PaidQuiz vs. Downly ‑ Sell Digital Products: An In-Depth Comparison

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. PaidQuiz vs. Downly ‑ Sell Digital Products: At a Glance
3. Deep Dive Comparison
4. Pros & Cons Snapshot
5. The Alternative: Unifying Commerce, Content, and Community Natively
6. How to Choose Between a Focused App and a Native Platform
7. Conclusion
8. FAQ

Introduction

Shopify merchants who sell digital content face a recurring choice: use a focused app that handles one type of digital product, or adopt a platform that ties content, commerce, and membership together inside the store. Selecting the wrong tool can fragment the customer journey, create support overhead, or block opportunities to bundle physical and digital products.

Short answer: PaidQuiz is purpose-built for charging access to interactive quizzes and assessments delivered inside the Shopify storefront, while Downly ‑ Sell Digital Products is a straightforward, low-cost solution for attaching downloadable files and managing license keys. Both apps are useful for simple digital sales, but merchants looking to unify courses, memberships, and repeat-purchase funnels will find limits in single-purpose tools. For a native, all-in-one alternative that prioritizes keeping customers "at home" in Shopify, consider a platform designed to combine courses, communities, and commerce.

This article compares PaidQuiz and Downly across features, pricing, integrations, UX, and business outcomes to help merchants choose the right tool for their use case. The comparison remains impartial and practical, then transitions to a discussion of why a natively integrated platform can remove friction and increase lifetime value.

PaidQuiz vs. Downly ‑ Sell Digital Products: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

The goal is practical clarity: which app handles what well, and where do merchants hit walls that create friction or lost revenue? This section breaks down both apps across commonly assessed criteria.

Features

PaidQuiz: What it does well

PaidQuiz centers on delivering paid quizzes in-shop. Core capabilities include:

• Sellable quizzes embedded in the storefront so the experience remains on the merchant's site.
• Quiz authoring with questions, answers, scoring, and personalized result messaging.
• Branded portal (Starter) and unbranded experience on the Professional plan.
• An immediate monetization path for assessments: charge up-front access to a quiz.

Strengths for merchants:

• Clear product fit when selling assessments (exam prep, certifications, personality tests).
• Simple monetization model: a quiz is a digital product that customers purchase.

Possible limitations:

• Focused narrowly on quizzes — not a full course builder or membership platform.
• No visible public reviews or community feedback, which can make evaluating real-world behavior difficult.

Downly: What it does well

Downly is a general-purpose digital downloads manager. Core capabilities include:

• Convert existing products into downloadable items quickly.
• Upload multiple file types and manage downloads.
• Generate and manage unlimited license keys automatically.
• Automatic delivery of files and license keys via email post-purchase.
• Notifications for file updates sent to customers.

Strengths for merchants:

• Low-cost entry with a free plan that covers up to 30 orders and 300 MB storage.
• Practical license-key generation for software sellers or sellers of redeemable codes.
• Predictable upgrade path for storage and order volume.

Possible limitations:

• Built for file delivery, not for structured learning, drip content, or community interaction.
• While it supports many file types, it lacks course-specific features like video hosting, progress tracking, certificates, or native community features.

Feature Comparison Summary

• PaidQuiz wins when a merchant’s product is a paid assessment—nothing else. It’s a single-purpose solution tailored for quizzes.
• Downly wins when merchants need reliable, inexpensive delivery of files and license keys and want to attach downloads to products.
• Neither app is a replacement for a full course and community platform when those capabilities matter for customer retention and repeat sales.

Pricing & Value

Pricing is a critical factor for early-stage merchants and established shops alike. This section compares price structures and the "value for money" relative to each app’s scope.

PaidQuiz pricing

• Starter: Free to install — basic sellable quizzes, embedded portal, branded.
• Professional: $100/month — sellable quizzes, embedded portal, unbranded.

Value considerations:

• The Professional price positions PaidQuiz for merchants who need a white-labeled quiz experience.
• $100/month can be appropriate for merchants monetizing certifications or exam prep at scale, but may feel expensive if the only use case is a single quiz or low-volume sales.

Downly pricing

• Free plan: Unlimited digital products & license keys, 300 MB storage, up to 30 orders.
• Standard: $2.95/month — unlimited orders, no Downly branding, 12 GB storage, no file size limit.
• Plus: $4.95/month — adds priority support, 120 GB storage.

