Options to Sell Digital Products from Your Website

Choosing the best option for selling your digital downloads can feel like an overwhelming task.

There are many options and it can be difficult to determine which is the best fit for you. A few factors to consider include your tech skills, number of products, file sizes, and need for customization.

Ready to sell digital downloads?

If you are looking to sell digital products from your website, this review is for you. It breaks down three popular shopping cart options, Gumroad, E-junkie and DPD. Learn how they work how much each cost and who they’re a best fit for, based on tech skills and products you want to sell.

This article is part of a two-part series. In the second, you’ll find insight from Registered Dietitian using these shopping carts on their websites. Their real-world experience will further help you make the decision.

Gumroad – Best for Simplifying Setup and Technology

Gumroad excels at making it easy to sell from your website. Their design focuses on simplifying technology aspects – even for the most novice users.

This option hosts and delivers your digital item to the customer and handles payment as well. This means you don’t have to worry about setting up and connecting your own accounts with Stripe or PayPal. Gumroad sellers are paid weekly.  

Gumroad also offers the capability to sell subscriptions and have affiliates.

How Gumroad works

It is extremely simple to use and within 15 minutes, you can be set-up selling digital products. For each item you want to sell, you create a product within Gumroad.

Add details such as a description, featured image and price.

Upload the file you want customers to receive after purchase. The magic of immediate delivery of digital products is quite simple – with the right technology.

Once your product listing is complete, it’s time to publish and start selling. There are two options for adding to your website, inline and embed.

Don’t want to have to make any changes or additions to your website? You can also link directly to your product on the Gumroad site. Just copy, paste and make sales.

While the simplicity is an excellent choice for those that want a solution that is easy to set-up, some may find the inflexibility to be a downside.

How much does Gumroad cost?

The pricing for the free version is 8.5% + $0.30 per transaction.  Additional premium membership with lower fees is available starting at $10 per month.

Who is Gumroad best for?

Gumroad is an excellent option if you want to simplify technology and don’t want to have to setup accounts with payment processors such as Stripe and PayPal.

However their fees are higher than other options. Depending on how much you sell, it could make sense to explore other options.

E-junkie – Best for Cost Conscious with Basic Technology Skills

If you are looking to add a shopping cart to your website and want a more flexible process for designing your sales pages, E-junkie may be the best option for you.

It is a hosted shopping cart solution and also allows you to create “Add to Cart” and “Buy Now” buttons and place them anywhere you want on your website using html code.

E-junkie does not offer recurring payments if you are looking to sell  subscription content. Affiliate sales are supported.

How E-junkie works

Similar to Gumroad, it hosts your files, but to accept payment, you need to set it up to use a payment processor or payment gateway (i.e. Stripe/Paypal).

The menu is no frills but is well organized. You can easily access all the tools needed to create products and get started quickly.

Adding a product is not quite as intuitive as Gumroad, but is still easy to use.

Once you’ve created a product, you can get button codes. These allow you to add the product to your website. Just copy and paste the code to your website as a link.

Unlike Gumroad, you can customize your checkout screen. Having more granular control over terminology on the checkout screen and display colors is a benefit.

How much does E-Junkie cost?

The pricing for e-Junkie depends on the number of products you wish to have and the size of the files. At the lowest price of $5/month, you get 10 products and 200MB of download storage.

This flat rate pricing offers advantages over the per transaction percentage charged by Gumroad. It can quickly become financially advantageous to use this pricing structure.

In addition to the monthly fee charged by e-Junkie, you will also pay the fees from your payment processor/gateway. If you have a large number of products or files that are very large (videos, photos), this will require a larger monthly fee.

E-junkie offers a free 7-day trial.

Who is E-Junkie best for?

E-junkie is an excellent choice if you want a low cost, flat-fee option. It excels at making it easy to place the purchase buttons nearly anywhere on your site.

While the feel is a bit utilitarian, it offers a lot of features for a very low price.

If you are fairly savvy at managing your website and want the flexibility to create pages and add links to purchase products, this could be the best fit for you. The checkout experience feels integrated with your website.

DPD Digital Product Delivery – Full featured with a small price tag

This digital product delivery option combines many of the best features of the first two into one shopping cart solution.

DPD is an easy-to-use shopping cart solution that doesn’t compromise on features. Their tools and resources are incredibly easy-to-understand, even if you are not a technology wizard.

How does DPD work?

DPD hosts your files and allows you to connect the payment processors of your choice, including Stripe and PayPal.

With DPD you can create “Add to Cart” and “Buy Now” buttons and add to your website like E-junkie. However, the product widgets offer additional benefits. You can easily add products to your blog posts or even create a product grid on a page on your site.

With DPD, you can create product bundles, upsells as well as offer products at multiple price points. As you increase the number of digital products you sell, these will become more important.

For books, the pdf stamper allows you stamp with the buyer’s details and encrypt them to prevent copying text.  If you are considering selling e-books or want to be able to create bundled products that include services along with digital goods, this is a choice you should consider.

DPD offers a free, 30-day trial.

How much does DPD cost?

DPD’s pricing is a flat monthly fee. The lowest pricing tier of $10/month gives you 1GB of storage and 20 products.

While this option is not as budget-friendly as E-junkie, it is very comprehensive and offers additional features that can help to increase your earnings.

Who is DPD best for?

DPD is an excellent choice if you want a low cost, flat monthly rate. Features such as upsells and bundles make DPD an excellent choice if you plan to offer a variety of products.

Because DPD is designed to be easy-to-use, you’ll find the experience more like Gumroad. However, you don’t give up the availability of customization.

Easy Digital Downloads – Self hosted and highly customizable

Easy Digital Downloads is a free, self-hosted shopping cart plugin for WordPress.

How EDD works

With EDD, you host your own files and integrate with payment processors directly.  This means that your website must have an SSL certificate and you are responsible for all payment related aspects.

If you are familiar with using the back end of a WordPress site, this can be very convenient as you can easily manage all aspects of you sales from the same place.

How much does EDD cost?

The only fees you pay with EDD are transaction fees associated with payment processing. However, there are many premium extension and you will likely end up purchasing a few to add additional functionality.

However, instead of purchasing extensions individually, it is wise to opt for one of the passes offered by EDD.

The extended pass is an excellent choice if you want to offer subscriptions, accept payments via Stripe and connect to your email marketing tool. At a cost of $199 per year, it offers tremendous value.

Who is EDD best for?

EDD offers the most flexibility and if you are looking to have a number of products, very large files (videos) or want to have complete control over all aspects of the shopping cart, EDD is your best choice.

Read my full review and watch my video tour of Easy Digital Downloads here.

Start selling digital downloads from your website

Choosing the best e-commerce solution to sell digital downloads on your website can feel like a challenging task.

Taking into consideration the number of products, storage needed, your skills with website design and maintenance will help you to make the best choice.

Get a behind the scenes look

Check out the second article in this series about selling digital products from your website.

It features an interview with Registered Dietitians that currently use the digital product delivery services described above. Get a behind the scenes look as they break down their experience using each and explain their decision making process.