You know that saying, new year, new you? Let’s swap it out for new year, new business ideas.
One of the quickest and easiest ways to make some extra pocket change with a new business idea is to tap into the boundless market of digital products.
The allure of selling digital products online comes from the fact that they can be distributed instantly and that they produce high profit margins. This means more potential for passive income, which is music to any entrepreneur’s ears.
The demand for digital products is only increasing, with no signs of slowing down. The digital product market size is projected to reach a value of $26.06 trillion by 2034, with significant growth in areas like eLearning.
This is why we have created the ultimate guide for the best types of digital projects to sell online in 2025. If you’ve ever been curious about selling digital products online but don’t know where to begin or what to sell, this guide is for you.
We will go into depth on the best types of digital products to sell in 2025 and include expert tips for how to find success in the digital product industry.
Skip ahead:
- What are digital products?
- Best types of digital products to sell in 2025
- Tips for successfully selling digital products
- Key takeaways
- Try Thinkific
Related: What is a Digital Product: Understanding the Basics for 2024
| Types of digital products | Main Highlights | Top Tools |
| eLearning products and online courses |
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| Digital templates, downloads, and tools |
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| Stock media |
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| Printables and digital planners |
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| Ebooks and audiobooks |
| Ebooks:
Audiobooks: |
| Mobile apps and software as a Service (SaaS) |
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| Membership sites and digital communities |
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| AI-driven tools and products |
| For using AI:
For developing AI: |
What are digital products?
Before we get into the best types of digital products to sell online, let’s go over some basics (if you want a more in-depth explanation on digital products, check out this blog post).
Simply put, digital products are intangible assets that are distributed and sold through an online marketplace. These products are created and delivered directly to customers solely through an electronic format.
The online nature of digital products, and the relative ease of creating them, has opened the door for anyone looking to earn passive income. Creators and educators alike have flocked to this digital market because the benefits of selling digital products are really too good to be true.
Advantages of selling digital products
There’s a reason why digital products are popular among creators, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and businesses – this is because of their low barriers to entry and the potential for high profit margins.
Here are some other key advantages of selling digital products:
- High demand: People want access to knowledge and expertise in an easily accessible format and are more than willing to pay for it.
- Scalable: Digital products can be delivered or replicated without any significant production costs, making them extremely scalable.
- Instant delivery: Digital products can be immediately accessed and downloaded after a purchase is complete.
- Automation: Once your digital product is created, you can easily automate processes to keep your digital product profitable, with little upkeep.
- Low overhead costs: There is no inventory or shipping expenses associated with digital products, making them a risk-free business venture.
- Customizable: Digital products can be easily updated or modified to meet customer needs.
- Global reach: Digital products can be sold or distributed to a worldwide audience.
Selling digital products is a hassle-free way to grow a passive income stream that has the potential to expose your brand to larger business opportunities in the future. Whether you want to diversify your revenue or build an online business from the ground up, selling digital products can help make ends meet for you.
Related: 19 Profitable Digital Products And Where To SellThem
Best types of digital products to sell in 2025
The possibilities for creating digital products are endless, which means it can sometimes be overwhelming to know where to start when breaking into this online market.
We have curated a list of some of the most profitable digital product categories, along with different examples within each category that creators and entrepreneurs have seen success in.
Without further ado, here are the best types of digital products to sell in 2025:
eLearning products and online courses
eLearning products and online courses are not to be underestimated when it comes to deciding on which type of digital product to sell online. In fact, in 2025 the online education market is projected to reach over $203.30 billion dollars, with no signs of slowing down.
eLearning products are digital tools or platforms that allow businesses to create, manage, and deliver educational content online. There is tons of wiggle-room within this niche area of digital products, and eLearning is known by many different terms, including electronic learning, virtual learning, and remote education. The gist is the same – an individual can access some aspect of their education through a digital or electronic channel.
Examples of eLearning products include:
- Pre-recorded courses (video lectures on platforms such as Thinkific, Udemy, and Coursera)
- Study materials (workbooks, study guides, and flashcards)
- Certification programs (IT certifications, language courses, and fitness training)
- Learning platforms (MasterClass and Skillshare)
The goal of eLearning is to teach skills, provide certifications, or offer niche expertise. One of the best – and most lucrative – ways to do this is to share your expertise through creating online courses.
