Selling digital products online is hard.

Especially if you don’t have an audience.

But once you know how to do it can become a ridiculously

effective passive income generating machine.

I’ve managed to slowly build up a YouTube audience and the digital

products I sell help me earn money even while I’m asleep.

In this article, I want to go over and showcase the best platforms to list
and sell digital products.

I’ve tried and tested most of them out there and I’ve found these to be
the best.

Let’s go.

What is the best platform to sell digital

products?
There are so many different e-commerce platforms that let you sell
digital products online.

But through my testing I’ve found four that work for very different
types of people. Two of them are completely free to start out and two
are paid but have ridiculously powerful features and integrations.

So here are my pics for the best platforms to sell digital

products:

Payhip – best for beginners.

Shopify – best for selling digital and physical products at the same time
through one single platform.

Sellfy – best for subscriptions alongside downloadable digital products.

Podia – best overall (allows for creating and selling online courses,
email marketing and creating a community alongside selling digital
products).
1. Payhip
There are 3 pricing options:

 Free – sell unlimited amounts of digital products for a 5%

transaction fee on every sale (this plan is perfect for anyone
starting out).
 $29 per month – sell unlimited amounts of digital products
for a 2.5% transaction fee on every sale.
 $99 per month – sell unlimited amounts of digital products
with a 0% transaction fee.
You can view all the pricing options here.

I use Payhip myself to sell my YouTube video course and other digital
products like wallpapers.

Before switching to Payhip I used to use Gumroad. It’s a great platform

that lets you sell almost unlimited types of digital products but the
problem with it was the high fees.

At first, Gumroad used to charge 5% on every sale but once they

increased it to 10% I knew I had to make the switch. Keep in mind that
this 10% fee doesn’t account for VAT tax, and PayPal or Stripe
processing fees.

And Payhip is essentially a reskin on Gumroad. It offers very similar

features and has a fee of 5% on each sale.

But still, if you have a large audience and sell big quantities of digital
products this fee could add up to a huge amount of money. That’s why
Payhip also offers a subscription that lets you get rid of the fee entirely
for $99 per month.

At first, it probably won’t make sense to pay a subscription to get rid of

the 5% fee but this is a great option to save money if you’ll start selling
more digital products for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per
month.

You can also connect your domain name to your Payhip store (like I’ve
done with my store.thaomaoh.com domain) which will make your
website look a lot more professional.

You can get a cheap domain with Namecheap and if you’re interested
in hosting your website I would recommend going
with Hostinger (that’s what I use to host this website too).

So what can you sell on Payhip?

 Courses (what I’ve done was upload my YouTube course

lesson on YouTube as unlisted videos and then embed them
into Payhip. That way you won’t have to pay extra for them
to host your course video lessons).
 Anything that can be downloaded: music, ebooks, PDFs,
presets, patterns, wallpapers, printables, design assets &
more (below I’ve listed a bunch of digital product ideas
too).
2. Shopify

I think Shopify is the best place to sell any kind of products

online, not just digital.
The only downside of it that I can think of is that it’s not free.

That’s no big deal if you already have an audience or an online

business where you make money with digital products but if you’re a
beginner then that cost may be annoying to swallow.

Shopify starts at $24/month but you can get a free trial to test if it’s
the right software for you.

Shopify is an e-commerce platform and it has an “app store” where

you can download and install various apps that add integrations onto
the base layer of the software.

So you could add an app that helps you sell digital products, do print-
on-demand, do drop shipping, and many other things.

You can read my full Shopify review here.

Once you create your Shopify store you’ll be able to connect a domain
name to it (I recommend Namecheap for getting a cheap domain) and
customize your store however you want.

There are a variety of free and paid themes that you can choose from
to make your store look incredibly professional.
3. Sellfy
Unlike Shopify, Sellfy focuses a lot more on digital products.

This is the second platform out of all of these that are not free to start
out with. But there is a 14-day free trial (no credit card required) that
you can use to test out if Sellfy is right for you.

In addition to letting you list any type of digital product Sellfy also sets
up a beautiful-looking website where all your products are listed,
automatically allows customers to enter their email and subscribe to
upcoming updates from you, lets you create discount coupons and
sales as well as upsell your customers.

It’s the best all-in-one platform for selling digital products.

Sellfy also integrates with many services like Patreon, Google

Analytics, and Zapier which enables some cool automation that can
save you a lot of time long-term.

If you’re a beginner you can choose to ignore all the advanced stuff
that’s neatly tucked away, like email marketing, but if you want you
can do a lot of fun and powerful stuff with Sellfy.

So what can you sell through Sellfy?

There are 5 main categories:

 Digital products
 Print-on-demand
 Subscription
 Physical product
 And freebie
4. Podia
Podia aims to be the all-in-one platform when it comes to selling and
marketing digital products to your audience.

