Digital Products can’t be held, tasted, or touched, but everyone consumes them from music to videos, ebooks to online courses, and more. What makes digital products especially appealing, is they can be created once and sold repeatedly to different customers without having to update inventory, making them ideal for creatives, artists, educators, and freelancers looking for new income streams that require less effort to maintain.

What are digital products?

A digital product is an intangible asset or piece of media that can be sold and distributed repeatedly online without the need to replenish inventory. These products often come in the form of downloadable or streamable files, such as MP3s, PDFs, videos, plug-ins, and templates.

The benefits of creating digital products

Digital products have many advantages that make them uniquely attractive to sell:

• Low overhead costs. You don’t have to hold inventory or incur any shipping charges.
• Extremely high profit margins. There’s no recurring cost of goods, so you retain the majority of your sales in profits.
• Potential to automate. Orders can be delivered instantly, letting you be relatively hands-off with fulfillment.
• Flexible products. You can offer free products to build your email list, monthly paid subscriptions for access to exclusive digital content, or licenses to use your digital products. You have a lot of options as to how you incorporate digital products into your business.
• E-learning is the future of education. You have a massive opportunity to expand your business and impact with e-learning, an industry expected to be worth $331 billion by 2025.

But digital products also come with specific challenges you’ll need to watch out for:

• You’re competing with free content. With digital goods, consumers can probably find free alternatives to what you’re selling. You’ll have to think carefully about the niche you target and your product descriptions, offer premium value with your products, and know how to build your brand in order to compete.
• You’re susceptible to piracy/theft. You need to take precautions and reduce these risks by employing the right tools to protect your products.
• There are some restrictions on how you sell. For example, you must sell physical products through the Facebook and Instagram sales channel, according to their commerce policy.

Most of these challenges can be overcome, however, if you employ the right tools when designing your digital product business.

Best Shopify apps for selling digital products

1. Digital Downloads

It is an easy to use Shopify app that allows you to offer digital products in your Shopify store. It also enables you to mix and match and sell a combination of physical and intangible products, for example, digital and physical copies of a book.

This app let you provide for your customers’ direct link for downloading the chosen product right after placing the order, and also send them this link to their email. Digital Downloads takes care about notifying the clients about the updates in your store, automatically informing them about new offers, versions, and products. This is a free app.

Moreover, Digital Downloads is not only easy to set up but also quick to use. However, it has a not quite good side is that when you get an order which has mixed with both physical and digital products, you have to send the download link of the digital product manually and ship the physical product also. Despite one small downside, Digital Downloads is believed to be one of the best apps that helps you sell the downloadable products.

Price: Free

Highlighted features

• Immediately send attached files to clients after checkouts
• Set downloads limit if it’s necessary
• Offer download digital links
• Attach files to your products
• Send updated download links to customers

2. SendOwl

For more complex digital product businesses, Sendowl comes with a variety of features and useful automation, like expiring links and auto-generated license keys, to power your products. To start selling digital products with SendOwl all you have to do is upload the files to the servers, choose a product to associate it with, and the rest will be done automatically.

It’s a simple and secure way of selling digital merchandise and SendOwl supports a great many languages, so you can sell to people who don’t speak your language. Also, you can configure delivering a download link on the order completion page, send it via separate email, include in Shopify order email or add it to the customer account. A drip functionality allows you to schedule the release of the product. Here you can configure issuing free orders and sending stamped PDFs to your clients.

SendOwl boasts built-in pre-checkout and post-payment upsells, discount codes, and pay-what-you-want pricing. You can even create a mailing list via such resources as MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. The app integrates with the biggest payment systems like PayPal, Apple Pay, and even Bitcoin. SendOwl is quick because it uses a network of servers ensuring the shortest ever download time  for hosting.

Price: From $9/month. 30-day free trial.