Online courses allow you to share your expertise in exchange for a new (and passive) source of revenue. The best part is that you don’t have to be formally trained as an educator, either. You simply need to have a little bit of knowledge that will benefit and provide value to others.
Some examples of successful niche online course topics include:
- Sewing
- Fitness training
- Guitar lessons
- Yoga instruction
- Photography
- Professional development
- Course building
- Social media
- Coding
eLearning and online courses are types of digital products that will never lose demand, as the purpose of these products is to educate people. As well, they are extremely easy and cost-efficient to start, thanks to the wide variety of online learning platforms out there.
Highlights:
- Great option for educator creators who want to share their expertise
- Endless niche topic ideas
- Low-cost creation and high scalability
- Variety of formats to conduct eLearning
- Customizable learning paths
- Community building potential
- Wide range of tools to assist with learning tools
Tools:
- Thinkific: All-in-one online course creation with custom website themes
- Kajabi: Online course builder with built-in CRM
- LearnWorlds: Website builder with existing community
- Podia: Comprehensive product list includes webinars, ebooks, workshops,
- Mighty Networks: Course creator with native live streaming and video
- Teachable: Built-in business management and tax tools
- Udemy: Course templates and built-in marketplace
For more tips on selling eLearning products and online courses, check out this blog on 130+ online course ideas and examples (plus tips on how to get started).
Digital templates, downloads, and tools
Digital templates, downloads, and tools are more under the radar than online courses, however they’re not to be underestimated! Once you create a digital template or online tool, it’s available for purchase forever, without any extra work from you. Hello, passive income!
Digital templates are pre-designed, customizable resources that can save people time, effort, and money while providing professional results. You may not believe it, but online templates are extremely high in-demand and can be valuable resources for those needing guidance or time-saving.
Sought out templates include:
- Resumes
- Craft outlines
- Business proposals
- Budget reports
- Spreadsheets
- Website themes
- Canva templates
Developing digital templates, downloads, and tools offers you creative flexibility and can be tailored to suit specific needs, brand guidelines, or preferences. Most of all, they are simple to create!
Highlights:
- Cost-effective to create
- Customizable to any niche or industry
- High in-demand across various fields and industries
- Accessible and can be used on multiple platforms
- Great resource for scaling businesses and generating leads
- Can be downloaded and accessed instantly
The world is really your oyster when it comes to creating digital templates and resources, meaning there are a ton of online tools and platforms out there to assist you. You can literally create a professional-looking template within minutes, if you desire!
Tools:
- Canva: Thousands of templates and editing tools
- Adobe Creative Suite: Professional-grade design tools for detailed, custom designs
- Microsoft Office: Simple printable creation for business templates
- Figma: Website design and UI/UX templates
- Google Workspace: Shareable templates for collaboration
- Procreate: Artistic templates for digital art
Some great options for selling and distributing your digital templates include Etsy, Creative Market, and Gumroad. Examples of self-hosted platforms include Thinkific, Shopify, or WooCommerce, which allow you to sell your digital products directly through your own website.
Stock media
If you are more of a visual or audio creator, selling stock media online is the perfect side hustle (or even full-time gig). Selling stock photos, audios, or videos online is a great way to monetize your photography or media skills and generate a passive income from your passions.
Even if you aren’t well versed in taking professional photos or videos, or your design skills aren’t perfected, you can still upload your unique high-quality photos or videos to be sold online.
You can also sell digital sound recordings that are commonly used for entertainment, marketing, or creative projects. These include royalty-free music tracks, for YouTube videos or ads, or sound effects, for podcasts or gaming.
Each time someone licenses your photo, sound, or video, you earn royalties or a one-time fee. Once your media is uploaded, you can generate income repeatedly without requiring further effort. So, your work is done!
To find success in this industry, remember to focus on in-demand themes like business, technology, travel, diversity, and remote work. Also, ensure photos meet technical requirements such as resolution, focus, lighting.
