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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#31

The world is changed - given the low cost of reverse engineering and implementation, it would be product suicide to openly call out a money making product. I don't expect too many actual >500$ moneymaking projects to be listed. Would love to be proven wrong.

My first instinct was that side projects can’t make good money anymore. Monthly new repos on Github increased 5x. Also any good project can be cloned immediately. Maybe people here can confirm if it’s a good time to start indie projects.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#32
I've grossed 17,531.33 so far this calendar year. You know those cold emails you get sometimes where they want you to get contract jobs and them do the work? I've been doing that for 18 months now and I average roughly 2 hours/week throughout the year.

There are some weeks where I'm doing almost no work at all, but then there are some weeks where I'm interviewing daily and maybe have a video call with a client. I've found that the interview process to get contract jobs is MUCH shorter and simpler than getting full time jobs. They are often done by a non-technical person and are 30 minutes long. There might be another 30-minute interview, sometimes by a technical person but not always. This means that I can interview daily without it causing much disruption to my regular job.

I won't lie, it is stressful at times trying to juggle so many things, and the cognitive dissonance of lying to people is not great. I used to get really anxious about interviewing, but this experience has helped me a lot with that.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#33
post #11

My work came up with a bonus structure around a certain set of industry certifications. I looked at all the certifications available and worked out a strategy to max the bonus each year. It comes out to about $2.5k/month. So my side hustle is studying and taking tests. Over the last 5 years or so of taking tests + investing I’ve built a nice chunk of change set aside to help pay for college for my two boys (age 14 an…

How much time are in investing in these certifications on average? i would imagine running out of things to study/certify in such a long time

The scoring system is complicated but it comes down to passing about 4 new ones per year and then passing the renewal exams for all my current certs. Each exam takes about a month for me to be ready, maybe a total of 40 or so hrs. I have a family and my day job is very demanding so not a lot of free time.

There’s about 60-70 available certifications but they have various prerequisite certs so you can’t just go down the list. I was fortunate in that when the bonus structure first came out I had a lot of experience but not many certs so it was easy at first but now I’m running out of certs to get that are related to my actual day job.

However, I get the feeling the cert bonus thing is going to be cancelled next FY anyway. Sucks but at least I maxed it every year it was available and I have probably 75% of college for my kids paid for.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#36
https://overseer.studio - Infinite canvas for apps, browser tabs, PDFs, and more. Primarily focused on Game Masters for TTRPGs but I've heard from many that it would be an excellent general purpose digital binder.

Started last year with a problem I faced personally playing TTRPGs with newcomers. Built Overseer over a year to where it is today.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#37

The world is changed - given the low cost of reverse engineering and implementation, it would be product suicide to openly call out a money making product. I don't expect too many actual >500$ moneymaking projects to be listed. Would love to be proven wrong.

I offer some absolutes in reply and would also love to be proven wrong.

The cost of engineering and implementation has always been low. Passive income has always been a subtle lie. The money has always been in providing a well-supported service.

No customer has ever cared about implementation details beyond what is outlined in the contracts they have with you and the nth-order effects of the contracts they are under with their own clients.

Advertising is the opposite of suicide, but since we have so much negativity on HN in the past few years this is no longer the best place to do that. Every potential customer here is vastly outnumbered by people who belong on reddit.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#38

https://volt.fm It started as a side project in 2001, but now it’s my main business. Here's my own profile if anyone's interested: https://volt.fm/soheilpro

I haven't signed up, though I like the idea. But I wonder how do you monetise this?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#39
Building a multiplayer game platform. Built a multiplayer pong game to dog feed the platform, and it got viral. Decided to make presales for it and got a little over $700 sales so far . if you want to give it a try, play it here https://antics.gg/p/side-out-94df7d

presale here if anyone interested! https://antics.gg/sideout-presale

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#40
post #38

https://volt.fm It started as a side project in 2001, but now it’s my main business. Here's my own profile if anyone's interested: https://volt.fm/soheilpro

I haven't signed up, though I like the idea. But I wonder how do you monetise this?

There's a Pro plan that offers more complete stats and includes some other features.
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