Finding a Profitable Niche

Selling AI Prompts
Course 1 · Chapter 4 · Finding a Profitable Niche

"I'm going to sell prompts" isn't a niche — it's a category with thousands of competitors. The sellers who actually make consistent money picked something specific enough that they could become genuinely good at it, and specific enough that a buyer searching for exactly that thing finds them instead of getting lost in a sea of generic listings.

Reading Demand Signals

Marketplace bestseller lists

What's already selling repeatedly, not just what's listed — a listing with many reviews is a real demand signal.

Gaps in existing listings

Search a specific use case and see how thin the results are — a popular general category with almost nothing narrow is a genuine opening.

Community requests

Recurring questions in AI-focused subreddits, Discord servers, and forums — "does anyone have a prompt that actually does X" is a direct signal.

Your own professional background

A niche tied to work you've actually done (real estate, HR, e-commerce, teaching) gives you a credibility edge no amount of research alone provides.

Broad vs. Right-Sized Niches

Too Broad (oversaturated)

“Fantasy portrait prompts,” “write me a blog post,” “LinkedIn post generator.” Enormous existing supply, near-zero differentiation, and pricing gets driven down by sheer competitor volume.

Right-Sized (findable, provable)

“Property listing description prompts for UK estate agents,” “LinkedIn thought-leadership prompts for B2B SaaS founders,” “children's-book-style illustration prompts for self-publishers.” Specific enough that a search for it actually surfaces you, and specific enough that you can demonstrate real expertise rather than generic competence.

You don't need the biggest niche — you need a provable one A smaller, specific niche where you can produce genuinely convincing worked examples (Chapter 3) will consistently outsell a huge, generic category where a buyer has no way to tell you apart from a thousand other listings. Depth beats breadth here.

A Simple Niche-Selection Checklist

  • Can I name the specific person who'd search for this (a job title, a hobby, an industry), not just "everyone"?
  • When I search this exact phrase on a marketplace, is the result count reasonable — not empty (no demand), not overwhelming (no differentiation)?
  • Can I actually produce a convincing worked example in this niche today, or would I be faking expertise?
  • Is there a real recurring task here, or a one-time novelty someone would only buy once ever?
Novelty niches burn out fast A prompt built around a viral trend or a one-off meme format can spike in sales briefly, then die completely once the trend passes. A niche tied to a genuine, ongoing task (a job function, a recurring content need) keeps selling long after the initial launch.
Coming up next Chapter 5 covers the actual workflow for writing and testing a prompt properly once you've picked a niche — the step Chapter 3's self-check assumes you've already done.