Highlights:
- Great for YouTubers, podcasters, influencers, and advertisers
- Growing need for visual content online
- A large portfolio can yield significant returns
- Worldwide users and exposure
- Your media can be used for websites, social media, advertisements, publications, and more
- Offers flexible work with no commitment
- Minimal costs after the initial investment
- Offers creative freedom
- Sell the same photo on multiple stock platforms
- Many platforms accept images from beginners if they meet quality standards
Popular platforms to list your digital media as products include Shutterstock, Etsy, Adobe Stock, iStock by Getty Images, Alamy, and Dreamstime. To enhance your photos and videos, we’ve listed the best editing tools below.
Tools:
- Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop: Color grading, retouching, resizing, and file compression
- Canva: Resizes and prepares photos for specific use cases
- Snapseed (mobile): Filters, cropping, and minor touch-ups
- Topaz Labs: AI-powered tools for enhancing image resolution, noise reduction, and sharpening
- Stock Submitter: Uploads photos to multiple stock platforms at once
- Google Keyword Planner and Shutterstock Keyword Suggestion: Keyword research tools
When venturing into this niche area, an important tip to remember is that effective keywords and descriptions ensure your media is discoverable on stock platforms. Also, remember to organize and store your high-quality images securely using cloud storage or external hard drives.
Printables and digital planners
Similar to selling online templates, selling printables and digital planners is a low-risk yet highly profitable digital product.
Printables can include things like planners, calendars, stickers, trackers, or workbooks that fall within a specific niche area. This is one of the easiest ways to dip your toes into the digital product market, as creating these products requires little to no experience.
To get started, you really only need design software (many of which are free or low-cost) and a platform to sell your products. For example, with Canva and Etsy, you can create and sell products with minimal upfront investment.
This digital product niche is highly customizable, and some more specific ideas for printables include budget trackers, study planners, wedding checklists, fitness trackers, or habit-building digital journals. With no inventory or shipping hassles, your digital goods can be downloaded instantly.
Highlights:
- Create once and sell repeatedly
- Great for unleashing creativity
- Easily scalable
- Caters to niche marketplaces
- Easy integration with existing businesses
- Low-cost tools for production
Depending on your niche, there is a wide variety of tools out there for you to use to design, market, and sell printables and digital planners.
Tools:
- Canva: Design tool for creating printables, planners, and templates
- Adobe Creative Cloud: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator
- Affinity Publisher: Affordable alternative to Adobe InDesign for layout design
- Procreate: Design tool for hand-drawn or artistic planners for use on tablets
- Microsoft Office: Simple printable creation
Platforms with built-in audiences, such as Esty, Creative Market, Gumroad, and Teachers Pay Teachers, allow you to sell to existing users. If you have an existing audience or if these are supplementary digital products, use a self-hosted platform such as Thinkific, Shopify, or Payhip. You can market your printable and digital planners on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.
Some tips to successfully sell printable and digital planners online include targeting a specific niche, using SEO for titles and descriptions, creating packages and bundles, and promoting your products across multiple channels.
Ebooks and audiobooks
One of the most popular types of digital products are ebooks and audiobooks. This is an easy way to profit from your expertise if you are an educator of any sorts.
Writing an ebook or audiobook can seem like a daunting task, but it’s actually incredibly easy and straightforward, with all the tools available online to help. Once you complete your ebook or audiobook, it’s forever available for purchase to your customers.
This type of digital product allows you to share knowledge, entertain, or provide step-by-step instructions to your customers. Whether you create long-form books, how-to guides, manuals, magazines, or newsletters, you can sell your digital product as a direct sale, subscription, or bundled with other products.
Highlights:
- Extremely lucrative way to monetize from digital products
- Use existing knowledge and expertise
- Great way to scale your business
- Pairs well with selling online products and printables
Ebook tools:
- Scrivener: Drafts and organizes long-form content
- Google Docs or Microsoft Word: Drafts and edits text
- Vellum: Formats professional-looking ebooks
- Reedsy Book Editor: Free tool for writing, formatting, and exporting ebooks
- BookBub: Promotes ebooks and audiobooks to large audiences
There are many ways you can publish your ebook, whether you want to sell your ebook on an existing platform with a large audience or through your own website. For the former, check out Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Apple Books, Kobo Writing Life, and Gumroad. For the latter, say if you want to create an ebook to sell along with your online course, check out Thinkific.
