Digital Products Archives -

15 Digital Products to Sell Online For Passive Income In 2021

Selling digital products online is a great way to make passive income either as a side hustle or a full time income.

I’ve previously shared 63 digital products you can sell online to make passive income and today’s list is a follow up for 15 MORE digital products you can create and sell.

All of these products are specifically chosen for the 2021 market and beyond based on trends and what is selling. Most of these markets are growing, trending, or have major potential for the future.

Hopefully these product ideas will give you an idea of where to start creating in order to sell!

15 Digital Products to Sell Online In 2021

Here are 15 digital product ideas you can create and sell for passive income:

3D Print Files
Cookbooks
Copywriting Templates
Courses
Digital Planners
Digital Stickers
How To Guides
Lesson Plans
Product Mockups
Real Estate Templates
Resume Templates
Spreadsheets
Test Prep Guides
Video Effects
Wedding Plans & Tools

These digital products are all great options, but let’s look at why!

3D Print Files

3D printing continues to grow as a market and the recent pandemic sped up adoption of 3D printing for both practical purposes as well as a hobby. Creating 3D print files is definitely a niche market that everyone will not be able to access, but that means there is a lot of opportunity.

Cookbooks

There are many cookbooks already on the market but the opportunity exists for creators making recipes and cookbooks for specific niche diets. With so many different niche diets in existence now, there is plenty of room to create cookbooks catering to these specific audiences.

You can use the niche diet keywords to bring in traffic for sales since you will be targeting such a narrow audience. Remember the saying “the riches are in the niches” and this is definitely the case for cookbooks.

Copywriting Templates

Most people are not good writers but effective writing is what often drives successful businesses, product launches, and more. Creating and selling copywriting templates is a great digital product idea because you can target these markets.

Business owners who need help with copywriting on their websites or emails will purchase templates to save time and money from hiring a copywriter for their business.

Courses

Online education is a growing field expected to continue exploding in the future. Creating a course to sell your knowledge in a consumable way that leads people to a desired transformation is one of the best ways to monetize in 2021 and beyond. The online education industry continues to grow with no signs of slowing.

Courses are a great digital product because they are usually a higher priced product that is a more profitable product.

Many platforms like Teachable make creating and hosting a course very simple. With the ability to create a course via text r video you have lots of options to create your course and can get started with a free trial as you build out your content.

Digital Planners

Planners have been popular for several years but there has been a more recent trend toward digital planners. Many traditional planners have moved to planning on tablets and this has opened up a new digital product in the form of digital planners that can be used in apps like Good Notes.

There are several courses now that teach people how to make digital planners to sell because it’s such a popular digital product to sell. Once you learn how to make digital planners you can create and sell multiple versions and variations.

Digital Stickers

Similar to digital planners, digital stickers are part of the digital planner product line that appeals to a certain market planning via their iPads and other devices. Similar to physical stickers the digital stickers are used to prettify the planners or create functionality.

Digital stickers are a lower price point digital product but can be made quickly and sold in high volumes which helps with profitability.

How To Guides

How to guides are a great digital product to create if you have a large amount of knowledge but do not want to create a full course.

A how to guide generally will be text based and in the form of an e-book, workbook, and/or worksheets.

Lesson Plans

Lesson plans can be an incredible digital product for teachers to create and sell to other teachers. These plans can be based on certain topics or target certain grade levels and ages.

Sites like Teachers Pay Teachers as well as Etsy allow teachers to monetize their lesson plans by selling them to other teachers. One great option when selling lesson plans is to create multiple and sell them both individually and bundled at a higher price point.

Product Mockups

Many creators of digital products like wall art like to use product mockups to sell their creations. Product mockups help digital products sell by showcasing them in their final form. Mockups can be created for framed art, tshirts, and more.

Creating and selling prouct mockups themselves is a huge business. If you are a creative photographer you can create. avery successful shop selling mockups to other digital product creators. There are multiple Etsy shops doing this with tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of sales from product mockups alone.

Real Estate Templates

The real estate market has been hot for a while now in most areas and many real estate agents are making a killing with their services. Real estate agents are a great market t sell to because they often don’t want to create things themselves and are willing to pay for convenience and products that make them look more professional.

There are many digital products you can create in the niche of real estate templates: new home owner checklist templates, marketing material templates, open house flyer templates, new client packet templates, social media post templates and more.

Resume Templates

With many people looking for work there is a rise in the need for resume templates that stand out and get a second look. It’s a gap in the market where people generally overlook this digital product because they assume there are already plenty of free templates online for resumes.

However there is still room for beautifully designed resume templates and this seller made $5,000 selling resume templates on Creative Market.

Spreadsheets

Most people don’t have the Excel knowledge to create spreadsheets that can automatically do the calculations needed for certain tasks. This means there is a huge market for digital product creators to create spreadsheets that help users complete a certain task.