Highlighted features

• Provide customers with highly secure downloads
• Make the download process faster
• Deliver files to clients instantly
• Allow you to offer multiple digital products to your clients
• Deliver multiple files at once

3. FetchApp

This app  manages your downloads and keeps track of who has access to your paid content. The app allows you to control how many times a product can be downloaded, as well as the amount of time a download link works for. Essentially, with this easy application, you get a dashboard for managing your products and orders, which you can use to start selling as soon as you’ll be able to copy and paste a link.

Furthermore, this application also supports working with products with multiple files, making the delivery effortless by just bundling them in one package. You can also split large sized files into several smaller files and sell one product in multiple parts.

In FetchApp users can create the orders manually, edit, reopen and resend them, and you can configure email in a simple drag-and-drop email builder tool. Moreover, it supports most popular payment processors like Paypal, Google Checkout, Shopify, Goodsie, FoxyCart. It’s straight-forward interface and taking good care of customers pleases the owners. FetchApp is affordable; they charge based on your storage needs.

Price: It depends on storage capacity.

• Free for 5MB
• $5 for 50MB
• $10 for 2GB
• $20 for 5GB

Highlighted features

• No need for separate hosting
• Systems are always being improved and updated
• Blazing fast servers for optimum transfer speeds
• Each account can have multiple users

4. Sky Pilot

Sky Pilot is a Shopify app for selling files and videos. After checkout, your customer will be directed to a page within your store to download files or stream videos associated with their purchase. They will also receive a link to this page via email.

At any point a customer can login to their account in your store to access files or videos they have purchased. This page shows an organizable list of files and/or a playlist of all streaming videos.

You can organize Files/Videos into folders. It allows you to create easy-to-navigate delivery of many digital items. All delivery pages are hosted within your Shopify store. It is completely customizable, with access to both basic settings and full code customization.

Additionally, you can attach multiple files or videos to a product. Files/videos can be attached to physical products without affecting fulfillment status. This is important for merchants selling digital content as an add-on to physical products. You will find it simple to set up and work correctly. Therefore, it’s highly recommended that you should try Sky Pilot as your helpful app.

Price: It depends on storage capacity.

• Free for 2MB
• $15 for 1GB
• $30 for 5GB
• $75 for 25GB

Highlighted features

• Organize files and videos into folders and playlists.
• Unlimited files/videos per item in your store.
• Easy-to-use pages that deliver files/streaming videos within your Shopify store.
• Customers can access previously-purchased files and videos by logging into their account in your store.
• File protection (limit downloads per file, set access to expire after a chosen number of days, get alerted when access is abused).

5. Single Music

If you’re a musician selling music, Single was made with you in mind. It lets you easily include clips on your product page for customers to sample. Single Music automatically submit sales to SoundScan & BuzzAngle and reports are delivered automatically every day.

Furthermore, it encourages fans to support you further by promoting additional items (Albums, Tickets, etc.) before checkout.

Price: Free

Highlighted features

• Digital Downloads: Album templates with tracklists and built-in audio previews. Fans can purchase individual tracks, full albums, and merch in one cart!
• Physical Reporting: Tag your albums and fulfill your orders – we’ll take care of the rest. Reports are delivered automatically every day.
• Simple Bundling: Include a digital copy of your music on any physical product and report those sales to SoundScan – instant grats too!

6. Digiloads

You can sell videos, ebooks, photos, audio, software, podcasts or any other type of digital file with Digiload. Simply upload the file to our servers, choose the Shopify product to associate it with and we’ll take care of the rest. Installing the app only takes a few minutes. Simply click the ‘Get’ button in the top right of this page, enter some basic account details and we’ll have you up and running in no time.

The app is completely customisable, from changing the limit on how many downloads a customer can do to how long the download links are valid for. Change the configuration as much as you like to provide a branded experience for your customers. Everything is automated and there’s no daily management required. The downloads are instant, no waiting when using this app. You can also choose the time limit for the expiration of the link.

