How To Earn Passive Income In Kenya in 2024

Passive income is arguably the holy grail of financial freedom. Ask any entrepreneur out there, and they will tell you how much earning passively means to them.

And if you didn’t know, there are two ways to do it. You either work for the money or the money works for you, there is no in-between.

If you are trading your hours for cash, you are bursting your back for the money. This means, when you stop working, the money stops flowing in. By the look of things, you may be excited that you are paid per the efforts invested.

Well, yes, that is true. But you are blind to the looming hazard. I mean, what happens when you’re no longer able to work? Will you stop eating?

On the flip side, if you can stay away from work for weeks, months, or even years and still have money coming into your bank account, congratulations, you have achieved passive income status.

It is that point in your financial journey when you make money while sleeping or hanging out with friends.

Why is passive income important?

I don’t know about you, but two things are dear to me; time and family.

I need time to pursue my dreams and not worry about where the next meal will come from or even how to settle my bills.

Also, family means a lot to me. I do everything I do because I want the best for them.

If there is anything that can get me time to spend with my family, that’s what I am going to focus all my efforts on.

I don’t know about you, maybe you want to have enough money to support worthy causes like your favorite charity, be able to travel the world, or afford luxuries.

It doesn’t matter what you want, earning passive income in Kenya is the surefire way to get there.

Luckily, today I have compiled a list of strategies you can implement immediately to set yourself on the right path to financial freedom.

How to earn passive income in Kenya

• Creating and selling informational products

Informational products include courses, e-books, and online seminars. As you can already guess, these are all digital products, which means that once you have created them, 90% of the work is done.

They are called so because their main objective is to provide in-depth and valuable information on a specific subject.

And since this is information, at some point it will get outdated.

As such, later on, you can come and make a few changes to keep the products up to date without the need for recreating the whole product.

 Also, the expenses are close to none. Here, you are dealing with a digital item, and unlike physical item that requires stocking and preservation, informational products don’t need any of that.

How does this work?

Well, your aim with informational products is to educate, you first have to figure out the topic to teach.

To do that, you can start with your personal life, what is it that people usually ask your input for? Is it relationship advice? Financial counsel? Name it!

Conducting a self-audit can reveal insights that can be turned into bestselling information products.

Another way to get topic ideas is to give people what they want. Look for problems a lot of people are struggling with and find solutions.

Armed with a topic (s), decide whether to create a video course or write an eBook. But depending on the type of problem you want to solve, a specific format of the product can work best.

For example:

If it is something that requires a more hands-on approach with step-by-step tutorials, a video course will perform better than an e-book.

Once you have created the product, it is time to take it to the market. Go where the target audience hangs out and sell the product to them.

For example:

If you have created an e-book on how to be a successful trader in Kenya, your target audience is traders, right?

Now, where do they hang out?

Probably on trading forums and groups on Facebook.

Since this is a digital product, you can upload it online. For e-books, Kindle will do, while for courses, Udemy or Teachable works best.

All of these platforms come with automated payment systems. So once you have added your product, leave the rest to the platform. And that is how to earn passive income in Kenya.

• Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing enables you to earn commissions by promoting a product or a service.

And there are two ways to get started as an affiliate.

One, by forming direct ties with a company or two, by signing up with affiliate programs such as Jumia Kenya, Amazon Associates, and CJ Junction among others.

Either way, you take it, you will get a unique link that will enable you to track sales and conversion anywhere you are anytime. Thus you won’t miss commissions because the sales couldn’t be credited to you.

Now, to make it passive, you have to create a system to drive traffic to the product sales pages through your links automatically.

One such way is through content marketing.

Here is how it works:

After signing up with an affiliate program, and getting a link, set to create a website (blog). This is where you will post content that will hopefully drive affiliate commissions.

With a website up, go ahead and create content. This can be videos or articles. And depending on the type of products you are promoting, you will know what type of content to create.

For example:

If you are promoting web hosting products, it makes more sense to use articles. As such, you can create guides, how-tos, reviews, and case study articles post them on your blog, and optimize them for SEO.

This way, the articles can be found through search engines, thus driving organic (free) traffic.

With the content ready, go ahead and insert your affiliate link where applicable. Here is a warning:

Avoid overstuffing the articles with affiliate links everywhere. Only use them where it makes sense.

Doing this will enable you to earn commissions even when sleeping for years to come, and that is how to earn passive income in Kenya.