There are many types of spreadsheets you could create and sell:

budgeting spreadsheets
rental income spreadsheets
real estate deal analysis spreadsheets
business bookkeeping spreadsheets
financial planning spreadsheets
resale inventory spreadsheets

Test Prep Guides

Studying for many professional tests can be a challenge. Because of this people are willing to pay for help to study and pass certain tests. If you have successfully studied for and passed a professional test then you could create and sell a test prep guide.

You can create test preparation study materials, how to pass guides, worksheets, and more around a certain test or how to study for that test.

Video Effects

With the explosion of video content online in recent years there has been an increase in opportunities to create tools to improve videos.

There are many video related products you can create from video effects to stock footage to video transitions, titles and more. Sites like Envato Elements allow you to sell video specific effects.

Wedding Plans & Tools

The wedding industry is huge and most brides and grooms plan to spend a massive amount of money on their wedding. Because of these budgets there is plenty of room available for digital products like wedding planning tools.

There is a market for tools for DIY brides trying to cobble together their wedding plans on the cheap and also for higher end brides who might also have a planner but still want to pay for convenience and organization. This is a great add on digital product if you are already in the wedding industry working with couples as a planner, photographer, or other vendor.

Why Sell Digital Products?

There are many reasons to sell digital products especially if you are looking for passive income. Selling any kind of digital product can create a new passive or mostly passive income stream for you.

Here are a few of the reasons why you should create and sell digital products:

You make them once and sell them many times
They can be very easy to make compared to physical products
Cheap to make since you can use free programs
High margins – you have no product cost so you keep the profit
Unlimited growth in sales without having to scale any production
Unlimited growth in income by reaching new customers

How To Decide What To Sell

If you have been trying to decide what to sell then this will definitely help get you started! Most of these ideas can be created in free programs like Canva or PlaceIt.

You don’t have to have design skills or a background in digital marketing in order to create and sell digital downloads. You don’t need a formal education or design background to create digital products and earn money selling them – you just have to be curious and willing to learn!

When deciding what type of digital product to sell I would recommend picking an area where you have a passion in life and then deciding the types of products. For example, maybe you think you should make SVG files because they are popular, but you really love making spreadsheets to keep your life and business organized. I’d focus on that instead!

Or maybe you like planning parties so you think you need to create party invitations. But I wouldn’t limit myself to one digital product. I’d think about what types of products would complement each other in a shop that helps my target audience. You can create listings that complement and link back to each other like related party invitations and party decor.

More digital product idea posts to help you decide:

Creating Digital Products Online

There are a number of ways to create digital products online these days. It’s possible to make digital products to sell for free with a number of programs!

Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign – I personally use Adobe InDesign for creating all my printables because it’s the best, most reliable and has the most flexibility. There is a learning curve because it’s a professional program but it’s worth it for the hassles it removes. Try creating with Adobe InDesign’s free trial.

Canva

Canva – Canva is one of the best free editing programs where you can create a digital products and the paid version is even better with bonus features that help take your work to the next level. Try creating with Canva.

Selling Digital Products Online

You will want an e-commerce platform that will allow you to both take payments and deliver your digital products to your customers. There are many different e-commerce platforms that make this possible so let’s look at the best ones for selling digital products specifically.

Etsy

Etsy – I love selling on Etsy because you don’t have to find people to buy your digital products – they are already on the platform and Etsy is bringing them to you! It’s easy for beginners to start and Etsy shop and you can get 40 free listings through this link.

Podia

Podia – Podia is a more robust platform that will allow you to not only sell digital downloads but also offer memberships and online courses. If you have plans to grow a full online business it’s the ideal platform to use to keep everything in one place and is cheaper than most other platforms. Get a 14 day free trial of Podia here.

Shopify

Shopify – One of the most popular platforms to use for selling goods online. Shopify has emerged at the top of many seller’s lists for the ease of use, beautiful designs, set pricing, and powerful backend. It offers everything you need to sell digital or physical products and scale your business too. Get a free trial of Shopify here.

Related posts to help you sell on Shofy:

WooCommerce

WooCommerce – WooCommerce integrates easily with existing WordPress websites to sell digital downloads. WooCommerce is not specifically for digital downloads but they have made the process super simple for sellers and do not take additional fees from sales. I currently use WooCommerce to sell my digital downloads on my website. Get started with WooCommerce.

Growing A Digital Product Business On Etsy

Etsy has downsides but it’s also an amazing place to build a business and earn an income.

If you want to grow a business selling digital downloads on Etsy I recommend my friend Sharon’s Etsy Entrepreneur course where she walks you through the process of setting up an Etsy shop and growing it to make $1,000 a month or more. She grew her Etsy store of digital downloads to more than $1,000 a month and has inspired many people to do the same.

Remember that your business growth will depend on being consistent and growing over time adding valuable products. For most of us we begin with one product and grow over time building on what works.

Over time you will learn tips and tricks to grow your digital products shop and find that success can be far beyond you expected when you focus on profitable digital products.