You make money with Claude by doing paid work faster, or by selling what you know about Claude to people who haven't set it up yet. The quickest routes for a beginner are one-to-one setup sessions and workshops. Building an app or a digital product comes later, because the hard part is finding buyers, not building.
I run a paid AI membership, so I have an obvious interest here. That's why this post makes no income promises and says what doesn't work. Every result below belongs to one person and isn't typical.
What's the fastest way to earn with Claude?
Teach it. In my ranked list of ways to make money with AI, 1:1 AI setup sessions and workshops are both S tier, because you need no audience and no website to start. You need to know a little more than the person sitting next to you.
A setup session is an hour on the client's own laptop. You go through their privacy settings, connect the apps they already use (Gmail, Google Drive, calendar) and build their first skills. Claude does the work in each of those steps. You're the person who knows which buttons matter.
For pricing, I suggest a couple of hundred dollars to begin with, then raising it as clients and testimonials come in. My own 90-minute consulting call is now A$3,000 plus GST. You don't start there.
If you're wondering how I got into this without a tech background, I wrote that up in how to become an AI consultant with no tech background.
Can you make money doing client work faster with Claude?
Yes, if you already sell a service. This is B tier in my list: quick when you have the skills and the clients, slow from scratch.
Two Claude features do the work. A Project holds one client's files and instructions, so every chat starts with the background loaded. I keep one for each consulting client. A Skill teaches Claude one repeat task so it's done the same way every time. My explainer on Projects vs Skills has the setup.
One example from my consulting call post: a client whose proposals took half a day each got a proposal-writer skill built from her offers, pricing and brand kit. It turns half a day into half an hour, and she reviews the draft. That's the example client in my walkthrough, not a promise about your business.
Liv Labi, a Melbourne brand studio owner and Wright Mode member, runs her session transcripts through Claude Code (with each client's permission). It builds a client page with the summary and next steps, and she reviews it before the client sees it. In her words: "the work that I'm delivering is the same, but the value of it is more."
Can you make money with Claude Code if you can't code?
You can build useful things. Whether they earn is a separate question.
I built a personalised member onboarding system with Claude Code in about 30 minutes with zero coding experience, and I've written the steps up in Claude Code for non-technical users. That saved me work. It didn't make me a product.
Liv built Track Your Perfume, a free app with around 100 users by her own count. She has no plan to charge for it. It promotes her paid perfume event inside the app, and the first event sold out in three days. Her story is in Liv's first vibe-coded app.
Sally Prendergast, a dance teacher of 35 years, has two apps live for studio owners with sales pages, logins and payments. She used Claude to pressure-test the idea and Lovable to build it, and her rules were to solve your own problem first, pick one specific problem, and build only what your audience asks for. Read how a dance teacher built an AI app without coding.
Can you sell digital products you build with Claude?
Amanda Jefferson did. She built an interactive day planner in Claude Cowork, launched it to her email list and reported US$1,700 in 18 hours, then estimated about US$10,000 in the first week. Those are her reported figures, and the interview doesn't give her profit.
She also had about 4,000 people on her email list and almost 175,000 Instagram followers, plus years of knowing her customers. Selling software meant support too: access issues, updates and feature requests. Her line was "With the planner, I'm not really done." Her full story is here.
Do you need Claude Pro or Max to make money with it?
You need a paid plan for most of this. Prices are in US dollars, and pricing and inclusions are from claude.com/pricing and Anthropic's support pages, checked 09/11/2026:
- Free: Skills and Projects (up to five), but no Claude Code. Cowork is paid plans only.
- Pro: $20 a month, or $17 a month billed as $200 up front. Includes Claude Code, Skills and Projects. Cowork is on Pro too.
- Max: from $100 a month. Everything in Pro, plus more usage.
- Team: Standard seats list at $25 a month ($20 billed annually), with Claude Code and Cowork.
Skills are listed on every plan. Start on Pro. Whether you need Max depends on how much you use it, so check the usage limits on the pricing page before upgrading.
What doesn't work?
- Building an app with no audience. In my list, building your own app is F tier for beginners. Building is fast. Finding people who'll pay is slow.
- Starting an automation agency. I put it in C tier. Clients can't say what to automate, their systems are messy, automations break at night, and building gets cheaper every month.
- Copying someone's screenshot. Amanda's result came with an audience and years of customer knowledge. A screenshot of the number leaves that out.
- Waiting until you feel ready. Claude doesn't find your customers. You message people.
Try this in 15 minutes
Write down five business owners you already know. Send each one a version of the message from my ranked list:
I'm doing 5 AI setup sessions this month. 1 hour on your laptop and you'll walk away feeling less overwhelmed by AI, have it actually working on tasks in your business. Do you want one?
Count the replies. That tells you more about demand than any course will.
Quick answers
Is making money with Claude passive income?
Mostly no. Services take your time, and even Amanda's finished planner needs ongoing support. Treat any product as a small business with customers who write to you.
Do I need business experience first?
It helps. I rank consulting A tier because advice needs some experience behind it. If you've spent years in one industry, that's your niche, and the AI part is the smaller half.
Is it worth teaching Claude to other people?
It can be. I cover the realistic routes and the unpaid hours in can you make money teaching AI.
Get a second pair of eyes on your first offer
If you want to try one of these routes with people doing the same, Wright Mode has a monthly live Build with Brooke, fortnightly Co-Work and Q&A, and a private community. Bring your draft offer and someone will tell you whether it's clear enough to pitch.
