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5 Popular Methods That Pay You for Your Ideas and Inventions

5 Popular Methods That Pay You for Your Ideas and Inventions

Updated on Apr 2, 2025

5 min
Our Editorial Process
Charlee AnthonyAnthony Clement
Written and Reviewed by
Charlee,
Anthony

Key Takeaways

  • You can earn up to $150k or more if your idea goes viral, such as an invention or an NFT

  • Applying for easy-to-reach websites usually only guarantees low pay

  • To earn thousands, you will need to legally pitch a million-dollar idea that you patent.

You can actually earn money by pitching ideas to trustworthy platforms. Either pitch the idea or create your own unique start-up and run your idea yourself. Its not easy, and it takes time to create a believable pitch that sells your idea. But if you follow any of these methods, you are well on your way to pitching a million-dollar idea.

Share Ideas as an NFT Artist ($0-$150k per NFT)

NFTs are a great way to share your artistic talent and get paid for your ideas and creativity. NFTs are all about artists sharing their work and easily creating a shareable license that can earn you up to 5% of royalties per NFT purchase. Usually, NFTs come in a collection of more or less 800 unique art pieces. Being limited makes them more valuable. 

To get started, you just need to come up with an idea of a collection theme, draw, and finally mint. Minting is the Web3 term for publishing your artwork as an official non-fungible token (NFT). 

Before minting your very first collection, you must first get an idea of what you may like to create. It can be an object, a person, or even a place. To begin creating, you can use simple digital e-pads and connect to platforms like Procreate, Photoshop, or Krita. 

Once it's finalized, your next steps are vital to ensure a smooth and fast monetization:

  1. 1 Create an NFT Creator Profile. The most successful platforms would be OpenSea or SuperRare. 
  2. 2 Upload on an NFT marketplace platform. The fastest is clicking “Create” on the OpenSea Homepage. 
    How to Create an NFT collection on Opensea
  3. 3 Set a Drop Date and Publicize the Date. Set a day for the collection to be released, and advertise the drop on Twitter or any social media. The more public, the more successful. 

Each collection can earn you from literally pennies to hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you can spread the word and get the NFT collection into the minds of large investors, the possibilities here are endless. 

Create Digital Products from Ideas ($10-$150 per sale)

Creating a digital product sounds intimidating, but it's really rather simple and can be a great earning opportunity. The motivation here will be your idea coming to life and sharing it with others licensed only under your name. 

Digital products can be anything you think of that is beneficial or advantageous for others. For example, you could create a free e-book through Adobe. E-books can be about coaching someone on a new skill, giving free resources, or even writing fictional stories for pure enjoyment.

Rebecca Yarros with her successful ebook Fourth Wing

A few other digital products you could explore that are a bit more complicated to start with are music, videos, video games, and even apps. However, if you don't want to get too complicated, you can use platforms like Shopify and create a product based on their resources. They offer fabrication services, a website, and tools that are required for you as a creator to simply provide an idea and bring it to life. 

Pitch Your Ideas to Retail Brands ($5-$2k per royalty)

Retail brands are always seeking new ideas and literally pay you to provide the ideas for them. There are tons of famous brands that seek client creativity and make sure you earn your end of the bargain. Just keep in mind that usually, they just offer you a set amount per idea, from $5 to $2,000, or a small commission of 1% or even less from the revenue of your said idea. 

But who is to say it's not worth at least trying? Writing a good pitch does not usually take long, maybe a couple of hours. After sending it in, it's just a matter of hearing back and waiting for a positive response.  Pitching ideas are fun and I as a creative whos always thinking of new ideas, encourage you to try it out. Even if it doesn’t give huge results, it’s nice and refreshing to know your idea is heard and has been made known. 

I found a couple of companies that openly accept your ideas, just simply submit your email or pitch, and they usually do the rest. 

  • Wilson: Accept ideas from clients to better improve their services or products. Simply fill out your email in this Wilson Idea Submission Page. 
  • Under Armour: Similar to Wilson, Under Armour also has an easy-access Innovation Idea Page for clients to propose ideas. You can even stay updated on your ideas submission process, which I found really cool. 

If you find this all way too complicated or maybe its just too time consuming, I would suggest maybe trying out ways to provide your opinions like through surveys or testing mobile apps. Freecash offers over N/A offers that you can easily complete. The best part, you can sign up and get five bucks just by creating an account. 

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Come Up with Ideas About Apps ($0.01-$5 per download)

Providing app ideas and collaborating with businesses is a great way to get paid for your ideas. Many app idea platforms offer an easy-access framework and support system for entrepreneurs to develop and monetize their app ideas. These platforms connect you with a team of experienced professionals who handle the app's development, marketing, and monetization aspects.

This process, however, is like creating your very own start-up while underpaying a small agency to do everything for you. While your idea is being used, this is more than a simple part-time gig. This is quite literally bringing your app idea to life. If you succeed, you could earn from a few cents to $5 per app download.

You can quickly get started from an app idea-selling platform known as Flippa. Flippa is a wildly popular app-selling tool where you can sell your ideas and apps easily. Just go to their sell app and brand page, where you can get more instructions.

Share Your Inventions ($5-$35 per sale)

Many companies need you to share inventions to help them bring intelligent ideas to life. Sometimes, a company has a team but no direct objective. Or maybe they need someone who can help brainstorm with an idea they already have, and they think you have what it takes to help them invent it.

Negotiations for how much you get paid per invention really depends on if they decide to use your invention or not. If they do use it, you can earn up to $35 or more per sale, also depending on the product in question. 

Companies may need some convincing to share your inventions, especially if you do not know where to start. However if you have an invention and just want to find somewhere to publish it, I found a couple of quick ways to do it. 

  • Henkel: A bit more on the business side, but Henkel takes on serious inquiries through their Henkel Ideas application.
  • IdeaBuyer: With IdeaBuyer, you can contact them directly and provide your app ideas with their idea submission form. 
  • Stanley Black and Decker: A huge company that is always open to new tool inventions or ideas. Simply email them and follow their instructions on this innovations submission sheet for Stanley. 
  • John Deere: One of the most popular tractor companies out there is looking for ideas from you. Simply provide details of your invention in the John Deere idea submission form, including patent information. 

Sharing Inventions are not easy, so an insight you could use to boost the quality of your invention application to companies would be how to patent your idea to avoid possible idea theft. 

How Much Can You Really Earn Giving Ideas?

Freecash compared to earning money from your ideas.

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