The digital product market is exploding — with over $135 billion spent last year alone and a staggering 70% growth in just the past two years.
It's never been a better time to get in on the action. In fact, creators on Whop have already earned over a billion dollars selling everything from courses and communities to software and downloadable templates.
Why the surge?
Digital products are low-cost, high-margin, and easy to scale. There’s no inventory to store, no packages to ship, and no barriers to getting started.
Whether you’re a creator, coach, developer, or just exploring new income streams, selling digital products is one of the fastest ways to start making money online.
What are digital products?
Digital products are items you can sell and deliver online — no physical goods required. Think ebooks, online courses, software, templates, subscriptions, stock content, and more.
They’re flexible, profitable, and often generate passive income long after you’ve created them.
Top 5 digital products to sell
| Product type | Best for | Effort to create | Top platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online courses | Educators, coaches, creators | Medium–high | Whop, Teachable, Kajabi, Shopify |
| Memberships & communities | Niche experts, influencers, fandoms | Medium | Whop, Patreon, Circle.so |
| Ebooks & guides | Writers, niche experts, info marketers | Low–medium | Whop, Amazon KDP, Gumroad |
| Digital planners | Productivity creators, lifestyle niches | Medium | Whop, Etsy, Creative Market |
| SaaS & micro-apps | Developers, marketers, startup founders | High | Whop, Gumroad, custom sites (with Stripe) |
Check out the full list in our guide to the best digital products to sell.
How to sell digital products
1. Make (or buy) your digital product
If you want to sell digital products then you need to have a digital product to sell. If you already have your product ready to go, then skip this step.
If not, keep reading and learn how you can make your first digital product.
First, find a niche
If you don’t already have a digital product in mind, start by finding a niche. This simply means identifying a specific area you want to focus on.
You can begin by asking:
- Is there a gap in the market you've noticed?
- What are you good at that others struggle with?
- What topics are you passionate about?
These questions can help spark ideas for things you could create, teach, or share. For example, if you're into investing, you might start a paid community that shares finance tips. From there, you could expand into ebooks, online courses, or coaching.
Advice from a Redditor: Look for a niche product and market. For example, we had great success in the finance sector targeting mortgage advisors with IG templates specifically. This built an email list and we were able to grow out and sell other products.
Next, do some market research
Before moving forward, take a minute to see if others are already selling something similar. If they are, that’s actually a good sign — it means there’s demand. If not, check if people are talking about the idea on Reddit or social media.
You can also test interest by making a quick post in a relevant community. The feedback you get can help you decide if it’s worth pursuing or how to tweak it.
Next, do a bit of keyword research. Look up phrases that describe your product, like “crypto ebook” or “fitness course.” If the results are too crowded, try something more niche like “NFT ebook” or “fitness course for new moms.”
Helpful tools:
- Google Trends
- Ubersuggest
- Answer the Public
- WordStream Keyword Tool
Lastly, start making your digital products
Digital products come in all shapes and sizes. Some take just a few hours to make, while others are more complex. Here are a few popular types:
- Ebooks and downloadables: Workbooks, planners, habit trackers, or even Figma templates. These are quick to create and easy to sell.
- SaaS and tools: Apps, plugins, or templates. These take more effort but offer big value if you’re already tech-savvy.
- Digital media: Podcasts, newsletters, stock content, or video subscriptions. Great for creators who love producing content.
- Online courses : Teach anything from coding to fitness. Courses are high-value and ideal if you have skills others want to learn.
- Memberships and communities: Create a paid space where people can connect, learn, and access exclusive content.
Need more help? how to make a digital product.
'What if I can't make a digital product?'
No problem. You can buy a PLR (private label rights) product. These are ready-made digital products you can customize and resell. Just add your logo, set your price, and you're good to go.
2. Find the right place to sell your products
Selling digital products might seem simple, but many ecommerce platforms come with limitations. Some only support certain product types, or require extra apps and workarounds.
For example:
- Shopify supports digital downloads, but you need an integration to deliver files or run coaching services.
- TikTok doesn’t support digital products directly — you have to link out to another site.
- Etsy is great for printables or templates, but not ideal for courses or subscriptions.
- Kajabi, Patreon, and Amazon each focus on a narrow set of digital products.
That’s a problem if you want to scale. Imagine starting with digital planners on Etsy, then deciding to sell a video course. You’d need a totally different platform, plus convince your audience to follow you there.
This is frustrating and time-consuming. You need an all-in-one platform.
