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The Cheat Sheet that shows you exactly which website builder to choose based on your needs with bonus on how to get free custom domain, free email hosting, and more.
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The Cheat Sheet that shows you exactly which website builder to choose based on your needs with bonus on how to get free custom domain, free email hosting, and more.
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By David Nge • Last Updated: January 18, 2024
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Wondering where to sell digital products for free?
Here are 8 platforms where you can sell digital products at no cost.
Whether you're trying to sell online courses, or digital downloads like ebooks, music, design assets, or website templates. You won't need a credit card to sell on these platforms.
You don't even need a website to sell these digital products because either they will provide you with a website solution or you can just sell on their marketplaces.
In summary, here are the platforms that allow you to sell digital products for free:
Let's dive right in.
Payhip is one of the easiest platforms to sell digital downloads and courses. Their user-focused approach to building the platform makes it easy to sell and promote your ebooks, courses, design assets, and more.
For example, when you create a course on Payhip (or any product for that matter), you'll automatically get a pre-made sales page that's easy to customize so you can start selling as soon as possible.
With their Free plan, you can sell unlimited digital products with no revenue cap, and you have access to all their features.
A few other details you should know:
You will need to connect your Paypal or Stripe account to Payhip. Whenever you make a sale, Payhip will deposit sales (minus the transaction fee) to you immediately after a transaction has been completed.
On the free plan, Payhip takes a 5% transaction fee. You can opt for a lower transaction fee (as low as 0%) if you subscribe to their paid plan.
Convertkit is an email marketing platform that has grown much more since its inception in 2013.
When you sign up for Convertkit on their free plan, you get to:
And more!
A few things you should know about selling on ConvertKit:
For now, all payments are processed via Stripe (which you don't need an account for) and will be transferred to your bank account every Friday.
Note that your first payout will take longer due to processing — around 1-2 weeks after your first successful sale.
On the free plan, ConvertKit takes a 3.5% + 30c transaction fee for every sale. You can opt for a lower transaction fee (as low as 0%) if you subscribe to their paid plan.
Yes, all payment settings can be configured directly in your ConvertKit account. However, ConvertKit Commerce (the feature that allows you to sell digital products on ConvertKit) is only available for select countries, which include the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Austria, and 40+ other countries.
Thinkific is an all-in-one course creation platform for creators to market and sell their expertise.
Unlike Udemy, where they operate on a revenue share model with its creator, you get to keep all the revenue (minus transaction fee) generated from your students on Thinkific.
Thinkific also offers a comprehensive suite of tools to help you create and market your course the best way possible.
On its free plan, you get to:
And more!
Want to hear success stories from creators using Thinkific?
The common traits among the most successful course creators is the deep passion for a topic they're an expert in.
Thinkific pays its creator via direct deposit. Alternatively, you can connect your Paypal or Stripe account to Thinkific.
All payments made via Paypal or Stripe are immediately processed and transferred to the respective account. You will then need to transfer the fund from Paypal or Stripe to your bank account.
Thinkific takes 0% transaction fee for all your course sales. They are the only course platform that doesn't take a cut of your revenues.
Teachable is the most popular online course platform for independent course creators.
Boasting 100,00 creators who've cumulatively sold over $1 billion in course revenue, Teachable has provided a suite of course creation toolkit to help creators build a profitable online course business.
When you sign up for the free plan on Teachable, you get to:
And more!
Here are some examples of creators who've made a living from selling courses on Teachable:
If you use Teachable's native payment system — Teachable Payments — then you'll receive your payout according to the schedule you've specified (i.e daily, weekly, or monthly).
Otherwise, Teachable will transfer the payout (minus the transaction fee) directly to your Paypal account on the first business day of each month.
On the free plan, Teachable takes a 10% + $1 fee on every course sale you make on the platform. This excludes the standard credit card or Paypal fee that may apply.
Creative Market is one of the largest marketplaces for independent creators to sell unique fonts, graphics, photos, website themes, icons, brushes, and more.
