Easy Digital Downloads

Do you want to sell digital downloads, such as ebooks, audiobooks, music files, or apps?

You may find blogs and tutorials encouraging you to use a third-party marketplace. However, I’m not a big fan of this approach, as many marketplaces take a cut of your earnings – which means less money for you.

By selling directly through your WordPress website, you get to keep all the profits. Sound good? The first step is finding the right eCommerce plugin!

In this Easy Digital Downloads review, I’ll look at its features, support, and pricing, to see whether it has everything you need to sell downloadable products via your WordPress website.

Easy Digital Downloads Review: Why Use It in WordPress?

Let’s start with the basics: Easy Digital Downloads lets you sell digital downloads online using WordPress. Unlike some other eCommerce plugins that are designed to sell all kinds of products, EDD was created specifically to sell digital goods.

You can use Easy Digital Downloads to sell any kind of digital file. For example, you can sell ebooks in WordPress, sell music online, and more.

It also supports software licensing so you can sell your own WordPress plugins, themes, apps, SaaS products, and more with proper digital rights management. Straight out of the box, Easy Digital Downloads gives you a ton of choice.

Even better, you can sell as many products as you want, and process unlimited transactions with no monthly fees. It also comes with a full-featured shopping cart that supports registered users and guest checkout.

By default, you can accept payments with Stripe and PayPal, but you can also unlock additional payment gateways including Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Authorize.net. Immediately, you’re offering your customers plenty of choice.

Throughout testing, I found Easy Digital Downloads to be easy to set up and use. In fact, some managed EDD hosting offerings even come with EDD pre-installed.

If you’re just getting started or have a limited budget, then you can download a free version of Easy Digital Downloads from the official WordPress repository.

This plugin lets you sell as many digital downloads as you want, and accept credit card payments using Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Payments. Apple Pay and Google Pay are also included via Stripe’s Payment Request Buttons. In my opinion, that’s an impressive range of features and integrations for a free plugin.

However, if you want to offer additional payment gateways, accept recurring payments, or promote your products with powerful up-selling and cross-selling features, then you’ll need to upgrade to the premium plugin.

In this Easy Digital Downloads review, I’ll be covering features from both the free and premium plugins, don’t worry – you’ll have no problems choosing the option that’s right for you.

Easy Digital Downloads Review: Is It the Right Digital eCommerce Plugin for You?

Many blogs, websites, and online stores use a WordPress eCommerce plugin to sell digital products, and grow a successful digital marketplace. Just think about all your favorite premium WordPress plugins: typically, you enter your credit card information into a website and then download the premium plugin. That’s a perfect example of a digital product!

Want to try tapping into this lucrative digital downloads market?

Let’s start by helping you find the right plugin. In this Easy Digital Downloads review I’ll deep dive into its pros, cons, features, support, and more so you can decide whether it’s the right eCommerce plugin for you.

1. Built-in Shopping Cart

If you just want to sell a few items, then I recommend adding a simple payment form to your site using a plugin such as WP Simple Pay or WPForms. However, if you want to create a digital marketplace then you’ll need a full shopping cart system.

Thats where Easy Digital Downloads comes in. It has a full-featured shopping cart that works out of the box. If you’re not happy with the default cart, then you can also configure and customize it to meet your exact needs.

To reduce cart abandonment rates, it’s a good idea to offer guest checkout wherever possible. The good news is that Easy Digital Downloads’ shopping cart supports both registered user and guest checkout.

Even better, Easy Digital Downloads supports cart saving.

This is where the shopper creates a temporary link to their cart so they can return to it later, or send the link to another person, similar to how wishlists work on sites such as Amazon. In my experience, this is a small tweak that can really help to reduce those cart abandonment rates.

You can even automatically redirect users to the checkout as soon as they add an item to their cart. This won’t be appropriate for all websites, but it may work well if you only sell a few items or products that customers typically don’t buy together, such as different subscriptions to your membership site.

