3 Digital Products To Sell On Etsy (With Proof)

One morning I opened my phone and found a congratulations email from Etsy. Twenty-five sales. The part that made me laugh: I had completely forgotten I even had an Etsy account.

Back in the summer of 2023 I watched a video about selling on Etsy, tried it for a few months, got busy, and moved on. No active promotion. No refreshing dashboards. Just a handful of listings sitting there quietly making small sales while I focused on everything else. In this post I am going to break down exactly which three types of digital products drove those results, how to make each one without being a designer, and whether Etsy is actually the right platform for you in the first place.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The three digital product types that got the most views, favorites, and actual sales on my Etsy store
A step-by-step workflow for making tattoo designs with MidJourney and Affinity Photo at zero design skill
How to use a free keyword tool (eRank) to find the specific tattoo niches people are actively searching and buying
Why emojis are an underrated digital product and how to make a pack in an afternoon
The Instagram template formula that turned into my best-selling product
How to deliver digital products on Etsy using a Canva PDF with an embedded link
An honest take on why Etsy may cap your income and what to do instead
A free tool to find which digital product fits the skills you already have: finder.platformproof.com

Why Digital Products in the First Place

I sell a lot of different things online. Physical products, courses, coaching, affiliate offers. Of all of them, digital products have the lowest friction. You create the file once. When someone buys it, Etsy delivers it automatically. There are no shipping costs, no inventory, no “the package got lost” emails.

The trade-off is that individual items sell for very little on a marketplace like Etsy. Most of my products moved at three to four dollars a sale. That is fine if you are testing ideas or building a portfolio of proof, but it is not a business by itself. More on that in a minute. First, let’s look at what actually sold.

Product One: Tattoo Designs (Most Viewed)

Three of my top four most-viewed listings were tattoo designs. That surprised me because I am not a tattoo person. I do not have any tattoos. I found the niche the same way I find most niches: a free keyword research tool.

I went to eRank’s free keyword generator and typed in “tattoo design.” The tool returned a list of specific searches: sunflower tattoo design, scorpion tattoo design, Medusa tattoo design, Samurai tattoo design, Buddha, Dagger, Moth. The Samurai design was the one that showed up in my stats as consistently getting clicks. I did not invent that product from my imagination. I let the search data tell me what to make.

How to Make a Tattoo Design with MidJourney

You do not need to be a graphic designer. Here is the exact process I used:

Step 1: Generate in MidJourney. MidJourney runs inside Discord and costs $20 per month. I would open the Discord app, go to my MidJourney channel, and type a prompt like: snake tattoo design, white background, clean lines, plenty of white space. MidJourney gives you four variations. I would pick the best one, upscale it, and download it to my computer.

Step 2: Process in Affinity Photo. The file that downloads from MidJourney is usually a webp. Tattoo artists cannot use webp. The two formats they work with are PNG and PSD (Photoshop format), because their primary software, Procreate on iPad, reads both. I would open the downloaded image in Affinity Photo, set up a transparent background, and then export as both a PNG and a PSD.

Step 3: Upload to Etsy. Attach both the PNG and PSD to the listing. Write a keyword-optimized title. I used ChatGPT to help build my titles and make sure the main search term was front-loaded.

The workflow from prompt to listing is under an hour once you have done it a few times. A customer searches Etsy, finds the design they want, buys it, downloads the file, and takes it to their tattoo artist. The artist loads it into Procreate, prints a transfer, and places it on the client. That is the full chain. Simple product, clear customer need.

Product Two: Emojis (High View Volume)

The second product type that got strong view numbers was emojis. The process is identical to tattoo designs. I would go into MidJourney, type a prompt describing the emoji I wanted, download the result, process it in Affinity Photo, and upload to Etsy.

Some of the emoji types with consistent search demand: heart emoji, thumbs up, nerd emoji, skull, crying face. These are simple products to make in bulk. You could generate twenty different emoji variants in a single afternoon session in MidJourney and have a full pack listed by end of day.

One packaging note: emojis work well as bundles. Instead of selling one emoji at three dollars, you could sell a pack of ten related emojis at twelve to fifteen dollars. The per-unit cost of your time drops and the per-sale revenue goes up. That math matters when you are on a platform that takes a cut of every transaction.

