Top 10 Websites Where You Can Sell Digital Products

Choosing the right platform is a foundational business decision. Here is an objective look at the top contenders in the market today, categorized by their strengths and business models.

1. Shopify (The Industry Standard for Brand Owners)

Shopify is the world’s most robust e-commerce platform, used by everyone from solo hobbyists to Fortune 500 companies. While it started as a tool for physical goods, it has evolved into a premier destination for digital creators. The primary advantage of Shopify is the total control it grants the merchant. You own the domain, the design, and every single byte of customer data.

When you use Shopify in conjunction with a native app like Tevello, you create a seamless ecosystem. Customers use the same checkout they already trust, and their digital access is granted instantly. For example, a merchant selling high-end camera lenses can effortlessly upsell a "Portrait Photography Masterclass." The customer stays on the merchant's site, reducing friction and abandoned carts.

2. Tevello (The Native Shopify Learning Platform)

While technically an app within the Shopify ecosystem, Tevello functions as a comprehensive platform for those who want to sell courses, memberships, and digital downloads without the complexity of external software. We designed Tevello to solve the "fragmentation problem." Instead of redirecting users to a third-party site, we keep them on your URL.

Our platform is built on a "Native Shopify Integration" philosophy. This means your digital products are treated exactly like physical ones in the Shopify admin. You use Shopify’s native payment gateways—the ones you already trust—and you don't have to worry about syncing customer lists between two different platforms. If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

3. Gumroad (The Solo Creator Marketplace)

Gumroad is a popular choice for artists, writers, and software developers who want to get a product live in minutes. It acts as a "Merchant of Record," meaning they handle much of the sales tax and VAT compliance for you. This is a significant benefit for creators in the early stages who don't want to deal with international tax law.

However, the convenience of Gumroad comes at a cost. They recently moved to a flat 10% transaction fee on every sale. For a small creator making $100 a month, $10 is negligible. But for a growing business making $10,000 a month, that $1,000 monthly fee becomes a significant burden compared to flat-rate platforms.

4. Etsy (The Marketplace for Creative Assets)

While many think of Etsy for handmade jewelry or vintage furniture, it is one of the busiest websites where you can sell digital products like planners, templates, and digital art. The main draw of Etsy is its massive, built-in audience. You don't have to "find" customers; they are already searching the Etsy marketplace.

The downside is the lack of brand differentiation. On Etsy, you are an "Etsy Seller," and it is very difficult to build a direct relationship with your customers. Furthermore, Etsy’s fee structure—listing fees, transaction fees, and off-site ad fees—can quickly eat into your margins.

5. Sellfy (The Dedicated Download Store)

Sellfy is a specialized e-commerce platform designed specifically for digital creators. It offers a simple storefront builder and built-in marketing tools like upselling and email marketing. It’s a middle-ground solution for those who don't need a full-scale Shopify store but want something more professional than a simple marketplace link.

6. Payhip (The Low-Entry Digital Store)

Payhip is known for its simplicity and generous free tier. It allows you to sell ebooks, software, and courses. They also handle UK and EU VAT, which is a major hurdle for many digital sellers. It is an excellent "starter" platform, though businesses often migrate to more robust systems as their community needs grow.

7. Udemy (The Education Marketplace)

If you are a course creator who doesn't want to do any marketing, Udemy is a potential option. Like Etsy, they have a massive audience of students. However, Udemy maintains strict control over your pricing, often discounting courses to $10 or $15. You also do not receive your students' email addresses, making it nearly impossible to market future products to them.

8. Creative Market (For Design Professionals)

For those selling fonts, website themes, or graphics, Creative Market is the premier destination. It is a high-quality marketplace with a discerning audience. The barrier to entry is higher—you must apply to open a shop—but the traffic is highly targeted for design-related digital goods.

9. Amazon KDP (The Ebook Giant)

For authors, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is the undisputed king. It gives you access to the world’s largest book-buying audience. While they take a significant percentage of the sale (30% to 65% depending on the plan), the sheer volume of Amazon can be life-changing for successful authors.

10. MemberPress / WooCommerce (The WordPress Route)

For those who prefer the WordPress ecosystem, MemberPress and WooCommerce are the standard tools. This route offers ultimate flexibility but requires a high level of technical maintenance. You are responsible for hosting, security, and ensuring that various plugins don't crash your site after an update.