2. Sell an Unlimited Number of Files

Easy Digital Downloads doesn’t add a ‘bandwidth charge’ to file downloads.

If you’re wondering what that means, then basically you can sell as many files as you want to as many customers as you want. No matter what, Easy Digital Downloads won’t add extra fees to the amount of data transferred to customers.

After researching the competition, I think that’s an incredibly generous offer! Essentially you can continue using Easy Digital Downloads no matter how big your digital product marketplace gets.

3. Fully Customizable Checkout Form

Digital products are a great way to make money online, but they can also help you generate leads. For example, in the past I’ve offered a product as a free download, in return for the visitor’s email address.

To help you do lead generation, EDD has a Checkout Fields Manager extension that lets you customize the checkout form. This allowed me to collect exactly the right information from customers and visitors, no matter whether they’re downloading a free or premium file.

I also experimented with using the Checkout Fields Manager to provide a better customer experience. For example, if you’re selling digital party planners then you might ask for the date of the customer’s event. I even tried collecting the visitor’s date of birth, with a plan to send them automated birthday emails further down the line.

Little things like that can help to make your leads feel like valued customers.

4. Support for Software Licensing

Selling software is a great way to make passive income or even launch an online side business. For example, if I created my own WordPress plugins, then I might start selling them to other users. Alternatively, I could sell the software as a subscription service, and make money over the long term.

EDD comes with powerful software licensing support including proper digital rights management, license key generation, management, renewals, upgrades and more. This allows you to sell and manage licenses for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac apps.

With that being said, EDD lets you sell software and SaaS directly from your WordPress website, rather than using a third-party platform.

When creating a digital product, simply click ‘Check to enable license creation’ and then follow the onscreen instructions to turn the product into a software license.

5. Complete File Access Control

When selling digital products online, you’ll want to stop people from downloading those files without your permission.

Thankfully, EDD automatically restricts all your downloadable products so only authorized customers can access them. This feature works well out of the box, but there are some extra steps you can take.

To start, you can limit how many times a customer can download the same file, and add an expiration date to the download link. In my experience, this makes it much more difficult for customers to share the file and URL with other people.

Another option is to completely disable redownloads. This removes the file’s link from the customer’s account, so they can only download the product once.

6. Create Customizable Discount Codes

Coupon codes can help convert visitors into paying customers. They can even give people an extra push to make a purchase immediately, due to the fear of missing out (FOMO). If you’ve ever rushed to use a coupon at the last minute to avoid ‘letting it go to waste,’ then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

EDD has everything you need to create a wide range of different discount codes.

You can choose from one-time discounts, percentage discounts, maximum discounts, scheduled coupon codes, and more. I tested out these various different formats, and was always happy with the results.

By scheduling coupons in advance, you can be confident that your promotions will run on time, no matter how busy you get.

You can also exclude specific items from the discount, and set a minimum amount that customers must spend before they can use the code. In this way, you can create campaigns that work for both you, and your audience.

Pro Tip: Since I was already using OptinMonster, I was able to experiment with showing my EDD coupons to visitors just before they left my site. This is due to OptinMonster’s powerful Exit-Intent technology, which promises to turn abandoning visitors into paying customers. To learn more, see our post on how we increased our email subscribers by 600% with OptinMonster.

7. Collect Recurring Subscription Payments

Sometimes, you may want to collect recurring payments. For example, I regularly see websites selling subscriptions for online courses, online yoga classes, stock photography services, and similar content.

Aside from collecting one-time payments, Easy Digital Downloads lets you offer subscriptions, memberships, or payment plans.

You can create daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and yearly plans. You can even combine recurring payments with variable pricing to show both recurring and non-recurring price options. In this way, you can encourage customers to compare the pricing and choose the option that represents the best value.

When you sell recurring subscriptions, EDD will handle the billing and renewal process automatically. This is perfect if you’re not a fan of admin, since you don’t have to worry about sending invoices, reminders, and renewal emails.

In my experience, these kind of automated workflows provide a better customer experience, since customers can manage their own subscription without having to manually renew it, or contact you for help.

