A simple guide to sell digital products in 2025

When creators start selling digital products, many waste months chasing “perfect ideas” or overthinking what to build. The truth is, most don’t fail because they lack a good product. They fail because they don’t understand the patterns of what actually sells, at which prices, and how.

This short guide breaks down the playbook successful creators are using in 2025. Follow these steps to avoid expensive and time-wasting trial-and-error mistakes, and start generating sales faster.

---

Step 1: choose a simple, problem-solving product

When you’re new, don’t overcomplicate things. Big courses or fancy bundles take too much time and effort, and buyers don’t trust you yet. What they want are quick wins: products that solve a clear problem right away. The best formats are checklists, templates, and short ebooks/guides.

These products are easy to build for you, easy to consume for the buyer, and low-risk purchases that require less trust in you, provided you promote them well and deliver real value. How do you sell them well? Always focus on the outcome, not the format. A $15 checklist that saves someone hours is more valuable than a $499 course they never finish. Each sale also plants the seeds for future higher-value product sales.

---

Step 2: set a smart price (and avoid the low-price trap)

The $15 I mentioned before is not random. It’s important not to price too low, no matter how tempting it feels. Yet some creators, after doing the math, decide to price their products at $1 to maximize volume. I know it, the idea is simple: more people will buy, so revenue and leads will grow faster. It looks good on paper. But here’s the reality: when you sell something for $1, you never actually keep $1.

Why? Without delving too much into the intricacies of the payments industry value chain, it's because of fixed fees:

• Card networks like Visa & Mastercard always charge a non-negotiable fee.
• Stripe, the processor used by Sherpo and basically every platform, charges $0.30 2.9% per sale in the US.
• On top of that, platforms take their cut. On Sherpo, it’s 5% (or 0% on Ultra).

Here’s what that means in practice:

(Assumes Sherpo’s standard 5% fee. On Ultra, platform fees are 0%. Competitors like Gumroad charge up to 10–30%, while Etsy Digital fees can be even higher.)

The lesson is clear. At $1, you’re left with $0.62 per sale. At $5, you keep 7x more. At $10, you keep 15x more. And you need far fewer customers to hit the same monthly revenue. That’s why the sweet spot is at least $5–$10. It maximizes your margins while staying affordable for buyers. Customers are not that price-sensitive when it comes to a few extra dollars.

My suggestion, though, is slightly different: aim between $10 and $30. Why? Because that gives you room to run temporary promotions, either done by yourself or even through affiliates. For example, you can discount a $30 product by $10 or $15 and still make sense. But discounting a $5 product is basically impossible or meaningless. Always keep this in mind when setting prices for your digital products.

---

Step 3: target beginner-friendly markets, don’t reinvent the wheel

The easiest customers to sell to are beginners. They’re motivated, they have problems, and they don’t want complexity. They want shortcuts.

Some examples that have sold well in 2025 include Canva template packs, Notion dashboards, Excel models for investors, and freelancing kits. In short, products aimed at beginners sell best. They are the largest audience, yet the most underserved, because many creators overshoot their needs. Help beginners save time, avoid mistakes, and start faster. That’s what they’re paying for.

And remember: you don’t need to invent a new category to succeed. Many profitable digital products are simply better packaged versions of what already exists. What matters most is cleaner design, easier usability, more structure and clarity, and your unique differentiating factor. Think of yourself as repackaging value in a way that’s faster to use. Don’t chase uniqueness for its own sake. What sells is trust, not novelty.

---

Step 4: distribute where attention exists and build trust

The best product dies without distribution. You don’t need ads at the start—just go where people are already looking for help. Based on Sherpo creators’ results, the top free channels in 2025 are Instagram, X (Twitter), Reddit, TikTok, and Threads, in that order.

Reddit and Threads, as of lately, have especially been fast-growing. If you consistently post useful answers and resources there, your product becomes the natural next step. Over time, visibility plus credibility turns into sales. Also remember: making one sale is not success. Building repeat customers is. And repeat customers only come from trust. The formula is simple: show up regularly where your audience is, share valuable advice, offer freebies, give insights, and answer questions—whether in private, in public comments, or in communities.

Consistency → credibility → trust → repeat sales. It’s simple, though it takes time before results show.

---

Step 5: scale smartly to new products

Once you have traction, to get those repeat sales, you need to expand your product line. The natural progression looks like this (but, of course, it depends, and many creators handle it differently):

• Start with a single digital download
• Bundle multiple products together
• Launch one or more video courses
• Introduce coaching calls or memberships

Each step builds on the last. Your first $30 template may eventually lead to a $500 course, but only if you guide your audience there step by step.

Note: some creators prefer to reach course sales through freebies and content marketing. That works too. But a low-priced digital download can help you gauge interest and willingness to pay before committing serious time and resources to building a full video course.

---

Conclusion: keep it simple, then scale

The formula for selling digital products in 2025 is straightforward: you start with a problem-solving product, which you price smartly (avoid $1, aim for $5–$10, ideally $10–$30), while focusing on beginners without reinventing the wheel (i.e., by repackaging knowledge first of all), marketing consistently where users spend most of their time, to then scale to new products over time.

Follow this playbook, and you’ll be ahead of most creators still stuck in “idea mode.”

And if you want to sell digital products while keeping your brand, audience, and revenue, Sherpo is built for you. Unlike marketplaces like Gumroad or Etsy Digital, Sherpo only charges 5% (0% on Ultra) and is free forever. You can grow from downloads to fully fledged courses, coaching, and beyond. All in one platform. Start now, it’s free forever!