Why SendOwl is one of the best platforms to sell your digital products online
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There are many different platforms to sell your digital products, online courses, memberships, coaching services, and digital product bundles. But which one is the best for your online business?
In this blog post, I’m going to write about one of the best platforms to sell digital products online: SendOwl, which you can try for free for 7 days.
Grab your cup of your favorite beverage (I have my cup of coffee here ☕), and let’s start.
What is SendOwl?
SendOwl is a platform that allows you to sell your digital products online easily. You can sell and deliver ebooks (with PDF stamping for security), audiobooks, stock photos, software, memberships, license keys, digital product bundles, coaching services, online courses, and more. You can also create your own affiliate program with SendOwl.
This is the platform that I used for the first two years to sell my Canva templates and styled stock photography in my shop for entrepreneurs (those were the kind of digital products that I sold at the time; now I also offer Flodesk templates and printable planners).
Since then, I’ve moved my shop to Payhip. I’ll tell you more about it in the alternatives section at the end of this blog post.
Who is SendOwl good for?
In my opinion, SendOwl is good for writers, photographers, coaches, infopreneurs, artists, bloggers, musicians, and creative entrepreneurs.
For example, if you’re a writer, you can create your own shop to sell your ebooks and audiobooks directly from your website in connection with SendOwl, and also sell your books in different marketplaces.
You could offer an extra short story, bonus chapters, or behind the scenes of the story, as a gift to anyone who purchases two or more books directly from your shop (SendOwl allows you to add different products to the cart before checkout).
How does SendOwl work? Do you need a website to use SendOwl?
There are two ways to use SendOwl:
- Connected to your website. In this case, you have the option to embed a “buy now” or “add to cart” button to your website or blog, and also a “view cart” button. You build your sales page on your website, and embed the checkout buttons from SendOwl. I did this when my website was on Squarespace, and it was really easy!
- Without a website. You have the option to create a minimal sales page on SendOwl, with a custom URL, and use a short link to share the page. Another way is to use the social sharing buttons that SendOwl provides, with a link to your product.
Sell digital products on SendOwl with or without a website
How do you get paid with SendOwl?
You receive the payment directly in your Stripe or PayPal account whenever a customer makes a purchase.
With SendOwl’s new pricing plans, there are no transaction fees, no matter which plan you choose. However, you still have to pay Stripe or PayPal fees.
Does SendOwl work with WordPress?
Yes, it does! You can create your sales page in WordPress and embed SendOwl’s button by searching for “custom HTML” in the Gutenberg editor (or whatever website builder you use, like Elementor), and adding it to your page. Just copy and paste the button that you want from SendOwl (“buy now”, “add to cart”, or “view cart”).
Your audience will click on the button and SendOwl will take care of the rest (payment, email, and product delivery).
Does SendOwl work with Squarespace?
Yes, it does! A prior version of this website was an example of that for the first two years (now it runs on WordPress, and it’s hosted by Lyrical Host). You can embed buttons by adding a code block in your sales page in Squarespace.
If you don’t like the way SendOwl’s buttons look, you can create your own buttons with your color palette, and then add them as png files in the custom CSS section in Squarespace.
Once you upload the images to your website, replace the button image location in the button code provided by SendOwl.
Look at the section of the code that starts with “img src” and add your image location between the quotation marks.
<img src=“button image location goes here”/>
Does SendOwl work with Shopify?
Yes, it does! You have to search for SendOwl in the Shopify app store and install it (make sure that you have at least one product in Shopify before you do that, or you will get an error message).
Then configure an account in SendOwl. You will create your products in SendOwl, and they will be linked to your products in your Shopify store. You can find more information and tutorials about this in SendOwl’s help center.
Does SendOwl work with Wix?
Yes, it does! You only need to embed a button from SendOwl in your sales page in Wix. Go to the editor in Wix, and click on:
Add to site | Embed code | Embed HTML
Copy and paste the code from SendOwl to display the button that you want in your sales page (“buy now”, “add to cart”, or “view cart”).