The Problem with "Success Fees" and Hidden Costs

When evaluating websites where you can sell digital products, many merchants fall into the trap of looking only at the monthly subscription cost. They ignore the "success fee"—a percentage of every sale that the platform takes.

At Tevello, we reject this model. We believe that as your business grows, your platform costs should remain predictable. Our Unlimited Plan is $29.99 per month, and we charge 0% transaction fees. This means if you sell $1,000 worth of courses or $100,000, your platform cost stays the same.

Contrast this with a marketplace that takes 10%. On $100,000 in sales, you would be paying $10,000 in fees. That is money that could be reinvested into your marketing, product development, or customer support. By seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify, you can build a more profitable foundation from day one.

Why Ownership and Branding Matter

One of the biggest mistakes new digital entrepreneurs make is "de-homing" their brand. They spend months building a beautiful website and a loyal following, only to send their customers to a generic-looking dashboard on a different website to consume their digital purchase.

This creates several issues:

Trust Barriers: Customers might be confused when they are redirected to a new URL, leading to security concerns.
Support Burden: Fragmented systems often result in login failures. A customer might have an account on your Shopify store but can't get into the external course platform. By solving login issues by moving to a native platform, you significantly reduce the volume of customer support tickets.
Data Silos: When your data is split across different platforms, you lose the ability to see the "full picture" of a customer's journey. Did the person who bought the $200 physical product also buy the $50 digital guide? In a unified system, this data is easily accessible.

Our platform provides all the key features for courses and communities while keeping the brand front and center. This ensures that every interaction a student has—from the social feed to the video lessons—feels like a natural extension of your brand.

Real-World Scenarios: Physical Meets Digital

The most successful modern brands aren't just selling one type of product; they are building ecosystems. Let's look at how adding digital products to an existing Shopify store creates a "1 + 1 = 3" effect.

The Fitness Brand

Imagine a merchant selling resistance bands and yoga mats. By adding an "8-Week Total Body Transformation" course, they transform a one-time physical purchase into an ongoing relationship. The digital course has zero shipping costs and zero inventory risk. They can even offer a "bundle" where the bands come with free access to the course, justifying a higher price point and increasing the conversion rate on the physical goods.

The Specialty Food Merchant

Consider a brand that sells organic spices. They can launch a "Mastering Indian Cuisine" membership site. For a monthly fee, subscribers get a new recipe video every week and access to a community forum where they can share their culinary creations. This turns a transactional spice sale into a stable, recurring revenue stream. You can see how merchants are earning six figures by using these exact types of hybrid business models.

The Gardening Expert

A merchant selling heirloom seeds might struggle with seasonal dips in revenue. By migrating over 14,000 members and reducing support tickets, an expert like Charles Dowding can provide year-round value through "No Dig" gardening courses. This ensures that even in the dead of winter, the business is generating consistent revenue through its digital library.

Step-by-Step: Launching Your Digital Product on Shopify

If you are ready to transition into the world of digital goods, the process is more straightforward than you might think.

Step 1: Identify Your "High-Value" Knowledge

What do your customers ask you most often? If you sell art supplies, are they asking how to blend watercolors? If you sell software, are they asking for best practices? Your digital product should be the answer to their most common questions.

Step 2: Choose Your Format

Digital products don't have to be massive 20-hour video epics. They can be:

PDF Guides/Ebooks: Great for checklists, recipes, or quick-start manuals.
Video Courses: Ideal for "how-to" content where visual demonstration is key.
Memberships: Perfect for building a community and providing ongoing value.
Quizzes and Assessments: Helpful for interactive learning and lead generation.

Step 3: Install a Native Integration

Don't overcomplicate the technology. By start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now, you can begin structuring your curriculum directly within your Shopify admin. This allows you to build out your content, upload your videos, and set up your community features before you ever go live.

Step 4: Set Up Your Community

Engagement is the secret to retention. We provide community features like member directories, social feeds, and profiles. When students feel like they are part of a group, they are much less likely to cancel a subscription and much more likely to recommend your brand to others. This focus on keeping customers at home on the brand website is what separates successful long-term brands from flash-in-the-pan creators.

Strategies for Scaling Digital Sales

Once your product is live on one of the websites where you can sell digital products, the focus shifts to growth. Digital products offer unique marketing opportunities that physical goods do not.

