How To Create Digital Products and Sell Online – Full Guide 2026

How To Create Digital Products and Sell Online – Full Guide [2026 Update]

The world of digital marketing is a weird and thrilling one. When you’ve seen photos of individuals standing in front of private jets with text promising you can “live the dream and make money online,” they’re probably talking about some type of digital marketing. Digital marketing simply means marketing on the internet.

This can include being a content marketer or search engine optimization specialist working for clients to promote their business. However, it could also involve working for yourself and marketing something you’re selling, in order to make money online. This is one of the greatest side‑hustles when it comes to popularity and earning potential.

There’s an entire subculture of people trying to figure out how to make money from the web. Forums are full of entrepreneurs passing on tips and strategies, or sharing their success stories. Often, the technique involves passing people from one link to another until someone finally sells somebody something.

In this regard, entrepreneurs are actually somewhat more like door‑to‑door salespersons, except that instead of going door‑to‑door, you have a window to the entire population (the web). And instead of needing to buy physical products which require up‑front investment, storage, and delivery, you can sell an intangible digital item. That may mean something like an e‑book, or an online course.

You don’t even need to write the book yourself! When you buy a PLR (Private Label Rights) book, you’ll not only be buying the guide itself, but also the right to sell it to others. Or you can sell an affiliate product and get commission by promoting someone else’s work.

So, is this really a fast way to make lots of money and buy your own private jet? Sadly, most of those jets are hired for photoshoots. But, that’s not to say there isn’t money to be made here. In fact, there is quite a lot, once you’ve endured some trial and error. Read on to learn how you can make money online by selling a digital product.

What Are Digital Products?

Digital products are intangible, non‑physical assets that are sold online. After purchase, they are accessed online or downloaded to a computer or other device. Digital products are largely digital. In some cases, they may have a physical component. For example, a membership site might provide PDF downloads that can be printed. An online course might include a workbook and resources that are mailed to students.

You can sell almost any digital product online. You’ve probably bought some yourself: e‑books, stock photos, online courses, digital graphics, software programs, and videos. None of those things can be tasted, touched, or held, yet they all provide value to the customer. That’s really the secret to making money online with digital products. If you have valuable knowledge or a digital asset that other people want, you can sell it online as a digital product. People pay for practical solutions and information that helps them save time or create a better life for themselves.

Why People Buy Digital Products

To succeed at earning profits online by selling digital products, you need to understand why someone spends money on an e‑book in the first place. A digital product is something that can be downloaded. Unlike a SaaS (software‑as‑a‑service), there is no ongoing commitment on your part. Very often, digital products are informational products. That usually means an e‑book, a digital report, an online course, or something similar. We’ll stick to e‑books for this guide, as they tend to be the simplest strategy to become profitable online.

But while it’s a PDF that will be downloaded, in reality what you’re really “selling” is the knowledge that you impart through that product. Therefore, the value comes from the informational deficit and the value proposition lies in the way your knowledge can improve the life of the reader. This might be a guide to help them set up their own business, a report to help them get into better shape, or it might teach them a skill such as Java or French cooking.

The best of these products solve a specific problem that the reader might have. If you can pick something that has a strong emotional hook, that will work even better. That’s why products that help people get richer/healthier/sexier are so common, together with the fact that they have very broad appeal. That said, there is benefit in choosing something more niche such as the Java example, as this reduces the competition and offers some more obvious marketing opportunities, such as programming forums.

This is called the “go‑to‑market strategy,” and involves finding where the best customers for your product spend time. Remember that it’s only a certain type of person who buys an e‑book that isn’t on Kindle. Often, that will be someone relatively young and pretty tech‑savvy. That’s why the most popular topic is, ironically, making money online! Find a community of people with a problem, solve their problem with an e‑book, then connect the two. That’s this business model in a nutshell and the crux of how to make money online.

Phase 1: Choose Your Product

To create a digital product that sells, you need to pick something that aligns with your expertise and passion, but also has proven demand. Here’s how to research your niche:

• Identify the topics people are actively searching for. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest to find search volume for terms related to your expertise.
• Uncover the topics that haven’t been covered yet in your niche. Look for gaps in existing content. For example, if you’re an expert in baking, you might find there’s not much content available for professional bakers in the keto space.
• Find the areas where you can add unique value. What makes your perspective different? Your experience, your teaching style, your case studies.

Phase 2: Validation (Don’t Skip This!)

Before you commit to spending weeks creating your product, make sure there is real demand for it.

