Best Platform to Sell Digital Products and Courses

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The best platform to sell digital products depends on what you sell. If you already run a store, or mostly sell downloadable files, Shopify with its free Digital Products app is the cheapest option we compared. For courses, Teachable is the better value for a handful of products, and Thinkific is better for a large course library or a paid community.

Quick comparison

	Shopify	Teachable	Thinkific	Squarespace
Best for	Downloads alongside physical products	A few courses, coaching and downloads	Large course libraries and communities	Design-led creator sites
Free plan	No (3-day trial, then $1/mo for 3 months)	No (free trial)	No (30-day trial)	No (14-day trial)
Starting price	Basic $39/mo, $29/mo yearly	Starter $39/mo, $29/mo yearly	Start $109/mo, $82/mo yearly	Basic $25/mo, $19/mo yearly
Platform fee on digital sales	None with Shopify Payments	7.5% on Starter, 0% from Builder	None listed	7% Basic, 5% Core, 1% Plus, 0% Advanced
US online card rate (entry plan)	2.9% + 30¢	2.9% + 30¢	2.9%	2.9% + 30¢
What scales the price	Card rate and staff accounts by plan	Product count and admins	Communities, admins, bandwidth	Digital fee and card rate by plan

All four are hosted platforms. Prices are US prices from each company's pricing page, read in November 2026.

Our pick by seller type

You run a Shopify store and want to add downloads (templates, printables, presets): Shopify. Its help center describes the Digital Products app as free, and you keep one checkout, one customer list and one set of reports.

You are starting with one to ten courses or coaching offers: Teachable on its Builder plan ($69 a month billed yearly). You get 10 products, 0% platform fee with Teachable Payments, and an affiliate program.

You are building a course business with many courses or a paid community: Thinkific. Every plan has unlimited courses and digital downloads, and communities are included from Start.

You want a portfolio or brand site that also sells courses or member content: Squarespace, on Plus or Advanced. Its digital product fee drops to 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced.

Shopify

Shopify is not a course platform, but it is a good place to sell files if you already sell physical products or want full store features.

How digital products work. Shopify's help center says you need an app from the Shopify App Store to deliver download links, and it describes its own Digital Products app as free. Each product variant can hold up to 50 files with a combined size of up to 5 GB, and files added from the product page can be up to 500 MB each. Download access defaults to unlimited and can be capped per customer, and the help center says there is no bandwidth limit for downloads. Delivery emails go out automatically after payment by default. You can also attach links from supported providers such as Notion, Canva, Google Drive or Vimeo.

Pricing. Basic is $39 a month or $29 billed yearly, with US online card rates of 2.9% + 30¢ through Shopify Payments. If you use a third-party payment provider instead, Shopify adds 2% on Basic. See our Shopify pricing guide for every fee.

Watch out: there is no course player, student progress tracking or community in what we read, so for actual courses you would need another app or platform. Shopify's help center also reminds sellers that EU customers pay VAT on digital goods at their own country's rate.

Teachable

Teachable sells courses, coaching and digital downloads from one storefront.

Pricing. Starter is $39 a month ($29 billed yearly) with a 7.5% transaction fee and 5 products. Builder is $89 ($69 yearly) with 10 products and 0% platform fee on Teachable Payments. Growth is $189 ($139 yearly) with 50 products and 5 admins. Custom is quoted by sales. US card processing is 2.9% + 30¢.

What stands out. Every plan includes AI creation tools, iOS and Android student apps, upsells and cart recovery. Memberships, bundles and community spaces do not count toward product limits. Growth adds certificates and removes Teachable branding.

Watch out: the 7.5% fee on Starter costs more than upgrading to Builder once you sell more than about $533 a month on yearly billing. Product caps are low if you plan a big library. Read the full head-to-head in Teachable vs Thinkific.

Thinkific

Thinkific is built for course businesses that expect to grow a catalog and a community.

