments down below about how much is your profit how much are you paying people so we'll go into that we'll also talk about what it takes for you to get started with any or all of these types of income streams as quickly as possible and go into how passive or not passive is it really if you've seen my video from last year about my income report you'll know that it actually decreed in somewhat in 2024 compared to 2023 but this was to be expected as I decided to Pivot

the focus of my business in 2024 from what the main income driver was so you will see all about that when we cover that particular income Stream So income stream number one is my original Etsy shop where I sell AI graphic designs to sublimation Crafters sublimation designs are a particular type of design file that sublimation Crafters use on a wide variety of products there are literally hundreds but specifically the ones that I create are for t-shirt designs and Tumblr wraps this is a great Etsy Shop idea because you will always have returning customers because essentially

they are a business owner themselves meaning they make and sell the physical products I am just creating the design they purchase the design and then they make it on the tumbler and then sell the Tumblr to their end customer so I always have an endless supply of repeat customers because they're always continually selling to their customers the designs for these constantly change from season to season meaning that the Christmas designs of this year will be different than the Christmas designs that I will put up next year because design Styles and Trends always are changing so

this makes this type of Etsy Shop really one that can just go on infinitely in 2024 I made over $76,000 on my Etsy shop however I at Max only spent about 1 hour per week on this Etsy Shop listing anywhere from 10 to 20 different designs with the help of my VA who actually listed them this is drastically different from the income that it brought in in 2023 which was over $423,000 as you can see here and this is just a direct result of me deciding to go full-time here on YouTube and in my online

communities and start teaching graphic design and AI design and Etsy Shop strategy since the majority of my focus was on teaching now and creating content and supporting my communities I limited my Etsy shop to only about 1 hour per day and this is the type of Revenue that came in from it still mostly done on autopilot with just a little bit of design work from myself in the past 2 years before this I would put anywhere up from 20 to even 30 designs per day and I was doing this full-time every day and that is

why those types of income levels are drastically different there is also the issue that my shop was publicly shown on YouTube across a wide variety of much larger channels than mine which brought in an influx of C not customers um Lookers to see what I was doing and see the types of designs I was creating and then started to replicate my designs hence decreasing the conversion rate a ton because on Etsy when you get a ton of visits to your shop and not any of them are really converting it will hurt that overall conversion rate

and have an impact in the search history or in these search results when a new buyer is searching that being said it is not all just from unwanted visitors coming and looking at the shop again I did decrease the amount of designs that I was putting up daily drastically and so that is why it is now one of my smaller income streams so what does it take to get started creating a digital design or digital product shop on Etsy so usually you will need an editing software such as canva or photoshop or inkscape and those

will typically cost you anywhere from $10 to $20 a month I personally use a wide variety of editors because I'm constantly testing new ones as well as different AI tools for my members which is one of the central focuses of my community and so for me I usually spend anywhere from $0 to $100 a month in AI softwares and editing tools however I am not the normal so I would say as a person just starting out and just creating for their Etsy Shop you can get away with one editing software and one AI tool if

you can find one that is an all-in-one tool something like my designs which is something that I use or KD you are going to be much better off because they have the AI tools already built into those editing softwares it actually is free to start an Etsy shop and it is 20 cents per listing but with all of the many people out there who talk about Etsy such as myself you can often use one of our links and get your first 40 listings for free and so that will get you started with opening up your

Etsy Shop without having to spend any any money if you do need a link and have not ever opened up a shop I will have my link down below and again that will be your first 40 listings that will be for free so that you can get started listing before having to put any additional funds out there other than that that is really all that you need to start a digital product shop on Etsy eventually down the road you would want to invest in automation tools to list your products more efficiently and of course much

quicker personally use Vel right now but there are other ones such as my designs which can help you list way faster on Etsy and save a lot of time so on the level of is this passive or not passive I would say this is definitely not a passive income stream as the types of graphic designs that I am creating for require constant New Creation meaning that every time a new year comes around I will be creating new spring designs new Mother's Day designs and so on and so forth because as I said earlier the design

