What actually counts as passive income?
Income that keeps arriving without your ongoing hours. Most ideas sold as passive are really part-time jobs with a delay.
Income is passive when it keeps arriving after your work stops. Not after your work slows down. After it stops. By that test, very little of what gets sold as passive income qualifies.
The honest scale
- Truly low-touch. Money set aside in a simple account or fund. Still needs occasional review.
- Front-loaded. A course, an ebook, a template pack. Heavy work first, then upkeep, updates and promotion.
- Managed. A rental, a vending route, a small online shop. Ongoing tasks, just fewer of them once systems are in place.
- Disguised job. Anything where income stops the week you stop posting, shipping or answering messages.
A quick test
Ask: if I ignored this for three months, what would happen? If the answer is that it slowly fades, it is front-loaded. If it collapses, it was never passive.
More on scoring ideas in our effort audit. Back to the reality checks.