Guides 7 min read
Where to sell digital products online
There are four kinds of places to sell a digital product, and the right one depends less on the product than on how buyers will find you. This guide describes each kind, who brings the buyers in each, what it costs, which suits ebooks, templates, 3D files, prompts, recipes and fitness plans, what any place has to have before you trust it with a sale, and the signs that a place is wrong.
- Four kinds of place: your own website, a big general marketplace, a niche marketplace for one craft, and a creator storefront on a platform that handles payments. They differ mainly in who brings the buyers.
- If you have an audience, a storefront you link to from your bio keeps the most per sale. If you have none, a marketplace with search traffic is where strangers can find you, at a higher cut.
- Whatever the place, it must deliver the file the moment the card clears, take cards, handle refunds, let buyers preview, give you a page you can share, and state a fee you can compute.
- Selling in more than one place is normal. Keep prices equal everywhere, and keep one place as home, where the bio link points.
- Walk away from a monthly fee before the first sale, an exclusivity clause, a fee page that hides card processing, and any place you cannot leave with your files and your sales list.
The four kinds of place
Every place that sells digital products is one of these four. Names change; the kinds do not.
| Kind of place | Who brings the buyers | What it costs | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own website | You, entirely. Nobody arrives who was not sent. | A site, a payment plugin, hosting, and your time; often a monthly fee before the first sale. | Sellers with a large audience and the patience to run a shop. |
| A big general marketplace | The marketplace. People search there for everything, so strangers can find you. | A listing fee and a percentage per sale, usually the highest of the four. | Products people search for by name, from sellers with no audience yet. |
| A niche marketplace for one craft | The marketplace, for people who already want that craft: models for printing, fonts, presets, sheet music. | A percentage, sometimes high, sometimes with a monthly tier. | One kind of product, made well, where the buyers already gather. |
| A creator storefront | You, from your bio, your posts and your list. The platform handles payments and delivery; some also have a marketplace alongside. | A small percentage per sale, no monthly fee on the good ones. | Anyone with an audience, and anyone who wants a store under their own name without building one. |
The first column matters most. A place either sends you buyers or it does not, and the ones that do charge for it.
Match the place to how you will be found
The what-to-sell guide makes the point that a digital product gets found through an audience or through search. The place to sell follows from which you have.
Followers, a list, a group, regulars in a community. They will buy from whichever link you give them, so give them the link that keeps the most and shows your work best: a storefront under your name. The marketplace's own traffic is a bonus, not the plan.
A specific thing people type into a search box: a planner for a particular job, a replacement part, a template for a particular app. A marketplace with search traffic is where those typers are, and the higher cut buys you the strangers you could not reach alone.
A storefront costs nothing to open and gives you something concrete to show while you build the first one. Start there, and start sharing.
Many sellers end up in two places: a listing or two on a big marketplace for the search traffic, and a storefront that the bio link points to, where the people who already know them buy.
What any place must have
Before trusting a place with a sale, check these on its own pages. All of them, not most.
The buyer pays and gets the file at once, from a library they can come back to, not from an email you send by hand.
You never see a card number and never run a checkout of your own.
A stated window and someone who reviews requests. Buyers trust a place that has one, and you are not arguing on your own.
The first pages of a PDF, a sample image, a description with room to say what is inside. People do not buy a stranger's file blind.
Your name, your products, one link. If all you get is a checkout button, the place is a payment tool, not a place to sell.
The platform's cut and the card processing, stated, so you can work out what you keep on your price before you list. The pricing guide shows how to do the sum.
Your files stay yours, you can take a listing down, and you can see who bought from you.
What each kind of product tends to need
A look-inside preview and a file that reads on a phone matter more than the venue. Direct sales from a storefront suit authors with readers; big marketplaces suit books people search for by topic. The ebook guide has the file details.
Searchable by the job ("invoice tracker", "wedding invitation"), so a marketplace with search helps a first seller; the storefront is where repeat buyers and your followers go.