Another option is to offer a free trial subscription. EDD has everything you need to set up a free trial, and can also stop people from abusing that trial. For example, I experimented with techniques such as setting daily download limits and limiting the free pass to specific product categories. Features like this, would really help to protect your content.

8. Offer Variable Pricing

Easy Digital Downloads lets you create different versions of the same product. For example, if I sold photos online, then I might release a stock images bundle, where each version contains a different number of photos.

I firmly believe that by offering customers a range of purchasing options, you provide a better experience. It’s also a powerful upsell technique, as customers may be tempted to a pay a little more, in order to get the ‘best’ version of a product.

With that in mind, I tried out EDD’s variable features and found it easy to create an unlimited number of pricing options. I simply checked the ‘Enable variable pricing’ box and then entered some information about the different options I wanted to offer.

9. ‘Pay What You Want’ Custom Pricing

‘Pay what you want’ is a popular marketing strategy that you may have seen before. Basically, it gives customers the freedom to choose their price. This can encourage people to take a chance on a new digital product, but it’s also an easy way to accept donations from people who want to support your projects.

This Easy Digital Downloads review won’t be complete without mentioning that you can create a custom pricing box.

If you want, then you can set a minimum price or a suggested amount. I’ve found that this can have a big impact on how much customers pay for your product.

You can also offer a bonus item that customers will get if they pay more than the suggested price. In this way, you can offer flexible payment options, while also encouraging the customer to pay more – in my opinion, that’s a great business strategy!

10. Create Bundled Downloads

Bundles are a popular way to increase the average spend per customer. They can be particularly effective if the bundle is a lower price compared to buying each file separately.

With Easy Digital Downloads, I had no problems combining multiple, separate products into a single bundled download.

I then went ahead and published the product as normal.

With that done, anyone who buys the bundle gets instant access to all its downloadable files. It couldn’t be easier!

11. Flexible Payment Options

Out-of-the-box, Easy Digital Downloads supports Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Pay. This allows customers to pay using all major credit cards, their PayPal balance, or their Amazon account.

If you already have a Stripe or PayPal account, then it’s easy to integrate with the Easy Digital Downloads plugin.

You can also enable other payment gateways using extensions, including Authorize.net, SOFORT banking, and PayPal Payments Advanced.

There are even extensions that allow you to accept hand written check payments, or add a credit and deposit system to your online store. With that said, I was impressed by the sheer number of supported payment options.

In my experience, the worst thing about setting up products and online stores, is the testing. No-one feels comfortable making payment after payment, just to check that everything’s working on their test website.

That’s why I was so happy to see that EDD has a Test Mode gateway so you can test your site without having to pay for each download using your real credit card or bank information.

To enable this mode, I just needed to check box in the plugin’s settings.

12. Easy Order Management

As your site grows and gets more orders, you’ll need a way to track all those sales. Thankfully, Easy Digital Downloads provides a central location where you can manage all your orders.

Here, you can change the order status, add new products, charge transaction amounts, initialize refunds, and more.

Easy Digital Downloads also creates a separate record for each customer. This makes it super easy to view, edit, or delete a customer’s record at any time.

You can also link customer records to user profiles, and create customer account pages. This is perfect if you want to let customers manage their own account information or view their purchase history. I know that’s something I always appreciate, when I make a purchase online.

13. File Download Logs

By tracking your downloads, you can identify the top-performing content, and the files that aren’t selling so well. You can then create more of your store’s most popular content, which should get you even more sales.

Easy Digital Downloads tracks your downloads and creates detailed logs automatically, so you can see exactly what files people are downloading.

It also records information about your customers including the user’s IP address, the date and time when they downloaded the file, the payment method, and more.

In my experience, once you have a deeper insight into customer behavior, you can segment and target your audience much more effectively. For example, if I noticed that my customers tended to purchase and download files within a specific timeframe, then I would schedule my social media posts or email marketing for that time.

