For many new bloggers who have seen a little bit of success, a common question is; how long does it take to make a full-time income from blogging? Once I had made couple of hundred dollars, I was already looking way down the line. I wanted to know if it was possible to do this full-time and if so, how long would it take.
For a closer look at whether or not it’s even possible to make a full-time living living, you can take a look at this article.
How long does it take to make a full-time income from blogging?
Assuming that you did everything right, for most people it’s going to take 2-3 years of hard work to reach a full-time income from blogging. Having said that, what you consider a full-time living someone else might consider part-time income. So you must take that into consideration.
I’ve seen some people through a combination of luck and just making good decisions get to that full-time income level in about a year. Then I’ve seen others struggle for many years to make anything meaningful.
Everyone’s journey is going to be slightly different from everyone else’s and it’s really best bot to compare yourself to other people too much. What works for you and your site may not work for someone else. My advice is to find what works for you, and continue doing it. When I say that I mean find the type of content that is making money and is inexpensive to reproduce.
Then either through outsourcing or on your own, scale it up.
Blogging monetary milestones (how long it took to me reach them)
The following are common blogging milestones along with rough estimates of how long it took me to reach them. Your milage may vary.
$1/month – 3 months
Approximate number of articles published: 30
I remember beginning my blogging journey in mid-August of 2018. I pretty much went all-in from the beginning. I already knew websites and WordPress so there was 0 learning curve there. I was also fairly versed in SEO, so I was just mainly learning about building brands and attracting targeted audiences in the beginning. Then of course there was how to monetize the traffic, who to monetize with, and everything else that goes along with it.
It took me about 3 months of hard work to earn my first dollar online from Amazon Associates. I remember because it was Thanksgiving morning. I woke and checked my Amazon Associates account to see that I had a sale from the day before. I’m actually not sure it was even a whole dollar, but this is the first time I remember earning anything online.
$100/month – 9 months
Approximate number of articles published: 60
I grinded away for another 6 months or so before I reached the next blogging milestone I was looking forward to, which was $100/month. I don’t remember anything specific about this milestone such as what products I got commissions for. By this point I was still only monetized with Amazon Associates, but most days I was getting some type of commission.
$500/month – 15 months
Approximate number of articles published: 150
At this point I was monetized with both Ezoic display ads and Amazon Associates. So it was a combination of the two income streams that led to me earning around $500/month at this point.
I do recall that I made a total of $297 after exactly 12 months of blogging. So at the one year mark I was making just shy of $300/month. I remember thinking that it was almost enough to pay my car payment which was pretty cool. Just a few months later I had almost doubled that and was up to $500/month.
If I’m not mistaken, this was December of 2019. It was my first taste of being an affiliate during the shopping season. The first time having significant enough traffic to benefit from the frenzy anyway.
After this point a lot of the hard work from year 1 of blogging really started to have a snowball effect.
$1,000/month – 18 months
Approximate number of articles published: 250
The $500 milestone was Christmas, so it was a big spike. Then the steep decline happened in January, which is normal. By the end of March 2020 though, the revenue doubled. We’re also fast approaching the peak season of the niche for my largest site.
I joined Mediavine at the beginning of April 2020, my traffic was skyrocketing and things were coming together nicely. By May and June of 2020 I was earning between $3k-$4k/month.
$10,000/month – 2.5 years
Approximate number of articles published: 1,000
Just past the year and a half mark, I guess at about 20 months or so, I had crested $4k/month. Here I had a good taste of full-time income from blogging, but it wasn’t quite enough. For some people this may be enough to go full-time, sure. For other people though this is barely enough to pay their mortgage and their kid’s college tuition. The term “full-time income” is relative.
For me, it was getting close, but not quite enough. I figured if I could get that up to a steady $5k/month I would make the leap to full-time and quickly scale up this business.
But remember, I had just started making this amount of money so I wasn’t sure how reliable it was all going to be yet.
This is where revenue kind of plateaued for the rest of the year. It stayed in the $3500/month range all the way through November. Then the shopping hit and things went nuts. I ended up making just under $9k in December 2020.
My faith was restored and it was soon after this that I actually did become a full-time blogger and business owner.
Luckily I had been working like a madmen publishing content all throughout the plateau months of 2020. Beginning in March of 2021 it really starting paying off too, because that was the first month I surpassed $10k in one month.
Here’s an income report I did from May of 2021.
$50,000?
Approximate number of articles published: 5,000?
That seems like such an unreachable number… $50k in one month! However I would have said the same thing about $10k/month 2 years ago, that’s six-figures a year after all.
The thing is though that there are so people in this industry of content publishing that are making well over $50k/month. One example is Jon Dykstra of Fat Stacks Blog who’s making over $100k/month! He just happens to share his income reports. Most people doing this well, keep it to themselves.
So I’m honestly past the point of having to set safe goals. I see absolutely no reason why I can’t scale to $50k/month and beyond. For that matter, there’s really no reason why you can’t do it too (unless you already have). You just have to get started now, work hard, and don’t give up until you see success!
Final notes
My results may be, and likely will be, different from yours. As I mentioned, everyone’s journey is different. While some reach success rather quickly, others grind away for years before earning a significant amount of money online. Some people never succeed at making money from blogging. It’s a skill like any other and not everyone is cut out for it. For those who are though, it can be a very enjoyable and lucrative career.
Thanks for reading!