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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: October 02, 2024
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Wondering where to sell digital products for free?
Here are 9 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.
Hubspot has become my recommended best value all-in-one marketing platform for small businesses and even creators.
Here's why.
Even though they started as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool (back in 2006 hahah!). Their Free Marketing Hub includes a suite of marketing tools that really cater to small businesses.
And yes you guessed it, they're free.
That means you get to:
and more...
Check out what else are included in Hubspot's free marketing hub
That said, know that HubSpot’s strategy is to offer a bunch of free tools and resources to draw in customers and eventually get them to upgrade.
To start selling digital products with Hubspot, head over to their Free Marketing Hub page and select "Get started free".
HubSpot will send you a daily email with the total amount of your payout. For card payments, the funds typically hit your bank account within two business days, and for ACH payments, it takes around three business days.
HubSpot charges a 0.75% platform fee on each transaction. This is in addition to Stripe’s credit card processing fee, which is 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.
Kit (previously ConvertKit) is an email marketing platform that has grown much more since its inception in 2013.
When you sign up for Kit on their free plan, you get to:
And more!
A few things you should know about selling on Kit:
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, Kit 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 Kit account. However, Kit Commerce (the feature that allows you to sell digital products on Kit) is only available for select countries, which include the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Austria, and 40+ other countries.
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.
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 effectively.
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 creator and you want to earn a side income by selling digital products online, 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 are 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, signing up as a seller on Creative Market is free. You can sign up for free here.
Your payout (minus transaction fee) will be sent to you via Paypal or wire transfer at the beginning of each month.
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. If you plan to build a brand around your store, you can also link up a custom domain.
On Gumroad, you can sell a variety of digital products, including but not limited to:
One nifty feature that Gumroad offers (that others 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 variations of a digital product to various customers.
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.
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!
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 monthly 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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