8 Best WordPress Plugins for Selling Digital Products 2024
Here are the best WordPress plugins to sell digital products, such as online courses, eBooks, templates, and other downloadable files.
In the Internet age, you can buy anything you like online with a few clicks of a button. That’s amazing, but what about selling your products? Selling online has become a business enterprise that many haven’t given up on mastering. What could be more joyous than selling your ideas in digital format to anyone worldwide? It’s like opening up your paintwork art shop but with the capability to attract customers from any corner of the planet. Marketing your digital products is much easier because you can tap into the infinite pool of web resources. In particular, you can target and optimize organic traffic for maximum return.
So, you have decided to sell your work digitally online. Perhaps you’re trying to sell copies of your books in a digital format, or you’re a performer who wishes to sell music to fans. It’s all possible. There aren’t many limits to selling online. One of these limitations could be the platform you use for selling, and we wish to help you with that. The WordPress community considers the following as the best plugins to help you start selling digital products. While they are unique to WordPress, we have covered additional areas of options to customize your website for digital sales:
Setting up your digital store will be effortless, with many options. Please take all the time you need to explore our suggestions below. We would appreciate any comments in the form of suggestions and feedback on improving this resource.
Best WordPress Plugins To Sell Digital Products Online
There are many great solutions to sell digital products with WordPress, but here are the best ones ranked and reviewed:
1. Easy Digital Downloads
The best plugin for selling templates, software and subscriptions
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) can be described as an e-commerce platform that promotes and sells digital products using WordPress. The lightweight and easy-to-configure plugin makes selling digital products straight from your blog easy. The plugin functionality focuses on simplicity and gives you the essential tools to get started with selling your content online. The plugin features a shopping cart, meaning customers can buy multiple products from you at once. A coupon code system is built-in to allow you to promote some of your downloads/products with discounts. In addition, the most reliable payment methods are supported: PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon.
As the platform manager, you and users can review a user’s history of purchases. This allows users to access downloads even after making the purchase long ago. You can create your digital product bundles and sell them that way. You can also analyze your earnings through simple statistics charts that are automatically generated. Extension support exists to help you add more functionalities at an affordable price.
Notable EDD Features:
- Sell digital products directly from your website
- coupon and discount support
- integrated with PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon Payments. Other payment gateways are available via extensions.
- Sales and download statistics
- Advanced sales reporting for accounting
Price:
FREE for basic functionality. The cheapest Personal Pass starts at $99.50/year and goes up if you need a more advanced setup such as subscriptions, Slack integration, Wish list, licensing, etc.
2. Download Monitor
Best for beginners looking to build their first website and sell digital products.
Download Monitor is a simple WordPress plugin for selling and tracking downloads. It features a simple, lightweight core plugin that can be enhanced using extensions. That way, you get a lightweight plugin that downloads and tracks users and protects your digital files.
Main Download Monitor Features:
- Add, edit and remove downloads via the familiar WordPress interface
- Sell downloads via your WordPress website.
- Gutenberg Block support
- Support for multiple file versions
- Option for alternative download links (mirrors). You can use Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and other file-sharing links.
- Use categories, tags, and other meta information for your downloads
- Track users and downloads
- Protect your digital files from unauthorized downloads
- Members only downloads.
Price:
Free for simple download tracking and protection. Pro features using extensions start at $39/year, and you can use it for up to 5 websites.
3. WordPress Download Manager
Best do-it-all plugin for document management and selling digital products
WordPress Download Manager evolved from a simple file management plugin to a platform that supports the sale of digital products. The manager helps its users to manage, analyze, and fully integrate their downloads. This is to give out free download links or to sell actual products. This plugin is appealing (with over 100k active installs) because it is a download management platform and an e-commerce solution. You can create custom downloads and allow certain user types to download them. Alternatively, you can apply secure passwords to protect your files from unauthorized access.
The plugin supports Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and other cloud platforms. This gives your files external storage support, so you don’t have to overstuff your server. Even though cloud-hosting platforms are cheap as chips, DigitalOcean doesn’t provide much free disk space. This is where external cloud storage can be so useful. You can control things like download speeds, CAPTCHAs, and custom modifications for downloads. Utilize the shortcode support to display your free downloads or paid products anywhere.
Main WordPress Download Manager Features:
- Drag and drop file upload
- Unlimited file upload size
- Integrated PDF, Doc, and PowerPoint document viewer
- Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, and OneDrive support
- WordPress Media Library file protection to avoid sensitive downloads
- Captcha protection
- Blacklists
- Downloads logs
- Quick download button and link creation
Price:
Free for a basic setup with limited customization options. PRO license starts at $59/year for a single website. The Pro version includes an email lock, social lock, download statistics, and front-end file manager.
4. WooCommerce Checkout for Digital Goods
Best for selling digital goods using the WooCommerce plugin
WooCommerce plugin is the number one eCommerce solution for WordPress bloggers. Thanks to WooCommerce, a highly customizable platform for selling physical products, millions of online stores exist. Still, if digital products are what you’re into, you’ll need to equip yourself with the plugin right here, the WooCommerce Checkout for Digital Goods. Since you are selling digital products, the need for complex customer information disappears. Usually, it is managed by the payment gateway, so the plugin strips away all those unnecessary fields. It gives you a simple checkout process that customers can use to purchase your digital goods.
Main WC Checkout for Digital Goods Features:
- Quick checkout
- Custom fields
- Sales reporting done via WooCommerce
- Reduce cart abandonment rate
Price:
This is a free solution for most users selling digital files with WooCommerce. Only some advanced features are available starting at $29/year.
Note: This plugin requires WooCommerce and won’t work as a standalone solution.
