5 Digital Products That Make At LEAST $100/Day

My first digital product was a Google doc. Not a polished course. Not a slick membership site. A Google doc. And it made me real money. That single experience cracked something open for me because it proved that the barrier to entry is almost nothing when the product lives online and exists as a file.

In this post I want to walk you through five digital products that can realistically get you to $100 per day. I will give you the real math, real platform examples, and actual numbers pulled straight from what is already selling right now. If you have been sleeping on digital products because you assumed you needed some big technical skill or a huge audience, this one is going to change your thinking.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear breakdown of what digital products actually are and why they beat physical products for beginners
Five specific product types with real pricing examples and real platform options
The exact math on how many sales you need to hit $100 per day at different price points
Honest drawbacks for each product type so you can pick the right one for your situation
Platform recommendations for selling organically vs. using paid traffic
A decision framework for choosing your first product based on your current skills
A free tool at finder.platformproof.com to help you match your skills to the right digital product type

What Makes Digital Products So Different From Everything Else

A digital product is anything you create online that someone can buy and receive digitally. Think Google Docs, Canva files, video lessons, PDF planners, website templates. The reason I keep coming back to digital products is straightforward: you build the thing once and then you can sell it five hundred times without doing five hundred times the work.

With a physical product you are managing inventory, dealing with shipping delays, handling returns, and watching your margin get eaten by fulfillment costs. With a digital product, once the file exists, your cost to deliver it is basically zero. There is no warehouse. There is no UPS label. A customer buys at 2 a.m. on a Saturday and the file lands in their inbox while you are asleep. That is the model.

You can drive sales organically through YouTube videos, TikTok content, or Instagram, or you can run paid ads directly to a product page. Both methods work. And once you get either method dialed in, the income starts to look genuinely semi-passive. That word gets thrown around too loosely online, but with digital products it actually applies because the creation cost is front-loaded and the fulfillment cost is nearly zero.

Digital Product #1: Online Courses

An online course is a structured collection of videos and lessons designed to take a student from point A to point B. That definition sounds simple, and it is. The power is in the breadth of what qualifies. If you look at a platform like Udemy, you will find courses on baking, yoga, video editing, web design, digital product creation, and thousands of other topics. Whatever knowledge you have built up over your working life, there is almost certainly a course in it.

Pricing on courses ranges from $3 all the way to $30,000 depending on the depth of the knowledge and the specificity of the outcome. That is a wide range, but it gives you a lot of room to position yourself. Let me give you a concrete example from a site called sidehustlemastery.com. The creator there runs a Personal Brand Masterclass priced between $400 and $500. At the bottom of the page he offers a basic plan at $9.97 and an executive plan at $49.97. He is layering price points to capture different buyers.

Here is the math on hitting $100 per day with a course. If you price at $997, you need to close one sale per week. If that feels out of reach right now, price at $297 and you need one sale every two to three days. Neither of those numbers requires a massive audience. A small, engaged following and a well-positioned offer can get you there.

You can host your course on Udemy and benefit from their marketplace traffic, or you can self-host on platforms like Teachable or Kajabi and keep more of the revenue. Self-hosting also opens the door to a strategy that most beginners overlook: affiliate marketing on the back end. Once someone buys your course on how to start a digital product business, they are going to need tools. If your course recommends Canva for design and Pinterest for traffic, and you are an affiliate for both, you earn a commission every time a student clicks through and signs up. One course becomes multiple income streams.

Digital Product #2: Templates and Presets

Templates solve one of the most universal problems in business: people want professional-looking results without spending weeks building something from scratch. That is exactly what a template delivers. You build the framework once, the buyer drops in their own content, and they look like they hired a designer.

Templates can live in almost any software category. Canva templates for social media graphics. WordPress themes for specific business types. Photoshop presets for photographers. Affinity Photo templates for designers who do not want to pay Adobe. Premiere Pro motion graphics packs for video editors who need transitions and lower thirds without building them from nothing.

Here is a real example. Look at WordPress templates on a marketplace like ThemeForest. A single WordPress template built for plumbers was selling for $69 and had already generated around 1,500 sales. Do that math: $69 times 1,500 equals over $100,000 from one file. The creator did not stop there. That same plumber template structure gets reskinned for electricians, for cleaning services, for landscapers. Most of the underlying design work is identical. You are changing colors, swapping images, and updating the copy. One template becomes a product line.

If you are just getting started, I recommend a combination approach. List your templates on a marketplace like ThemeForest to capture organic buyers, and simultaneously run a small amount of content on YouTube or Instagram showing the template in action. You could also run Facebook ads targeting the specific profession you built the template for. An ad targeting plumbers in small business owner groups, showing them a professional website template for $69, is a tight offer that is easy to convert.

Digital Product #3: Digital Planners and Journals

I have made money selling digital planners and journals. Not theoretical money. Real deposits. I sold them through Facebook ads and I sold them on Etsy, and both channels worked. The reason this category is so accessible is that the tools to create these products are already on your computer. Canva, Google Sheets, Excel, Notion. You do not need to hire a designer or learn specialized software.

The key is identifying a specific planning problem that your target audience has and building the solution. A fitness planner for people tracking workouts and meals. A chore chart system for parents trying to run a household with multiple kids. A homeschool planning calendar. A medical appointment tracker. A puppy vaccination and care planner. These are not hypothetical niches. They are actively selling on Etsy right now.

Look at what is already on the platform. You will find ADHD planners, undated digital planners, Notion life planners, weight loss trackers, goal journals, and all-in-one life planning systems. Some of the best performers are built in Notion, which is free to use and lets you create interactive templates that buyers can duplicate straight into their own account.

