HACKER Q&A
📣 dominictyler

What passive income from websites would you be OK with to quit your job?


What passive income from websites would you be OK with to quit your job?


  👤 dyingkneepad Accepted Answer ✓
It depends.

Are the websites about something that may go away? I mean, is it about recipes for the most recent culinary trend? Or strategies about whatever is this winter's trending shooter game? Or programming on a language that may start to die in 5-10 years? Or a framework that everybody will drop in 6 weeks?

It's hard to predict something that generates X income from visitors today will keep generating >= X income in the future.

Is your revenue mainly from Google or something like that? I have heard quite a few stories about people suddenly having to change ad networks and then having their income drop. Or Google changing something in their SEO algorithms and then the site dropping. I even remember reading something about Facebook making a change that stopped most of the organic visits to a specific site. Are you subject to that?

If any of the cases above might be true, I would pretty much only quit my job if I had "can retire in a few years" income.


👤 multinational
In hindsight, I wouldn't be OK with passive income from websites, because Google controls your business.

I quit making very little. Now I make over $2000 in passive income, but I wouldn't do it the same way.

An algorithmic change means you lose your livelihood (or income). It's a single point of failure that you can't rely on.

Rather some customers with lots of capital. That's more secure.


👤 billconan
$20k / month

👤 admissionsguy
If it was likely to remain stable indefinitely - 400 USD a month. Even though I currently make over $10k. Working for a living is very close to not living at all.

👤 fiftyacorn
5000 per month after tax

👤 approxim8ion
500-700 USD a month. Quite obviously not based in the US, but that much would be more than enough to maintain my cost of living.

👤 oyeg
well, I'm from a third world country. 1000$ should be enough for me so that I can focus on things I love to do

👤 alltakendamned
1500 after tax if there's potential for future growth that can be accelerated by quitting said day job.

👤 dominictyler
I'll go first: For me, my needs aren't that much, I would be happy with $2000/month.

👤 makeee
I jumped from freelancing to full-time on my startup when I hit $2k/month.

👤 Venkatesh10
About $2500 per month after taxes

👤 desertraven
$2000 per month I think!

👤 kadonoishi
1500 per month pretax