I have a confession: I already had a Benable account.
And like several things I’ve tried over the years, I pretty much forgot about it.
The funny part? It had already made me money.
Not quit-my-job money. Not even close. But when I logged back in recently, I had $60.58 sitting there from commissions and bonuses. Old recommendation lists were still getting views. People had liked and commented on lists I barely remembered making.
So naturally, my analyst brain kicked in.
Maybe Benable wasn’t another failed side-hustle experiment.
Maybe I just never figured out what role it was supposed to play.
Now I think I have.
I’m rebuilding my Benable as a central hub for the things I actually use, love, recommend and create as I build The After-Hours Dreamer.
So… What Exactly Is Benable?
If you’ve never heard of Benable, think of it as a place to create curated lists of things you genuinely recommend.
You can build lists around pretty much anything: products you use, books you love, places you’ve visited, beauty favorites, work-from-home essentials, clothes, hobbies, travel, recipes, and even things you’ve created yourself.
Where it gets interesting for someone trying to build an income online is that many of those recommendations can also earn affiliate commissions.
Instead of dropping random affiliate links all over the internet and hoping somebody clicks them, you can organize your recommendations into useful lists that people can actually browse.
And apparently, those lists can keep working even when you forget they exist.
Ask me how I know. 😂
I Had Already Made Money… and Still Forgot About It
Here’s the part that makes this whole thing even funnier.
So instead of immediately creating another new account, platform, strategy, side hustle, or shiny object to chase, I decided to do something I’m learning to get much better at:
Look at what I already have.
I started cleaning up my old lists, rewriting descriptions, organizing recommendations into sections, updating links, and getting rid of things that no longer made sense.
And that’s when Benable started getting interesting again.
Then Benable Emailed Me This 👀
A funny thing happened while I was in the middle of cleaning everything up.
Benable emailed me to say my Work From Home Favorites I Actually Use & Love list was now eligible to trend because their algorithm considered it a high-quality list.
I had spent all this time thinking of Benable as one of those old side-hustle experiments I’d abandoned, and meanwhile one of my lists was basically waking back up.
Is this proof that I’m about to make a fortune on Benable? Absolutely not. 😂
But it is a signal.
People were still finding my lists. Benable was recognizing one of them as useful. And instead of ignoring that data, I decided to pay attention to it.
I Finally Figured Out What Benable Is For Me
This time, I don’t want Benable to become another separate project I have to maintain.
I already have enough of those. 😂
Instead, I realized Benable could become a central hub for the different pieces of The After-Hours Dreamer.
I can have lists for the things I genuinely use and recommend, like my work-from-home favorites, beauty products, clothes, books, coffee finds and all the random things I already talk about in real life.
But I can also use it to organize the things I’m creating.
My Etsy digital products can live there. My books can live there. Eventually, After-Hours Dreamer merchandise can live there too. And as I keep building, I can create collections around the different worlds and interests that are becoming part of this brand.
Instead of asking people to hunt through Etsy, Amazon, old blog posts and social media to find everything, Benable can become one place where I curate it all.
And that changed how I looked at the platform.
I don’t need another side hustle. I need the things I’m already building to work together.
What I’m Doing Differently This Time
The first time I used Benable, I treated it a little like a digital junk drawer.
Make a list. Add some stuff. Move on.
This time, I’m being much more intentional.
I’m going back through old lists and asking whether I would actually recommend what’s on them today. I’m rewriting vague titles and descriptions so people immediately understand what a list is for. I’m adding sections so recommendations are easier to browse, and I’m adding notes that explain why something made the list instead of just throwing a link at someone.
I’m also paying attention to what people are actually doing.
Which lists are getting views? Which ones get likes? What are people clicking on? Which topics seem to keep bringing people back?
That part is especially interesting to me because I spend my day job looking at data and patterns anyway. Apparently I cannot escape spreadsheets and analytics even when I’m building my dream after hours. 😂
But there’s another difference this time too:
I’m not filling lists just for the sake of having more lists.
If I wouldn’t recommend it to a friend, use it myself, buy it myself, or genuinely think it belongs there, I don’t need to add it just to make the list longer.
I’d rather have ten recommendations I can actually talk about than fifty random affiliate links I found on the internet.
And based on that email from Benable, it looks like creating genuinely useful lists might be exactly what the platform wants anyway.
So, Can You Actually Make Money With Benable?
In my experience, yes.
I already have.
But I want to be really clear about what I mean by that, because the internet has enough people promising you’ll make thousands of dollars in your sleep if you just click their link. 😂
When I came back to my account, I had $60.58 in payout-eligible earnings from commissions and bonuses I’d earned through Benable.
That is real money I earned, but there’s an important detail: Benable currently requires me to reach the minimum payout amount before I can cash it out. For my account, that threshold is $80, so the $60.58 isn’t sitting in my bank account yet.
And no, $60.58 isn’t life-changing money.
What interests me is that I earned anything at all from an account I wasn’t consistently working on.
To me, that makes it worth asking a better question:
What happens if I actually use it intentionally this time?
I don’t know the answer yet.
And honestly, that’s part of why I’m writing this.
The After-Hours Dreamer isn’t supposed to be a highlight reel where I only tell you about something after I’ve figured it all out. I want to document what I’m trying while I’m still in the messy middle of figuring out what works.
So consider this the beginning of my Benable experiment, not a victory lap.
If You Want to Try Benable Too
If Benable sounds like something you’d like to experiment with, you can check it out using my invite link below.
Disclosure: This is my Benable referral link. I may receive a bonus or other benefit if you join or use Benable through my link, at no additional cost to you. As always, I only share things I genuinely think are worth exploring.
You absolutely do not need to already be an influencer or have thousands of followers to start making useful recommendation lists. Start with what you actually know.
What do people ask you about?
What have you bought that you’d buy again?
What products make your workday easier?
What books do you keep recommending?
What places do you tell everyone to visit?
That’s probably a much better place to start than searching for random products with the highest commission.
Sometimes You Don’t Need Another New Thing
I think that might be my biggest takeaway from all of this.
I’m very good at getting excited about possibilities.
New platforms. New ideas. New projects. New ways to make money online.
But building The After-Hours Dreamer has been teaching me to look backward sometimes too.
There are things I tried years ago that weren’t necessarily bad ideas. Maybe I didn’t have the experience yet. Maybe I didn’t understand how they fit together. Maybe I moved on before I gave them enough attention.
Benable might turn into a meaningful income stream for me.
It might not.
I genuinely don’t know yet.
But now it has a purpose.
It can connect the things I recommend, the things I create, and the different pieces of this weird little business I’m building after work.
And for now, that’s enough reason for me to keep experimenting.
The path wasn’t straight. The dream was. 🌙
I’ll keep you posted on what happens.