15 Ways To Make Money Online Without Showing Your Face | Why Being Faceless On the Internet Could Limit Your Income Potential

September 19, 2023

Ways to make money online without showing your face are:

  • Local lead generation
  • Youtube automation
  • OnlyFans
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Blogging

Working in a remote setting can enable you many freedoms, one of which is the ability to choose whether or not you want to show your face. For a range of reasons, such as identity protection or a preference for anonymity, some of us just don't want our face online. Even so, we still need to work and make money to survive, but many money-making opportunities require at least some face-to-face interaction. Fortunately, there are still some great ways to make money online where you can avoid showing your face. Some of these opportunities have even enabled people to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars each month in online income without exposing their identity

Whether you want to create faceless YouTube channels like YouTube creator Matt Par or use Facebook Ad campaigns to promote ClickBank affiliate products like Robby Blanchard, it's possible to make a lot of money online without showing face. Here are over a dozen of the best ways to do it. 

1. Local lead generation

Local lead generation is a business model where you can make money online without showing your face by creating websites that find customers for service businesses. It works by targeting a particular service in a specific geographic area, such as roofing in Dallas, and then creating a website and using local SEO to rank it on Google to attract customers for that service in that area. Once your website ranks on Google and generates a consistent source of potential customers, you partner with a business in that location that offers that service to take the leads for a fee. You never need to show your face online because you just create websites and can communicate with clients over the phone when necessary. If the service businesses you partner with would like to speak face-to-face, you can just hire a VA or qualified sales associate to handle the face-to-face customer interaction for you.

A single local lead generation website can earn anywhere from $500 to $3,000/month. It typically takes between 6 weeks and 6 months to establish a local lead generation website on Google and start generating leads for a client. Many local lead generation businesses set up and operate multiple local lead generation websites to generate a 5 figure monthly revenue stream. You can make passive income online with local lead generation. Once the website is set up and you partner with a business to take the leads, you can mostly automate the maintenance of the website and distribution of leads to the service business each month. Therefore, the income you make doesn't require much active work. 

2. YouTube automation

YouTube automation is making money online with YouTube by outsourcing video content creation to freelancers and software tools that automate YouTube channel production and management. YouTube automation works by creating faceless YouTube content using media like stock footage and audio clips from voice over actors. It doesn’t rely on a social media influencer to attract an audience. Instead, YouTube automation focuses on generating an audience for a specific niche through high-quality content. Once you create enough content to generate a consistent and growing audience for your YouTube channel, you can monetize your faceless YouTube videos in a variety of ways. 

You get paid for making videos on YouTube. You can get paid for making videos on YouTube through:

  • YouTube ad revenue
  • YouTube Premium membership fees
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Sponsorships
  • Selling channel merch

Allowing YouTube ads to run alongside video content is the primary monetization method for most YouTube automation channels. YouTube pays around $18 for 1,000 views, according to Credit Karma. However, in order to generate advertising revenue on YouTube, a YouTube automation channel must first be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program. To be eligible for the YouTube partner program, a YouTube automation channel needs:

  • An active Google AdSense account or the ability to set one up

  • To live in a country where the YouTube Partner Program is available, like the United States
  • To have no active Community Guidelines strikes against the channel, such as from using content from another YouTube video that didn’t enable the Creative Common license
  • To have 2-Step verification enabled for the linked Google account
  • 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months OR 10 million valid public YouTube Short views in the last 90 days

You can actually make money with a faceless YouTube channel. In fact, some YouTube automation channels, such as Delight Videos, generate millions of dollars in revenue every year in advertising revenue alone, according to Social Blade. However, these kinds of results are only possible for the top performing channels on YouTube with millions of subscribers and hundreds of millions of video views. So how much can you realistically make? You can make between a few hundred and tens of thousands of dollars each month on YouTube without showing your face. That’s if you create consistent content for a high value niche, like travel or personal finance, and accumulate at least 10,000 to 100,000+ subscribers for your channel. 

