Any business that generates predictable and reliable income month after month is considered a recurring revenue business.
These businesses are ideal for earning a steady income without much effort, helping you achieve financial independence.
1. Storage unit facilities
These facilities typically consist of storage units of various sizes that are rented on a monthly basis. The demand for storage units is determined by factors such as downsizing, relocation or the need for temporary or long-term storage for personal or business items.
Running a storage facility can be relatively simple, especially if you implement automated systems for payments and security. As with everything related to real estate, location is all that matters. To attract and retain customers, you need the right location with high demand.
2. Rental properties
Investing in rental properties involves purchasing residential or commercial real estate to rent to tenants. This can vary from single-family homes and apartments to office spaces or retail locations.
Even renting out mobile homes can be profitable. Successful property management requires finding the right balance between maintaining the property and managing tenant relationships.
While it can provide a steady income, it also requires attention to property maintenance, tenant screening, and adhering to the laws between landlords and tenants.
Some investors choose to hire property management companies to handle the day-to-day operations, making it a more passive investment.
3. Gyms or fitness centers
Opening a gym or fitness center responds to the growing public interest in health and wellness. This business model revolves around membership fees, creating a regular revenue stream.
A successful gym will offer a range of equipment, classes and possibly additional services such as personal training or wellness programs.
Although it requires a significant initial investment in equipment and space, operational aspects such as member management and scheduling can often be automated.
4. Art lessons
If you have a business that sells portraits, you can offer an exclusive membership program to help people explore their artistic side. In addition to the art lessons, you can also provide monthly art supplies, such as brushes or colors.
5. Campsites or RV parks
Running a campground or RV park means setting up a place where people can come camp or park their RV. These places are especially popular among people who enjoy being outdoors.
To attract campers, you need good places to camp or park RVs, and facilities like bathrooms and perhaps a play area. Location is everything: being close to nature trails or scenic spots can help you attract more visitors.
The business can be quite busy during camping season, but you can hire staff to help you with daily tasks.
6. RV and boat storage
This works well in areas where many people own RVs and boats but don’t have room to store them at home. Y
You’ll need a space large enough to store these large vehicles, and things like gates and cameras will help keep everything safe. This business doesn’t require much day-to-day attention, especially if you set up an easy way for customers to pay and book spaces online.
7. Rental of vineyards or orchards
Renting out land for vineyards or orchards is all about letting farmers or winemakers use your land to grow grapes or other crops.
It is a good option if you own land in an area where grapes grow well, for example. If you don’t have land but have money to invest, you should check out these cheapest states to buy farmland.
You make money by charging rent to the people who use your land. This doesn’t require much work on your part, but you will need to know something about farming to ensure that your land remains good for growing crops.
8. Online guidance
As an online teacher, you can offer an exclusive membership program that provides additional benefits for your lectures. These benefits may include customized assistance, assistance in solving subject-related problems or assistance with various assignments and tasks.
9. Personal coaching
Personal coaching can be a great program for anyone who wants to improve their mindset, achieve their life goals, and eliminate bad habits from their life.
By offering your coaching services through a membership program, you can build long-term coaching relationships with your client, making it a profitable business.
10. Retainers
In a commission-based business model, customers agree to pay a fixed monthly fee for ongoing services. This structure is particularly popular in consultancy sectors such as law firms, where clients retain custody of the firm for ongoing legal advice and support.
The customer commits to a monthly payment for continued access to the necessary services, and the company benefits from a steady income as long as the retention agreement remains active.
Digital marketing agencies are another example of this model. If an agency manages social media marketing for ten companies, each of these companies will pay a fixed monthly fee for their services.
This arrangement allows the agency to enjoy a predictable and reliable revenue stream as they provide ongoing marketing support to their clients.
11. SaaS
SaaS companies are the ideal example of recurring revenue business ideas. A SaaS company often develops software that wants to make things easier for the customer. Nevertheless, the services offered by this software work on a monthly fee model.
A few examples of successful SaaS models are:
- Fast Books
- Evernote
- Dropbox
- Zoom
12. Online courses
Your online courses don’t have to be a one-time sale. Instead, you can keep adding new things and selling access to your course every month!
This way you can make more money and teach in a better way, paying more attention to each student. Also, by teaching things a little at a time, your students can learn at their own pace and are likely to keep coming back to learn more.
13. ATM Ownership
If you place them in places where many people go, such as shopping centers or busy streets, you can earn regularly without too much hassle.
You can also consider ATM franchises for a more hands-off approach. With a franchise you work with a company that knows everything about ATMs.
They usually do the big jobs, like setting up the ATM, keeping it running, and sometimes even finding the best places to put them. In return, you share a portion of the revenue with them or pay a franchise fee. This can be an easier way to make money since the franchise company takes care of the day-to-day things.
14. Subscription boxes
There are tons of great business ideas for subscription boxes. People pay for a box full of items every month, such as makeup, snacks, books, pet supplies or sports equipment. The trick is to find something that people love and want to get on a regular basis.
You can create boxes based on certain themes, things that are in season, or even based on what customers like. The goal is to build a group of regular customers who look forward to their box every month.
You can often get the items for your boxes cheaper by working with suppliers and making more money.
15. Royalties from intellectual property
Making money from royalties on intellectual property (IP) is another way to generate income, especially if you’ve created something unique that others want to use. This could be anything from a piece of music, a book, an invention or even a video.
For example, our founder, Peter Koch, collects royalties from videos. He makes money every time someone uses that video, whether it’s played on TV, used in an ad, or shown in some other way. This way, he gets paid repeatedly for work he once did, as long as people continue to use his video.
This can be replicated with any other creative work, such as a song, a book, or something more technical, such as a patented invention. Once you have this type of property, you can license it and collect royalties, providing you with an income stream that can last for years.