Social Listening

Head over to Reddit, Quora, TikTok, or X (Twitter) and look for queries like “how do I…” or “struggling with…” that are related to your niche. If you see many people asking the same questions, that’s a strong signal.

The “Fake Door” Test

Create a simple landing page describing your product and a “Buy Now” button. When someone clicks, show a message like “We’re not ready yet – leave your email to get notified when we launch.” If you get sign‑ups (even 5–10), you have validation. This method saved countless hours for many successful creators.

Phase 3: Create the Product

Use tools that speed up your work. You don’t need expensive software.

• Design & Layout: Canva (the standard for e‑books/workbooks) or Figma (for advanced UI resources).
• Templates: Notion (for productivity systems).
• Video: Loom or Descript (great for recording tutorials when you don’t have a film crew).
• Writing: ChatGPT/Claude (use them to draft your outline or for proofreading – but write the main content yourself to keep it real).

If you can write and have some value to impart, creating an e‑book is as simple as writing a Word document and saving it as a PDF. If you run a blog, you can even collect a bunch of articles you’ve previously written and sell them as a compendium (the chance of anyone having read all your content is minuscule). That’s the easiest option, because it lets you choose a topic you’re passionate about, and it gives you full control over the tone and style. It also means you won’t have to share the revenue with anyone. Helpful if your end‑goal is to make money online!

The downside is that it takes time to write a book and you might end up investing many hours for $20. One way to avoid that is to use a technique called validation (as above) – ensure there really is an audience before you go to the effort of creating it.

Phase 4: Set Up Your Storefront

The place where you do your selling is as important as what you sell. Decide based on where your traffic comes from:

Option A: The “Marketplace” Route (Perfect for Beginners)

• Platforms: Etsy (great for planners/printables), Creative Market (for design assets).
• Pros: They do the marketing for you, bringing customers. They also handle taxes (VAT/Sales Tax) automatically.
• Cons: You pay higher fees, and you don’t “own” the customer email list.

Option B: The “Creator” Route (Best for Social Media Sellers)

• Platforms: Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, or Kajabi.
• Pros: Great checkout experience, handles global taxes (Merchant of Record), easy to link in bio, and you own your customer data.
• Cons: You have to drive all the traffic yourself.

Option C: The “Brand” Route (Best for Scaling)

• Platforms: Shopify (with Digital Downloads app) or WooCommerce.
• Pros: Full branding and customer data control. No platform risk.
• Cons: Monthly costs are higher; you have to handle tax compliance (or use apps like TaxJar).

When you choose to sell a digital product that you own, you’ll need to get hosting and build a website. The good news is that it’s a relatively simple process nowadays and doesn’t have to take long. Website creation is beyond the scope of this post, but it primarily involves buying hosting from a company such as BlueHost or HostGator, then installing WordPress (powerful, flexible, and free). Alternatively, you can use a hosted site‑builder like SquareSpace or Kajabi.

The latter makes creating your website especially easy, but if you go that route, you’ll need to pay and may be somewhat limited in what you can do. However, as a quick way to get up and running, it’s a good option. Getting hosting and installing WordPress is my advice, and is the route taken by most online entrepreneurs. From there, it’s a simple matter to install a plugin like Sell Digital Downloads. It will allow you to make sales, and keeps everything very simple. You’ll add your products through the Media Manager that you usually use for images, and you’ll handle payments via PayPal. You can set this up and start taking orders in minutes! This really is one of the easiest ways to make money online.

Phase 5: Set Your Price

The key to making profits with digital products is to set an appropriate price. Your price must cover your costs for creating and selling the product, and then some. It also must be fair to your customers. Some digital entrepreneurs say you should offer 10X the value you ask people to pay. While 10X seems steep, this mindset is true. Your customer should always feel that they received more value than they paid for.

How do you find this magical price point that’s fair to you and your buyer? Start by considering the true value of your product. If you’re offering a one‑to‑one coaching program to help freelancers earn a high income, that’s worth much more than a one‑hour video on the same topic. Then look at your competitor’s prices. Ideally, you want to set a comparable price. But if you can be profitable offering high value at a lower price, you’ll win a lot of business.

A good example of a digital product that uses this strategy is The Last Amazon Course. Its price is just $1 per week, with no upsell. As long as you’re an active member, you get full access to the training portal, including 375+ videos and 45+ hours of training. Because digital products typically have low overhead, it’s entirely feasible to set a low price and sell to many customers. But “digital” doesn’t always mean “cheap.” Many digital creators charge $2,000, $5,000, and more for their products because the value is so high.

