25+ Digital Product Ideas

In 2023 anyone can set up a business from their bedroom and start selling digital products online.

But with all the digital product ideas out there, it can be tough to know which one will work for you.

To help you weigh up your options according to your budget, skills, and goals for your business, we’ve put together our list of the top digital product ideas – including the pros, cons, and real-life examples from successful creators.

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Let’s dive in…

Top 15 digital product ideas to sell online
10 more digital product ideas + examples

Related: How to Create Digital Products

Top 15 digital product ideas to sell online

Click the links in the table to skip ahead:

Digital product ideas	Pros	Cons
Online courses	Create multiple tiered offers Potential to become thought leader Scalable business	Requires expertise in a specific topic Needs time investment
E-books	Fully customizable Wide range of topics to choose from Create a library of resources	Need to have writing skills Crowded marketplace
Guides	Relatively cheap to produce Provide actionable advice to your audience Can be used as lead magnet for other digital products	Hard to differentiate your products Ideally need existing brand or audience
Masterclasses and workshops	Show off your expertise Relatively easy to create Provide valuable tips and information	Often live events Best used alongside other digital products
Membership sites	Scalable Monthly recurring income Upsell opportunities	Ongoing commitment Need strategies to engage audience and reduce churn
Printables	Cheap to make Simple PDF formatting Use pre-made templates and customize	Lower ticket digital product Limited revenue
Planners	Helpful product customers can use every day Keep your brand top-of-mind Valuable, actionable resource	Short-term digital product No recurring income
Digital templates	Wide range of formats and topics Offer audience helpful tools they can use every day Easy to edit and update	Easy to copy and plagiarize Limited gains for customers compared to other digital products
Presets and filters	Show off your personal style Sell the presets you’re already using Offer instant value for your customers	Needs to be a genuinely unique preset product Potential for copyright issues with other creators
Social media templates	Help your audience save time Use designs you’re currently using for your own business Ideal if your niche is related to marketing	Need social media expertise Algorithm changes can make your products non-viable
Workbooks	Help learners apply their knowledge Enhance your learning content Simplify the process of putting teaching into practice	Best used alongside other digital products Low ticket offer
Certification and diploma programs	Take your online courses and masterclasses one step further Turn successful students into brand advocates Increase learners’ sense of achievement	Need to build your reputation as an expert More in-depth than a regular course
Music and audio files	Monetize your musical expertise Wide range of music and audio sounds you can create Tailor to your audience	Needs some technical knowledge May have to pay for software
Software and apps	Fast-growing industry Chance to build a business from scratch Create a SaaS product for recurring revenue	Requires developer skills Takes time and money to create
Podcasts	Speak directly to your audience Collaborate with guests and influencers Offer audio content for learning on-the-go	Difficult to monetize Need some items of specialist equipment to start

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Online courses

One of the most effective digital products you can create are online courses. Educational digital products like online courses and coaching give you the chance to reach a wider audience with minimal effort – compared to traditional 1:1 coaching calls and live teaching.

Online courses are usually made up of pre-recorded video lessons or modules, with additional assignments and worksheets to help learners apply their knowledge. They might also include live teaching elements like a weekly live group call or Q&A. You can create online courses on any topic – according to your expertise, skills, and experience.

Difficulty level: 4/5

Advantages

Become a thought leader: Online courses give you the chance to establish a reputation as an expert in your chosen field. Share your expertise with a larger audience – and become the go-to person in your niche.

Plan and publish in advance: Unlike traditional 1:1 coaching, online courses give you the chance to educate at scale as they don’t require direct input from you every day. Simply create your course, publish it on your chosen platform, and let your audience learn at their own pace.

Create multiple tiered offers: There’s no limit to how many courses you can make, so you can create a range of offers that range from low ticket to higher ticket products. For example, publish a short course and sell it at a low price, then use it as a lead magnet for a longer, more in-depth course with more live teaching that you can sell as a premium product.