If you're a designer, artist, or a creator and you just want to earn a side income by selling digital products online then Creative Market is a good place to start.
Why?
Because Creative Market was specifically made for designers or creators in general to buy and sell creative assets.
As of this writing, Creative Market has over 8 million members whom you can sell your digital products to.
Moreover, there're lots of success stories from people who earned a decent side income or even a full-time income from Creative Market:
All these are to show that if you have a creative passion you can turn it into a business opportunity.
A few things you should know about selling on Creative Market:
Yes, it is free to sign up as a seller on Creative Market. You can sign up for free here.
You will receive your payout (minus transaction fee) at the beginning of each month via Paypal or wire transfer.
As of this writing, Creative Market charges a 40% transaction fee for every sale you made. In return, you'll get visibility from their 8 million members, their eCommerce solution (no complicated checkout or online store setup), and current market trends on their platform.
Etsy is a global marketplace where people come together to make, sell, and buy unique items.
While Etsy is known for selling creative goods such as craft supplies, accessories, home items, art, collectibles, wedding gifts, etc, you can sell ready-made digital files that buyer can access immediately upon purchase.
Some of the things you can sell on Etsy are:
Click here to view the full list of supported digital download file format on Etsy.
Here are some of the success stories of people making it on Etsy selling digital products:
A few things you should know about selling digital products on Etsy:
When you make a sale through Etsy, the funds are first added to your Etsy payment account. Then, according to your deposit schedule, your available funds will be sent to your bank account.
By default, your funds will be sent to your bank account every Monday. Although, you can change it (in the payment settings) to daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly.
Etsy takes a 6.5% + $0.3c transaction fee for every digital product plus $0.20c for every digital product you list on their platform.
Gumroad is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that allows creators to sell any digital product online.
When you sign up for Gumroad (free) and upload your products, you'll get a dedicated website that you can customize. You can also link up a custom domain if you plan to build a brand around your store.
On Gumroad, you can sell a variety of digital products, including but not limited to:
One nifty feature that Gumroad offers (that other don't) is the ability to sell variations of a digital product.
For example, you can sell multiple formats of the same product (i.e. a video in 1080p, 720p, and 360p resolutions).
You can even structure a digital product in multiple tiers, where each tier offers a combination of files.
You can also sell creative files with different license levels.
In short, you stand to make more revenue as a creator by offering different variation of a digital product to various customers.
What you should know before selling on Gumroad
Gumroad pays its creators every Friday via direct Deposit, debit card or PayPal.
The only requisite is you need to have at least $10 USD in your Gumroad account balance.
Gumroad charges a flat 10% fee on all product sales.
The more you make on Gumroad, the less you have to pay!
Udemy is the largest marketplace for course creators, and there's a good reason for that.
First, Udemy has 49 million students worldwide! The largest student base of any online course platform.
And when you sign up as a creator on Udemy, they offer plenty of resources to help you every step of the way.
For example, if you're choosing a niche or topic to create a course around, Udemy offers its marketplace insights to all of its creators for free!
In there, you'll find the student demand, search volume, and revenue potential for every topic.
There's also no shortage of success stories of people earning side income from Udemy as a course creator:
All that said, Udemy is a competitive marketplace, but at least you have all the resources to help you succeed.
Udemy pays its course creators on a monthly basis via direct deposit, PayPal, or Payoneer.
All payments are subject to Udemy's revenue share terms and refunds from customers.
Udemy operates on the revenue share model with all its instructors.
If a sale occurred through an instructor's promotion (via a coupon or referral link), the instructor receives 97% of the revenue.
Instructors receive 37% of the revenue from all sales that do not occur through an instructor's promotion. This may happen if the student clicks a link on one of Udemy's advertisements or purchases directly from the Udemy marketplace.
David is the founder of MakingThatWebsite.com and started making websites for businesses back in 2014. He's a keen learner and wants to share his journey and knowledge with other business owners and freelancers. He launched MakingThatWebsite.com in 2021 to make website building more approachable and scalable for businesses.
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