Leverage Drip Content

Instead of giving a student access to 50 videos at once—which can be overwhelming—use drip scheduling. This releases content over time (e.g., one module per week). Drip content keeps users coming back to your site regularly, increasing the chances they will see your other products or physical stock.

Use Challenges to Drive Urgency

A "30-Day Challenge" is a powerful way to build community and sales. By grouping a cohort of students together to start a course on the same day, you create a sense of shared experience. We have seen how brands converted 15% of challenge participants into long-term subscribers by using this exact method.

Prioritize Recurring Revenue

One-off sales are great, but recurring revenue is the "holy grail" of e-commerce. It provides a predictable cash flow that allows you to plan for the future. Whether it's a "VIP Inner Circle" or a monthly "Asset Library," focus on building something that provides enough ongoing value that customers are happy to stay subscribed for years.

Comparing Pricing and Value

Transparency is critical when choosing a business partner. At Tevello, we have simplified our pricing to ensure it is accessible for beginners and sustainable for experts.

The Unlimited Plan: $29.99 per month.

This plan includes everything you need to run a high-volume digital business:

Unlimited courses and students: We never punish you for being successful.
Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth: No need for a separate (and expensive) video hosting subscription.
Community features: Profiles, member directories, and social feeds are all included.
Interactive tools: Use drip content and quizzes to enhance the learning experience.
14-day free trial: Build your entire store before you pay a cent.

By maintaining predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees, we empower you to keep 100% of your earnings. This flat-fee model is designed to grow with you, ensuring that your software costs don't balloon as your audience expands.

Overcoming Common Hurdles

Selling digital products is not without its challenges, but most are easily solved with the right strategy and tools.

Piracy and Security

While no online file is 100% "theft-proof," we implement robust security measures to protect your intellectual property. By hosting content within a secure, authenticated member area rather than sending out simple download links, you significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized sharing.

Technical Complexity

Many merchants avoid digital products because they "aren't tech-savvy." This is why we focused so heavily on the user interface. If you can navigate the Shopify admin, you can use Tevello. We've removed the need for coding, API integrations, and complex "Zapier" workflows for basic functionality.

Customer Engagement

The "lonely student" problem is real. Many people buy a course and never finish it. By using our community features and interactive quizzes, you turn a passive viewing experience into an active learning journey. This leads to higher completion rates, better results for the student, and more positive reviews for your store.

Conclusion

The decision of where to house your digital assets is one of the most significant choices you will make as an entrepreneur. While marketplaces offer ease of use and initial traffic, they often come at the cost of your brand identity, your customer data, and a significant portion of your revenue.

By choosing a native Shopify solution, you are choosing to build a business on your own terms. You are choosing to keep your customers on your URL, to own your data, and to benefit from a predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. Whether you are selling a single PDF guide or a massive multi-module video curriculum with a thriving community, your platform should be a tool that amplifies your effort, not a middleman that taxes your success.

The digital economy is not just the future; it is the present. There has never been a better time to take your expertise and package it into a product that can reach thousands of people globally. By leveraging the power of Shopify and the technical advantages of Tevello, you can turn your store into a diversified, high-margin, digital learning powerhouse.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I sell both physical and digital products on the same Shopify store?

Absolutely. This is one of the primary advantages of using a native integration. You can create "bundles" where a physical product (like a guitar) automatically comes with a digital product (like a beginner's guitar course). Everything is handled within a single checkout and one customer account.

How do I handle video hosting for my courses?

With the Tevello Unlimited Plan, video hosting and bandwidth are included. You don't need to pay for a separate hosting service. You can upload your videos directly to our platform, and we ensure they are delivered securely and quickly to your students.

Do I have to pay transaction fees on my digital sales?

No. Unlike many other platforms that take a percentage (often 5% to 10%) of every sale, we believe you should keep what you earn. We charge 0% transaction fees. You only pay your standard Shopify payment processing fees and our flat monthly subscription.

What happens if I have thousands of students?

Our Unlimited Plan is truly unlimited. We do not have "per-user" fees. Whether you have 10 students or 10,000, your monthly cost remains $29.99. This allows you to scale your community and your revenue without worrying about your software bill growing alongside it.

Top 10 Websites Where You Can Sell Digital Products

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Evolution of the Digital Marketplace