Drip feed content: If you don’t want to invest your time into creating a course ahead of time, drip feed your course modules gradually, adjusting your content as you go depending on customer feedback and reviews. This gives you more control and helps you create the best possible resource for your target audience.

Disadvantages

Requires expertise in a specific topic: This digital product idea depends on you having expertise or knowledge in a certain niche. The good news is, there’s really no limit to what you can create an online course on – including speed reading, hoop dancing, and everything in between.

Needs initial time investment: The biggest difficulty with creating your own online courses is the time it takes to get your expertise out of your head and onto the page. But thanks to drag-and-drop online course builders, it’s easier than ever to create your online course from scratch – you’ll just need to set aside enough time to structure and plan your content.

Real-life examples of this digital product idea

Food Freedom Breakthrough: Dietician Deanna Wolfe has built a 7-figure business selling online courses with a mission to heal womens’ relationship with food – and she’s now been named one of the most influential people in wellness.

Going with Grace: Alua Arthur found her calling after a conversation on a bus – and generated $2.5 million from her online course that teaches death doulas how to support people in their end-of-life transition.

The Wealth Streams Academy: George Pitts has built an academy of over 50 online courses to help people turn their knowledge into profits with digital products – and has grown his business to become a 7-figure creator.

E-books

If you’ve used the internet in the past 10 years, chances are you’ve downloaded an ebook at some point. Ebooks are one of the best-known digital products out there, varying hugely from free downloadable guides to 3000-page deep dives into a specific topic. Not to mention the huge range of fiction now available in ebook form.

Nowadays ebooks are usually made up of a combination of written text and graphic design elements like infographics, tables, and images. This makes the reading experience more interesting and engaging, while also helping your ebook to stand out from the crowd – so it you’ll need to put your writing and design skills to good use.

Difficulty level: 2/5

Advantages

Fully customizable: The ebook format is fully customizable – you’re the boss here. Ebooks can include anything from in-depth guides to recipe books to fan fiction. The (virtual) world is your oyster.

Wide range of topics to choose from: Think of any topic on the planet – and you can create an ebook from it. There is an enormous range of possibilities with this digital product idea, so let your creativity fly.

Create a library of resources: As ebooks are relatively quick and easy to make compared to other digital products, you can churn out multiple ebooks in a short period of time. This means you can create multiple offers – some free, some paid, and some as bonus resources for your online course or membership products.

Disadvantages

Need to have good writing skills: Creating an ebook requires some writing and design – so you’ll need to be comfortable with both. Use pre-made templates from sites like Canva to help you with the design, but the words will need to come from you.

Crowded marketplace: The biggest challenge when you’re creating ebooks is getting your product seen by the right people – it’s a crowded market out there so you need to make sure your offer is clear and tailored to your target audience.

Real-life examples of this digital product idea

The Digital Income Mastery: Diamond Lee created a digital marketing consultancy company and wrote a 20-page ebook which she started selling for just $27 – within 59 days of selling the ebook, she’d made $19,983. And the rest is history.

Smart Stewards: Finance consultant and Tedx Speaker Sola Adesakin founded Smart Stewards, a financial literacy platform and community selling digital products – including a library of ebooks – to help more people learn the key principles of personal finance and wealth management. She now has a community of over 80K followers on Instagram and is an official member of the Forbes coaches council.

Guides

Like ebooks, guides are downloadable digital products that can be used to teach, inform, and help learners – with a focus on actionable advice and tips. Many guides provide step-by-step instructions on how-to do a specific process, as well as examples, case studies, and trends and insights on a topic.

If you’ve got expertise to share, a guide is a great way to get it out there – and give your audience helpful information that they can use immediately. The best part? Guides are a great low-ticket digital product that can be used to generate leads for your higher ticket offers.

Difficulty level: 1/5

Advantages

Relatively cheap to produce: Unlike more complex digital product ideas, guides are relatively quick, easy, and most importantly, cheap to produce. You can create 1-page downloadable guides that are hugely useful to your audience – but don’t need a blow out budget to produce.

