8 Best WordPress Plugins for Selling Digital Products 2023
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 being able to sell your ideas, in digital format, to anyone in the world? 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. The limits of selling online aren’t many. 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:
- WordPress Themes for Selling Digital Products
- WordPress Themes for Selling e-Books and Other Downloadable Products
- Platforms for Selling Digital and Downloadable Products
Setting up your digital store will be effortless, with many options. Please take all the time you need to explore our suggestions below. We will 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 for promoting and selling digital products using WordPress. The lightweight and easy-to-configure plugin make it easy to sell digital products straight from your blog. 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 does download and user tracking 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, and 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. 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, 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 are six payment gateways, content restriction function, more than sixty add-ons for complete customization and more. In this day and age, selling digital goods is simpler than you think. 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. Advanced features such as a members affiliate program, expiration warning emails, membership levels and VAT support are part of the Premium package which costs $247/year for a single website.
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 now instantly create an add to cart button anywhere on your website, in posts or 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 get an email with the downloadable file. You can also translate this plugin and fully localize the experience. Take a peek at the setup video tutorial first and get creative afterward.
Main WP Simple PayPal Shopping Cart Featres:
- 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 that you find on this list, still an excellent addition that many will find of great use. Instead of asking someone to pay for the product, urging 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 features of the plugin include pop-ups, double opt-in, email domain name exclusion, form preview in the back-end, and integration of 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 emails 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
What are digital products?
A digital product is a product that only exists 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?
You can sell digital downloads and other files on WordPress using plugins such as Easy Digital Downloads and Download Monitor.
What digital products can you sell with WordPress?
You can sell any digital files, downloads and even services using WordPress. To do so, you need to 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 2023 and beyond.
Related Posts
Hello, this is an excellent post and I am looking for a solution that allow me to treat uploaded resumes as products, meaning that most digital download plugins free and paid offer you a solution for e.g. ebooks or files that the site owner will upload and then adjust the sale settings as desired, however what I require is an automated process where external users or guests will upload their own file on front end and it will have to automatically, say, turn into a digital product without me having to monitor file uploads 24/7 to set all the uploaded files as products every time someone upload such file. Is there anything in the plugin market that might offer such option? Any ideas or directions to get what I am looking for will be greatly appreciated.
Best Regards
Cesar
Cesar,
Any of above could be tweaked to do that or you can go with a marketplace theme that allows anyone to upload files or products and sell them. Here are best examples.
Hi! Do you have any suggestions if wanting to sell stock photography? I tried the Sell Media plugin but its not as user friendly as I thought when I tried customizing the different pages. Thanks!
Easy Digital Downloads is the most versatile one.
I’m actually helping a friend try to get more information for her site but I’m wondering if one of these plugins would be better when trying to sell a membership where a download is provided quarterly. She’s currently using Woo Commerce but the way it works is complex and not as user friendly as I think it should be. With Woo, she has to add the new release for the quarter into the “Collection” product and then on the customer’s page, she has to reupload the collection so that they have the latest one that includes the new release. The customers are essentially “pending” until the end of the year when the official “collection” has closed. I swear there has to be an easier way! Thoughts?
Hi, looking for the Digital Downloads Store Plugin that can add purchased product after purchased.
What I mean:
The product is Report on one of the subjects.
User purchase the Report.
Then the operator, based on users purchased report genereting up-to-date report for the requared subject. Once Report generated by operator, operator uploads the report to the Website and assign it to the Purchase.
User then receiving the notification that the report is Ready for download, logins to the website and downloading the Report.
Obviosly this all can be done eliminating the website at all, by just creating dummy prducts and then delivering the Report to client by Email. But just as an idea would like to see if any kind of such plugins available, payd or free… meanwhile researching to find anything like that, but if anyone already know?
Konstantin,
There is no such a plugin to tool already available and likely never will be. Reason being is that plugins are made to solve “problems” that many users might have. Your case is very specific meaning no broad solution will work. I would suggest to start with a regular theme and ecommerce solution and then send the report via email. If that venture becomes successful you can spend money and develop a custom platform. This is not something that will break or make your product/service and can always be implemented down the road for a smoother user experience.
Hi- I started using Easy Digital Downloads to sell my horse picks but I’m wondering if there is a better option. I need to upload as many as 10 free and paid options per day and its hard to manage. The button aren’t configurable and I’m worried about all of those files slowing down my site. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Kate,
Make sure to invest in a good hosting provider such as Kinsta that offers a proper caching and your site will never grow too big. For example, we use EDD as well and we have around 2,000 products for sale, millions or registered users and loads of purchase records. WordPress doesn’t have any limitations for database size and only limitation is your hosting provider. Shared hosting provers will become slow real quick as the database grows but managed hosting such as Kinsta will always keep up with the demand.
Otherwise, you might want to try third party solutions such as Gumroad or Sellfy. Maybe they can help to sell products without making your website bigger.
Hi,
I would like to know if in any of those plugins, we can use STREAMING instead of DOWNLOADING?
Thank-you!
I would recommend using Vimeo Premium offering. It allows to embed videos, make them not sharable and allow to be viewed just for certain users. It can be used with any theme since it is just an embed or you can even send a link to your users.
Hi, great article!
Im looking for the plugin to protect my digital products from piracy. I’m going to sell my firms e-book.
Do you have any free or paid solutions?
That’s what above mentioned plugins are all about. To give access to digital downloads/products only after user have purchased them.
Greetings
What’s the best plugin to let subscribers on my website download my VIMEO videos – in a way that will not allow them to give away the video links??
Do you know if there is a plugin that has download/save to options? Im looking for a plugin that gives users the option to upload their purchase directly to a cloud service drive, dropbox, box and one drive.
Thank in advance.
Good collection of plugins, thank you.
I would also add Ecwid to the list — it has the digital products feature as well.