Can you use SendOwl for free?
You can try SendOwl for free for 7 days, and see if it’s what you’re looking for to sell your digital products.
Can you sell physical products with SendOwl?
Yes, you can! When you are in your SendOwl account, go to:
Products | Add a product | Sell a digital or physical product | Physical
When you sell a physical product, you will receive an email from SendOwl detailing which product was purchased and your customer’s address.
Once you ship your product, go back to that email and click on the link to mark the product as “dispatched”, and enter the tracking number. Your customer will receive an email with this information.
Have in mind that in the case of selling physical products, there are other platforms with more options, like Shopify.
Can you create an affiliate program with SendOwl?
Yes, you can! You can manage your own affiliate program in SendOwl, no matter which plan you choose. (Unless you’re integrating SendOwl with Shopify. You’ll have to find a Shopify plugin to create your affiliate program.)
To create your own affiliate program in SendOwl, go to:
Settings | SendOwl checkout | Affiliate program | Program settings
In that page, you will be able to connect with your email service provider (so your new affiliate will be added to your email list), add your affiliate program’s name, support email address, affiliate pay delay, site link URL, cookie precedence, lifetime, and expiry; and affiliate terms.
Once you enter all the information, click on “Update”.
In the next page, you will have the option to choose a default affiliate commission rate for all your products.
If you want to select different rates, or exclude some products from the program, click on “Skip this step” and then proceed to edit your products individually with the different affiliate rates.
IMPORTANT: SendOwl doesn’t generate affiliate payments. You’ll have to do it yourself. At the beginning of the month, they will send you two files: a PayPal MassPay file, which you can upload to your PayPal account to pay all your affiliates, and a CSV file with the email address and the amount that you have to pay to each affiliate.
What are the main differences between SendOwl’s plans?
In the tables below, you can read the differences between SendOwl’s Launch Plan, Grow Plan, and Scale Plan.
All plans include all these features: PDF stamping, product pages, secure downloads, upsells, cart recovery, built-in affiliate program, email integration, API & webhooks, Stripe and PayPal integration, unlimited products, unlimited storage, and no setup fees.
Launch Plan
✅ Free 7 day trial. $39 per month after that.
✅ Up to 5,000 orders per year.
✅ Up to $10,000 sales per year.
Grow Plan
✅ Free 7 day trial. $87 per month after that.
✅ Up to 25,000 orders per year.
✅ Up to $36,000 sales per year.
Scale Plan
✅ Free 7 day trial. $159 per month after that.
✅ Up to 50,000 orders per year.
✅ Up to $100,000 sales per year.
What are the pros and cons of SendOwl?
This is my personal opinion about the pros and cons of SendOwl, and it comes from my experience using the platform to sell my digital products during the first two years of my business, when my website was on Squarespace.
Pros
- Creating a product is pretty easy in SendOwl. And you can redirect your customers to different “thank you for your purchase” pages on your website, all set up automatically in SendOwl. This is pretty useful when you sell different kinds of products, like I do (Canva templates, Flodesk templates, and styled stock photography). I also have fun designing and selling printable planners in a different shop page.
- SendOwl is really an “add to cart” platform. You can choose one product from a shop, return to the website with one click, continue shopping and adding more products, and then finally checking out just once.
- You can select different products in SendOwl and create a bundle in just a few clicks.
- You can add upsells to your products, so when someone is making a purchase, you can offer them related products before they proceed to checkout. This is really useful, because you can increase the value of the sale easily.
- You can create your own affiliate program in SendOwl. Usually, you have to pay for a third party tool to do this. But have in mind that SendOwl doesn’t pay your affiliates. They provide you with two files at the beginning of the month, so that you can process the payments to your affiliates.
- The fraud filtering tool is SendOwl’s secret weapon. No joke. If you’re a solopreneur like me, it will save you from many headaches. Try it and you’ll see. (Payhip is another digital product website that added that feature too).