Actionable advice for your audience: Guides focus on providing actionable advice to your audience – so they immediately get value from your products. This helps to establish your brand as a trusted resource and increases the chance that your target audience will be interested in more products from you down-the-line.

Can be used as lead magnet for other digital products: Free and lower priced guides are ideal for capturing information from your target audience – think email addresses – which can then be used for upselling later on. Use guides as a simple lead magnet for your higher ticket offers.

Disadvantages

Hard to differentiate your products: Guides are dime a dozen nowadays so differentiating your digital products from all the others in your industry can be difficult to achieve. Before you start, do detailed competitor research to identify what you can do differently to other brands.

Ideally need an existing audience: Thanks to the hefty competition your guides will face, it’s easier to sell this digital product if you have an existing brand or audience. Use your social media and email list to promote your guide and drive sales.

Real-life examples of this digital product idea

Start Shoot Grow Video Academy: Creator Educator Xayli Barclay is on a mission to help business owners master their cameras to build, market and sell their own online courses – and she has created countless guides to help her 18k+ followers kick start their digital product businesses and unlock multiple revenue streams.

It’s Modern Millie: With an audience of over 400,000+ followers, influencer Millie Adrian seized the opportunity to sell digital products online and help aspiring creators learn how to become influencers. She has created a series of guides, templates, and downloadables – such as a simple one-page Media Kit Guide for Content Creators.

Masterclasses and workshops

Short, sweet, and super valuable to your audience, masterclasses are a digital product focussed on delivering a lot of information in less time than a traditional course. Masterclasses can range from single standalone events to a series of workshops and sessions centered on a specific topic or theme. But what all masterclasses have in common is that they’re taught by experts.

Choose whether you want your masterclass to be live or pre-recorded – the most important thing is to make sure your masterclass is jam-packed with helpful information for your audience and gives learners a chance to deepen their knowledge on a particular subject.

Difficulty level: 3/5

Advantages

Show off your expertise: Masterclasses can cement your status as an expert and thought leader in your field by delivering big value to customers in a short space of time – unlike full-length courses, you can get away with a more simplistic format, like talking-head style videos.

Relatively easy to create: Masterclasses are shorter-form digital content so they don’t need as much time and resources to create. Repurpose your existing course content (if you have it) as well as content from guides, ebooks, and podcast episodes.

Provide valuable tips and information: Masterclasses and workshops are usually focussed on actionable tips and help – so you deliver maximum value to your audience and increase the chance they’ll come back for more.

Disadvantages

Often live events: Many creators choose to run masterclasses as live events – which can quickly fill up your calendar. To get around this disadvantage, try pre-recording your masterclasses and drip-feeding them to customers instead.

Best used alongside other digital products: Masterclasses are most valuable when they come with additional digital products and resources like templates, guides, and workbooks to help add value for your students.

Real-life examples of this digital product idea

Sundown Lines: Mixed media artist Ellen Daly first started creating textured art when she was pregnant with her second child to create space for herself and provide a creative outlet. After starting an Instagram account, she quickly built a thriving community and began selling workshops. The result? Ellen sold just under 2,000 workshops in 4 months, generating around $72,000.

Regina Anaejionu: After finding her friends and acquaintances asking the same questions over and again about entrepreneurship, Regina Anaejionu was inspired to set up an educational business – with masterclasses on marketing, thought leadership, intellectual property, and more. She is now a thought leader in her field and a trusted resource for hopeful creator educators.

Membership sites

If you’re looking for a digital product idea that will bring you closer to your audience, while generating extra income – a membership site might be the one for you.

At its most basic, a membership site is a gated site that offers members-only content, including exclusive resources, Q&As, community forums, and live sessions. Your membership site is really what you make it – your structure will depend on who your target audience is and the type of membership you want to offer, as well as how much time you can dedicate to student engagement.