We make Drry, a platform people sell digital products on, so we are not a neutral party. You can sell every category below without us and most of this guide is about what to make rather than where to put it. The one section where we are an option says so plainly.
Search this question and you get lists of 125 ideas. There is a reason those lists are that long, and it is not generosity: ideas are the cheap part. Nobody is stuck because they could not think of a thing to sell. They are stuck because they do not know which thing is worth their next three weekends, and a list of 125 is actively worse at answering that than a list of eight.
So: eight categories that genuinely sell, each with the honest economics. Effort to make, what it earns per buyer, and whether the buyer ever comes back, which is the number that decides whether you have a product or a business.
1. Templates
Spreadsheets, Notion setups, design files, contract and email templates. The highest-volume category by a distance, because the buyer understands the value instantly and the price is low enough not to need thinking about.
- Effort: low, if it already exists. You are packaging, not building.
- Per buyer: low. This is a volume game.
- Comes back? Rarely on its own. A template solves the problem permanently, which is exactly what makes it easy to sell and hard to build on.
2. Presets and filters
Lightroom presets, LUTs, audio chains. Almost the same shape as templates with one advantage: they are visibly tied to your own work, so the portfolio is the sales page. If people already ask how you get your look, this is the product.
- Effort: low. The work is already done in your own editing; packaging it is an afternoon.
- Per buyer: low, and priced in packs for that reason.
- Comes back? Sometimes, for a new pack, if your own work keeps evolving where they can see it.
3. Printables
Planners, worksheets, wall art, party kits. The marketplace category: people search for these by name, which means discovery is possible without an audience. That is genuinely rare and it is why so many people start here.
The catch is that the same searchability cuts both ways. You are competing on a crowded shelf against sellers who will undercut you, and the buyer is the marketplace's, not yours.
- Effort: low to moderate, and mostly design rather than expertise.
- Per buyer: lowest on this list, before the marketplace takes its cut.
- Comes back? Rarely, and not to you: the marketplace keeps the buyer.
4. Ebooks and guides
The most written about and the most over-recommended. An ebook is a reasonable product when it answers one specific question for one specific person. It is a poor one when it is a general book about a broad topic, because that competes with every free article and every real publisher.
- Effort: moderate, and almost always more than people expect once the writing is real.
- Per buyer: modest, and the hardest on this list to price upward.
- Comes back? Only if it was narrow enough to leave the next question unanswered.
5. Mini courses
The first category where the economics change. A short course is worth several times an ebook covering the same ground, because video carries demonstration and demonstration is what people pay for. It is also the first product on this list that people finish and then ask what is next.
- Effort: moderate. Much less than people assume: a useful mini course is often under an hour of video.
- Per buyer: good, and it holds its price.
- Comes back? Yes, and this is the point.
6. Full courses
The highest per-buyer figure of anything you sell once. Also the longest to make and the easiest to get wrong, because the failure mode is invisible until launch: you build the course you want to teach rather than the one somebody asked for. Sell the mini course first and let the questions people ask tell you what the full one is.
- Effort: high, and front-loaded before any evidence that it sells.
- Per buyer: the highest of anything you sell once.
- Comes back? Yes, and usually for the thing that comes after the course rather than another course.
7. Memberships and communities
The only category here that is recurring, which makes it a different kind of thing to everything above. One member at a modest monthly price is worth more over two years than most one-off products are worth ever, and the work is ongoing rather than front-loaded.
It is also the only one that fails if you have nothing to sell it to. A community with four people in it is worse than no community, so this is a second or third product, never a first.
- Effort: moderate forever, rather than high once. That is the real trade.
- Per buyer: the highest on this list over any period longer than a month.
- Comes back? Every month, which is the whole point and the reason it is worth the ongoing work.
8. Services productised
An audit, a review, a template plus one call. Technically not a pure digital product and deliberately included, because it is the fastest route to real money for anyone who already does the work by hand. It does not scale, and that is fine: it funds the thing that does.
- Effort: none to build, all to deliver.
- Per buyer: paid soonest rather than largest, and capped by your calendar.
- Comes back? Often, and they are the people who tell you what to build next.
Which digital product should you start with?
Start with a template or a printable if you have no audience yet, because those are the two categories people find by searching, and start with a mini course or a membership if you do, because those earn several times as much per buyer. One question decides it: do you have an audience right now? Not a large one. Any list, following or set of past clients you could email today.
- No. Start at the top of this list. Templates, presets and printables are the only categories a stranger can evaluate in ten seconds, which is the whole game when nobody knows your name. Sell one on a marketplace and use it to start collecting emails.
- Yes. Skip to five and above. Selling a $9 template to a list that already trusts you is leaving most of the value on the table, and you will need a second product anyway.
- Either way, four is the one to be careful with. An ebook is the most recommended product on the internet and the hardest of these to price upward, because it competes with every free article. It earns its place only when it passes the specificity test above, which is a higher bar than it sounds.
Where should you sell digital products?
Covered properly in where to sell digital products, but the short version: a marketplace brings you buyers and charges in margin and in who owns the customer, your own store keeps far more and sends you nobody. Which you need depends on which you are short of.
If the product is one piece of something larger, a course, a membership, a coaching practice, then a separate storefront is a second place to maintain. Drry keeps the file beside the courses and the community, takes 0% of what you sell on every plan including the free one, and pays into your own Stripe. The honest limitation is the same as every own-store option: it sends you no traffic at all.
Questions coaches ask
What digital products sell best?
Templates and presets sell in the highest volume, because the buyer can see exactly what they are getting and the price is low enough to be an impulse. Courses and memberships earn the most per buyer by a wide margin. Neither fact is much use on its own: the thing that decides your answer is whether you already have an audience. Without one, you need a product a stranger can evaluate in ten seconds, which rules out most of the high-value end.
What is the easiest digital product to make first?
Something you have already made for yourself or for a client. A spreadsheet you built, a checklist you use, the brief you send every new customer. It is finished, it is proven on at least one person, and the work is packaging rather than creation. Making something new because it sounds sellable is how people spend three weeks on a product nobody asked for.
How much should I charge for a digital product?
Price against the outcome rather than the file size. A two-page checklist that saves someone a day of work is worth more than a forty-page ebook that saves them nothing, and buyers price it that way too. The common mistake is pricing by effort spent, which the buyer cannot see and does not care about. If you are guessing, start higher than feels comfortable: it is far easier to discount later than to raise a price your existing buyers have anchored on.
Can I sell the same digital product in more than one place?
Yes, and for most people it is the right move. Marketplaces bring buyers you would not otherwise reach, your own store keeps more of each sale and gives you the buyer's email. Running both is normal. Keep one master copy of the file so the versions cannot drift apart when you update it.
Do digital products need to be big to sell?
No, and the belief that they do is the single most common reason a first product never ships. Size is not what the buyer is paying for; specificity is. A narrow thing that solves one problem completely will outsell a broad thing that half-solves five, and it takes a fraction of the time to make.