Selling digital files

SendOwl is a platform for selling digital products — downloads, memberships, subscriptions. Sell to customers via email, social media, or your website. Use drip functionality to release your product over time. SendOwl features a built-in affiliate system, pre-checkout and post-payment upsells, discount codes, and pay-what-you-want pricing. FetchApp allows you to sell and digitally deliver downloadable goods, such as music, videos, photos, ebooks , PDFs, and software.

FetchApp integrates with popular ecommerce systems such as Shopify and WooCommerce. FetchApp automatically emails a secure download link when orders are received. Price: Free up to 25 orders per day and 5 MB storage. Gumroad is a simple ecommerce service for creators to sell digital goods, including subscriptions, rentals, license keys for software, and pre-orders. Offer codes and multiple product formats. Share previews through social media, and sell through affiliates. Customers can pay with any major credit card and PayPal, with multiple currencies.

Customers can also pay what they want. Manage multiple stores through one DPD account. Sell downloads, services, tangibles, or key codes. All sales are paid directly to your merchant account or payment provider, including PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize. E-junkie is a platform to sell files, codes, generated keys, or software, with download links that expire after limited use.

Sell downloads offline with unique codes. Other features include discounts and coupons, an affiliate program, and promotional freebies. Sell for a fixed price, pay-what-you-want pricing, or even accept donations. E-junkie also supports the sale of physical products with tax and shipping calculation and inventory management.

It features discount codes and download activity tracking. Set the file download limit and link expiration. FastSpring's easy-to-use, full-service ecommerce platform includes everything you need to successfully sell digital products globally. Wondering where to sell digital goods? Our platform helps you remain competitive with your pricing strategy without having to sacrifice your focus on building great software.

Our platform can help you create the best website to sell digital products. Use our Store Builder Library to add a dynamic Popup Storefront that streamlines purchases directly from a product page on your own website. You can automatically populate the custom fields in your checkout with only the buyer information and terms that matter most for your company. While your customers enjoy the best shopping cart experience for digital products.

This will allow your customers to purchase their favorite digital products with ease and makes it easy for you to get paid as well. Want to optimize your checkout experience? Set, monitor, test and adjust product information and checkout processes in real-time. You can instantly update your online store, upload images, and enhance the descriptions of your digital products to maximize conversions and streamline the customer experience. The best part is that all localization is done automatically through FastSpring.

By creating a consistent brand experience throughout the entire checkout process, you build trust with your online customers, reduce cart abandonment, and increase average order values.

With the Store Builder Library, you can easily create custom and intelligent checkout flows that are consistent with your brand. Not only is customization simple for you and your team, but your branded checkout will create a seamless shopping experience for your customers. Delight your customers with immediate access to their newly purchased digital products. Our platform supports automated license generation, secure file downloads, and email delivery for files and software keys.

Our online selling platform supports automated license generation, secure file downloads, and email delivery for files and software keys. Added together and multiplied by the same mark-up factor of 2. You need to find another way to price them so that you are making the printed option look more attractive instead.

I still believe there should be a calculated, repeatable, systematic approach to pricing your digital files. Perhaps a wall portrait, a bunch of smaller prints and a portrait book? Add that up … what is your average sale? Combined with your enthusiasm and ongoing education about the importance of the printed product, you should have no client that wants only the digital files.

Bryan Caporicci is an award-winning wedding and portrait photographer based out of Fonthill, Canada. Bryan is the lead content creator at SproutingPhotographer.

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The winner is subject to a skill-testing question prior to redeeming the specified sweepstakes. Why you must sell digital files, and how to price them properly. February 5, at pm.

Bryan Caporicci. Virginia Burdick. February 7, at pm. February 10, at am. February 9, at pm. Thank you so much! Your articles are so helpful for me February 24, at pm. A lot of my clients ask for justifications as to my costs. Would you recommend explaining to them in plain honesty that you'd have to make up that missed margin from the print sale, or is there a better, more tactful way to approach answering that question without having to justify your margins?

February 26, at am. I personally don't think that you should have to justify your prices. March 5, at pm. March 9, at am. Jason Hudson. March 9, at pm. Gotta say.

I know many photographers look down on shoot and burn but if that's what the customer wants, and the price is enough to justify selling a file, then I have no problem with this.

March 10, at pm. Exactly Jason! I personally don't advocate for shoot-and-burn, but if it's for the price that I have set, then at least it's profitable. Dan Scott. Great article Bryan, however there is a real cost associated with digital files in the form of computer hardware, storage, internet access, and electricity. Replacing hard drives and related hardware is costly and should be worked into the COG.

I think a lot of people over look that hidden cost. I gave up that model shortly after having one too many clients get angry when I told them they couldn't have the digital files. After all you must adapt to the marketplace to continue to be competitive. With the digital file I also include a color corrected proof print to ensure the integrity of my work that cost is worked into the price for the digital file.

You would be surprised how delighted my customers are when the disk comes with a stack of 4x6s. Ken Daniels. June 29, at pm. Interesting article by and for photographers. Might I add my two cents from a consumer's perspective?

More and more of us are interested only in the digital option, not in prints. As you rightly observed, it's problematic to say No to our requests, and I commend you for recognizing this. Photography is one of many industries affected by the rise of digital media, including books, movies, music.

All these industries have, understandably, sought to maintain profitability in the face of this shift, some by putting on the brakes and others by embracing and adapting to the digital world.

From this customer's perspective, I don't want prints. I know that sounds like heresy to professional photographers, but I am by no means not alone. Just not interested.