Consider offering payment options:

• One‑time payment for lifetime access – common for courses and e‑books.
• Subscription (recurring) – works well for memberships and communities.
• Payment plans – allow customers to pay in installments (e.g., 4 payments of $275 instead of $1,000 upfront).

Phase 6: Marketing & Launch

All that’s left to make money online now is to bring the buyers to your page. There are several ways you can go about this.

If you’re lucky enough to have a blog or a successful Instagram account/YouTube channel/Facebook page, then you’ll already have a captive audience that trusts you and to whom you can sell. If not, then you can consider building one. Alternatively, you can consider posting to forums and groups. That will often get you banned, so what may work better is to create a blog you can promote and then include links to your products in the blog. You can use search engine optimization (SEO) to get to the top of Google, but that takes a lot of expertise and work.

Maybe the quickest strategy to make money online from a digital product is to use advertising. Consider using PPC (Pay‑Per‑Click) advertising. You pay only if someone clicks on your ad. Two of the largest PPC platforms are Facebook and Google Ads. The amount you pay per click depends on how popular the spot you’re trying to advertise on is. On Facebook you advertise on the home feed based on demographics and interests. On Google, you advertise on search engine results pages (SERPs) based on the search term.

When a page is created by Google or Facebook to serve a user, advertisers “bid” for a spot. You pay the minimum amount needed to beat all other bidders, but you can also set a maximum budget you’re willing to pay per click. You also set a daily budget at which point your ads stop being shown, to ensure you don’t go broke overnight.

On average, you can expect to pay anywhere from $0.01 to $2 for a click (though it can go higher or lower). That’s great news because it means we know exactly how much we’re paying for each visitor. Which means we can guarantee we’ll make money online if we do a little math. Let’s say your e‑book earns you $40 per sale and your conversion rate is 1% (a good target). That means you make on average $40 for every 100 visitors. As long as you pay less than $0.40 per click, you’ll be profitable. So if you’re paying $0.05 per click, you’ll be paying $5 for every $40 you earn! Now of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that. It takes trial and error to get your landing page perfect, you’ll need to market in the right place, and you may need to sink some money before it all works. But in theory, you can eventually create a flawless system to make money online while you sleep!

Tim Ferriss of The 4‑Hour Workweek fame recommends this as a technique anyone can use to supplement their income.

101 Digital Product Ideas You Can Sell Online

No matter what you’re selling, whether online or off, the key is to always provide value. If what you have to offer (in the way you package it) is of value to others, you can sell it. With that in mind, here are 101 ideas of products you can sell online that are guaranteed to bring value to a niche audience.

Writing:

1. Book – non‑fiction
2. Book – fiction
3. Poetry book
4. E‑commerce product descriptions
5. Copywriting templates (e.g., how to fire a client, how to raise prices)
6. Recipe books
7. Document templates
8. Reports/analytics templates
9. Email marketing campaign templates (upselling, cross‑selling, re‑engagement)
10. Creative brief samples/templates
11. Tutorial research, papers, findings
12. Magazines
13. Writing cover letters
14. Dispute letters (with banks, attorneys, clients)

Audio:

15. Songs
16. Beats
17. Jingles
18. Ringtones
19. Sound effects
20. Voice‑overs (as a service)
21. Instrumental tracks

Video:

22. Sell short videos (entertainment)
23. Video animation intros
24. Stock video
25. Video tutorials (e.g., how to use a DSLR camera, follow‑along yoga, learn to code, edit a vlog)
26. Professionally edited short videos as a service (wedding, travel, etc.)
27. Documentary
28. Stand‑up comedy
29. Deluts

Design:

30. Wallpapers
31. Posters/prints
32. Emojis/bitmojis
33. Fonts
34. Photoshop/Illustrator templates
35. Branding services
36. Photoshop services (airbrushing, touch‑ups)
37. Logo design
38. Business card design
39. Infographic design
40. Turn photos into vector files
41. PowerPoint / Keynote presentation templates
42. Print‑out origami
43. Printable coloring book pages
44. 3D models
45. VR/AR templates
46. 3D printer design files
47. Icon sets
48. Animations
49. Wedding invitation templates
50. CGI models
51. Comics
52. Printable calendars
53. Printable journals

Photography:

