Where Files Get Sold and Sent
A storefront does three jobs: it brings buyers, takes payment and delivers the file. Few platforms do all three equally well, so choose by which job matters most to you now.
Marketplace or own shop
Marketplaces such as Etsy, Creative Market and Envato Elements already have buyers searching. You trade margin and control for that traffic, and the customer relationship mostly belongs to the platform. Your own shop, on Shopify, Payhip, Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy, keeps more of each sale and gives you the buyer's email, but you have to bring the traffic yourself through search, social media or a newsletter.
A common path is to validate products on a marketplace, then move repeat buyers to your own shop with a discount code inside the download PDF.
Etsy
Strongest for printables, planners, wedding templates and Canva kits. Charges a small fee per listing (USD 0.20 at the time of writing), a 6.5% transaction fee and payment processing. Up to five files per listing.
Gumroad
Quick to launch, handles hosting, pay-what-you-want and memberships. Popular with Notion and Figma template makers. Takes a percentage of each sale plus processing.
Payhip
Simple checkout with coupons, upsells, PDF stamping and EU VAT handling. A good first own shop for low-volume sellers.
Shopify
Full storefront control and a mature app ecosystem, including Shopify's own Digital Downloads app. Worth it once you also sell physical products or need custom design.
Lemon Squeezy
Acts as merchant of record, collecting and remitting sales tax and VAT for you. Strong for software-adjacent products such as UI kits and licence-key delivery.
Creative Market & Envato
Curated marketplaces for fonts, graphics and presets. Higher quality bar, design-buyer audience, revenue share set by the platform.
How delivery should work
Digital delivery should be instant and boring. After payment, the buyer gets a confirmation email with a download link and, ideally, a link on the thank-you page as well. Good defaults:
- Download links that expire after a set time or number of downloads, so links passed around do not work forever.
- PDF stamping with the buyer's email where the platform supports it.
- A START-HERE PDF as the first file, explaining how to open each format.
- A route back for re-downloads, such as a library page or an email reply.
Most refund requests are delivery confusion, not unhappy buyers.
Tax and consumer rules
Digital goods are taxed where the buyer lives in many regions. In the EU, the One-Stop Shop (OSS) scheme lets sellers report VAT on cross-border digital sales in one return. The UK has its own VAT rules for digital services, and US states increasingly tax digital products. Marketplaces such as Etsy collect and remit tax in many jurisdictions; merchants of record such as Lemon Squeezy and Paddle do it for your own shop. With plain Stripe or PayPal checkout, the responsibility is yours.
Under EU and UK consumer law, buyers normally have a 14-day right to cancel, but for digital content they lose it once they expressly consent to immediate download and acknowledge losing that right. Add that consent line at checkout if your platform does not.
Once the file is selling and sending reliably, tune the price. Continue to pricing