I might even use this information to do A/B split testing. For example, I might experiment with different download placements, promotions, or coupon codes and then monitor the results.

In addition, EDD’s download tracking can help you spot potential problems with your digital content or file delivery.

In my experience, this is absolutely essential when it comes to keeping your store secure, as you can detect suspicious download patterns and then respond to them immediately.

Want to share your data with other people? Then you can easily export EDD’s download logs. This is perfect if you need to share the reports with your marketing team, clients, or anyone else who doesn’t have access to the WordPress dashboard.

14. Detailed eCommerce Tracking and Reporting

When it comes to running a successful digital marketplace, it’s essential that you track user engagement, and monitor your sales. This allows you to identify what’s working, and what isn’t. You can then fine-tune your activities to get even more conversions and grow your business.

Easy Digital Downloads comes with built-in reporting, so it provided me with actionable insights straight away, without me having to set up separate tracking software and analytics solutions.

From this dashboard, I could monitor all aspects of my online store including earnings, average order value, and new customers.

I also had the option to filter reports by category, number of downloads, payment methods, and taxes collected.

In this way, EDD made it easy for me to find exactly the information I needed.

Easy Digital Downloads also provided a graphical view of my total earnings, so it was easy to identify trends at a glance.

15. Community and Professional Support

Throughout writing this Easy Digital Downloads review, I found it very easy to set up and use. However, I still had a few questions along the way, and wanted to learn more about the features I might be missing out on.

To start, I tried to find answers myself by checking EDD’s online documentation. Thankfully, this online portal contains a ton of information, so I had no problems finding the information I was looking for.

Even better, you can access this documentation no matter whether you’re using the free Easy Digital Downloads plugin or a premium upgrade. That’s always nice to see!

There’s also the EDD blog where I found how-to guides, plus general best practices and advice on how to get more conversions and grow your online business. This is pretty useful too, particularly if you want to learn more about selling digital downloads in general.

If you buy a premium license, then you’ll also get access to professional support.

Simply raise a ticket and the EDD team will aim to respond as soon as possible.

How WPBeginner Uses Easy Digital Downloads

At WPBeginner, we use Easy Digital Downloads to manage and sell some of the most popular premium WordPress plugins on the market. This includes WPForms, which has over 6 million users and MonsterInsights, which is used by over 3 million people.

In fact, Easy Digital Downloads helps our various companies deliver software and training to over 25 million websites.

In particular, we use Easy Digital Downloads to generate and manage millions of license keys, renewals, and upgrades with ease. It also allows us to collect recurring subscription payments from businesses around the world.

Nulled WordPress plugins are a big problem for all WordPress developers and businesses, and WPBeginner is no exception. That’s why we’re such big fans of EDD’s advanced fraud and file protection features, as they allow us to sell some of the market’s most popular WordPress plugins, without losing revenue to software pirates.

With that said, if you’re worried about your content getting stolen and sold without your permission, then EDD may be exactly what you need.

Easy Digital Downloads Review: Pricing

If you’re just getting started, then you can download the free version of Easy Digital Downloads and sell as many digital products as you want. That said, I think this is a great starting point for businesses or blogs who want to see whether selling digital products works for me. You may also want to start with the free plugin if you only have a small number of digital products to sell.

However, if you want to unlock additional payment gateways, grow your email list, and unlock powerful upselling and cross-selling features, then I’d recommend the premium Easy Digital Downloads plugin instead.

There are four plans to choose from:

• Personal. For $199 per year you can use Easy Digital Downloads with all the best email marketing services including ActiveCampaign and Campaign Monitor. You’ll also get access to powerful upselling and cross-selling features to help you make money online.
• Extended. Priced at $399 per year, this plan unlocks all the payment gateway extensions including Braintree, ClickBank, and PayPal Express. Customers can also purchase store credit, set up recurring payments, buy all access memberships, and enter a pay-what-you-want price. You can also collect and show customer reviews on your digital marketplace.
• Professional. For $599 per year, the Professional plan lets you use Easy Digital Downloads on 2 websites. If you want to sell software online, then the Professional plan also provides a complete license key generation, activation, and checking system.
• All Access Pass. Priced at $999 per year, the All Access Pass lets you use Easy Digital Downloads on 3 websites. This license gives you access to the entire suite of extensions, features, and tools that Easy Digital Downloads has to offer. This includes addons that integrate MaxMind into your store to reduce fraud, a built-in password meter to force strong passwords on users, and powerful content restriction features.