Price: Free

Highlighted features

• Allow you to upload files easily
• Provide the clients with secured downloads
• Allow you to attach digital files to your items
• Deliver downloadable files to customers instantly
• Allow you to sell multiple digital items

7. CodesWholesale.com

This app helps you to sell digital games easily and fulfill orders automatically. Whether you’re a developer, publisher, retailer, or wholesaler, CodesWholesale will make your entire online business much easier. Just sign up, upload game keys, and sell them to thousands of customers worldwide. Integrate your store with CodesWholesale in no time. It has a highly intuitive user interface and minimum formalities guaranteed.

Do you want to sell video games on CodesWholesale? send an email to b2b@codeswholesale.com. Then, one of our representatives will get back to you with a request to submit relevant company documents. Once all your documents have been verified, you will receive an email informing you that your account is active. If you see the “Sell products” tab in the left-side menu, it means that your account has been successfully activated.

Price: Free

Highlighted features

• Source digital games from 100% vetted distributors
• Cut time spent on order management and order fulfillment
• Sell round-the-clock hundreds of digital games

8. Digital Content Sales with DRM

This app allows you to sell virtually every digital content in a secure DRM protected way. The included DRM efficiently protects your valuable content and enforces the usage rules you define. Each piece of content can have an individual usage license cryptographically bound to the end customer’s account hardware.

The plugin and underlying backend seamlessly integrate with your Shopify frontend and enables you to offer a smooth and polished customer experience. Backend integration is super simple and all sophisticated transcoding, DRM, CDN and delivery is done automatically in the background. Supported content types include:

• Video DVD (incl. menus, etc.)
• Video (SD)
• Video (HD)
• Video (VR)
• PDF, ePub
• Audio Books
• Music
• HTML content packages
• Software

Price: $99 one time charge

9. Digital Asset Manager

This app is ideal for selling products/software with a unique activation code. It makes the whole process simple and painless.

1. Select an existing product from your store
2. Select product type – activation code or file download
3. Upload the file or activation codes for that product

Then the app will take care of the rest – automatically send email to the customer with activation code or file download link when the customer paid for the product.

Price: 5 days free trial then $15 per month

Highlighted features

• Simple and easy to use
• Allow upload unlimited activation code
• No size limit for upload file
• Customisable email to customer
• Associate order and customer with each download/code
• Easily manage activation codes or download link
• Secure download link
• Statistic for customer download

10. Downloadable Digital Assets

You can sell photos, videos, e-books, patterns, audio, software, podcasts or any other type of file. Simply upload the file to the server, choose the Shopify products to associate it with and this app will take care of the rest.

Whenever your products are sold the app will automatically deliver a secure link to your customer. It doesn’t matter if you sell 1 or 100,000 products a day. Everything is automated and there’s no daily management required. It does not add code to your theme or slow down your store in any way, just fast and reliable. 

Also, It is integrated with Shopify’s fraud system, allowing complete control over download emails. Receive notifications when an order is flagged, and halt the automated download email.

Price: It depends on storage capacity.

• Free for 5GB – 1 Attachment per product
• $5 for 5GB – 2 Attachments per product
• $10 for 10GB – 5 Attachments per product
• $20 for 30GB – Unlimited attachments per product

Highlighted features

• Send download emails from your own email address
• No limit on file size – Upload any file size within your plan limit
• Fraud protection (halt the automated download email if fraudulent)
• Attach multiple files to a product
• Upload and sell any file type
• Masks download links so customers can’t share it
• Download links on the ‘Order Summary’ page
• File protection (limit downloads per file, set access to expire after a chosen number of days, automatically remove access if order is refunded)
• Files can be attached to physical products without affecting fulfilment status, easily allowing you to sell files bundled with a physical product
• Replace files and send updates to customers
• Intelligent automatic fulfilment of Shopify orders
• Bandwidth and download tracking
• The app does not add code to your theme or slow down your store in any way
• Upgrade, downgrade and cancel anytime
• Works with Point Of Sale

11. Directed edge recommender

Directed Edge is perfect if you have items that cross-sell well, like ebooks that go along with your courses. It can be configured to automatically show related products based on the app’s algorithms, or related products you handpick yourself. Also, you can configure it to show things like recently viewed products, or also-bought products.

you can make more from every sale with tons of different recommendation types available, so you can configure the app to display products in a way that’s perfect for your store.

