Ever wondered how to turn your coding skills into real money? Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced dev, there are tons of ways to monetize your skills—some more profitable than others.

After seven years in the game, here’s the ultimate tier list of ways you can turn your coding knowledge into cash. 🏆

S-Tier: The Holy Grail of Coding Income

1️⃣ Building a SaaS (Software as a Service)

💰 Earnings Potential: Unlimited
⏳ Time & Effort: High
🛠️ Best For: Problem solvers & persistent coders

If you’re serious about making big money, building a SaaS product is the way to go. Instead of working for someone else, you create a tool or app that people subscribe to, meaning recurring revenue. Some developers are making $100,000+ per month from simple but useful SaaS tools.

How to win at this:

✅ Identify a real problem people struggle with.
✅ Build a minimal but functional product.
✅ Create a landing page with payment integration.
✅ Market it on Reddit, Product Hunt, and tech forums.
✅ Iterate & scale!

Success Story: Mark Luon built ShipFast and now earns six figures a month. Imagine that!

A-Tier: Good Money, Some Effort

2️⃣ Teaching & Creating Online Courses

💰 Earnings Potential: $50K – $200K+ per year
⏳ Time & Effort: High upfront, passive later
🛠️ Best For: Developers who can explain concepts well

Teaching others how to code is highly profitable—especially on platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, and Coursera. The best part? Once your course is live, it’s passive income!

One developer made $115,000 over 3 years from coding courses alone!

3️⃣ Selling APIs on RapidAPI

💰 Earnings Potential: $500 – $10K+ per month
⏳ Time & Effort: Medium
🛠️ Best For: Backend developers

Instead of building full apps, why not sell APIs? Companies pay to integrate useful APIs into their own apps—saving them time and effort. One developer is making $500/month with just a few APIs.

Software Engineering Job (Full-Time)

💰 Earnings Potential: $60K – $250K+ per year
⏳ Time & Effort: Steady & predictable
🛠️ Best For: Stability seekers

The safest and most stable way to make money coding is through a full-time job. If you’re based in the US, six-figure salaries are common. Want an edge? Work remotely for US or EU companies while living in a lower-cost country = max savings.

B-Tier: Decent Money, More Effort

5️⃣ Freelancing (Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal)

💰 Earnings Potential: $50 – $150 per hour
⏳ Time & Effort: High
🛠️ Best For: Independent workers

Freelancing offers freedom, but it also means hustling for clients. Newcomers often start with low-paying gigs, but once established, skilled devs can charge $100+ per hour.

C-Tier: Low Effort, Low Reward

6️⃣ Selling Website Themes & Templates

💰 Earnings Potential: $500 – $5K per month
⏳ Time & Effort: Medium
🛠️ Best For: Frontend developers & designers

Selling WordPress, Ghost, or Shopify themes can generate passive income. However, competition is fierce, and many markets are saturated.

D-Tier: Not Worth Your Time

7️⃣ Coding Surveys & Paid Research

💰 Earnings Potential: $1 – $10 per survey
⏳ Time & Effort: Not worth it
🛠️ Best For: Literally no one

While some platforms pay developers for feedback on software tools, it’s not worth your time. You’d earn way more learning a new framework instead.

Final Thoughts: What’s Your Play?

The best way to make money coding depends on your goals:
✅ Want stability? Get a high-paying dev job.
✅ Want freedom? Freelancing or selling APIs is solid.
✅ Want to build an empire? Go SaaS & never look back.