54. Lightroom/Photoshop presets
55. Mockup photos
56. Stock images
57. LUTs (Look‑up Tables)

IT and Tech:

58. Apps
59. Games
60. Browser plugins
61. Website themes (WordPress, Webflow, etc.)
62. Setup for online stores, blogs, websites
63. Selling domains
64. Hosting
65. Zapier templates
66. Code snippets

Your Time/Data:

67. Language lessons
68. Financial consultations
69. Financial planning
70. Coaching/mentoring sessions
71. Tutoring
72. Resume touch‑ups
73. Essay‑writing services
74. Translations
75. Social media marketing
76. User testing
77. Proofreading
78. Editing
79. Audits (accounting audits, content audits, etc.)
80. Career consultations

Best Practices for Selling Digital Products Online

1. Build an Online Presence

A website gives you a place to show off your product and engage with customers. It provides free content that helps people understand why your product is valuable. It also has landing pages that promote your products. If you’re worried that you’re not technical enough to build a website, don’t be. A platform like Kajabi does all the heavy‑lifting, so you can focus on what you do best: creating valuable digital content.

2. Keep Your Costs Low

When calculating your profit margins, look at your recurring costs: hosting, landing page builder, email service, marketing/advertising, and payment gateway fees. The best way to keep costs low is to use as few tools as possible. Most online creators pay for several tools but use only a fraction of their features. Consider an all‑in‑one platform like Kajabi that includes hosting, email marketing, customizable themes, affiliate management, and payment processing.

3. Watch Your Metrics

To stay profitable, you need to keep on top of what’s working and what’s not. Track website visits, downloads, purchases, referrals, and your most‑visited product pages. Monitor your profit margin and operating expenses. This helps you identify which marketing activities are working, which distribution channels to double down on, and which areas may be draining your business.

4. Turn Existing Customers into Advocates

Turning existing customers into your biggest promoters is the best way to expand the reach of your digital products. Most customers (84%) trust product recommendations from friends and family more than ads or branded content. One of the easiest ways to turn customers into advocates is to provide excellent customer support. Be accessible for questions, doubts, and issues. This stands out in an age when customers are used to everything being automated. Another way to keep your customers happy is simply to deliver on your promises. Do what you say you’re going to do.

Advantages of Selling Digital Products

• They’re infinitely scalable – you’re never limited to how many products you can sell. The sky’s the limit!
• You don’t worry about logistics – where to keep inventory, how to package products, and ensuring they get shipped on time are all things that physical product sellers have to deal with – digital sellers don’t.
• Low upfront costs – the barrier to entry is low. It doesn’t demand a large upfront investment as you don’t have to invest in inventory or manufacturing.
• Huge profit margin – you can keep the vast majority of your sales as profit.
• Flexibility – there are many digital products that make money online, and most are easy to create using knowledge you already possess.

📅 2026 Update: What’s New in Digital Products

• AI‑Powered Personalization: Tools like ChatGPT and Claude are used to create tailored learning paths, quiz‑based recommendations, and dynamic content.
• Short‑Form Video Dominance: Reels, TikToks, and YouTube Shorts are the primary discovery channels. Creators now sell products by showing the result in 15‑second clips.
• Micro‑SaaS and Notion Templates: The rise of “build in public” has led to thousands of micro‑SaaS products and Notion templates solving niche problems.
• Community‑Led Growth: Paid communities (Slack, Discord) are becoming standalone products, not just add‑ons.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Conclusion

We live in a time where you can conduct the entirety of your business solely from your couch. From start to finish. What’s not to love? For some, online sales provide supplementary income alongside their main job. For others, it’s become a full‑time job. What both scenarios have in common is that they leverage the easy advantages of selling digital products.

The biggest question that often stops those who want to create their online business is – what to sell? So if you’ve decided to give digital product sales a go, but can’t think of a great niche product that’s perfect for you, then this list of digital products to sell is the only thing you need.

Remember, the key is to provide value. Solve a problem, package your knowledge, and connect with the right audience. With the strategies and ideas in this guide, you’re well on your way to creating a profitable digital product business. Start small, validate, and scale. Good luck!

Additional Resources & Expert Insights

• For comprehensive guides on digital marketing, visit Neil Patel’s Blog.
• Learn about the latest e‑commerce trends at Shopify Blog.
• For deep dives into content creation and online business, check Smart Passive Income.
• Stay updated on digital product platforms via Gumroad Blog.
• For email marketing best practices, refer to HubSpot Blog.

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