Make Money Selling Digital Products: Passive Income in 2025

Last Updated on January 6, 2025 by Jan Barley

Make money selling digital products and kiss your day job goodbye. Is that realistic or a pipe dream?

You might think that only influencers and already successful people make money selling digital products but there is a genuine opportunity for the average person to make passive income from digital products if it’s done properly.

Undoubtedly, the digital goods market is growing. How can it not be when AI technology is storming ahead and making it easier than ever to create digital content?

Moreover, whether you want to sell e-books, courses, guides or software, it’s possible to make money selling digital products.

Understanding the Digital Product Marketplace

Above all, you must know what people want to buy before you make money selling digital products. Most beginners have an idea for a digital product, launch into weeks or months creating it and then face a long and empty space of nothingness. Without doing the research, you could be wasting your time.

Popular digital products include e-books, online courses, and software. These items are easy to make and share. That means you can start making money selling digital products with little initial investment.

Finding a profitable niche is paramount to success. That is to say, you can create the best digital product that sells consistently by studying what customers need. If your goal is to make long-term passive income, the secret is to know your audience and offer them value.

Read: Faceless Instagram Theme Pages: 9 Most Profitable Niches

Essential Tools and Platforms for Digital Product Sales

You need the right tools and platforms to make money from selling information products. Firstly, experts suggest the e-learning market will reach $840 billion by 2030. That opens up extraordinary chances for anyone to make money selling digital products.

Popular places to sell digital products include Beacons, Gumroad, Systeme, Stan Store, Shopify and more.

When picking a platform, decide how much you can afford. For instance, Beacons starts at $19 monthly, but you can quickly start with a free account. The platform takes a small commission when you make a sale.

Above all, Canva is my go-to platform for creating anything and everything. For instanxce, you can create masterful designs with a free account. If you have a free Canva account and want unique images or templates, try Creative Fabrica. It’s super low cost and has millions of unique graphics and templates for every niche.

Some essential features to explore in a platform are:

• Reputation
• Ease of use
• Marketing and promotion tools
• Analytics and performance tracking
• Easy product creation and management
• Secure payment processing and download delivery

Most importantly, choosing the best tools and platforms can make selling digital products easier. Primarily, it can help you earn more and spend time focusing on making top-notch information products.

Creating Your First Digital Product

Primarily, you must create a product that solves your audience’s problems. Certainly, creating the perfect solution will boost online earnings. Start by researching what your customers need. Then, develop and produce the product, ensuring it’s high quality.

Ideation & Research

Do deep research for customer intent. Answer the Public is fantastic for getting accurate information on what people search for. In addition, social media platforms like Instagram Threads are brilliant for researching ideas.

Threads is also a marvellous platform for driving people to your sales page or link in bio (which you get with Beacons). If you aren’t familiar with Threads, check out Threads Unleashed, a fantastic low-cost resource for learning how to maximise results on the platform.

When researching customer needs, consider their issues and how they might solve them. Use this insight to craft a digital product that solves their problem.

Identify a niche	Focus on your audience’s specific problem (e.g., social media growth, healthy recipes, dog training).
Validate demand	Use surveys, social media polls, and tools like Google Trends or AnswerThePublic to gauge interest.
Analyse competitors	Study what’s already available and identify gaps you can fill.

Define Your Target Audience

Develop a clear customer persona. Identify demographics, pain points, needs and tailor your product’s features and messaging to their expectations. Once you have defined your target customer, it’s much easier to create relevant content that speaks to them.

Read: How to Find Your Ideal Customer Avatar Using AI Software

Outlining Your Digital Product

Outlining the content for your digital product is one of the most crucial steps to avoid getting overwhelmed. Your content structure should follow a linear flow that will make sense to your audience and provide the best learning experience.

Break the product into sections, lessons, or chapters (if it’s an eBook, course, etc.). I use ChatGPT for outlining course ideas. It is an excellent resource to kickstart the process. You can then refine and make it your own. You might be surprised how outlining headings and subheadings can speed up the creation process.

Before you begin, identify the Core value for your audience. Clearly define the transformation or benefit your product offers.

Developing the Digital Product

Let’s face it: tools and software can be expensive. Be strict about what you can do yourself and what you can use to create a system that will help you streamline the digital product creation. In addition, use software suited to your product type (see “Platforms” below).

Design and create visually appealing assets. There’s no excuse for poor design. When I started digital marketing, I purchased multiple courses and eBooks, and most of them were utter crap. Poor use of colour, terrible typography and tiny text squeezed onto a page is unacceptable. Neither is poor grammar and spelling. The best way to create digital products is to use quality templates or hire a designer (you can find low-cost designers on Fiver).

Ensure high-quality writing, video, or audio content. Proofread and test extensively.

Read: Faceless Digital Marketing: An In-Depth Guide to Getting Started

Test the Product

If you have an email audience, run a beta test with a small segment of your audience. Initially, you might offer the product for free or at a low cost to collect feedback and refine the product accordingly.

Create a Marketing Strategy

Firstly, create a sales page or website: Use platforms like Systeme to create sales pages and a website, or invest in a WordPress site with a proven fast-loading theme.

Secondly, include social proof with testimonials from the beta testers and create promotional content, such as sequences, social media posts, Pinterest pins, blog posts, etc.

Pricing & Launch

Set competitive pricing based on value and audience willingness to pay.

• Use a pre-launch strategy (teasers, waitlists, early bird offers).
• Launch the product with fanfare, including special offers for early buyers.