Niche model sites bring the search traffic from people who print; a storefront keeps more per sale from the people who follow your prints. Most 3D sellers use both. The 3D print files guide covers licensing and testing.
New enough that search traffic is thin everywhere; these sell on trust, from an audience, so a storefront and a visible sample do the work.
Sold on the credibility of the person, so the place has to show the person: a bio, a photo, notes, a video. A storefront that is a real page beats a listing in a sea of others.
The common places, named
The kinds above, with the places most sellers mean by them. These are descriptions only, as each place describes itself; the fees, read from each company's own pricing page on October 29, 2026, are compared in the pricing guide. Every one has its own rules, and all of them change, so read the place's own pages before you list.
| Place | What kind it is | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | Your own website | A shop builder on a monthly plan. Digital files need a delivery app on top. For people who already run a shop and want to add files to it. |
| Etsy | A big general marketplace | Digital downloads are one category among millions of physical listings; a listing fee per item plus a cut per sale. Search traffic for things people type by name. |
| Creative Market | A niche marketplace for one craft | Design assets: fonts, templates, graphics, mockups. A cut per sale; buyers come to browse. |
| Cults3D | A niche marketplace for one craft | 3D print files, free and paid, with a cut per sale. Buyers come to search for models. |
| MyMiniFactory | A niche marketplace for one craft | 3D printable models, strong on miniatures and figures; paid and free, a cut per sale. |
| Amazon KDP | A big general marketplace, for ebooks | Puts an ebook in the Kindle store and pays a royalty rather than charging a fee. The store's rules on pricing and exclusivity apply. |
| Gumroad | A creator storefront, with a marketplace alongside | A page per product and a profile, a percentage plus a fixed amount per sale, and a higher cut on sales that come from its own marketplace. |
| Payhip | A creator storefront | A store page with a percentage per sale on the free plan and monthly plans that lower it. |
| Lemon Squeezy | A creator storefront, for digital products and software | A checkout and storefront that also collects sales tax for you, with a percentage plus a fixed amount per sale. |
| troimarket | A creator storefront, with a marketplace alongside | 1% per sale plus card processing, no monthly fee, a store page with a Links page and Creator notes, and a listing kind for every file type here. |
Selling in more than one place
It is normal, and nobody minds. Three rules keep it clean:
A buyer who finds it cheaper elsewhere feels cheated by the place they paid, and by you.
One place the bio link points to and the newsletter mentions, so your audience learns where you are.
When you change a price or fix a file, you change it everywhere, the same day.
Warning signs
A plan is a bet that you will sell enough to cover it. Make the bet after you know, not before.
Any clause that says you may not sell the same product elsewhere. Your product is yours.
Card processing is a real cost on every platform; a page that does not mention it is hiding a third of the number.
If you cannot see who bought, you cannot thank them, help them, or tell them about the next product.
If taking down your listings or getting your files out is hard, do not go in.
No support address, no terms you can read, no copyright process. The place that cannot answer you cannot answer a buyer either.
On troimarket
troimarket is the fourth kind: a creator storefront with a marketplace alongside.
At troimarket.com/@yourname, with a bio, sections, a banner, an intro video, a Links page and Creator notes, in light or dark. The one link to share.
Plus card processing of 2.7% + 30¢. No monthly fee, no listing fee, nothing on free products. On a $20 sale you keep $18.96.
The file lands in the buyer's library the moment they pay; cards and payouts run through Whop; buyers have a 14-day refund window, each request reviewed.
Buyers can read the first pages of a PDF before they pay, and PDFs are stamped with the buyer's email.
Each file up to 50 MB: digital products, ebooks, 3D print files, AI prompts, recipes and meal plans, fitness programs, bundles of up to 10.
Your files stay yours, a listing comes down any time, and your sales list shows who bought.
Next guide
How to start your own digital marketplaceMore guides
If you are not on troimarket yet, What is troimarket? explains how it works and what it costs, and Sell on troimarket is where a store starts.