Selling digital products is a great way for artists to generate passive income. In this post, we are going to sort out where to sell digital downloads. I’ll show you the best digital file selling platforms. Some of them allow you to build your own online store, others integrate into your existing website. They come with different pricing models and there’s even an option to sell your digital products for free!
Selling digital downloads is a very convenient way for artists to showcase their art and make a passive income at the same time. Because, unlike physical products, you don’t have to take care of packaging and shipping. Plus, you only need to create a digital product once and then you can sell it as many times as you wish!
Eventually, that means less work and more money… work smarter not harder! That’s why selling digital products is also a good idea if you want to start your own art business! (A similar passive income opportunity is selling digital printables.)
Click to fast forward to the respective digital file selling platform:
There are so many different types of digital products that you can create as an artist. In the end, it depends where your talent is and what you enjoy creating the most.
Some digital goods that artists sell include:
- Digital files of their artwork
- Photos
- eBooks and guides
- Tutorials
- Online courses
- Fonts, logos, and graphics
- Photoshop resources like presets, brushes, etc.
- Videos
- Themes and templates (e.g. for WordPress)
- Infographics
- Animations
Where to sell digital downloads?
However, before getting started, there are a number of things to consider, the most important being to find a good digital file selling platform.
You already might have asked yourself, where is the best place to sell digital products? And where can I sell my digital products for free? In order to help you answer your questions, I’ve put together some of the best places to sell digital downloads.
The list includes ecommerce solutions like Shopify and BigCommerce, website builders like Squarespace, and but also specific digital file selling platforms, such as Sellfy (online store with email marketing), SendOwl (for those who already have their own artist website), and E-Junkie (one of the cheapest providers).
Last but not least, we are also going to see how you can sell your digital products for free by using a WordPress plugin like WooCommerce, and whether Etsy is a good place to sell digital downloads!
With that said, let’s dive in and see where to sell digital downloads!
Best places to sell digital downloads
Sellfy is a popular platform to sell digital downloads, with the option to sell physical products as well. You can easily create your own online store using the platform’s visual site builder.
You will get your own custom domain and access to basic email marketing tools that let you send newsletters and thank-you emails to your customers. Most recently, they also added the option to send abandoned cart emails.
Their analytics are pretty comprehensive. You can see exactly where your traffic comes from and which of your products are the most in-demand.
Apart from that, you will get everything you need to start selling digital downloads: discount codes, upselling options, Buy Now buttons, SSL encryption, multiple payment options, and so on.
With the Starter plan for $29 per month, you can sell unlimited products and large digital downloads with up 10GB per file.
You can start a FREE 14-Day Sellfy trial here and then upgrade to one of the paid plans if you like it!
Unlike Sellfy, SendOwl is exclusively about selling virtual content. Another difference to Sellfy is that SendOwl doesn’t provide you with a website. To make use of SendOwl, you’ll need to have your own website in place – on platforms like Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, or WordPress. But you can also sell via your social media channels or email marketing.
Nevertheless, selling with SendOwl is super-easy. All you need to do is add a Buy It Now/Add To Cart button to your blog posts or emails using the generated code.
Other features of SendOwl include: cart saving, abandoned cart emails, wish lists, discount codes, and promotional offers. You will get in-depth analytics and weekly sales report via email, if you wish. Just like on Sellfy, you can set up subscriptions and use multiple payment options (including Bitcoin).
On top of that, SendOwl is pretty affordable. The Standard plan for 30 products and 3GB storage starts at $15 per month. To sell more products, you can upgrade to the Premium plan for $24 per month and up to 100 products and 5GB storage.
No matter which plan you eventually choose, you can start with the FREE 30-Day SendOwl Trial here!
Podia is a platform specifically designed to sell all things digital. This includes digital downloads, but also courses, webinars, memberships, and so on. Podia emphasizes ‘community’. It’s a great place to connect with lots of like-minded artists and potential customers on the platform!
Podia is a website builder like Sellfy. That means you can easily create your online store and you will also get a custom URL. Hosting is included in the package, just like support for more than 11 languages and over 20 currencies.
You can launch email marketing campaigns and use Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel to track your traffic.
Pricing starts at $39 per month for the Mover plan. But before committing, you can start with a FREE 14-Day Trial of Podia here.
You probably already know that Shopify is one of most popular ecommerce platforms in the market. Shopify offers you everything you need to start selling – from digital downloads, to physical products, to subscriptions and memberships, and much more.
Shopify comes with some of the most powerful and advanced selling features you can dream of. You can fully customize your Shopify store to your personal liking. You can choose a theme (the ‘look’ of your store), adapt it to your preferences, and use plugins and extensions to add more functionality to your site, if needed.