Audiobook tools:
- Audacity: Free, open-source software for recording and editing audio
- GarageBand: Audio recording and editing for macOS users
- Adobe Audition: Professional audio editing software
- Auphonic: Audio post-production tool
- BookBub: Promoting ebooks and audiobooks to large audiences
On the other hand, there are also specific platforms that are great for selling audiobooks. For example, Audible or ACX allows authors to connect with massive audiences and publish and sell their audiobooks on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Some other platforms include Findaway Voices, Google Play Books, and Chirp.
Remember to market your ebook or audiobook on social media platforms or through email marketing tools to directly engage with your audience. This will allow you to build up the hype around your book releases through offering freebies like sample chapters to attract subscribers or notifying subscribers about your ebook launch or special discounts.
Mobile apps and software as a Service (SaaS)
Perhaps the most diverse category, mobile apps and software as a Service (SaaS) are highly scalable digital products, meaning these types of digital products can be extremely profitable.
Developing a mobile app or a SaaS allows you to have recurring revenue streams, as most SaaS products typically operate on subscription models, generating consistent and predictable income.
Examples include:
- Desktop applications (Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office)
- Mobile apps (budgeting apps like Mint and fitness apps like MyFitnessPal)
- SaaS tools (Slack, Google Workspace, and Canva).
- Plugins and add-ons (WordPress plugins and browser extensions)
A huge benefit of developing these types of digital products is that the digital infrastructure allows you to scale your product to thousands (or millions) of users without significant added costs. And, once your product is live, maintenance and update costs can be relatively low.
Highlights:
- Highly scalable
- High profit margins
- Recurring revenue stream
- Low overhead and maintaining costs
- Global market reach
- Can be developed for any niche
- Develop real-time updates and enhancements
- Access to valuable customer insights and data
- Versatile monetization options
- Build long-term customer relationships
We won’t lie and say creating a mobile app or SaaS platform is the easiest type of digital product to try and sell, but it’s definitely the category with the largest potential revenue-wise. The best part is that there’s many tools available to help streamline the process from development to marketing and sales.
Tools:
- Flutter: Builds cross-platform mobile apps (iOS and Android) using a single codebase
- Android Studio and Xcode: Native development for Android and iOS platforms
- Unity: Develops game apps for mobile devices
- Bubble: No-code platform for building SaaS applications
- AWS (Amazon Web Services): Cloud computing services for hosting and scaling SaaS platforms
- Firebase: Backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform by Google for mobile and web apps
- Heroku: Cloud platform for deploying and managing SaaS applications
- AppTweak and Sensor Tower: Optimizes app listings to rank higher in app stores
- Hotjar: Visualizes how users interact with your app or SaaS platform
The goal of creating a mobile app or SaaS platform is to provide value in a niche industry. With these types of digital products, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Develop a great product, market it well, leverage feedback, and continue to improve your product.
Membership sites and digital communities
Creating membership sites and digital communities are powerful ways to build a loyal audience, generate recurring income, and offer exclusive value to your customers.
This category can overlap with selling many of the previously mentioned digital projects, as membership sites and digital communities produce content specifically to an exclusive, gated community. To access this gated site, members are required to pay a fee or subscription.
Membership sites and digital communities can be places for education, community, or a mix of both – it’s your choice depending on your niche. The goal with either is to attract new members while retaining the ones you have.
Popular examples include membership sites (such as Patreon or Substack), online clubs (such as virtual book clubs or niche hobby groups), and subscription-based services (such as meal planning guides or fitness plans).
Digital communities foster interaction, loyalty, and real-time feedback. These platforms allow members to ask questions, share insights, and connect with like-minded peers. The best part is that whether you have 100 or 10,000 members, the platform and content remain the same, making this type of digital product highly scalable.
Highlights:
- Recurring revenue stream
- Direct engagement with your audience
- Highly scalable
- Builds long-term customer relationships
- High customer loyalty
- Can be developed for any niche
- High perceived value and sense of exclusivity
- Builds brand authority
- Community-led growth
- Track user behaviour, preferences, and trends
The benefit of membership sites and digital communities is that they can be monetized through multiple different ways, such as subscriptions, premium content, affiliate links, or ads. The best part is that engaged members often invite others to the community, fueling organic growth.
