How to Sell Digital Products: Platforms, Fees, and What Sells

To sell digital products, you make a file once (a planner, template, guide, preset pack, or course), list it on a marketplace like Etsy or a storefront like Gumroad, Payhip, or Shopify, and the platform delivers the download to each buyer automatically. That's the whole mechanism. The hard part of learning how to sell digital products isn't the setup, which takes an afternoon. It's getting people to find your listing, because the most popular product types are also the most crowded.

Below: which digital products to sell, where to sell them and what each platform takes, and how to get the first sales.

Why a digital product side hustle appeals to so many people

A digital product side hustle has real advantages over most side work. You build the product once and can sell it many times. There's no inventory, no shipping, and no client waiting on you at a set hour, so the work fits into evenings and weekends.

The downsides are just as real. Your first product usually earns nothing for a while. A new shop has no reviews and no audience, and many marketplaces are full of near-identical listings. Expect weeks or months of making and promoting before sales come in steadily, and some products never sell. If a course or ad promises that digital products are fast money, be skeptical (more on that below).

Digital products to sell

Good digital products to sell solve a small, specific problem for a specific person. "A planner" is too broad. "A weekly meal planner for families with picky eaters" is something a person can search for. A few categories that people sell:

The best choice is usually something you already know well. A bookkeeper can sell a small-business expense tracker. A teacher can sell classroom resources. You'll write a better listing and answer buyer questions faster when you've used the thing yourself.

One rule to check before you start: if you build products with someone else's design elements (stock graphics, fonts, template tools), read that tool's license. Some allow commercial use but restrict reselling their elements as-is or as editable templates. The terms differ by tool, so check the license page of each one you use.

Where to sell digital products, and what each platform charges

There are two kinds of places to sell: marketplaces, which bring their own shoppers, and storefront tools, which give you a checkout but expect you to bring the traffic. Fees below are from each company's pricing page, checked October 25, 2026.

Etsy is where many people start, because shoppers already search there for printables and templates. It charges a fee to list each item, a percentage of each sale, and payment processing on top. Etsy's fee page wasn't reachable when we checked it today, so read the current rates on Etsy's fees and payments policy before you set prices. Our hobbies that make money post walks through Etsy fee math on a sample order.

Gumroad has no monthly cost, which makes it easy to test an idea. The trade-off is a higher cut per sale than a paid plan elsewhere, and 30% when the sale comes through its own Discover marketplace.

Payhip lets you start free at 5% per sale and move to a paid plan once your sales are big enough that the percentage costs more than the monthly fee. Payhip notes that PayPal and Stripe still charge their standard processing rates on every plan.

If you'd rather make videos than read about it, VidPuff turns a title into a faceless video. No waitlist, cancel anytime.

Shopify makes sense if you want a full branded store or already sell physical products. Shopify's own Digital Products app is free and sends buyers a download link after purchase. It's more setup than the others, and you pay the monthly plan whether or not anything sells.

A simple way to decide: if you have no audience yet, start on a marketplace (Etsy, or Gumroad's Discover) where shoppers already are. If you have an audience (an email list, a blog, a social following, a YouTube channel), a storefront tool keeps more of each sale.

How to sell digital products: step by step

1. Pick one buyer and one problem. Search the marketplace for your idea. If there are thousands of near-identical results, narrow it until yours is clearly for someone.
2. Make a small first product. A one-page tracker or a 10-page guide. You'll learn more from shipping something small than from polishing something big for months.
3. Write the listing for search. Use the words a buyer would type in the title and the first lines of the description. Say exactly what the file is, the format (PDF, Canva link, Google Sheet), the page count, and what the buyer can and can't do with it.
4. Show it. Mockup images or a short preview of the inside pages. Buyers can't hold a digital product, so the images do the selling.
5. Price it, then test. Look at what similar products with good reviews charge. Leave room for platform fees.
6. Set up delivery and test it yourself. Buy your own product (or use a 100% coupon) to make sure the download works.
7. Make the next one. A few related products give each buyer more to browse once they find you.

Getting your first buyers

Marketplaces give you some traffic, but an outside source helps a new shop a lot:

• Pinterest. People search Pinterest for planners, printables, and templates, and pins keep getting found for months. Our guide to how to make money on Pinterest covers pin sizes and selling your own products there.
• Video. A YouTube channel in the same topic as your products, linking them in the description, can send buyers for years after a video goes up. If you'd rather not be on camera, VidPuff turns a title into a narrated long-form video that you review stage by stage before uploading. See our post on every way YouTube channels make money for how products fit next to ad revenue.
• An email list. Offer a free sample (one page of the planner) in exchange for an email. The people who download it are your most likely buyers for the full version.

If you plan to make products with AI tools, our AI content creation side hustle post covers where that works and where the market is already flooded.

Avoid the "digital products" course trap

A lot of the content about how to sell digital products is itself selling a course, and some of it pushes "done for you" products or resell rights that you're told to sell to others. The FTC's guide to avoiding side hustle scams (February 2026) warns that "scammers promise big money for little effort" and that pressure to sign up immediately is a red flag. Be wary of anyone who shows income screenshots and then asks for a large upfront payment to learn the method. You can learn everything in this post from the platforms' own help pages without buying a course.

Taxes

Money from selling digital products is taxable income. If your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more in a year, the IRS says you generally owe self-employment tax (15.3%) and file Schedule SE; see the IRS self-employment tax page. For your own situation, talk to a tax professional.

FAQ

What digital products sell best?

Products that solve a narrow problem for a clear buyer: printables and planners, templates, teaching resources, and guides on a specific skill. Look for items with steady reviews on a marketplace, then make a version for a more specific audience.

Can you sell digital products with no audience?

Yes, but start on a marketplace like Etsy or Gumroad's Discover, where shoppers already search. Storefront tools like Payhip and Shopify only work once you can send your own traffic.

Is a digital product side hustle passive income?

Partly. The product itself is made once, but listings, new products, customer questions, and promotion keep taking time. Expect slow sales at first.

What is the cheapest way to start selling digital products?

Gumroad and Payhip's free plan have no monthly fee and take a cut only when you sell. Payment processing fees still apply on Payhip.