Want to start selling digital products on your WordPress website? Good news—you’ve landed on the perfect guide!
This detailed tutorial walks you step-by-step through selling digital downloads with WordPress, from picking the right tools and payment gateways, to launching and growing your digital store successfully.
What Digital Products Can You Sell on WordPress?
Digital products are things that you can create and sell online. If your product can be downloaded, streamed, or accessed electronically, then it’s a digital product.
You can sell practically any downloadable or streamable content. Some of the most popular and profitable digital products include:
- Ebooks and audiobooks
- Online courses and memberships
- Software, plugins, and apps
- Stock photos, videos, and audio files
- Templates, printables, PDFs
- Exclusive memberships & subscriptions
- Streaming video content
Why Use WordPress for Selling Digital Products?
Okay, so you’re sold on the idea of selling. But why WordPress? Isn’t it just for blogging?
Quite the opposite! It’s actually one of the most flexible platforms available, with a wide range of features that make it perfect for selling digital products, including:
- A user-friendly interface
- Customization options
- A vast library of themes and plugins
- SEO capabilities
- Flexible payment gateways, like Stripe and PayPal
With WordPress, for example, you can sell digital downloads like PDFs and MP3s and lots more on WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads or less direct digital products like online courses and website memberships using WP Pull Members for Stripe.
Now that you know why WordPress is the best choice for your store, let’s talk about how to sell digital products with WordPress.
📖 You might also like to read: How to Monetize a WordPress Blog?
How to Sell Digital Products with WordPress (Step-by-Step)
Step 1: Create a Clear Business Plan
Decide which digital products you’ll offer, set clear prices, and target your ideal customer before proceeding to technical setups.
Step 2: Set Up Your WordPress Website
When you’re done with the business plan, it’s time to start setting up your WordPress website.
Step 3: Choose the Right WordPress Plugin for Selling Digital Products
WordPress offers a variety of plugins that can help you sell your digital products online. But not all plugins are created equal!
- WP Full Members: WP Full Members is an add-on for the WP Full Pay plugin. It allows you to create and manage membership sites with subscriber-only content on your WordPress site. This add-on is particularly useful for those looking to offer premium resources, courses, or tutorials exclusively to subscribed members.
- Easy Digital Downloads: A free plugin that’s specifically designed for selling digital products. It offers a variety of features, including discount codes, custom email templates, and detailed sales reports.
- WP Simple Pay: A Stripe payment plugin for sales payment forms that works without WooCommerce and lets you directly integrate Stripe on your WordPress site and create flexible pricing for all your products.
- MemberPress: A subscription/membership plugin that lets you create and sell membership plans, set up drip content, and restrict access to certain areas of your site. If you’re planning to sell online courses or exclusive content, this is a great option. There’s even a MemberPress Elements integration that lets you unlock unique elements.
- WooCommerce: The most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress, WooCommerce can be used to sell both physical and digital products. It offers a huge library of plugins and extensions to customize your store however you like. Plus, it has Easy Digital Downloads integration so you can use both plugins together for ultimate flexibility.
📖 You might also like to read: Plugins You Need to Create and Manage a Membership Site in WordPress
Step 4: Set Up a Payment Gateway for Digital Goods
Use an easy-to-integrate and secure payment gateway like Stripe or PayPal specifically tailored for digital goods.
- Stripe: excellent for accepting card payments, digital subscriptions, seamless user experiences.
- PayPal: trusted for one-time sales, PayPal buttons for downloads, or digital product subscriptions.
📖 Step-by-step guide on integrating Stripe to a WordPress site.
Step 5: Automate Digital Product Delivery
Automate the secure digital delivery using plugins:
- WP Full Pay (for Stripe payment integration and automation).
- EDD (for easy delivery and secure links).
- Email programs (MailChimp, ActiveCampaign) integrated seamlessly for follow-up emails and delivery confirmations.
Step 6: Carefully Test Your Digital Store (Critical Step!)
Make test transactions to ensure everything works: payments, downloads, confirmation emails, and more.
Step 7: Work on Support, Marketing, SEO
Provide Excellent Customer Support
Happy customers are repeat customers. Implement a ticket system or live chat on your site to address issues quickly.
Build Your Email List
Email campaigns are powerful. Start building your list early with freebies and lead magnets. Platforms like MailChimp integrate with WordPress to make this easy.
SEO Strategies for Visibility
SEO can bring you organic traffic if you use the right keywords your potential customers are using. Use tools like Yoast SEO to optimize meta tags, generate XML sitemaps, and improve readability.
How to protect digital products?
Creators of digital products put a lot of time and effort into developing high-quality, valuable content. Protecting that content from unauthorized distribution is crucial for maintaining its value. Here are some strategies:
- Watermarking content: Embed a visible watermark on visual materials like photos, videos, and graphic designs.
- Digital rights management (DRM): Encrypt digital products, such as eBooks or music, to restrict unauthorized distribution.
- License agreements: Clearly specify the terms of use, redistribution rights, etc. for your digital products.
- Password protection: Utilize encrypted downloads and user-specific passwords to control access to the products.
- Content delivery networks (CDNs): prevent direct file access by distributing content through CDNs.
You can download WP Full Pay plugin for free, create Stripe payment forms, and test Stripe transactions on your WordPress site.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How to sell digital products on WordPress?
Install a digital sales plugin like WP Full Pay, Easy Digital Downloads, or WooCommerce. Then, add your digital products, integrate a payment gateway, and sell securely through your WordPress site.
Can you sell items on WordPress without WooCommerce?
Yes! Plugins like WP Full Pay or Easy Digital Downloads allow you to sell products directly without WooCommerce.
How to sell digital downloads on WordPress?
Install ‘Easy Digital Downloads’ WordPress plugin, add digital files, set prices, then easily sell downloadable products securely.
Can I sell digital videos or streaming content on WordPress?
Absolutely. Plugins like WP Full Members or Restrict Content Pro allow you to sell access to streaming video and protected content seamlessly.
How do you set up a digital goods payment gateway?
Your best option is Stripe or PayPal. Integrate these gateways using e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce or payment plugins like WP Full Pay directly in WordPress.
How can I sell products on WordPress?
Choose a WordPress plugin suited for your product type—physical (WooCommerce), digital (Easy Digital Downloads)—link a payment gateway, then launch your store immediately.
Which plugin is best for selling digital products on my WordPress blog?
Easy Digital Downloads is popular for downloadable files. For subscriptions or memberships—WP Full Members or Restrict Content Pro. For quick Stripe payments without full-commerce setup–WP Full Pay.