They have everything that you could possibly need integrated into one
platform – email marketing, the ability to create a course, create a
professional-looking website, sell digital downloads, and build a
community.

You can also try Podia for free which will allow you to list one digital
product for sale as well as draft courses, and create your website.
However, the free plan has an 8% fee on every sale you make.

Without the free plan, there are two paid options:

Mover ($33/month) and Shaker ($75/month).

The Mover plan allows you to upload and sell unlimited amounts of
digital products, coaching products, and courses. This plan also
removes the 8% fee on every sale allowing you to sell digital products
with completely 0% platform fees (this can be a huge deal if you’re
selling large quantities or expensive digital products).

The Shaker plan adds everything that the Mover plan does in
addition to the ability to add third-party code to your website as well as
set up an affiliate program for your digital products and courses.
I think the Mover plan is more than enough for 90% of people.

Once your customer base grows larger, setting up an affiliate

program that allows them to share your products and get a
commission on every sale is something that you could think of. But
in the beginning, it wouldn’t make sense to do so.

That’s why most of the utility of the Shaker plan wouldn’t be useful
if you’re a beginner at selling digital products.

How To Sell Digital Products to make money?

What is the best digital content to sell?
I sell my YouTube video course among other things like a free Google
Sheets finance tracker or a desktop wallpaper pack but there are so
many other things that you could sell as digital products.

The key thing to keep in mind when thinking of which digital product to
sell is whether it solves your customer’s problem.
Don’t create a product that no one wants. Look at your audience’s
main pain points and design a product around them. Don’t look for
digital product ideas, look for problems that can be solved with them.

And if you don’t have an audience then building one is the next best
thing that you can do.

With all that said, here are some digital product ideas:

 Ebooks: Create and sell digital books, and quick PDF guides
on various topics.
 Online Courses: Teach someone you wish you knew how
to do 5 years ago (that’s what I do with my courses).
 AirBnb Welcome Book Templates: Design welcome
books for AirBnb hosts.
 Printable Planners: Design downloadable planners for
productivity and organization.
 Stock Photos: List high-quality stock photos on websites
like Shutterstock.
 Icons and Graphics: Design custom icons, graphics, and
vector images.
 Fonts: Create unique fonts for designers and typographers.
 Website Themes: Develop WordPress
Elementor and Framer themes and templates.
 Mobile App Templates: Design templates for mobile app
development.
 Digital Art: Sell digital paintings, illustrations, and
drawings.
 Photography Presets: Offer presets for photo editing
software.
 Editing Presets: Create Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or
Final Cut Pro presets for video editors.
 3D Models: Create and sell (or license) 3D models for
games or 3D printing.
 Sound Effects: Produce sound effects (or a sound effects
pack) for use in YouTube videos and games.
 Music Tracks: Compose and sell royalty-free music tracks.
 Video Templates: Craft templates for video intros, outros,
and transitions.
 eCommerce Templates: Create templates for online
stores (Such as Shopify or Webflow themes).
 Infographics: Design informative and visually appealing
infographics.
 Social Media Templates: Offer templates for social media
posts.
 Printable Art: Sell digital art for home decor such as
printable wallpapers, stickers, book marks, and wall art
prints (these digital products sell the best on Etsy).
 Webinars: Host webinars on various subjects and sell
access.
 Website Scripts: Develop scripts and plugins for websites.
 eBooks for Kids: Write and illustrate children’s ebooks
(could also be coloring books with vector images inside).
 Online Workshops: Teach specific skills through live
workshops.
 Templates for Resumes: Create resume and CV
templates (can be done with Canva).
 Language Learning Materials: Offer language courses
and resources.
 Travel Guides: Create digital travel guides for specific
destinations or your home city/country.
 Financial Spreadsheets: Design budget and financial
planning templates.
 Printable Games: Create printable puzzles, board games,
and quizzes.
 Fitness Programs: Develop digital workout and fitness
programs and sell them as downloadable PDFs.
 Recipe Books: Create digital cookbooks with recipes and
meal plans.
 Stock Videos: Sell video clips and footage for various uses
(can be done on sites like Shutterstock or Adobe Stock).
 Online Coaching: Offer personalized coaching sessions for
things you’re knowledgeable about.
 Self-Help Journals: Create digital journals for personal
development.
 Email Templates: Design email templates for marketing
campaigns.
 Printable Party Decorations: Offer digital party
decoration sets.
 Travel Itinerary Templates: Create downloadable travel
plans.
 eSports Guides: Offer guides for competitive gaming.
 T-shirt Designs: Create designs for custom apparel (could
be sold with print-on-demand on websites
like Redbubble or Shopify).
 Digital Marketing Templates: Provide templates for
online marketing materials.
 Resume Review Services: Offer resume and CV review
services.
 Printable Wedding Invitations: Design digital wedding
invitations.
 Coding Courses: Teach coding and programming
languages in an interactive way.
 Virtual Assistant Services: Provide digital administrative
support.