You will get unlimited bandwidth and a custom domain, too. …and of course, all the ecommerce features that you see on professional online stores! You can integrate various payment options, run marketing campaigns, and send newsletters.
Shopify’s cheapest Basic plan starts at $29 per month. For more advanced features, you’ll need to go for the $79/mth. plan. However, you can test Shopify FREE for 14 days here!
BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform similar to Shopify. It is as powerful, meaning you can sell anything from digital goods, to physical products, including online courses and memberships.
Once you’ve built your BigCommerce store with the highly customizable website builder, you can choose your domain name and implement Secure SSL.
The great thing about BigCommerce is that it comes with more built-in features than any other leading ecommerce platform. Among others, BigCommerce will provide you with powerful SEO features to optimize your digital file store for search engines like Google.
Moreover, you can track your analytics in real-time to find out which of your digital products sell best and which still need a bit of tweaking.
BigCommerce’s pricing is similar to Shopify. The Standard plan begins at $29.95 per month. For more advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to the Plus plan for $79.95 per month.
Before committing, start a FREE BigCommerce Trial here!
PayHip markets itself as the easiest way to sell digital downloads and courses. The great thing about PayHip is that they also offer a free plan to sell your digital products.
Even though PayHip’s store pages are not as customizable as Shopify or BigCommerce, you can embed shopping options with your social media posts or your blog. What’s even better, you can customize these buttons to match your artist branding.
Apart from adding discounts and coupons, you can create your own affiliate program, run marketing campaigns, and create mailing lists. There are a number of payment methods available, including PayPal and Stripe, and accept payments in many different currencies.
Each of PayHip’s plans provides you with all the features available and unlimited products. The only difference is the transaction fee that you’ll need to pay.
The Free Forever plan has a 5% transaction fee. When upgrading to the Plus plan, you’ll only pay 2% in fees.
Not sure yet what to choose? Try PayHip for FREE here!
E-Junkie is one of the most inexpensive digital file selling platforms on the list. It’s quite popular for selling the digital works of artists, such as images, comics, and other merchandise.
You can easily launch your online shop (with discounts and coupons, affiliate programs, promotional freebies, etc.) or sell via your own website or social media.
You can sell your digital downloads at a fixed price, pay-what-you-want price, or even accept donations. To recommend the products you like and get a kickback, you can do affiliate marketing.
E-Junkie has very affordable plans starting at $5 per month for 10 products and 200 MB storage. On top of that, they offer a very generous FREE 30-Day Trial here with no credit card needed!
Squarespace is a website builder that is specifically geared towards artists. You can choose one of the many beautifully designed templates and simply populate it with your own content. With the easy drag-and-drop editor, you can build your website without any coding experience – and it will automatically look good on both desktop computers and mobile devices!
It’s just as easy to open your own online store on Squarespace. You will find all the ecommerce tools to showcase your products and start selling immediately.
Squarespace is ideal for selling anything. Digital goods, e-courses, subscriptions. But you can also sell physical items, such as fine art prints, print-on-demand products, or other merch artists can make money with.
To sell digital downloads on Squarespace, you’ll need at least opt for the Business plan for $18 per month (paid annually). But before making your final decision, I suggest you try Squarespace for FREE here!
(To find out more about whether Squarespace is good for artists, check out my Squarespace Review.)
Gumroad is an all-in-one selling platform for creatives of all types. Whether you are an artist, writer, musician, podcaster, or educator, you can start selling your products on Gumroad.
What can you sell? Digital products, physical products, subscriptions, license keys, and pre-orders.
Additionally, you will get affiliate marketing tools, discount and coupon options as well as Buy Now buttons that you can embed in your website.
The basic Gumroad plan is free to get started with. However, you’ll need to pay fees for each transaction made. Premium features are available for as little as $10 per month plus a fee of 3.5% and 30 cents for each transaction.
Do you feel this is the place where to sell digital downloads? Then get started with Gumroad for FREE here!
Easy Digital Downloads is a plugin for WordPress with more than 2 million downloads at this point. EDD will transform your WordPress site into a digital file selling platform with unlimited file downloads.
Evidently, you already need to have your WordPress site set up before using Easy Digital Downloads. If you are wondering whether WordPress is good for artists, check out my opinion on WordPress here. To help you build your own website, I’ve published a tutorial on how to make an artist website with WordPress in 5 easy steps. Plus, you can find lots of free, helpful WordPress tutorials here!
(By the way, I’ve built this artist website here all on my own, using WordPress, the OceanWP theme, Elementor, Essential Addons for Elementor, and Ultimate Addons for Elementor!)
Easy Digital Downloads offers three pricing models for both personal and business use. The basic plan is free and lets you collect payments through PayPal. If you want to use other payment gateways, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher plan.