Value considerations:

• Downly’s paid tiers offer very low monthlies, giving strong value for merchants with straightforward digital delivery needs.
• Storage increases and removal of branding make paid plans compelling for merchants who scale download sales.

Pricing & Value Summary

• Downly provides very predictable, low-cost plans that scale storage and order volume. For straight file distribution, it is excellent value for money.
• PaidQuiz’s free plan is useful for testing. The $100/month tier is meaningful only if the quiz product generates revenue that justifies the expense.
• Merchants should compare the expected revenue per month from digital products to the app cost and consider whether feature gaps will require additional apps (increasing total cost).

Integrations & Native Experience

Integrations determine how tightly an app fits into the overall commerce flow and what compromises merchants must accept.

PaidQuiz integrations

• Designed to embed quizzes in the online shop. Exact integration depth with Shopify checkout, customer accounts, and Flow is not specified in public app data.
• Objective note: PaidQuiz is presented as a Shopify app, but merchants should confirm whether it leverages native Shopify checkout and customer account flows or uses external redirects for access control.

Downly integrations

• Works with digital downloads and digital product flows in Shopify.
• Provides automatic email delivery after purchase, implying it hooks into the checkout/order notification pipeline.
• As with PaidQuiz, merchants should verify specifics on whether access is controlled via native customer accounts or by emailed links, and how refunds/chargebacks affect access.

Why native matters

• Native integrations with Shopify checkout, customer accounts, and Shopify Flow reduce friction, preserve customer data, and allow seamless bundling of physical and digital SKUs.
• Tools that require separate membership logins or external platforms often lower conversion and increase support overhead.

Content Delivery, Learning, and Membership

Merchants creating structured learning (courses, lessons, drip content) or communities need capabilities beyond file delivery or quizzes.

PaidQuiz

• Focused on one-off or scored quiz experiences delivered via the store.
• No built-in course management (drip schedules, modules, video hosting) documented in public app data.
• Suitable for certification-style, single-session paid interactions rather than multi-module learning.

Downly

• Excellent for direct file delivery—ebooks, PDFs, audio files, or license keys.
• No course structure or community features built-in. Does not appear to support drip schedules, video lectures with progress tracking, or member forums.

Practical implications

• Merchants building multi-module courses, cohort-based programs, or communities will likely find both apps insufficient on their own.
• Combining these apps with a dedicated course/community platform is possible, but it creates fragmentation: separate logins, multiple touchpoints, and a more complicated funnel.

Bundling Physical & Digital Products

Bundling physical products with digital content is a major revenue opportunity for many brands (kits + video tutorials, physical products + how-to guides, etc.).

• PaidQuiz: Bundling is not the primary use-case; it can monetize quizzes independently. It is unclear whether PaidQuiz supports bundling a quiz SKU with a physical product in a single checkout flow without custom work.
• Downly: Since it integrates with Shopify products, attaching downloadable files to physical product SKUs is straightforward. It is better suited for seamless bundles where customers buy a physical item and receive a digital download automatically.
• Caveat: Bundles that include access-controlled content (courses, membership areas) usually require a platform that issues and manages member access natively. Downly can deliver files but not manage gated member areas.

Licensing, Security, and File Delivery

For software sellers and sellers of license-protected content, license generation and secure file delivery matter.

• Downly explicitly supports automatic license key generation and delivery. This is a distinct advantage for merchants selling software, activation keys, or codes.
• PaidQuiz is not aimed at license distribution; it sells access to a quiz experience, so license key support is not relevant.
• Secure download handling (time-limited links, bandwidth limits, and storage scalability) is a factor with Downly’s storage caps and paid tiers. Merchants with high-bandwidth video or large file needs must evaluate storage and transfer limits.

Scalability & Limits

Downly includes clear tiered storage and order limits; PaidQuiz’s limits are less well documented.

• Downly’s paid plans provide up to 120 GB storage on the Plus plan and unlimited orders on Standard/Plus.
• PaidQuiz’s Professional plan removes branding but the app’s handling of large volumes of users or many quizzes is not specified publicly; merchants should ask the developer about limits, performance, and CDN usage.

Analytics, Reporting, and Customer Data

Merchants need to understand who buys what and how content drives repeat purchases.

• Neither PaidQuiz nor Downly advertise deep analytics or lifecycle reporting in their basic descriptions.
• If analytics and cross-sell/upsell tracking via Shopify are priorities, merchants should confirm whether either app exposes rich reporting via Shopify’s admin or if third-party analytics are required.