How to make money on YouTube without showing your face

  1. 1

    Create a faceless YouTube channel to target a specific niche

  2. 2
    Hire a team of freelancers to create the YouTube video content and set them up with powerful tools like VidIQ and Asana to automate tasks and workflow management
  3. 3
    Direct the team to consistently publish faceless videos to attract an audience
  4. 4
    Enable YouTube ads through the YouTube partner program once the YouTube channel becomes eligible
  5. 5
    Expand the channel’s profit potential by monetizing it through additional methods like affiliate marketing and sponsorships

15 Faceless YouTube channel ideas

  1. Compilation videos
  2. Educational videos
  3. Animation videos
  4. DIY tutorials videos
  5. Meditation videos
  6. Alternative news videos
  7. Mucic videos
  8. Motivational videos
  9. Technology review videos
  10. Scary story videos
  11. Video game review videos
  12. Cooking recipe videos
  13. Travel videos
  14. Personal finance advice videos
  15. ASMR videos

3. OnlyFans 

OnlyFans is subscription-based social media platform that is primarily known for adult content. However, content creators with non-explicit content, like fitness coaches, musicians, and stylists, can also make money on the platform. You can be anonymous on OnlyFans. You can do this by completing your profile using a pseudonym, using a profile picture without your face, and turning off your location so nobody knows where you are. However, this is only true from the perspective of your OnlyFans subscribers. You cannot remain anonymous to the OnlyFans team because you need to provide them with your legal name and bank account information in order to get paid. Even so, many aspiring OnlyFans creators wonder if they can actually make money without showing their face. 

You can really not show your face and still make money on OnlyFans. In fact, in an interview with United Kingdom-based Daily Star, an OnlyFans creator by the name of Bambi Blue disclosed that she made upwards of £2.2 million in a year without ever showing her face on the platform. However, most OnlyFans creators do not experience this level of success. The average OnlyFans creator earns $180/month, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. Beginners on OnlyFans can expect to make anywhere from $100 to $500/month, if they are able to gain some following on their account. 

A couple on OnlyFans can make anywhere between $100 and $500,000/month. In an interview with People Magazine, married OnlyFans team Crystal and Chris Jackson disclosed they make around $500K/month, and they didn’t even use video content. You can make money on OnlyFans with just pictures. In the People Magazine interview, Crystal disclosed that the exclusive content they posted to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in subscription income consisted of sexy pictures without nudity and sensual stories from the past for their viewers. 

How to make money on Only Fans?

  • Subscriptions
  • Pay-per-view content
  • Tips
  • Direct messaging
  • Promotional posts
  • Private coaching
  • Livestreaming

How to be successful on OnlyFans without showing your face?

  1. 1
    Choose a niche that you are interested in or passionate about, such as fitness
  2. 2
    Come up with  a unique persona that you can use to deliver your content while remaining anonymous
  3. 3
    Create captivating, high-quality content to attract interest in your account
  4. 4
    Leverage OnlyFans monetization methods like subscriptions to generate income
  5. 5
    Use digital marketing strategies like social media and collaborating with other OnlyFans creators to grow your audience and increase your income potential
  6. 6
    Remain consistent in your posting schedule and content quality to keep your fans engaged and interested in your faceless OnlyFans account

4. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing strategy that entails promoting products and services online for a commission. Affiliate marketers get paid for driving results for brands, such as sales, app downloads, and even free trial sign-ups. The majority 80% of affiliates get paid between $0 and $80K annually, while the other 20% earn from $80K up to 7 figures, according to affiliate network Refersion. There are many channels that affiliate marketers can promote branded products through, including:

  • Social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram
  • Social video platforms like YouTube and TikTok
  • Blogs
  • Review websites
  • Paid advertising channels like Facebook Ads and Google Ads
  • Email marketing

In order to start promoting a product, an affiliate marketer needs to obtain a custom affiliate link from the brand that tracks their performance so actions they drive can be fairly rewarded. Affiliate links can be obtained through a brand's affiliate program, which will either be hosted on an affiliate network like CJ Affiliate, or directly hosted by the brand itself. Although many affiliate marketers, such as John Crestani, do show their face in order to establish a stronger relationship with their audience, it isn’t mandatory. Many affiliate marketers operate their business anonymously, profiting by promoting brands online without ever showing their face to the traffic they promote to.