Pricing. Start is $109 a month ($82 billed yearly), Grow $219 ($164), Expand $499 ($374), and Plus is quoted. All plans include unlimited courses and digital downloads and up to 10,000 current students on Start, Grow and Expand. Thinkific Payments lists a 2.9% rate; using Stripe or PayPal adds a gateway fee whose amount is not on the pricing page.

What stands out. Communities and spaces on every plan (1 community on Start, 10 on Expand), 2 to 15 admins by plan, and a 30-day free trial. A branded mobile app is a $199 a month add-on.

Watch out: no cheap entry plan. If you are selling a single ebook or template pack, $82 a month or more is hard to justify.

Squarespace

Squarespace Commerce makes sense if the website itself matters as much as the sale.

Pricing and fees. Basic is $25 a month ($19 yearly), Core $39 ($29), Plus $65 ($49) and Advanced $139 ($99). Squarespace's help center lists a separate transaction fee for digital products, which it describes as courses, video pages and member sites: 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced. US card rates through Squarespace Payments are 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic and Core, 2.7% + 30¢ on Plus and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced, with a 1.5% surcharge on international cards.

Watch out: the digital fee on Basic and Core is higher than the 0% physical-goods fee on Core, so budget for Plus if digital sales are your main income. Our Squarespace ecommerce review covers the rest of the platform.

What it costs at two sales levels

Published US prices, billed yearly, all sales on standard US cards through each platform's own payments, average sale $50. Thinkific's page lists 2.9% without a fixed per-sale fee, so we did not add one.

Monthly digital sales	Shopify Basic	Teachable Builder	Thinkific Start	Squarespace Plus	Squarespace Advanced
$1,000 (20 sales)	$64	$104	$111	$92	$130
$5,000 (100 sales)	$204	$244	$227	$264	$254

How we got there at $1,000: Shopify $29 + $29 + $6 per-sale fees; Teachable $69 + $35 processing; Thinkific $82 + $29; Squarespace Plus $49 + $10 digital fee + $27 + $6; Advanced $99 + $25 + $6.

At $1,000 a month, Teachable Starter would be $139 because of its 7.5% fee, and Squarespace Core would be $114 because of its 5% digital fee.

Shopify is cheapest at both sizes, but it is the cheapest way to sell files, not courses. If you need a course player and student management, compare Teachable Builder and Thinkific Start, which land close together.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Shopify if you sell downloads next to physical products, or want one store for everything.
Choose Teachable if you sell up to 10 courses, coaching or downloads and want the lowest course-platform price. Skip Starter once sales pick up.
Choose Thinkific if you want unlimited courses, a paid community or several admins.
Choose Squarespace if you want a polished brand site with member content, and can justify Plus or Advanced to cut the digital fee.

Common questions

What is the cheapest way to sell digital downloads? Of the four we compared, Shopify Basic with the free Digital Products app had the lowest monthly cost at both $1,000 and $5,000 in sales. It charges no platform fee when you use Shopify Payments.

Does Squarespace charge fees on digital products? Yes. Its help center lists 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced for digital products, on top of card processing.

Can I sell courses on Shopify? Shopify's free Digital Products app delivers files and links after purchase. The help pages we read do not describe a course player or student progress, so for structured courses Teachable or Thinkific is the better fit.

Is Teachable or Thinkific better for beginners? Teachable is cheaper to start and simpler if you have a few products. Thinkific costs more but removes course limits and includes communities.

How we put this together

We did not test these platforms hands-on. Every fact and price comes from each company's own pages, read in November 2026: Shopify's pricing page and its help center articles on selling digital products and the Digital Products app; Teachable's pricing page and help center; Thinkific's pricing page; and Squarespace's pricing page and its help article on transaction fees and processing rates. The cost table is our arithmetic on published US rates. Prices change, so confirm them before you choose.

Best Platforms to Sell Digital Products and Courses (2026)