Tools:
- Thinkific: All-in-one platform for memberships and digital communities
- Teachable: Create tiers with different membership levels
- Kajabi: Create membership sites, courses, and digital products
- MemberPress: WordPress plugin for creating membership sites
- Podia: Sell memberships, courses, and digital downloads
- Discord: Build online communities with real-time chat, voice, and video
- Circle: Build communities around courses, coaching programs, or memberships
- ConvertKit: Email marketing for membership and community growth
- Leadpages: Build high-converting landing pages for membership sites
When selling membership sites and digital communities online, the key to success is offering members exclusive content, resources, or community perks they can’t find elsewhere. Be sure to regularly interact with members through polls, live sessions, or discussions to keep them engaged, which increases the chances of referrals.
AI-driven tools and products
A newer addition to the digital product marketplace is AI-driven tools and products, which has gained immense popularity as artificial intelligence continues to transform major leading industries like online education and e-commerce.
AI-driven tools and products can help individuals with just about anything – writing, design, productivity – you name it. Whether you want to create your own AI-powered tool or use AI products to enhance the creation process of other digital projects, the power of AI has helped many creators and entrepreneurs find success.
If you’re simply looking for some great AI products to help with your digital creations, check out these popular AI-powered tools:
- ChatGPT: Advanced language model that generates human-like responses
- AdCreative.ai: Generator that produces videos, photos, and copy for your ads
- Claude: Comprehensive AI assistant
- Perplexity: Search engine
- Jasper: Content creation and marketing
- DALL·E 3: Image generation
- Grammarly: Writing assistant and grammar checker
- ElevenLabs: Voice and music generation
- Tome: Slide decks and presentation tools
Highlights:
- AI solutions can be applied across multiple industries
- Solve complex problems and automate repetitive tasks
- AI-driven tools can serve an unlimited number of customers
- Many AI-driven tools follow the SaaS subscription model
- Once developed and marketed, AI tools can generate passive income with minimal maintenance
If you specialize in tech and are curious about how to develop your own AI platform or plugin, there are many tools to assist you with this highly coveted digital product.
Tools:
- TensorFlow: Open-source library for building machine learning models
- PyTorch: Deep learning framework for building AI models
- Hugging Face: Offers pre-trained models for natural language processing (NLP)
- OpenAI API: Access powerful AI models like GPT (for text) and DALL·E (for images)
- Google Cloud AI: Cloud-based AI and machine learning tools for developers
- Intercom: Offers live chat and support for AI tool users
AI can aid you in the creation of any digital project, helping refine and improve your product. If you are creating an AI tool, show your customers how your product can simplify tasks or generate tangible results.
Remember to be transparent with your customers by highlighting data security and the ethical use of AI in your product.
Related: Top 10 Digital Product Landing Page Examples
Tips for successfully selling digital products
When it comes to selling digital products online, there are a few key tips to keep in mind that will help you see a return in your efforts sooner rather than later.
- Identify your niche: It may seem obvious, but identifying your skills and expertise from the get-go will set your business up for long-term success.
- Analyze market demand and competition: To find out if your digital product will be profitable, it’s wise to look at what others are doing in your niche to see if there’s any demand.
- Promote your product: To make sales, be sure to leverage the right platforms for visibility, such as social media platforms and engage in marketing tactics such as ads.
- Engage in keyword research: Don’t underestimate SEO tools – this will ensure your digital products are searchable in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Scaling your products: Can you create a digital product that will help sell your larger digital product? For example, create a workbook as a free resource to leverage for your online course.
Related: Why Educational Content is Key to Online Business Success
Key takeaways
There you have it – our list of the best types of digital products to sell in 2025, from beginner-friendly options to more advanced business ideas.
Choose a digital product to sell that you are passionate about, and start small before scaling up to find your own groove in the digital marketplace.
Try Thinkific
If you’re motivated to get started NOW, you could build your own digital product today with Thinkific.
Thinkific is a one-stop-shop to create, market, and sell digital products, tailored to creator educators who want to share their knowledge with the world and monetize their expertise.
With easy-to-use marketing tools, a drag-and-drop digital product builder, and a custom landing page tool, it’s completely beginner-friendly with everything you need to get started.
Try Thinkific for free today to start selling your digital products!
This blog was originally published in August 2023, it’s since been updated in April 2025 to include the newest information.