Product Three: Instagram Templates (Best Seller)

If tattoo designs drove views, Instagram templates drove actual purchases. My best-performing listing was editable Instagram templates for a meal prep business. The exact title was something like “editable Instagram templates meal prep business restaurant” with all the main keywords in the listing title. I built that title using ChatGPT rather than guessing what people search for.

Why meal prep? Because there are thousands of small food businesses that want consistent social media content but do not have a graphic designer on staff. A set of plug-and-play Canva templates saves them hours. They buy once and use repeatedly.

The formula is repeatable across hundreds of business types. Restaurant Instagram templates. Fitness coach Instagram templates. Real estate agent Instagram templates. Salon Instagram templates. Every small business vertical is its own potential listing. You make the templates in Canva, export as a Canva template link or a PDF, and deliver it on Etsy.

What Was Favorited Most

Beyond the templates, the products that got favorited most were ChatGPT prompt packs. Specifically: ChatGPT prompts for selling digital products and ChatGPT prompts for affiliate marketing. People were adding these to their Etsy wishlists at a steady rate. Favorites on Etsy are a strong intent signal. They do not always convert immediately, but they show you what a category is interested in before they pull out their wallet.

How to Deliver Digital Products on Etsy

Etsy has a rule that trips up a lot of new sellers: you cannot put a raw hyperlink inside a listing or a direct message. If you are delivering something like a Notion template, a Google Sheet, or a Google Doc, you cannot just drop the link in the order confirmation.

The workaround is a delivery PDF. Here is how it works:

Go to Canva and create a simple one-page thank-you file. It can say something like: Thank you for your purchase. Click the button below to access your files. Then embed the actual product link as a hyperlink inside that Canva design. Download the design as a PDF, not a PNG or JPEG. The PDF preserves clickable hyperlinks. Upload that PDF to your Etsy listing as the file customers receive after purchase.

When someone buys your product, they download the PDF, click the link, and get taken to the actual resource. This works for Notion templates, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Canva template links, or any URL-based delivery. For image products like tattoo designs and emojis, you can attach the actual PNG and PSD files directly without the PDF wrapper.

Not sure which digital product fits what you already know?

Answer seven quick questions and get a matched recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Honest Drawbacks of Selling on Etsy

I want to be straight with you because I think a lot of YouTube content about Etsy glosses over this part. After making 25 sales, here is my honest assessment.

The per-sale revenue is low. Most of my digital products were priced at three to four dollars. After Etsy’s transaction fees, listing fees, and payment processing, the net is somewhere around two to three dollars per sale. That is not nothing, but it is also not life-changing. You would need hundreds of consistent monthly sales to see meaningful income from that alone.

You compete in a crowded marketplace. Etsy has millions of sellers. Being found requires either strong SEO, paid ads within Etsy, or a product so niche that competition is thin. Tattoo designs hit that third category well. General planners or generic templates do not.

Etsy owns the customer relationship. When someone buys from your Etsy store, they are Etsy’s customer first. You cannot email them directly. You cannot retarget them. You cannot upsell them through a funnel. The platform controls the relationship.

You pay fees on every transaction. Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee plus a payment processing fee plus a $0.20 listing fee. On a four-dollar product, that adds up to a meaningful percentage of your revenue gone before you see it.

None of this means you should not start on Etsy. It is a legitimate place to test product ideas with real buyers at zero upfront cost. But the ceiling is low. The next step after validating a product on Etsy is selling it on your own platform where you control the price, the customer relationship, and the entire funnel.

The Better Long-Term Move: Sell on Your Own Platform

My recommendation after going through this experience is to treat Etsy as a research and validation tool, not your permanent storefront. Here is the logic.

When I sell the same type of digital product on my own platform using tools like GoHighLevel, I can charge ten to twenty times what I could charge on Etsy for the same product. A three-dollar Instagram template pack on Etsy could be a thirty-dollar resource inside a small Facebook Group where I have established trust with my audience.

With your own platform you can also run Facebook Ads to drive traffic rather than depending on Etsy’s algorithm to surface your listings. Paid traffic combined with a product you have already validated on Etsy is a much stronger income model than hoping organic Etsy search keeps working for you.

Use Etsy to answer the question: does anyone want this product? If the answer is yes, move the product to your own sales page and keep more of the revenue.