That’s why Whop is the best place to sell digital products. It’s an all-in-one platform built specifically for creators. Whether you're selling downloads, courses, communities, coaching, SaaS tools, or even sports picks — Whop lets you do it all from one storefront, no third-party tools required.
3. Market your digital product and grow your business
Once your store is set up, it’s time to start bringing in sales — and with the right marketing, those sales can grow fast.
Start by understanding who you're selling to. You can’t market effectively without knowing your audience. A great way to do this is by creating a target persona — a simple profile of your ideal customer. Ask yourself:
- Who are they?
- What do they do?
- Where do they spend time online?
- What kind of content or ads are they likely to engage with?
- What types of offers or deals would grab their attention?
Once you’ve nailed down your audience, choose your marketing strategy based on how niche or broad your product is.
If you’re targeting a specific group — like productivity nerds or sneaker resellers — it’s totally fine to stay narrow. You’ll get better results by focusing your efforts.
But if your product appeals to a wider crowd, you’ll need to use a mix of tactics — different channels, different formats, different messages for each segment.
4. Monetize smarter: ways to boost your income
If you've followed all these steps, then you've sold your first digital product! Now, it’s time to think about how to make more from each customer and create a more sustainable income stream.
Here are a few simple tactics:
Use tiered pricing
Offer different versions of your product at different price points. For example, a basic course might include just videos, while a premium version adds live coaching or bonus downloads.
Offer bundles and upsells
Encourage bigger purchases by grouping related products together. If someone buys your planner, offer a discounted habit tracker or ebook at checkout.
Try affiliate marketing
Let others promote your product for a cut of each sale. It’s a powerful way to tap into new audiences with zero upfront cost, and it's simple to create affiliate programs with Whop.
Offer free products as lead magnets
Offer a small freebie (like a checklist or free community) to build your customer base. Then upsell paid products to your free users.
How to sell digital products with Whop
By now you should know that Whop isn’t just another platform that can handle digital products — it's a social commerce platform designed exclusively for them.
Whop supports both subscriptions and one-time payments, allowing you to create whatever pricing model best suits your products and make money online.
Ready to start selling? We'll walk you through the process of setting up your whop so that you can see for yourself just how easy it is.
1. Setting up your whop
Setting up a whop takes no time at all. You can sign up with an email address or use your Discord, Google, a crypto wallet, Twitter (or X, if you've gotten used to the name change), or Apple account. After that, just pick a catchy name for your whop, and you're all ready to go.
Oh, and don’t worry - you can change the name of your whop later if you want.
2. Adding apps
Building your whop is all about adding apps.
If you’re selling courses, add the Courses app, and if you’re selling access to files, add the Files app. If you’re selling both, add both.
There's no limit to how many apps your whop can host, so let your creativity be the guide.
3. Making your first product
Think of your whop as a product in itself. Some content — like PDFs or videos — can simply be uploaded using the Files app. Others, like full courses or interactive content, can be built directly using Whop’s native tools.
For example, the Courses app lets you create a course from scratch by adding:
- Text lessons
- Video content
- PDFs
- Knowledge checks
- Quizzes
Your course can cover anything — from investing tips to fitness programs, coding tutorials, or dropshipping guides.
You can add as many apps as you want to a single whop, and even create multiple whops under the same organization. This is useful if you’re selling multiple products, like beginner and advanced versions of a course.
One powerful feature is app mirroring. When setting up your second whop, you’ll have the option to mirror apps, so two different whops can share the same Chat app, for example, letting members from both tiers interact in one place.
4. Customizing your storefront
When your whop is ready to sell, you can click on "Manage store" button in the banner card of your whop at the top left of your screen.
There, you can make your storefront uniquely yours. Add pictures, customize the tag lines, edit target personas, FAQs, creator details, and so much more.
(Hint: Don't forget to read up on some ecommerce marketing strategies to make your product stands out)
5. Applying to the Discover page and setting up payments
This step is optional, but it’s a great way to boost visibility and increase revenue. You can run your whop without being listed on Whop Discover, but getting featured puts your store in front of more potential buyers.
To apply:
- Scroll to the “Set up your whop” card at the bottom of your store editor.
- You’ll see a checklist — make sure every item is completed.
- Once everything is ticked off, click “Apply for Discover” in the Discover section under Manage whop.
Next, set up your payments:
- Go to your Dashboard
- Click Finances > Payouts
- Follow the prompts to connect your Stripe account and verify it
That’s it — your store is live, your products are ready to sell, and you’ll get paid every time someone makes a purchase.
