I personally didn’t think it was as hard as people make it out to be, especially since people totally like to over-exaggerate how difficult certain classes are, and I know this because I’ve had like six different classes touted to me as the “hardest class ever!!!”, but regardless - it’s a still a high school class, and it’s a class based on memorization and taking in facts (and it’s usually lecture-based).
No one’s going to ask you to make scholarly analyses, but they will ask you to remember people, places, pieces of legislation, movements, battles, etc. If you’re good at that kind of thing, you’ll do well (whether you like history, or whether you study, or not, honestly). If you’re not good at that, your level of success will probably depend on how interesting you find the material and how much time you put into it. In my opinion, the best part about APUSH is that (in my personal experience, at least) it’s the first time where a public school history course isn’t a total retread of everything you’ve already learned in past grades, so interest level usually isn’t a problem.
In conclusion: it’s totally subjective. Some people breeze through the class, and others struggle, depending on what kind of classroom environment you work best in. My only useful tips are to read the textbook and to organize key information by president, and also to remember that it’s still just a high school class.