Setup, UX, and Merchant Experience

Ease of setup determines whether a merchant can go live quickly.

• Downly’s pitch emphasizes "just a few clicks" to transform products into downloads—this simplicity is valuable for non-technical merchants.
• PaidQuiz requires authoring quizzes and embedding a portal. The free Starter tier helps merchants test the concept risk-free.
• For both apps, real-world experience (support responsiveness, onboarding guides) is important. Public review counts are currently zero for both apps, which increases due diligence needs for merchants.

Support & Documentation

• Downly’s Plus tier indicates priority support as a paid benefit, showing a clear path to faster support for paying customers.
• PaidQuiz’s public data does not list support tiers; merchants should confirm channels (email, live chat, onboarding calls) before committing.

Merchant Use Cases — Which App is Best For Which Merchant?

• PaidQuiz is best for:
  • Brands that sell assessments, certifications, or scored tests as standalone monetized products.
  • Merchants who want quizzes embedded inside their storefront with branded presentation and who can justify the $100/month Professional plan for unbranded delivery.
• Downly is best for:
  • Merchants who sell downloadable files (ebooks, guides, PDFs, audio) or need license key automation.
  • Shops that want low-cost or pay-as-you-grow storage and predictable, low monthly fees.
• Neither app is ideal for:
  • Merchants who need an integrated course player with video lessons, progress tracking, certificates, memberships, and community discussions.
  • Businesses that want to natively bundle multiple digital and physical SKUs with membership gating and advanced engagement flows without sending customers to third-party platforms.

Pros & Cons Snapshot

PaidQuiz

• Pros:
  • Purpose-built for monetizable quizzes.
  • Embedded portal keeps the experience in-shop.
  • Free Starter plan for testing.
• Cons:
  • Narrow feature scope; not a course or membership platform.
  • Professional plan is relatively expensive for small-scale use.
  • No public reviews to gauge merchant experience.

Downly ‑ Sell Digital Products

• Pros:
  • Low-cost tiers with clear storage scaling.
  • License key automation included.
  • Simple setup for file-based products.
• Cons:
  • Not a learning-management or community platform.
  • Free tier is limited to 30 orders—requires upgrade for scale.
  • No course-specific features like drip content or certificates.

The Alternative: Unifying Commerce, Content, and Community Natively

Fragmentation is the hidden cost in many digital strategies. Using a stack of single-purpose apps or external platforms often creates:

• Disjointed customer journeys with multiple logins and redirects.
• Lost opportunities to bundle physical and digital products at checkout.
• Increased support volume because access problems span multiple systems.
• Administrative complexity and higher total cost of ownership.

A natively integrated, all-in-one platform removes those frictions by keeping customers on the merchant’s domain, using Shopify’s checkout and customer accounts, and supporting membership, courses, and community from one place.

Tevello is an example of a Shopify-native platform built for that purpose. It brings courses, community, membership seats, and commerce together inside Shopify so customers buy, access, and engage without leaving the store.

• For merchants who care about retaining the buyer in the Shopify environment and building repeat purchase behavior, Tevello combines commerce and learning tools with native Shopify flows.
• See real outcomes in the Tevello success stories that demonstrate the business case for a native approach: learn how one brand sold over $112K in digital revenue by bundling courses with physical products in Shopify (how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses with physical products), and how another merchant generated over €243,000 by using native upsells and repeat strategies (generated over €243,000 by upselling existing customers).
• For stores facing migration headaches from fragmented systems, a notable example shows a merchant who migrated over 14,000 members and reduced support tickets dramatically after moving to a native platform (migrated over 14,000 members and reduced support tickets).

What Tevello offers compared with single-purpose apps:

• Native checkout and membership logic that allows bundling physical kits with on-demand courses and memberships without redirects.
• Course features such as drip content, certificates, video lessons, quizzes, and membership management in one plan.
• Community features that let merchants run cohort discussions and member forums inside the store.
• A predictable pricing model for merchants that want all the key building blocks for course and community commerce (all the key features for courses and communities).

Practical evidence for the native approach

• Bundling physical kits and digital courses increases LTV and repeat purchasing. One merchant used native bundling to achieve a 59%+ returning customer rate and an AOV 74%+ higher among returning customers (achieved a 59%+ returning customer rate).
• Native platforms reduce conversion friction. A store that replaced a duct-taped Wordpress-plus-external-course setup doubled its conversion rate after adopting a native solution (doubled its store's conversion rate by fixing a fragmented system).
• Running short challenges and keeping participants inside the store can significantly improve conversion to paid offerings: one brand converted 15% of challenge participants into paid masterclass customers using an in-store challenge setup (see how merchants are earning six figures).