5. Blogging

Out of the 1.9 billion websites that exist on the internet today, approximately 600 million, or 32% of them, are blogs. Anyone can get started with a blog. It costs as little as a few hundred dollars to get set up with shared hosting, a domain name, and a keyword research tool, and with some basic SEO knowledge and the discipline to produce consistent content, you can start generating traffic for your blog through search engines like Google and Bing. Once your blog starts attracting an audience, you can monetize it through a variety of methods, including:

  • Ad revenue from Google AdSense
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Sponsored posts
  • Creating and selling your own merchandise and digital products

Bloggers in the United States make around $84K/year on average, according to Glassdoor. Although it often takes a year or two to start generating this type of income from a blog because of how competitive it is to rank on Google, established bloggers often enjoy periods of passive income. This is because blog posts can remain active and produce income long after a blogger publishes the post. Despite many bloggers choosing to show their face on their website for the potential SEO benefits and to build trust with their audience, there is no requirement to disclose your personal identity on your blog. 

6. Become a social media influencer

Social media platforms like Instagram provide ample opportunity to make money online without needing to show your face. To do this, you just need to start a niche account, such as travel tips, and then post consistent content, like captivating travel images with valuable information in the description or engaging reels that spur people to book their next adventure. Once your niche account starts to gain some traction on the social media platform, you can reach out to brands to get paid through sponsored posts or use affiliate marketing to make money from the account. There is major variability in the amount of money that social media influencers can make, with some making nothing and others, like Cristiano Ronaldo, making millions. However, according to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for a social media influencer is about $58,000/year in the United States.

7. Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)

Amazon KDP is an e-book self-publishing platform through Amazon where a writer can earn royalties for their works that sell on the Amazon Marketplace. Amazon KDP authors can earn between 35% to 70% in royalties for sales of their books. According to a poll by Low Content Profits of 86 Amazon KDP authors, you can expect to make anywhere from $150 to $20,000/month in royalty revenue by self-publishing books on Amazon. For those who don’t want to disclose their personal identity, Amazon does enable KDP publishers to use a pen name, or pseudonym, to hide their identity.

8. Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)

Amazon FBA is an Ecommerce service offered through Amazon that supports Ecommerce sellers with:

  • Inventory storage
  • Picking and packing products
  • Shipping to the customer
  • Customer service
  • Returns processing

Amazon FBA is an incredibly popular way to make money online. There are nearly 2 million active sellers on Amazon and the majority 73% of them are leveraging the FBA program, according to SellerApp. Amazon FBA sellers can choose from a variety of selling methods, like private label or retail arbitrage, and typically earn between $12,000 and $300,000 annually, according to JungleScout. Although Amazon does require you to enter identification details to create a seller account, you can avoid using your personal details directly by setting up a legal business entity and then setting up your Amazon seller account using the business's details instead of your own. 

9. Dropshipping 

Dropshipping is an Ecommerce business model that entails utilizing the product supplier to ship orders directly to the customer. With dropshipping, you market products online that you find through online marketplaces like AliExpress, and then only once a customer buys the product do you buy the product from the supplier and provide them with your customer’s shipping details so that they can directly ship them the product. Dropshipping is basically an arbitrage business, where you profit by selling products from one marketplace for a markup on another marketplace or platform. Some of the most popular places for dropshippers to sell their products include:

  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • Walmart Marketplace
  • Shopify

While the benefit of dropshipping is that is comes with relatively low risk, the drawback is that the profit potential isn’t as good as other online opportunities. The average dropshipper makes just $19/hour in the United States, according to ZipRecruiter. Similar to Amazon FBA, a dropshipping business owner can remain mostly anonymous and not show their face by setting up their business through a legal business entity, such as an LLC.

10. Dropservicing

Dropservicing is a concept that entails marketing digital services on the internet, such as graphic design and content writing, and then hiring freelancers from sites like Fiverr and Upwork to actually complete the work. Dropservicing businesses profit by charging their client a higher price than they contract the freelancer to complete the work for. A dropservicing business can command profit margins as high as 70%, according to business automation service Flash Hub. One dropservicing business was even able to generate over $1 million in revenue in little more than a year. In an interview with Business Insider, Georgia Austin of Wizeo explained how she used the dropservicing business model to scale her freelance copywriting business to over 100 writers and $1.7 million in revenue over the course of 18 months. 

Dropshipping businesses typically create a business website for potential clients to view their service offerings and pricing. Technically, you don’t need to show your face anywhere on the website, but it can help if you want to initiate more sales. However, you can get around this by showcasing your team on the website and hiring a sales or customer service personnel to support your business with face-to-face customer communication when necessary.