Styles and Trends always change so it will require constant research and then constant creation on a NeverEnding cycle because again the need for these types of designs really just does go on and on so to be successful with this type of Design shop on Etsy you are going to want to focus on low competition Search terms that have a high demand meaning that people people are already actively searching for these types of designs on Etsy but there's not a lot of competition from them from bigger shops like mine you can use keyword research tools to

find out this type of information or even on Etsy itself I do have many videos on this channel all about Etsy strategy and designing for these types of products so you can just look through the channel if this is what interests you I also recently just did a 2025 Trends video that covers all of the upcoming trends for 2025 that we should all be on the lookout for so be sure to check that out after so income stream number two is Bailey Tumblr designs which is a subscription SL membership site for my graphic designs two

months after starting my Etsy shop with the graphic designs in 2022 I also opened up my own membership site on my own website because I had a lot of people asking if they could access my designs for a lower monthly payment and that they would continue to be a customer and create that reoccurring revenue for me and so I decided to open that up right away over the past few years it has grown to over thousands of members I do have a Facebook group that has grown to over 10,000 members as well as an email

list that I grew from that that is over 20,000 people that I was able to Market my membership site too in the hopes that they would want to come and jooy a monthly membership or even yearly or a lifetime instead of constantly repurchasing designs or purchasing designs on Etsy again and again instead it would be a lower option for them and then also again create that reoccurring revenue for me and it was from the same designs that I'm already putting up on Etsy anyway so it's like the work had already be done this hit over

$200,000 so this is quite a bit of a difference compared to my Etsy Shop though historically it has always been lower compared to Etsy until this last year so to get started with this one you definitely need to focus on building some type of an audience that you can Market your subscription to whether that is via email or on Pinterest or a Facebook group you need a way to constantly be showing them what types of designs that you're creating and what is new and listed on your shop so that they have a reason to actually

go and purchase a membership from you all of the same tools that were required for my Etsy shop or what I use for this so it's not really an added cost besides the cost of actually hosting my membership on Wix while I do pay for this as an annual cost because it's much cheaper the average cost is about $75 per month so with this one again you just want to be creating beautiful designs that are hopefully converting well on Etsy because that is a good sign that someone would be willing to purchase a membership for

and then also grow some type of an audience on a platform where your buyers would be hanging out in my case it has always been Facebook and then of course growing that email list so that you can convey to them when you have new designs out or when you have any types of new products out so that they're able to see that you're constantly creating and adding to your inventory income stream number three is this YouTube channel so all YouTube channels can be monetized with AdSense which is Those ads that are shown to you guys

throughout my videos and so I started this YouTube channel in the middle of 2023 about and in 2024 it generated just over $116,000 so it is one of the smallest income streams that I have but I would be creating the content anyway because it helps bring awareness to my communities and so it really is just an added bonus so the cost to run this YouTube channel is is pretty much free as far as starting out you don't have to pay to create a YouTube channel and you can use something as simple as your phone assuming

it's a somewhat newer model to record with and that is really it a good editing tool can cost you anywhere from $ 20 to $40 per month if you are editing yourself or if you decide to Outsource that as I have done from the beginning because I number one do not have the time to edit the videos and I have have zero knowledge in editing so I have always outsourced my editing from the beginning and I pay someone $150 per week but that is for an up to three video per week amount so I typically

never even release more than one videos per week however I am paying in the hopes that I can even get to two videos per week which is why it's a little bit different however I have heard that some YouTuber friend people that I have and know um pay editors anywhere from $2 to $300 per video so I feel with my $150 a week budget I am doing extremely well and so thank you so much to you Hy who edits all of my videos I really really appreciate it again what you are charging for editing your

videos really depends on the type of content that you're creating so educational content that is usually talking head like mine or tutorial is generally going to be less than some highly produced video with all types of effects and graphics and crazy types of transitions those tend to be much more expensive and fall into that $2 to $400 range so to have a successful YouTube channel all that you'll need to have if you are in the educational space is to have something that you are knowledgeable or of that you can talk about or that you have

expertise in or maybe even take the approach that you are bringing someone along in the journey so that can be something like you have started a new Etsy shop and you want to show the process of how you are doing particular things and what your growth has looked like and some of the roadblocks that have happened along the way those types of channels kind of like a follow me along type of approach work very well on YouTube because a lot of people like to see the overall Journey instead of someone who is just at a

different point in the journey like myself and is not as beginner level as what they're looking for or they want to see more of what it's like to be down in the trenches when you're first starting out I can give you all of the information that I have from all of my past years of experience but it sometimes it is different when it's coming from someone who has only been doing it for 2 or 3 months I definitely do not think that YouTube videos are Passive by any source of the imagination sure you might put

a video up and it might continue to pay you over the next few months and um generate some Revenue however ever to keep a YouTube channel going you have to consistently be putting out content meaning you are constantly making and creating and scripting a new video as well as researching for all of those new ideas to keep the channel going and then getting into the thumbnail and the title ideation generation part so it really is a lot more than what most people think um and does require a lot of work and continual effort since my

channel is all about creating AI designs to sell on Etsy this is why I consider it an AI income stream because I am talking mostly about AI graphic designs however I also use AI to help me come up with ideation ideas such as what type of content to create videos for as well as thumbnail Concepts and titles as well so income stream number four is affiliate income and brand sponsorship so this is very much related to the YouTube channel because I'm talking about AI software all of the time and how to do particular things with

AI tools that is where the types of software that I cover and affiliate for come in so to be an affiliate for pretty much any company you can sign up on an affiliate website such as impact or you can sign up directly with the company itself which is what I do for many of mine and then usually they will pay you monthly via PayPal or of mine even direct deposit to my bank account since I am already creating the educational content on YouTube and in my communities it really is a no-brainer to sign up for

any and all of the softwares that I use on a daily basis because I'm already going to be talking about them anyway many of the affiliate companies that I already affiliate for will often sponsor some of my videos or a portion of my videos and in 2024 for a Channel of my size it often ended up being anywhere from $500 to $1,200 per video and this was all paid out mainly PayPal so how you can get started with affiliate marketing or brand sponsorships is just to talk about the software or the tools or the products

that you use when doing your work whether that is explaining via your blog or maybe your YouTube channel and incorporate that into your content assuming of course you have signed up for the programs and then you just include a link to either try out the product um or some other type of call to action I would consider this one to be one of the most passive of all of my income streams because again I'm going to be talking about it anyway and I use it anyway so it really is just a no-brainer to sign up

for those types of programs include the link and if someone purchase it then you will make a percentage of that the cost for affiliate marketing technically is nothing because it does cost you anything to sign up for their programs and that will just fall under however you are creating your content so if that's YouTube you could probably justify an Associated cost with your YouTube expenses so income streams number five and number six are technically two of the same things but they are two different separate income streams so these fall under the digital product spaces and

are communities or memberships so since I started these in the middle of 2024 when I closed down my course they have brought in over $281,000 here through the school platform itself and via my stripe account here in 2022 and in partially 2023 I had only sold my Etsy course and I decided to move to a community or membership type model because I really saw the need for more types of community and support and engagement within the Etsy space that I teach as someone with ADHD it works really really well with the way that I work

because I constantly need to be creating something new and if you are familiar with ADHD you know that this is very helpful to have something new that you're always working towards so that you don't get bored or complacent so for me I get to focus on Ever Changing content both in the AI space and in the Etsy space as part of my daily work I get to focus on engaging with community members and provid providing as much support as I can and so this helps me as a creative be able to work in the way

that suits me best so if you would ever be interested in starting your online community you would want to focus on just creating content and value for whatever it is that you have knowledge or expertise in or perhaps something that you are learning yourself it doesn't even necessarily have to be something that is educational because I've seen so many types of memberships that have to do with nothing with education like a car or uh knitting or crypto for example if we take a look at the school platform here which is the platform where I host

both of my memberships you can see that you can find thousands and thousands of different types of memberships in every kind of Niche imaginable which leads me into the cost for this Revenue stream which is $99 a month through the school platform however I see this as an amazing offer because for me it is essentially an allinone place where I can not only host my membership and have the conversations going but I can also use their classroom to create and upload all of my content and then they even have a calendar where I can schedule

the monthly calls for both communities it will also collect your payments for you so you don't need to worry about setting up a separate payment processor and had I not already had my own website from the past 2 years anyway I could probably get away with just using school as my all-in-one place because I already technically send every person who's ever interested into what I do to my school about page and completely don't even use the website another really great thing about school is that it is a searchable platform meaning if you go onto the

school search bar you can type in say for example knitting and you're going to be shown any and all types of memberships or communities that would be related to knitting for me if you type in Etsy you can see my Etsy Community is here and this is really beneficial for me because there are already thousands and thousands of daily School users who type in different types of searches and so some people have even joined the membership not even Finding Me from YouTube or anything else and they just found me searching via the school platform because

they were interested in Etsy I would say that having a community is definitely not a passive income Source because you have to daily be adding some type of content or value or have a schedule maybe even if it's weekly but it is consistently rolling so you are never really just selling this and then forgetting about it again this will work differently depending on the type of behavior that you have and personality type again for someone who needs consistent types of new things to be doing and new accomplishments to achieve it works really well for me

I will be having a video come out very soon about how I started my first digital design membership the one about all of the Etsy graphic designs so do be on the lookout for that and as always thanks so much for watching and I will see you all in the next video