If a merchant wants to trial a natively integrated approach, Tevello makes it straightforward to compare outcomes. Start a trial or review simple pricing to evaluate whether the single-platform approach provides better long-term value than piecing together single-purpose apps. Start your 14-day free trial to see how a native course platform transforms your store.

Note on native app credibility: Tevello’s app has active social proof in the Shopify ecosystem — merchants can read the 5-star reviews from fellow merchants and evaluate how other store owners use the app in practice.

How the native approach changes operational reality

• Single sign-on, fewer support requests: migrating members to one system reduces login errors and streamlines support, as demonstrated by the migration of over 14,000 members that significantly reduced tickets.
• Bundles and post-purchase flows: tying course access directly to Shopify products enables automated upsells and physical/digital bundle fulfillment without custom webhooks.
• Retention and re-purchase: native communities and course ecosystems increase customer lifetime value because re-engagement occurs inside the store where offers can be converted.

How to Choose Between a Focused App and a Native Platform

Use this checklist to determine whether a single-purpose app or a native platform is a better fit.

Consider a focused app (PaidQuiz or Downly) when:

• The digital product is a one-off download or a single-purpose interactive product (quiz, ebook, license).
• Speed and minimal setup are priorities and the merchant does not need community or multi-module courses.
• Budget constraints favor very low monthlies (Downly) or testing a single concept without migrating broader content.

Consider a native, all-in-one platform when:

• Building a long-term content strategy that includes courses, communities, memberships, and the ability to bundle with physical products.
• Reducing support tickets and avoiding login fragmentation is important.
• Tracking and increasing LTV via repeat purchases and drip or cohort-based learning is a business priority.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between PaidQuiz and Downly ‑ Sell Digital Products, the decision comes down to product fit and long-term strategy. PaidQuiz is appropriate for merchants whose revenue model is built around paid assessments, quizzes, or scored tests embedded inside the storefront. Downly is better suited for merchants who need reliable file delivery, license key automation, and very low-cost scaling for downloadable products.

Both apps serve valuable niches, but neither replaces a native course and community platform when the business model depends on memberships, multi-module courses, or bundled product strategies that drive repeat revenue and higher lifetime value.

For merchants ready to avoid fragmentation and consolidate commerce, content, and community inside Shopify, a native platform can be the higher-value option. Tevello unifies courses, memberships, and community in Shopify, with proven merchant outcomes: generating over $112K in digital revenue by bundling courses with physical products (how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses with physical products), generating over €243,000 through native upsells (generated over €243,000 by upselling existing customers), and migrating over 14,000 members while reducing support tickets (migrated over 14,000 members and reduced support tickets). Explore pricing and plan details to evaluate if the native path fits the business (a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses).

Start your 14-day free trial to unify your content and commerce today. Explore pricing and begin a trial

FAQ

• How do PaidQuiz and Downly differ when selling multi-module courses?
  • PaidQuiz is not designed for multi-module courses; it focuses on single-session interactive quizzes. Downly handles downloads and license keys but lacks structured course features like drip content, progress tracking, and certificates. Merchants needing a proper course experience will require a platform built for courses and memberships.
• Which app is better for selling license keys or software downloads?
  • Downly is purpose-built for license key generation and delivery. It automates key creation and emails keys to customers, making it a practical choice for software sellers and license-based products. PaidQuiz does not advertise license key functionality.
• Can PaidQuiz or Downly natively bundle digital access with physical products at checkout?
  • Downly integrates with products to deliver downloadable files attached to purchases, making physical + digital bundles easier for file delivery. PaidQuiz may require additional configuration to tie quiz access to a bundled physical SKU; merchants should confirm capabilities with the developer. For native bundles that gate access to member areas or courses, a platform designed to manage membership access inside Shopify is the better option.
• How does a native, all-in-one platform like Tevello compare to specialized or external apps?
  • A native platform like Tevello keeps customers in the Shopify ecosystem, supports course and community features (drip content, certificates, community discussion), and allows clean bundling of physical and digital SKUs at checkout. This reduces login friction, lowers support volume, and enables retention-focused tactics that single-purpose apps typically do not provide. See examples where merchants increased revenue and simplified operations by moving to a native solution (see how merchants are earning six figures).