Price: 14 days free trial

• Standard plan – $24/month
• Advanced plan – $79/month

Highlighted features

• Related products: Shows products that are related to the product currently being viewed by the customer
• Shopping cart recommendations: Shows products related to those currently in the customer’s shopping cart
• Product bundles: Shows bundles of two products that can be purchased together in a single action
• Personalized recommendations: Shows personalized recommendations to returning customers
• Top products: Shows a list of the top products in your shop
• Recently viewed products: Shows the customer the list of products that they’ve recently viewed
• Related to recently viewed products: Shows the customer a list of products that are related to the ones that they’ve recently viewed

12. Yotpo Product Reviews & Photos

With so much free content out there on the Internet, how do you get people to shell out their hard-earned dollars for your course? Hence, this app will help customers know what you are. Yotpo is a review app that allows your customers to review your products and even answer questions for other users.

It  helps the fastest-growing Shopify stores increase sales with customer content. Plus this app is good for your website’s SEO, which means more people will end up on your site in the first place.

Price: It has different plans

• Free 
• Growth 50 – $19/month
• Growth 75 – $29/month
• Growth 100 – $49/month

Highlighted features

• Collect reviews, ratings, photos, and Q&A from customers
• Increase conversion by showcasing customer content onsite
• Leverage our official partnership with Google to boost brand discovery & increase traffic from search
• Share your best customer content on Facebook & Instagram
• Build a powerful brand community
• Make better business decisions using analytics & customer feedback

13. ReCharge Subscription

Offering a subscription or membership service for your digital product? ReCharge is the best app for this. It is a great idea if you have lots of digital downloads, or if you offer multiple different online courses. This app works for merchants of all shapes and sizes, and offers plenty of options for your business.

Moreover, Upon install request, merchants will be added to a waitlist and onboarding timelines will be communicated as available. This is a temporary state that will eventually be resolved such that merchants can sign-up, install, and deploy ReCharge on a self-service basis.

ReCharge helps turn your business into a reliable revenue stream by solving the most critical problems with recurring payments and subscription management. The available tools allow you to customize, analyze, and manage your repeat orders.

Price: It’s Free for 60 days, then $60/month is charged

Highlighted features

• SUBSCRIBE & SAVE: Transform existing one-time products into monthly subscriptions with configurable delivery and cut-off dates, inventory forecasting, and order management.
• MOBILE-FRIENDLY: The entire solution, from product page to checkout, is ready for purchases on any device.
• DEVELOPER-FOCUSED: Support for developers includes dedicated slack channels and robust documentation.

14. Plug in SEO

This useful app helps ensure your product pages are optimized for search engines, and analyzes your site to find any problems or gaps in your SEO game. Plug in SEO is super easy to set up and use, it will help you with everything you need to improve your Google ranking, drive organic traffic to your shop and manage SEO optimization.

Additionally, Plug in SEO doesn’t just tell you what’s wrong. It also helps you prioritize which problems are the most important to fix, so you can be smart about spending your resources.

Price: It comes with 2 plans

• Free
• $20/month

15. Klaviyo

Sending regular ‘learning boosts’ to your email list is a great way to stay top of mind, and ensure that your learners don’t lose out on the benefits of your content as time goes by. With the Klaviyo and Shopify integration, subscribers are automatically added to an address book, and you can set up automated email campaigns to encourage customer reviews, offer product recommendations, and continue delivering your awesome thought leadership content — straight to their inboxes.

Price: Free upto 250 contact

Conclusion

We create a list Shopify apps with the aim of helping Shopify online stores find the best Sell digital products for their website. Hence we recommend you to give every app above a try if possible.

When you set up your online courses, ebooks and other digital products on Shopify, it’s necessary to connect all the right apps to stand out in the market.