The Personal Pass at $99 per year is for 1 site and includes all email marketing extensions. To use more third-party extensions, you’ll need to upgrade to the Extended Pass for $199 per year (1 site, all email marketing and payment gateway extensions).
If you already have a WordPress site with a customer base in place, then why not try Easy Digital Downloads now?
Creative Market is a well-known place among artists to sell all kind of artwork. This includes digital downloads, too. They already have a huge network of more than 8 million members in place. That makes it easier to find potential customers for your digital products, even more so as Creative Market also helps you promote your products.
A quick search on the platforms tells you that many artists already use the marketplace to sell digital downloads. There are more than 80,000 items on offer. You can find everything from mock-ups, WordPress templates, brush presets, graphics, backgrounds, and much more.
When you sell on Creative Market, you have full control over the prices of your products and can change them anytime. Commission rates are fair and based on your shop and product. Creative Market will provide you with sales tracking tools to manage your shop and engage with your customers.
If that sparked your interest, you can sign up for Creative Market here.
Etsy is a popular address in the art community. But is Etsy a good place to sell digital downloads? Yes, it is!
You can sell pretty much anything that is to do with art on Etsy. Self-made products are especially in-demand on the platform. Just run a quick search for ‘digital downloads’ and you’ll see that there’s already a staggering number of more than 3 million items on offer!
So Etsy is definitely a good choice to sell digital goods, such as downloads, images, commissions, mock-ups, digital art software presets, etc.
Selling digital downloads on Etsy is super-easy. The platform handles everything for you, from payments to file delivery, and so on.
They have lots of helpful information for artists to get their store up and running quickly, and they even provide you with marketing tools to help you get the word out about your digital products!
Click here to get 40 Free Listings when you sign up for Etsy today!
WooCommerce is basically the only place where you can sell your digital products for free. Well, basically… There are still a few costs that arise.
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin like Easy Digital Downloads. That means you need to have a WordPress site and that WordPress site needs to be hosted somewhere. Hosting services are payable, but you can get hosting for as little as $2.49 a month. Recommended hosting providers (that are also endorsed by WordPress themselves) are Bluehost and Siteground.
Installing WooCommerce, setting up your online store, and selling products is completely free, though! You can customize your store to your personal liking and offer as many products as you wish. I am using WooCommerce for my art store and I absolutely love it. It was easy to set up and the shop pages look super-beautiful. (In fact, the best selling digital downloads in my shop are currently my glass ball jars.)
You will get lots of functionality for free, including coupons and discounts, upsells and cross-sells, shipping zones, tax rate calculation, off-canvas search bar, different filter options, and much much more.
I recommend WooCommerce for selling both digital and physical products. To learn more, check out my Ultimate Guide To Selling Art On WordPress – WooCommerce For Artists.
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Thanks for sharing. I read many of your blog posts, cool, your blog is very good.
Oh that’s great to hear! Thanks for the feedback and looking forward to staying in touch with you (:
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Hi Hothan, thanks for dropping a comment. Always nice to hear when someone finds the information helpful!
Thank you for posting this! I am looking to delve into the digital download realm myself. I have some concerns about my original works being pirated when I upload them. I’m hesitant on posting my more time consuming fine artworks because of that…I may save those until I’m a bit more experienced. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!!
Hey there, you are right. Art theft on the internet is a big issue. Unfortunately, it happens to all artists–sooner or later. It happened to me as well.
The problem, especially with PoD platforms, is that you have to upload your original artwork that way you will have it printed, meaning you cannot add your signature or watermark. Plus, the artwork you upload has to be a high-resolution file, too. I think a lot of works get pirated on such platforms. (Here are some tips on how to protect your art online.)
To be on the safe side, try to find platforms that allow you to upload your art as a preview image with a watermark. DeviantArt is one platform where you can do that, Etsy as well. And then I also recommend building your own artist website–there you’ll have full control over what you do with your artwork! (:
Thank you so much. I truly enjoyed this article. I have a silly question, is your artwork is done digitally with a Wacom pen? The reason I am asking is I have always done traditional artwork i.e. paint and colored pencil and have tossed around the idea of digital downloads. I am trying to find a place to start. I assume almost all artwork nowadays are created digitally with a digital tool except for maybe Fine Art America prints where the art might be scanned other than photographs?
Hi Leanna! Yes, I create digital art using a Wacom tablet (along with a Wacom pen) and Photoshop. I believe that a lot of artists still create traditional art, it’s not all digital art that you see online. Of course, the traditional artworks have to be scanned and digitized in order to show them online and sell prints. But I think there’s also a lot of painting, drawings, etc. on platforms like DeviantArt, Saatchi Art, Wet Canvas, etc. Not only Fine Art America (: