The digital goods market is worth $157.39 billion in 2026 and is on track to hit $511.43 billion by 2031, growing at a 26.60% CAGR. That is the demand side. The supply side is you, and the only real question left is where to sell digital products so the most buyers see them while you keep the most of every sale.
The answer splits cleanly in two. You can list on a marketplace that already has buyers, like Etsy or Creative Market, and pay a cut for that traffic. Or you can run your own store on Gumroad, Payhip, or Shopify, keep more of each sale, and drive the traffic yourself. This guide covers the 14 best platforms in both camps, which one fits your product, what each actually costs you per sale, and where you can start selling for free.
Key Takeaways
- Marketplaces bring buyers, your own store keeps margin. Etsy and Creative Market have millions of shoppers built in; Gumroad, Payhip, and Shopify give you more control and a lower cut.
- Free to start does not mean free per sale. Gumroad, Payhip, and Ko-fi charge $0 per month but still take a per-sale cut of 5% to 10%.
- On a $5 file you keep around 80%; on a $50 file you keep closer to 90%, because flat per-transaction fees hit cheap products hardest.
- Etsy is best for discovery, Gumroad and Payhip for a fast free launch, Shopify for a real brand, and Lemon Squeezy for software with global tax handled for you.
- You can sell the same product on several platforms at once, so most sellers combine a marketplace for reach with their own store for margin.
The 14 best platforms to sell digital products at a glance
Here is the full lineup before we go deep on each one. “Marketplace” means the platform sends its own shoppers to your listing. “Own store” means you build the storefront and bring the traffic. Fees are the platform’s own cut and exclude payment processing where noted.
| Platform | Type | Cost to start | Per-sale fee | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Etsy | Marketplace | Free | 6.5% + $0.20 listing | Printables, planners, art |
| Creative Market | Marketplace | Free | Keep 50-70% | Fonts, templates, graphics |
| Gumroad | Marketplace / store | Free | 10% + $0.50 | Fast, simple launches |
| Ko-fi | Marketplace / store | Free | 5% (free plan) | Creators with a following |
| Whop | Marketplace / store | Free | 2.7% + $0.30 | Memberships, communities |
| Shopify | Own store | $39/mo | 0% with an app | Building a real brand |
| Payhip | Own store | Free | 5% (free plan) | Free store with no monthly |
| Podia | Own store | $42/mo | 5% (Mover) | Courses and downloads |
| Sellfy | Own store | $22/mo | 0% Sellfy fee | All-in-one creator store |
| Lemon Squeezy | Own store | Free | 5% + $0.50 | Software and SaaS |
| Amazon KDP | Marketplace | Free | 30-65% royalty split | Ebooks and low-content books |
| TikTok Shop | Social | Free | ~6-8% referral | Impulse buys from video |
| Social | Free | Processing only | Selling to an existing audience | |
| Big Cartel | Own store | Free (5 items) | 0% Big Cartel fee | Artists and small catalogs |
Marketplace or your own store: which should you choose?
This is the decision that shapes everything else, so settle it first. A marketplace like Etsy already has millions of people searching for products every day, so it can send you sales before you have any audience of your own. The trade is a higher fee and a customer who belongs to the platform, not to you.
Your own store on Gumroad, Payhip, or Shopify flips that deal. You keep more of every sale, you own the customer email, and you control the branding, but nobody finds you unless you send them there from social media, a newsletter, or search. If you already post content or have a following, an own store almost always wins on margin. If you are starting cold with no audience, a marketplace gets you your first sales faster.
You do not have to pick one forever. Most sellers list on a marketplace for discovery and run their own store for repeat buyers, then push traffic to whichever keeps more of the sale. The sections below are grouped exactly this way so you can shortlist fast.
Best marketplaces to sell digital products
These platforms bring their own shoppers. You pay a higher cut per sale, but you tap an audience that is already looking to buy, which makes them the fastest path to your first sale.
Etsy
Etsy is the default marketplace for printables, planners, digital art, and templates, with hundreds of millions of active buyers searching every month. It is free to open a shop, and you pay a 6.5% transaction fee, a $0.20 listing fee per item, plus payment processing of roughly 3% + $0.25. Digital listings allow up to five files at 20MB each, which is plenty for most planners and template packs. If Etsy becomes your main channel, we cover the platform in depth in our guide to digital products set to explode in 2026.
Creative Market
Creative Market is built for design assets, so it is the right home for fonts, mockups, templates, and graphics. The audience is other creators and designers who expect polished, ready-to-use files, which supports higher prices than a general marketplace. It is free to open a shop and you typically keep 50% to 70% of each sale depending on your partner tier, with millions of monthly buyers looking specifically for design work.
Gumroad
Gumroad is the fastest way to start selling anything digital, from ebooks and templates to presets and memberships. There is no monthly fee and the platform takes a flat 10% + $0.50 per sale, which already includes payment processing since Gumroad handles the checkout end to end. It works as both a simple storefront you link to and a small discovery marketplace, though listings sold through Gumroad’s own Discover feed carry a higher 30% cut. You can confirm the current rate on the Gumroad pricing page.
Ko-fi
Ko-fi started as a tipping tool and grew into a full shop, which makes it ideal if you already have a community or newsletter. The free plan charges a 5% shop fee, with no monthly cost, and you can sell downloads, commissions, and memberships side by side. It is less of a search destination than Etsy, so treat Ko-fi as the checkout for an audience you already reach rather than a place buyers discover you cold.
Whop
Whop has become the go-to for memberships, communities, and access-based products, especially anything gated behind Discord or Telegram. It charges 2.7% + $0.30 per transaction with no monthly fee, one of the lowest headline rates on this list. International cards add 1.5% and currency conversion adds another 1%, so factor those in if your buyers are global. Whop dropped its old 30% marketplace commission in 2025, so marketplace-sourced sales now pay the same low rate as direct ones.
Best platforms to sell on your own store
These platforms let you build a storefront you control. You bring the traffic, and in exchange you keep more of every sale and own the customer relationship for repeat purchases.
Shopify
Shopify is the choice when you want a real brand rather than a listing on someone else’s site. The Basic plan runs $39 per month and there are no transaction fees when you use Shopify Payments, though selling digital files needs a delivery app like Digital Downloads. It is more setup and more cost than a marketplace, so pick Shopify when digital products are part of a wider store or you plan to scale a catalog and a customer list.
Payhip
Payhip is the best free own-store option, giving you a full storefront with no monthly fee on its free plan and a 5% cut per sale. If you outgrow that, the $29 Plus plan drops the fee to 2% and the $99 Pro plan removes it entirely, so the platform scales with your revenue. It handles EU VAT and delivery for you, which removes a real headache for anyone selling into Europe. See the current tiers on the Payhip pricing page.
Podia
Podia bundles digital downloads, courses, and email marketing into one clean storefront, which suits creators who sell more than a single file type. Its Mover plan runs $42 per month billed annually and carries a 5% transaction fee, while the Shaker plan removes that fee and adds webinars and community features. Podia dropped its old free plan, so budget for the monthly cost, but you get a genuine all-in-one platform in return.
Sellfy
Sellfy is an all-in-one store with zero transaction fees on every plan, so you only cover Stripe or PayPal processing of about 2.9% + $0.30. Plans start at $22 per month billed yearly, or $29 month to month, and include email marketing, upsells, and print-on-demand. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, so Sellfy pays off once your sales volume makes the flat monthly fee cheaper than percentage cuts elsewhere.
Lemon Squeezy
Lemon Squeezy is purpose-built for software, licenses, and SaaS subscriptions, and it acts as your merchant of record. That means it collects and remits global sales tax and VAT for you, which is a huge relief if you sell code or apps internationally. The fee is 5% + $0.50 per sale with no monthly cost, bundling payment processing, fraud protection, and tax compliance into that single rate.
Where to sell digital products for free
You can start with zero upfront cost, but read the fine print first. “Free” almost always means no monthly subscription, not free per sale. Every platform below still takes a cut when you make money, either as its own fee or through Stripe and PayPal processing. There is no platform that is genuinely 100% free on every sale.
| Platform | Monthly fee | Per-sale cut | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gumroad | $0 | 10% + $0.50 | Higher cut than most, but nothing to set up |
| Payhip | $0 | 5% | Full own-store, EU VAT handled |
| Ko-fi | $0 | 5% shop fee | Best with an existing following |
| Big Cartel | $0 | 0% Big Cartel fee | Free plan caps you at 5 products |
One correction worth flagging, because older roundups get it wrong. Sellfy no longer has a free plan; it starts at $22 per month, so do not treat it as a zero-cost option even though many lists still file it there. For a genuinely free launch, Gumroad and Payhip are the cleanest starting points, and both let you upgrade later without moving your store. If you want ideas for what to actually put in that store, our roundup of easy business ideas for 2026 is a good next read.
Other places to sell digital products
Beyond dedicated marketplaces and store builders, three channels are worth knowing because they meet buyers where they already spend time.
Amazon KDP
Kindle Direct Publishing is the biggest marketplace on earth for ebooks and low-content books like journals and planners. It is free to publish and you earn a royalty of 35% or 70% depending on price and territory, in exchange for Amazon’s enormous built-in traffic. If your product is a book, KDP reaches more readers than any other single channel, though you compete with millions of other titles. If ebooks are your focus, our guide on how to make money with ChatGPT covers drafting and listing them.
TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop turns short videos into an impulse-buy checkout, which works well for low-price templates, presets, and guides. Referral fees sit in the 6% to 8% range and the reach is enormous when a video takes off. It rewards sellers who can make content, so it fits creators more than quiet catalog owners.
Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are not stores themselves, but they are where many buyers first meet a product. You post the work, then send people to your Gumroad, Payhip, or Shopify checkout through a link in bio. Here you pay only payment processing, since the social platform is doing marketing rather than selling, which makes social plus an own store one of the highest-margin combinations available.
What each platform actually costs you
Every roundup parrots “keep 90% of every sale,” but that only holds at higher prices. Flat per-transaction fees, like Gumroad’s $0.50 or Etsy’s $0.20 listing plus $0.25 processing, eat a big slice of a cheap file and almost nothing of an expensive one. Here is what you really keep at three common price points, including typical payment processing.
| Sale price | Gumroad | Etsy | Payhip (free) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5 | ~$4.00 (80%) | ~$4.08 (82%) | ~$4.31 (86%) |
| $20 | ~$17.50 (88%) | ~$17.65 (88%) | ~$18.12 (91%) |
| $50 | ~$44.50 (89%) | ~$44.80 (90%) | ~$45.75 (92%) |
The lesson is simple. If you sell cheap products, the platform with the lowest flat fee wins, and pricing a little higher or bundling files raises your take-home fast. If you sell $50-plus items, the fee gap between platforms nearly disappears, so choose on features and audience instead of chasing the lowest percentage.
Create your product with Fello AI, then sell it anywhere
Choosing a platform is the easy half. The harder half is having a product good enough to sell, and that is where Fello AI fits in. Fello is an all-in-one creation app that routes your request to leading AI models, so you can draft an ebook, generate template designs, write a course outline, or create digital art in one place, then export the files and list them on any marketplace above.
One thing to get right before you sell AI-made work. In the United States, the Copyright Office concluded in early 2025 that purely AI-generated material is not copyrightable, but work where AI assists rather than replaces your own creative choices keeps protection, and you own your creative selection and arrangement. Not copyrightable does not mean you cannot sell it; it just limits what you can stop others from copying. Marketplaces have their own rules too, so Amazon KDP requires you to disclose AI-generated text and images, and Etsy asks you to credit work as “Designed by” and bans selling raw prompt packs. For a real worked example, see how we built a printable murder mystery with AI.
Which platform should you pick?
If you have no audience yet, start on Etsy for discovery or Gumroad for a free, instant store, and get your first sales before you optimize anything. If you already post content or send a newsletter, run your own store on Payhip or Shopify and keep the extra margin. Selling software or apps internationally points straight to Lemon Squeezy so tax is handled for you.
The smartest move for most sellers is to combine channels, using a marketplace for reach and an own store for repeat buyers, since you can list the same product in both. Pick one to launch this week rather than waiting for the perfect setup. If you want the bigger picture on turning digital products into income, our guide on how to make money with AI ties the whole workflow together.
FAQ
Where is the best place to sell digital products?
It depends on whether you have an audience. If you do not, a marketplace like Etsy or Creative Market brings buyers to you. If you already post content or send emails, your own store on Gumroad, Payhip, or Shopify keeps more of each sale. Many sellers use both at once.
Where can I sell digital products for free?
Gumroad, Payhip, Ko-fi, and Big Cartel all let you start with no monthly fee. Just remember that free means no subscription, not free per sale, since each still takes a 5% to 10% cut or charges payment processing when you make money.
Do I need a website to sell digital products?
No. Platforms like Gumroad, Etsy, and Payhip host the storefront, checkout, and file delivery for you, so you can sell without building or maintaining a website. You only need your own site if you want full control over branding and design.
Which platform has the lowest fees?
Whop has one of the lowest headline rates at 2.7% + $0.30 with no monthly fee. On your own store, Payhip’s Pro plan and Sellfy charge 0% platform fee, so you only pay Stripe or PayPal processing. The cheapest option always depends on your price point and sales volume.
Can I sell the same digital product on multiple platforms?
Yes, and most sellers do. Listing on a marketplace for discovery while running your own store for higher margin is a common strategy. Just check each platform’s exclusivity terms, since a few marketplaces offer better rates when you sell only through them.