11. Virtual assistant

Virtual assistants help clients with a range of online tasks, such as scheduling, copywriting, social media management, and graphic design. For example, a client can contract you as a virtual assistant to provide support on a Pinterest social media marketing strategy. In exchange for their digital skills and adaptability, virtual assistants in the United States make around $34/hour on average, according to ZipRecruiter. Considering that virtual assistants work in a remote setting, there is no explicit requirement to show your face. 

12. Freelance jobs on Fiverr

Fiverr is an online marketplace that connects freelancers looking for work with businesses looking to hire. Depending on your skills, you can make anywhere from $5 up to $1,000+ per project on the platform. There are many freelancers that command full-time incomes just by taking freelancing gigs through Fiverr. Unless the type of work you do requires interaction with clients face-to-face, you really don’t need to show your face in order to get work through Fiverr. Although the platform does require a profile picture, you can upload your business logo or something else that represents your service instead of a personal profile picture. 

13. Find a work from home job

There are many platforms where companies post remote jobs, like LinkedIn, Indeed, or ZipRecruiter. To apply for these jobs, you typically just need a resume and sometimes some professional references to validate your experience and skills. While some of these jobs may require that you at least attend a virtual interview or phone call to land the role, many won’t require you to show your face beyond the initial hiring phase if the role enables mostly autonomous work and occasional communication through messaging apps like Slack. Some jobs like this include Search Engine Evaluator, Web Developer, and Copywriter. 

14. Develop a mobile app

For developers or those with some capital to invest into a project, a mobile app can be a lucrative way to make money online without showing your face. Mobile apps can take many forms, including games, social media, and dating platforms. Mobile apps can generate revenue through:
  • Paid downloads
  • Advertising revenue
  • Subscriptions
  • In-app purchases

An example of a highly profitable mobile app is the dating app Bumble. Bumble has around 3 million paying users and generates upwards of $694 million in annual revenue, according to Orangesoft. 

15. Online surveys

Although you won't make very much money, taking online surveys is an easy way to make some money online without needing to show your face. Some of the best websites to earn money through online surveys include:

  • Swagbucks
  • LifePoints
  • InboxDollars
  • Survey Junkie
  • Opinion Outpost

According to NerdWallet, you can expect to make anywhere from $0.50 to $2/hour by completing online surveys. 

Can being faceless on the internet limit your income potential?

Being faceless on the internet can limit your income potential. Although this isn’t true for all online income opportunities, the opportunities that require a high degree of trust are likely to be less profitable without a face to back up the claims. These types of opportunities can include selling high ticket products, taking on clients through an agency model, doing freelance project work, or working a full time job in a remote setting. For example, if you want to find remote work, LinkedIn is one of the go-to websites for landing a remote job. However, according to LinkedIn itself, LinkedIn profiles with a clear photo of the job candidate get 21 times more profile views and 9 times more connections than those without. In the highly competitive world of remote work, that can be the difference between becoming gainfully employed online and remaining jobless. 

Even so, there is still plenty of income potential for those who wish to remain anonymous on the internet. You just need to choose the right opportunities where showing your face isn’t a major contributing factor in the amount of income you can earn.

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Conclusion: Which faceless online income opportunity is best?

As you can see, there are many ways to make money online without showing your face. You can create content, sell products, or just find employment opportunities to make money on the internet. You can do the work yourself if you have some high value skills to sell, or hire others to do the work for you if you have some capital to use and a few key processes in place to ensure the work is performed correctly. When working in a remote setting where you don’t need to show your face, it’s really up to you what work you do and how you perform the work to get paid. 

Although there are many great opportunities to make money online without showing your face, local lead generation has been the best in my experience and here’s why. A local lead generation website can be set up in a matter of months and start generating upwards of $3K in passive income each month. Because these websites require minimal overhead costs to maintain, your profit margins can reach upwards of 90%, or even higher! Furthermore, the business is highly scalable because you can continue setting up and operating as many local lead generation websites as you want and outsource the work to a team to create a passive income stream of 5 figures each month. In fact, that’s what I’ve done myself, generating around $52K/month in passive income from my local lead generation business. If you’re interested in learning what it takes to make thousands of dollars in passive income each month without even showing your face online, this local lead gen training program can set you on the right track towards financial independence with online anonymity.

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