• Buy a blog

Pay attention here.

Instead of starting a website from scratch, you can buy an already-established one, enabling you to hit the ground running.

Why?

See, a brand-new blog requires a ton of work, energy, and patience. You need to do SEO, create content, do maintenance, etc.

The worst part?

There is no guarantee this will work. It sucks, I know, but that is just how it is.

Luckily, there is a way around it. I mean, what if there was a way to get a ‘turn-key’ website? One that is already getting traffic, bringing in income, content is taken care of, and requires less work?

Well, it is not a dream. It is possible.

Instead of taking risks and starting from scratch, you can buy a blog proven to work.

How?

There are several platforms online dealing with such businesses, but a popular one is Flippa.com. This is the marketplace where entrepreneurs go to sell their online businesses.

To get started, first decide what type of website you want. Is it a content-only blog or an online store?

Also, consider the monetization process. Some websites are using only ads to generate income, while others are engaging in affiliate marketing or both.

Additionally, before you buy a website, do thorough research on the site data. The last thing you want is to end up with a ‘dead’ site just because the owner showed you enticing numbers which turned out to be fake.

For example:

Before buying, ask to be added to the Google Analytics of the said site. This way you can verify traffic and other data first-hand.

• Royalties

Are you a talented content creator?

Royalties can be your way of earning passive income in Kenya. Here, you get paid every time someone consumes or uses your products.

For example:

If you are good at making music, you can make money passively by selling beats to artists. Who then either buys an exclusive license or a partial one with a royalties option.

Licensing your music means that you are giving someone the right to use it on their projects. In exchange, you get paid in a lump sum (one-time fee) or recurring payments (royalties).

Additionally, advertising companies are constantly looking for content (video and music) to use in their campaigns. You can sign an exclusive contract with them to create the content. In exchange, you get a percentage of the revenue.

Also Read: – HOW TO EARN MONEY IN KENYA WITH GOOGLE

• Peer to Peer Lending

Peer-to-peer lending is exactly how it sounds, you lend money to friends and family or business. They then pay back with accrued interest.

For example:

You can lend a business 100K with a 20 percent interest rate and payable over 6 months.

See what just happened?

You will be earning income for six months without doing any work, which is how to earn passive income in Kenya.

While this may sound like a lucrative business, there are risks involved. But if you aren’t a risk-taker, there is a better way to engage in P2P lending.

And that is through lending platforms like Lending Club. Such platforms facilitate either personal or business loans.

Here is how it works:

Someone who wants a loan goes to the platform and creates an account. And then depending on background information such as credit history and income, they are given loan interest rates.

Then as an investor, you also create an account with the platform and buy the debt.

After that, whenever the borrower makes monthly payments, the principal and accrued interest are credited into your account passively.

• Investing in real estate

I bet you understand this; real estate is the ticket to the millionaires club. With it, you can build long-term wealth and live your best life.

But there is a big problem:

Most properties don’t come cheap. And if they do, they are worthless and often require a ton of work to renovate and make them valuable.

Is there another way?

You can easily make money through real estate properties without owning even a single property.

How?

There are real estate investing apps that have streamlined the real estate investing process.

For example:

Fundraise is a program specializing in real estate investment trusts (REITs). Here, all you have to do is give them your money, no matter how small, and they will invest it for you in properties.

This is because REITs own and operate income-generating properties. And as an investor, you earn profits from sales and rental proceeds. But this also means you share the losses as well.

Others include:

• Roofstock
• RealtyMogul

That is how to earn passive income in Kenya through real estate investing.

• Buy dividend-yielding stocks

Investing in dividend-yielding stocks may the old, but it is the best way to earn passive income in Kenya.

As a shareholder in a company, you will be receiving dividends in regular installments. And the amount you receive will depend on the number of stocks you own.

For example:

Say a company like Safaricom pays out KES 10 per dividend per share quarterly. If you have 100K shares, that translates to 1 million shillings every four months earned passively.

As much as that is exciting, on paper, it is not easy to get there.

Why?

The challenge here is picking the right stock.

Avoid jumping into a company before conducting thorough investigations. Go through their financial statements and scour every corner of their website.

Final thoughts

Earning passive income is not a far-fetched dream. It is very much achievable with the perfect opportunity and careful execution of a strategy.

With these ideas, you should be able to get at least one idea to get you started on the path to financial freedom.

Remember, the goal is not to be rich but to get the money working for you.