A Simple Decision Framework: Which Product to Start With

If you are standing at zero and trying to pick one product type to start with, here is a simple framework based on what actually sold in my store:

Start with tattoo designs if: You are comfortable spending $20/month on MidJourney, you want a product with proven Etsy search volume, and you have a few hours to learn the MidJourney + Affinity Photo workflow. The keyword research takes thirty minutes. The production cycle per design is under an hour. This is the most beginner-accessible of the three.

Start with Instagram templates if: You already use Canva, you have a niche in mind (a type of small business you understand), and you want a product that converts browsers into buyers rather than just getting views. Templates have strong purchase intent because people buy them to solve a specific, immediate problem.

Start with ChatGPT prompt packs if: You are already using AI tools regularly and you understand a niche well enough to write prompts that solve real problems in that niche. Prompt packs have high perceived value relative to the time it takes to make them.

All three can be tested on Etsy with a few listings at no cost beyond Etsy’s $0.20 listing fee per item. The data you get back from real buyers is worth far more than any theory about what will work.

Find Your X

The hardest part of starting with digital products is not the tools or the platform. It is figuring out which product to build around the skills and interests you already have. A tattoo design workflow makes sense for some people and none for others. Instagram templates make sense if you already understand a particular business type.

If you want a shortcut to finding the right match for your specific situation, use the free tool at finder.platformproof.com. Answer a handful of questions about what you know and what you want, and it gives you a product path that fits your profile rather than a generic list of ideas.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need design experience to sell digital products on Etsy?

No. The products that sold best in my store were made with MidJourney (for tattoo designs and emojis) and Canva (for Instagram templates). Neither requires prior design training. MidJourney takes a text prompt and returns an image. Canva has drag-and-drop templates. You are learning to use tools, not learning to draw.

How much does it cost to get started?

The unavoidable cost is $0.20 per listing on Etsy. That is it to list. If you want to make AI-generated designs, MidJourney costs $20 per month. Affinity Photo is a one-time purchase. Canva has a free tier that covers most template needs. You can start for under $25 total.

How do I find out what people are actually searching for on Etsy?

Use eRank’s free keyword generator. Type in a broad category like “tattoo design” and it returns specific search terms with real demand data. This is how I found the Samurai tattoo design niche that made it into my top-viewed listings. Do not guess at keywords. Let the tool show you what buyers are already typing.

Can I put links directly in my Etsy listings?

Not in a way that customers can click. Etsy strips or blocks raw URLs in certain fields. The workaround is to embed your link inside a Canva-made PDF that you deliver as the product file. The PDF preserves clickable hyperlinks. Customers download the PDF, click the link inside, and reach the actual product.

What file formats do tattoo artists need?

Tattoo artists primarily work in Procreate on iPad. Procreate reads PSD (Photoshop format) and PNG files. It does not read webp, which is the default format MidJourney downloads as. Always convert to PNG and PSD before uploading to Etsy. Offering both formats in the same listing makes your product more useful than a competitor offering only one.

Is Etsy worth it long term?

For validating product ideas, yes. For building serious income, probably not on its own. My take after making 25 sales is that Etsy is useful for answering the question “does anyone want this?” Once you have that answer, you are better off selling on your own platform where you control pricing, keep more revenue, and own the customer relationship. Use Etsy as a test lab, not a final destination.

How do ChatGPT prompt packs work as a product?

A prompt pack is a collection of tested, ready-to-use ChatGPT prompts organized around a specific task or niche. For example: 30 prompts for affiliate marketers, or 25 prompts for people selling digital products. Buyers pay for the curation. Instead of spending time figuring out how to prompt ChatGPT effectively in their niche, they buy a pack someone else already tested. My ChatGPT-for-selling-digital-products pack was one of my most-favorited listings.

Should I sell on Etsy and my own site at the same time?

That is a reasonable approach. Etsy gives you organic discovery. Your own site gives you control. Many sellers use Etsy to generate initial sales proof and reviews, then move buyers toward a direct relationship over time. Just make sure you are not investing so much energy into the Etsy side that you never build the asset you actually own.

Sources

Alston Godbolt Etsy store: 25 sales, summer 2023 through 2024
eRank free keyword generator: tattoo design search demand data
MidJourney: AI image generation, $20/month subscription
Affinity Photo: image editing, transparent background export
Canva: template creation and PDF delivery workflow
Etsy seller documentation: fee structure, linking policies

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.