I understand you have a living to make, and I want to pay you for the services that only you can provide, namely your photo shooting. I'm not interested in your printing, just your photo shooting. I understand your point about opportunity cost, but that's only a theoretical opportunity that lives increasingly only in the past.

What matters today is the market. You could pull this off with a single digital camera, a single computer with perhaps external hard drive space , a photographer, a single assistant, and a small office. With all those expenses together, you would still be pulling in a handsome profit. Am I missing something? I recognize that if you're a larger shop, your expenses will be higher more employees, more equipment, etc.

I found this site when trying to google for photographers who specialize in providing digital files. I know and understand and appreciate that I should be charged more for a digital file than for a print copy because I'm free to reproduce it.

I am willing to pay a premium. But what you're suggesting is frankly out of reach for most of us commoners. I want to pay you primarily for your time and expertise, not for your prints.

Ours is becoming more of a service society in which we pay professionals for their time, not their products. Photography would do well to adapt to that model. When the combine was invented, we didn't have farmers saying, I'll continue reaping my crops by hand and charge according to the old model, while offering to provide crops harvested by a combine at the same or higher price as if I was reaping them by hand.

No, it became possible to deliver more for less, and the price had to be lowered to reflect that greater productivity afforded by technology. July 24, at am. I have to agree with Ken here, I am a photographer who sells Digital primarily, with prints from a local lab for those who request. I do fairly well, and most people normally get there "top shot" in a print format, and then 10 others in digital.

Even if they only grab the 10 digital, I work on average 25 mins for the shoot from greet to wrap up , 45 mins post-editting, lots of times same day meetup, if not next day for another 10min average meet, at which time they decide what pictures they'd like, if they want prints, etc. I advertise it as "packages" and sell prints with it normally for a few bucks extra. I don't offer as many shots as most photographers, but I also have a lower cost than most, so a lot of the time people are still pretty happy, and if they aren't I normally give them a discounted price on the extra photos if they are really upset.

April 9, at am. What you consider quite well is the same amount kids make at MacDonalds. Unless your are packed monday - sunday all year round. I doubt thats the case! Edward O. June 2, at pm. That is how much I make at my carreer job at over twelves years in. And NO fast food restaurant is paying Anyone that. Not even the manger. Lies or exaggerations never helps an argument.

Brad Shutack. December 7, at am. Edward, if you are doing one of these shoots 5 days a week, then I would agree with you. As a second job that you do after your career job, it's a great extra income, but you'd have a difficult time living on that if this is your sole job that you rely on to make a living. My objection, though, would be that you are purchasing a print product.

In this case, it is a printed photograph and many times is printed on a surface that the artist feels best shows off the image. Whether you are willing to buy this product is up to you, and the digital, in turn, is an alternate option made available. I would compare this situation to watching films in 35mm in a theater vs a Digital Reproduction at home on your television.

As good as Digital has become, the look of film is simply unmatched, in my opinion, and although Millennials may be all about Netflix, many people are still willing to pay for the theatrical experience to view a film in a theater the way that the artists who were involved in the production have intended it to be viewed. Suzanne Kulperger. November 28, at am. My clients often do not want prints anymore. And, more and more, I find my clients unwilling to pay a reasonable price for prints when they do want them.

My clients, many who are affluent, would balk at that. Times have changed so much. With everyone walking around with a camera, phones , I have seen the value placed on hiring a professional photographer drop drastically. Everyone thinks they are a photographer at this point. I have to be honest, I have seen a shocking number of potential clients will go for the lesser shooter if they can get a session for fifty bucks.

Digital files Many times, this is all my clients want. I have gotten into the awkward place of clients asking me for all of the images from the session on a disk.

Every shot. Sorry for the venting. People want more and more for less and less money. March 29, at pm.

I have been toying around with all these pricing scenarios. I find as well that most people around us are charging a higher yet modest price for digital only but offering these other products as well. Then we offer digital alacarte at a higher price but way lower as a bundle. Have a minimum order amount close to the digital price. Then people can get prints or all items however they have to spend a certain amount and have an option. So for instance The part that is driving up what we need to charge in some peoples scenarios are the markup factor which like mentioned includes all the cost associated with getting a image ready for print, uploading it, packaging it and shipping it.

Which is the cost of good sold. I guess if you do digital only technically you don't really have a cost of goods sold at all like the article states.

I guess i look at the time portion of the equation as part of why my salary is comprised of which is part of my fixed expenses. To make up more salary we would need to do more weddings which the general public has a higher perceived value on and is willing to pay more for.

Or corporate head shots and events which are on a separate price scale. We are just finding it harder and harder even if you offer a better product general consumers are less and less willing to pay those types of prices when everything else around them is tailored at sales and deals and lower prices. To reach the people that will pay the Bottom line here is like others have mentioned it will get harder and harder to sell at a higher price point for something that people dont necessarily want.

Maybe i have this all wrong but its just what i'm seeing doesn't mean its the same for everyone. October 20, at pm. Callum: you get my business; all you others, sorry How much did you say per digital copy??!?!

Don't be ridiculous! Go buy a camera and try that. Real photographers spend years and thousands on training to take great images. The reality is photography studios are not packed with work all year. That is why you see such a high failure rate. The camera has very little to do with photography.

Plus professionals shoot Raw! Do you know how a camera works? The camera tries to make everything 18 percent grey. When the wedding dress comes out grey you will wish you hired a professional. After over a decade in I still struggle, some people have to learn the hard way!