Cons
- Even though you have customization options, I feel like there could be a bit more options (I’ve been spoiled by Flodesk for sending my emails, and by Payhip for selling my digital products nowadays, LOL). Other than that, I was really happy with SendOwl while I used the platform.
- If you’re just starting your business, and you have a tiny budget, the pricing plans on SendOwl might not be for you. In that case, you can try Payhip for free instead (I explain more about Payhip below).
What are SendOwl alternatives?
Payhip
After two years of using SendOwl to sell my digital products, I decided to change to Payhip. I was looking for a platform that would manage and pay EU VAT for me, and that’s how I found Payhip.
Prior to that, I was using Creative Market to manage sales with VAT, but they started charging a 50% commission to creators (they went gradually from a 20% commission at the beginning, to finally 50% in 2022), so I needed to find another platform ASAP.
That’s why I deleted all my products from Creative Market (and from SendOwl too), and moved my whole shop to Payhip, so now I manage everything from just one place.
With Payhip, you can create your own shop with an affiliate program, coupon codes, and upsells for free, and customize it to look similar to your website, no matter which pricing plan you choose. All Payhip plans, including the free forever plan, gives you access to all their features, unlimited products, and unlimited revenue.
If you don’t have a website yet, you can purchase a domain, connect it with Payhip, and start selling your products and services for free today. You can also sell online courses and memberships.
If you collect payments with Stripe and/or PayPal, you can start with the free plan, with a 5% commission for every sale that you make (plus the usual fees from Stripe or PayPal).
Payhip also has a Plus Plan for $29 per month (with a 2% commission on every sale) or a Pro Plan for $99 per month (without any commission per sale) available too. Take a look at their website, and decide which Payhip plan is better for you.
You can use my Payhip coupon code SOULFULGIRLS10 to get 10% off on all paid plans.
Podia
Podia is a platform that allows you to sell your digital products, online courses, memberships, communities, webinars, workshops, bundles, coaching, and consultations.
It also includes a website builder, an email marketing platform, and a blogging platform, all in one place.
There’s a free 14 day trial available, so you can sign up and see if it’s what you’re looking for.
Flodesk
Flodesk is an email marketing platform that now has the option to sell your products online, even without a website. You can build a beautiful sales page, checkout page, and instant delivery page with Flodesk, and connect directly with your Stripe account to receive the payments.
You can sell digital products, subscriptions (like memberships, coaching programs and paid newsletters), physical products, and services, and offer discounts and upsells, for a flat rate. There are no platform fees, which means that you only pay Stripe fees for processing the payment.
IMPORTANT: At the moment, you can only accept payments with Stripe, which isn’t available in every country to receive payments yet (like in my country).
If you use my affiliate link or my Flodesk discount code SOULFULGIRLS at checkout, you will get 25% off your Flodesk subscription during the first year.
Cartflows
CartFlows is a WordPress and WooCommerce plugin that allows you to create your sales funnel on your website. They offer a library of templates compatible with Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and Gutenberg, to simplify the process of turning website visitors into customers.
Depending on the plan that you choose, you can have dynamic offers, A/B split testing, card abandonment, dynamic one-click upsells, modern order bump styles, product options, custom checkout fields, analytics, conversion optimized funnel templates, and more.
More Resources To Sell Your Digital Products
Kit (Formerly ConvertKit) Free Plan Vs Paid Plan
ConvertKit free plan vs paid plan: which one should you choose?
Flodesk Email & Checkout Features And 25% Off Promo Code
Flodesk Email Template Tutorial
How to design an email template in Flodesk for your creative business
I hope that was useful for you!
Don’t forget to choose a plan on SendOwl to start selling digital products today. 😉😻
With all my love,
Giselle
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Meet the author
Hi, beautiful! I’m Giselle.
I provide female entrepreneurs, like you, beautiful and soulful images, Flodesk templates, and Canva templates that they can use in their personal brands.
I also write resource tutorials and reviews to make your blogging life easier, and have fun designing and selling printable planners.