Easy Digital Downloads Review:  Is it Worth It?

To sum up this Easy Digital Downloads review, I think that it’s a great digital eCommerce plugin for WordPress. Unlike some other eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce, EDD is built specifically to sell digital products.

Due to that, EDD doesn’t have unnecessary features, such as shipping and inventory management. Since it’s optimized for digital store owners, EDD also comes with specialist features such as file protection, download logs, and software licensing support.

Basically, if you only want to sell digital products, then EDD is pretty much a must-have plugin.

There’s a free version of Easy Digital Downloads that lets you sell an unlimited number of digital downloads with no hidden fees. You can also accept credit card payments using Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Payments. In my opinion, that’s a pretty generous set of features for a free eCommerce plugin.

However, I prefer the premium plugin as it has far more payment methods, marketing tools, and advanced store management features.

If you want to sell downloadable products such as eBooks and online courses, then you should probably opt for an Extended or Professional license. However, if you want to sell apps, plugins, or other software, then EDD Professional is a must-have due to its software licensing features.

Finally, if you own multiple websites or want to build a digital business fast, then the All Access Pass includes every feature, payment gateway, improved store management, and advanced accounting tool that EDD has to offer. In my opinion, it’s a one-stop-shop for all your downloadable product needs!

Easy Digital Downloads: FAQs

Is Easy Digital Downloads good?

I believe that every site is different and has unique needs. For example, if you want to sell subscription-based digital products, online courses, or set up a pay-per-view website, then something like MemberPress might work well for you.

However, in my opinion Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress plugin if you simply want to sell digital products. It lets you easily sell ebooks, PDF files, spreadsheets, audio files, videos, Canva templates, WordPress plugins, fonts, and countless other downloadable products. 

It also supports software licensing so you can sell your own plugins, themes, apps, SaaS products, and more with proper digital rights management. The possibilites really are endless!

Is Easy Digital Downloads free?

Yes! You can download the Easy Digital Downloads plugin for free from WordPress.org.

Unlike some other eCommerce brands, EDD doesn’t restrict how many downloads you can sell. Even if you’re on the free plan, you can create as many digital products as you want and accept credit card payments using Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Payments, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. 

Of course, you’ll get more features by upgrading to a premium plan, but I’m impressed by just how much they include in the free plugin.

How does Easy Digital Downloads work?

Easy Digital Downloads is a WordPress plugin that lets you sell digital downloads via your existing website. Unlike some other solutions such as WooCommerce, EDD is designed and optimized specifically for selling digital goods.

That said, you can simply add it to your site, create your first digital products, and then start selling downloadable content to your visitors. 

How do I install Easy Digital Downloads?

Some managed EDD hosting offerings actually come with EDD pre-installed, so you can use this plugin out-of-the-box, just like any other built -in WordPress feature.

If your hosting plan doesn’t include EDD, then don’t panic! You can just go ahead and install and activate Easy Digital Downloads – it’s super simple. After that, I recommend reading through WPBeginner’s in-depth guide on how to sell digital downloads on WordPress for the next steps.

Is it worth selling digital downloads?

In my experience, it’s far easier to sell digital products than physical products! Once you create a digital product, you can sell it again and again without having to worry about keeping inventory, paying for storage, or meeting supply and demand requirements. 

In particular, digital downloads are a great way to generate a passive income stream – simply add the download to your site and anyone in the world can buy it.

I hope this Easy Digital Downloads review helped you decide whether it’s the right digital eCommerce plugin for you. You can also check out our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress, or see our expert pick of the best live chat software.

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