How much can I make selling digital products?
We can’t tell you exactly how much you’ll make selling digital products. It all depends on your offerings, prices, and marketing efforts. But we can tell you how much other people are making on average.
Take Whop as an example. Creators are making over $7300 a month. Imagine that, an extra $7300 a month on top of your day job; $7300 while looking after your kids full-time; or even $7300 while studying at college.
Now is truly the right time to go digital, whether you're looking for a side hustle or a new job.
Start selling digital products with Whop
It doesn’t matter how niche or specific your idea is — if it’s digital, Whop is the place to sell it.
From sports betting picks and dropshipping to downloadables, SaaS, and online courses, Whop’s no-code builder with native apps will help you create a storefront that works in tandem with your vision.
You can set up a whop and start playing around with the apps within seconds, with no sign-up fee. That makes Whop the best platform to sell your digital products.
Create your free account today to discover how much you can make selling digital products.
FAQs
What's the difference between selling physical and digital products?
The biggest differences between selling physical products and digital products are simplicity and cost. To sell a physical product, you have to buy or manufacture a constant stream of stock, store it somewhere, package it, and ship it to customers.
To sell digital products - well, you don’t need to do any of that.
You just come up with a product, design it and make it, if applicable, and instantly email it over or grant access to customers when they purchase it. Upkeep or maintenance of your product can be done by you from the comfort of your home—if there even is any upkeep to start with.
| Things you need to sell physical products | Things you need to sell digital products | |
|---|---|---|
| Products | Either designed and manufactured by you or sourced from someone else | Designed or decided by you, with no sourcing and manufacturing required |
| Stock | Not too much stock, not too little, and somewhere appropriate to store it | Often not needed at all! You can sell your digital product indefinitely |
| Fulfillment | Partners or employees that can pack the products, label them, deliver them, track the shipping and stock levels, and provide customer service | All you need is a service that will email download codes or grant access to customers when they make a purchase |
It’s not an exaggeration to say that selling digital products skips all of the expensive parts of running an ecommerce business.
The initial investment to choose and design a product will be less, stock can be limitless and without cost, and you don’t have to ship anything.
If handing the digital product over goes wrong, it doesn’t cost you anything to send it again. If you need to give a refund, you don’t need to worry about getting the product sent back to you or losing a unit of stock. The list goes on!
How do I sell digital products on Etsy?
To sell products on Etsy, set up an account and create a new listing. You’ll see an option in the Core details section where you can specify your product as digital. Then, all you need to do is fill in the About section, title, description, tags, and price before publishing the listing.
How can I sell digital products on Amazon?
To sell digital products on Amazon, all you have to do is sign up for the right kind of account (which depends on the product type) and submit your product for approval. Then, you can make your listing and start selling on Amazon.
How to sell digital products on Shopify?
When you add a product to your Shopify store, you can specify it as a digital product to remove the shipping fees. Then, you can use an app like the Shopify Digital Downloads app to provide download links to your customers.
You can also customize your email templates for digital products so that when customers make a purchase, the confirmation email tells them how to download or access the product.
Can I sell digital products on TikTok Shop?
TikTok Shop doesn’t offer digital products yet, so you can’t sell your digital products there. You can use TikTok for marketing purposes to drive customers to a different ecommerce platform, though.
What are the best digital products to sell?
The most popular digital products are ebooks, downloadables, exclusive paid communities, courses, apps, and podcasts. Niche products sell really well because they provide specific or custom-made products that consumers can’t get from big brand names.
Can I sell digital products without a website?
Yes! It’s easy to sell digital products without a website—you just need to sign up for a marketplace like Whop. Here, you can create your own Hub offering all of your products, along with a secure payment system and lots of cool ways to interact with your customers.
Why sell digital products?
Perhaps the most compelling reason to sell digital products is that it’s low risk. The barrier to entry is so low that, for some digital products, all you have to commit to the project is the time to design and make the product.
No matter which niche of digital products you want to dive into, there are growth projections all around.
Let's say you want to sell courses—great! The e-learning market revenue was $185.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to hit $270–279 billion by 2029.
What about SaaS?
The news is great, too—that market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.7% and will reach $307.3 billion by 2026. Ebooks, monetized communities, online fitness content … all of that is on an upward trajectory, so now is a good time to take the leap.
Once you're all set up, you’ll have a low-effort, low-cost, easily scalable stream of passive income that you can manage completely from home. Digital products are in high demand, so if you can offer something customers want, your business will have great earning potential.
