Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell
I'm currently at $0/month from my side projects, and I'm hoping side projects still have a future. I've seen previous threads like this from 2020 to 2024, but the recent one didn't get traction. I'm curious to hear from those who are making $500/month or more in 2026 – what are you doing these days?
- chasd00
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 $2.5k/month.
So my side hustle is studying and taking tests. Over the last 5 years or so of taking tests + investing I’ve built a nice chunk of change set aside to help pay for college for my two boys (age 14 and 16).
- unified101
The world is changed - given the low cost of reverse engineering and implementation, it would be product suicide to openly call out a money making product.
I don't expect too many actual >500$ moneymaking projects to be listed. Would love to be proven wrong.
- agotterer
A friend and I host a monthly dinner club for people interested in exploring ethnic cuisine on Long Island. We work with one restaurant each month to create an 8-12+ course all inclusive price fixe menu. The food is usually served family style (the ambitious ones individually plate everything) and is authentic to the region we are hosting. We typically host the dinners on a Tues and Wed when the restaurants in our region aren’t too busy and could use business.
We started this in 2023 with 13 of our friends as guests. Since then the group has grown to over 1,200 members and well beyond our circle of friends. August was our 52 second restaurant. In 2025 we served 1,099 guests and generated $126k in revenue.
- epaga
Two weeks ago, I released the tactical map-based WW2 submarine sim Silent Shark (which I got feedback on from HN for beta test a few months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48180924 ) and it's gone extremely well for a side project - I've had over 100 Steam reviews, 99% of them are positive, and I have sold a few thousand copies so far.
I began working on this game just 6 months ago and have only worked on it in my spare time in evenings and on weekends, instead of playing computer games. I made the early decision to use Codex for 100% of the coding, that has been a phenomenal experience.
The only Image Gen AI I've used has been to clean up 2 old and weathered historical maps I found, to make them readable.
Still have over 25,000 Steam wishlists and growing. I'm super thankful and having a blast.
- bwb
I'm building Book DNA to help people get book recommendations from humans (mostly authors and experts so far in our early days).
We started with the website, and now we are building a full app: a private, personal way to track your reading and get personalized recommendations based on your tastes.
-> https://building.bookdna.com/
We are aiming for a soft launch in a few months :)
If you want to be an early user and give us feedback, sign up here, and I'll get you going with the early version. We are adding imports from Goodreads now, and user folders to organize books how your brain works.
-> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOdeqpZCS95FMRy_tE...