5. Paid Memberships Pro
Best for selling member-only content using recurring payments and subscriptions
Paid Memberships Pro is a spectacular WordPress plugin that enables you to sell digital products. That could be subscription products, premium content, online courses, etc. If you want to expand your online project to a new income stream, consider selling any previously mentioned. You can only let paid members access some of your content even as a blogger. Installing and activating Paid Memberships Pro plugin is simple and very beginner-friendly. The tool is also fully adjustable, ensuring you can alter it to your requirements.
Other specialties of Paid Memberships Pro include six payment gateways, a content restriction function, more than sixty add-ons for complete customization, and more. Selling digital goods is simpler than you think today. Paid Memberships Pro is a free tool, so test it out and see if it fits your needs.
Main Paid Membership Pro Features:
- Restrict access to members-only content such as online courses, community, downloads and other files.
- Use different membership levels with flexible pricing for each.
- Use recurring payments, subscriptions, or one-time payments.
- Integration with popular payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, and others.
- Fully open-source plugin licensed under GPL.
- Integrates with hundreds of third-party platforms and plugins.
- Automated workflows using Zapier.
- Membership data import/export, as well as advanced sales reporting.
Price:
A simple plugin setup is free. The Premium package, which costs $247/year for a single website, includes advanced features such as a members affiliate program, expiration warning emails, membership levels, and VAT support.
6. WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart
Best for small website and blog owners selling files and services with PayPal
Thanks to WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart, you can instantly create an add-to-cart button anywhere on your website, in posts, or on pages. You can even add the call-to-action button in the sidebar. This free WordPress plugin turns your existing WordPress page into an online selling machine. You can push products and services easily and effortlessly.
Of course, WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart is also compatible with any theme. Anyone who purchases your digital product will automatically receive an email with the downloadable file. You can also translate this plugin and fully localize the experience. First, take a peek at the setup video tutorial and then get creative.
Main WP Simple PayPal Shopping Cart Features:
- Ability to sell physical products, digital products, and services.
- Easy add-to-cart setup.
- Support for selling all files that you can upload via WordPress (audio, video, docs, PDFs, etc)
- Customizable checkout page and thank you page after the purchase.
- Discount coupon functionality
Price: FREE
7. Premium Packages
Premium Packages is the free WordPress plugin to get you started if you want to sell your digital products safely and securely. The purchase process that Premium Packages unlocks for you and your users is simple, not hurting your website’s already excellent performance. Also, if you offer a free item or have different licenses for different products, that is something that Premium Packages handles for you, too.
You can now turn your existing website into a digital marketplace and sell goods to users worldwide in just a few clicks. Thanks to the convenient Premium Packages, you can start immediately, as the installation and activation are only two clicks away to complete. Some other tool features are sales reports, coupon management, role-based discounts, and many more.
Main Premium Packages Features
- Easily create an eCommerce website to sell digital products
- PayPal integration
- Easy to sell extra services, such as installation alongside your core products
- Sales reports
- Mobile app
- Software licensing options
- VAT and other Tax calculations and management
- Order and invoice management
Price: Free
8. Subscribe to Download
Subscribing to Download might be slightly different from other WordPress plugins on this list, but it is still an excellent addition that many will find of great use. Instead of asking someone to pay for the product, urge them to subscribe to get the download link to the free digital product. This way, you start collecting an email list, which you can later use for all sorts of offers that you will have going on. Email marketing works.
In the Subscribe to Download bundle, you will find twenty different subscription form templates to use further as is or style. Some other plugin features include pop-ups, double opt-in, email domain name exclusion, form preview in the back end, and integration with MailChimp. With all the many features and functions, you can start immediately and collect emails in exchange for a product download.
Main Subscribe to Download Features
- Subscribe to your email list to receive a download
- Mailerlite and Sendinblue integration
- Unlimited different subscription forms
- Over 20 pre-designed subscription form templates
- Popup forms with a custom timeout
Price:
Subscribing to Download costs $18. With no monthly fees or subscriptions.
Note: This plugin doesn’t allow to sell downloads. It asks for emails in exchange for your protected files.
Which is the best plugin for you to start selling online?
It all comes down to your personal preference and what products you want to sell. However, here are all the best do-it-all solutions that will get you started today:
Download Monitor – the best solution for beginners looking to sell and track downloads
Easy Digital Downloads – the best platform for advanced users looking to build a large-scale digital store to sell multiple products.
Here is an actionable guide on how to sell digital products online.
FAQ: Se
What are digital products?
A digital product exists only digitally and is not tangible. You cannot touch it physically; it only exists on your laptop or smartphone.
Can you sell digital downloads on WordPress?
Plugins such as Easy Digital Downloads and Download Monitor allow you to sell digital downloads and other files on WordPress.
What digital products can you sell with WordPress?
You can sell any digital files, downloads and even services using WordPress. To do so, you must install a plugin that handles digital products and payments.
What are the best-selling digital products?
There are many different products that you can sell online but here are the best-selling ones:
- eBooks (any book or file in PDF or other document formats)
- Online Courses (video courses, webinars, course materials)
- Software (mobile apps, Windows and Mac software)
- Software as a service (SaaS) – (CRM, ERP, Email Delivery)
- Photography (stock photos, art, NFTs)
- Video (workouts, stock footage, music videos, movies)
- Music and Audio (stock audio files, music, albums)
- Documents (spreadsheets, document templates)
- Professional Services (web design, graphic design, copywriting, etc.)
- Tickets (webinar and event tickets)
- Templates (website templates, WordPress themes, design mockups)
Here is more information on digital products to sell in 2024 and beyond.
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