Key takeaways
- Developers can leverage their skills to create additional income through various innovative avenues.
- Selling plugins and components on popular marketplaces like CodeCanyon can be a lucrative option.
- Participating in hackathons offers the chance to earn rewards and gain recognition in the tech community.
- Building a SaaS product allows developers to tap into a growing market and utilise online platforms for promotion.
As a developer, you've got valuable skills that are in high demand and that can be turned into several unique hustle opportunities. Who wouldn't want to use their skills to create some extra income?
So, for all the techies looking to make money as we approach the end of the year, here are 8 ways to earn with your development skills!
- Create and sell plugins/components in React, Angular, Vue, and Bootstrap themes
CodeCanyon is the largest and most popular marketplace to sell plugins. However, you can also sell on other large marketplaces like Codester and Mojo Marketplace.
To sell on a marketplace, you must create an account and upload your plugin to their website.
- Participate in hackathons
Over 80% of the Fortune 100 companies conduct hackathons. Countless examples show hackathons' value and ability to generate substantial rewards.
There are several ongoing hackathons on MachineHack—the brainchild of Analytics India Magazine—like The Ultimate Samur-AI Writer Blog-A-Thon, Predict The Price of Books, Subscriber Prediction Talent Search Hackathon, Predict the News Category, and so on.
Follow the link here to check out MachineHack's hackathons.
- Build a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)
The internet is undoubtedly the best option for marketing and selling your product if you're a SaaS pro. Here are the top platforms on the market:
Zuora: One of the most established players in the space while also among the most expensive or "enterprise-ready".
Recurly: Fairly easy setup and numerous integrations. Pricing starts at $99/month.
Chargebee: It's free for the first revenue you earn. It has a similar functionality to ‘Recurly’.
- Develop a trading bot
Although only 38% of crypto users trade with bots, that percentage rises to 86% when considering the amount of money moved. Most of the dealt money is by institutional traders and, therefore, done by bots. Trading bots are tested in stock, forex, and other digital asset trading. Hence, using a trading bot can help you compete efficiently and successfully.
- Create web, mobile and/or desktop apps where you can have ads or in-app purchases
In-app advertising is an effective strategy through which developers get paid to display ads within mobile apps. According to a study, the global in-app advertising market size is anticipated to reach USD 226.4 billion by 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 19.4% from 2019.
- Create a blog and monetise it via:
- Sponsorships
Work on open-source projects and get donations and sponsorships. Techies love your work so much that they financially support you for creating such content. Platforms like Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, or GitHub Sponsors should be your go-to platforms in this case.
Furthermore, Hashnode's inbuilt 1:1 micropayment service lets readers sponsor their favourite writers. An interesting thing about Hashnode Sponsors is that it doesn't take any commission from the money that the readers send to the writers. Instead, it's all yours to take—instantly.
- Ads (Google AdSense/CarbonAds)
Use AdSense or Carbon to add advertisements to your blog because they only post content around tech. This ensures that the ads might be useful to readers and will also be able to stay on your blog.
- Get paid to write articles for publications
Blogging is a great way to reinforce learning and showcase your developer skills to potential employers. But it can also be a great opportunity to make money—either as a full-time career or merely as a side hustle. Web monetisation is making revenue from the traffic coming to your blog. So the higher the traffic on your blog, the more the money you make.