Ongoing Support & Updates

To make money selling digital products, you must provide excellent customer service. For instance, focus on creating quality evergreen content but update the product periodically to keep it relevant.

Platforms to Help Create Digital Products

It’s essential to choose the best platform to create digital products, one that is proven, intuitive, affordable and suitable for beginners.

Best For eBooks & PDFs

• Canva: An easy-to-use design platform for professional layouts. There is hardly anything you cannot do with Canva. In addition, as a pro member, you can even create AI images (Dream Lab), text-to-video content, and more
• Adobe InDesign: Advanced design tool for eBooks. If you’re an Adobe whiz, it can create stunning designs.
• Google Docs: This free collaborative writing and editing tool can help you design sharable documents with flare.

Best Online Courses & Memberships

Systeme: Creating and selling a course on Systeme is super easy. In addition, with the lifetime free plan, you can build and sell your first digital product entirely for free. In addition, you get one free email campaign and up to three sales pages for free. In addition, it’s the lowest-priced platform on this list (From $32/month with 0% transaction fees)

Read: Is Systeme.io Best free Marketing Platform for Beginners

Thinkific: Offers customisable course pages. It can be pricy, though (From £36/month on the annual plan)

Kajabi: All-in-one platform with email marketing and sales funnels (from $55/month on the yearly plan and 0% transaction fees)

Podia: Simplified creation of memberships, courses, and downloads. Unlimited products from $33/month and 5% transaction fees)

Best Templates & Printables Platforms

• Canva: Customisable templates for printables and social media graphics.
• Etsy: A marketplace to sell templates.

Best Videos & Webinar Software

• Canva: Simple and easy to use for beginners
• Screen Pal: Free screen recording and video editing software.
• Zoom: Live webinars and recorded video content.

Best Software for Audio Products 

• Audacity: Free audio editing software.
• Anchor by Spotify: Podcast creation and hosting.

Best for Text to Audio Software

Eleven Labs in industry-leading  advanced AI software that converts text to audio. In addition, for less than $5/month you can clone your own voice for commercial use, savings hours of editing out the ums and ers we all do! If you prefer to use another voice, Eleven Labs has a broad range of human sounding AI voices to use for your project.

Offer: Try Eleven Labs text to audio software for FREE 

Best for Graphics & Illustrations

• Canva: I think I’ve said enough on Canva!
• Procreate: For creating custom digital artwork (iPad only).
• Affinity Designer: Alternative to Adobe Illustrator.

Best Marketing & Sales Platforms

• Systeme: Affordable email marketing tailored for creators with many bonus options included in the package.
• MailerLite: Affordable email marketing with automation.
• Gumroad: Simple platform for selling digital downloads.
• Shopify: Set up a store for digital and physical products.

Key Pages for a Sales Funnel

• Optin page
• Sales page
• Order form page
• Upsell page(s)
• Thank you page

Systeme.io is excellent for building sales funnels because it’s easy to use and affordable. If you’ve never built a sales funnel, Systeme has a free certified course that teaches you how to become a sales funnel builder and make a 6-figure income if you want to add this service to your business.

Read: How To Make A 6-figure Income Building Sales Funnels.

Building a solid sales funnel boosts your chances of making passive income. Always check and tweak your funnel for better results.

Note: All of the platforms I have listed offer payment options such as the following

• PayPal, Stripe: Secure payment gateways.
• WooCommerce: WordPress plugin for eCommerce

Legal Considerations and Protection

When you start selling information products, knowing the legal side is key. Primarily, that includes understanding intellectual property rights, service terms, and digital goods policies.

Many of the digital courses I purchased do not offer a refund. Catalyst Collective is the only course I purchased that prides itself in a 48-hour refund.

Most companies say they don’t offer a refund because a digital product is intangible, so the customer cannot effectively *return* it. Whether that’s right or wrong is debatable,. Still, if you want happy customers, consider the following:

• Your customers’ rights, like the 14-day right to cancel.
• Payment details: What options does your customer have?
• The level of support provided after the sale
• Whether the product gets updated at no cost

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights are fundamental in the digital world. You need to know about VAT rules, mainly for EU sales. Also, make sure to confirm contracts and keep customers updated.

Terms of Service and Policies

Having clear terms and policies is vital. They protect you and your customers. Be open about who owns what and any limits. Also, be honest about using AI tools to avoid legal issues.

By grasping these legal points, you can build a successful e-commerce business. Focus on selling information products and making a profit.

Legal Consideration	Importance
Intellectual Property Rights	Protects your digital products from unauthorised use
Terms of Service and Policies	Ensures transparency and protection for both you and your customers
Payment Clarity	Prevents possible issues with customers regarding payment and delivery

Conclusion: Get Started As A Digital Entrepeneur

In conclusion, making money selling digital products can be exciting and rewarding, but there are some pitfalls to avoid, including not wasting money on monthly subscriptions you don’t need. Systeme.io is one of the best marketing platforms because you get so much for free, meaning as you make money, you can start investing your profits into more tools.

Above all, to succeed in the long run, keep learning and adapting. In addition, stay updated with trends, listen to your customers, and improve your products and marketing. You can grow a successful digital business with hard work, creativity, and a focus on your customers.

Finally, start your digital product creation journey now and become a successful digital product entrepreneur. You can make money selling digital products and build a passive income. It’s yours for the taking.

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links on this page. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.