People buy planners for one reason: they cannot save themselves the time or they do not have the design skill to build it themselves. Think about it from your own life. You might know you could technically build a budget tracker in Google Sheets, but if someone has already done it and optimized it and is selling it for $12, you are probably going to buy it rather than spend three hours building your own. That is the value proposition for every planner you create.

To sell planners you have two main paths. List on Etsy and tap into their built-in search traffic, or build your own audience through content on TikTok or YouTube and drive them to your own store. If you are creating content on organization, productivity, or family life management, a digital planner is an extremely natural product to sell to that audience.

Digital Product #4: Membership Sites

A membership site is a course with the dial turned up. Instead of a one-time purchase that ends when the student finishes the lessons, a membership keeps paying you every single month as long as the member stays active. That recurring revenue model is what separates a membership from almost every other digital product on this list.

Here is the structural difference. In a course, a student buys once and you are done. You have to find the next customer. In a membership, that same student pays you in January, February, March, and every month after as long as they are still getting value. You are not starting from zero every month. You are building on an existing base.

My own membership gives you a clear picture of what this looks like in practice. Members get access to step-by-step affiliate marketing training. They get a dedicated ChatGPT training module showing them how to use AI tools to accelerate their results. They join a private community where they can ask questions and connect with other members. And I meet with them twice per month in live sessions to help them work through specific problems and make real progress. That combination of content plus community plus live access is what justifies the recurring monthly charge.

The niche for a membership can be almost anything. Pet training. Travel hacking. Gardening. Home cooking. Personal finance. Any area where people want ongoing guidance, community, and accountability rather than a one-time download is a viable membership niche. The drawback is that running a membership takes more consistent effort than selling a static course or template. You need to show up, add new content, and keep members engaged. But the income model rewards that effort in a way that single-sale products simply cannot.

Not sure which of these five digital products fits your skills?

Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Digital Product #5: Printables

Printables are the most approachable entry point on this entire list. You create a file, someone buys it, downloads it, and prints it at home or at a local shop. No shipping. No returns. No inventory. The buyer handles all the physical production themselves.

The range of what qualifies as a printable is massive. Wedding table number cards. Birthday party invitations where the buyer types in the name and age. Wall art prints in standard frame sizes. Grocery list pads. Homework tracker sheets for kids. Motivational quote posters. Seasonal holiday decorations. Budget worksheets. Recipe cards.

Etsy is the dominant marketplace for printables because it has built-in buyer intent. People go to Etsy specifically looking to buy things, and many of them want digital files they can use immediately. A simple search for “printable” on the platform returns results ranging from birthday cards to wall art to stickers to meal planners, and most of them are selling consistently.

One practical approach is to take a shell design and make it personalized. A birthday card template with a clean layout and space for the buyer to enter the name. You can use ChatGPT to generate a variety of quote options. Then you build the card in Canva, export as a PDF, and list it on Etsy. That single listing can sell hundreds of times without you doing anything more than answering an occasional question in the Etsy message thread.

The economics work well at low price points because of volume. A $5 printable that sells 20 copies a day is $100 per day. You do not need each sale to be large when your product requires zero delivery cost and zero production cost after the initial design work is done.

The Real Math: How Many Sales Get You to $100 Per Day

Let me put hard numbers on each product type so you can see the actual distance between where you are and $100 per day.

Online Courses: At $997, you need one sale per week. At $297, you need one sale every two to three days. At $97, you need a little over one sale per day. Higher price points require better positioning but far fewer customers.

Templates and Presets: A $69 WordPress template needs about 1.5 sales per day to hit $100. If you build a bundle of templates priced at $149, you drop that to less than one sale per day. Volume marketplaces like ThemeForest do some of that selling for you once the listing gains traction.

Digital Planners: At $12 per planner on Etsy, you need about eight to nine sales per day. If you build a premium bundle priced at $27, you need fewer than four sales per day. Etsy’s search algorithm favors listings with strong review history, so early momentum matters.

Membership Sites: At $47 per month, you need 65 active members to generate $100 per day. At $97 per month, you need 31 members. The math gets easier as you raise the price, and the recurring structure means each member you add stays on the books until they cancel rather than requiring a new sale every day.

Printables: At $5 per file, you need 20 sales per day. At $15 per file, you need seven sales per day. If you build a bundle priced at $25, you need only four sales. The volume is higher than other categories, but Etsy’s search traffic can drive that volume without you running ads.

Honest Drawbacks You Should Know Before You Start

I am not going to sit here and tell you digital products are completely passive from day one with no downsides. That would be dishonest. Here is what you need to know.

Courses need updates. The market moves. Tools change. Strategies that worked in 2022 may not work in 2025. If you sell a course on a time-sensitive topic, you need to revisit it and keep it current. Students will ask for refunds or leave negative reviews if they follow outdated instructions and get poor results.

Templates need differentiation. Once you identify a profitable template niche, other creators will copy it. The WordPress plumber template selling for $69 is likely not the only one in the marketplace. Your design quality, your listing photos, and your review history become your competitive advantage over time.

Planners and printables require volume or a platform audience. At $12 per planner you need real traffic to hit $100 per day. If you are starting with zero Etsy reviews and no social following, that traffic takes time to build. Paid ads can accelerate it, but ads cost money and require testing before they become profitable.

Memberships require ongoing work. Unlike a course or template that you build once, a membership requires consistent delivery. You need to show up for the community, add new content, run live sessions. If you go quiet for two months, members will cancel. The recurring revenue is real, but it comes with a real ongoing commitment.

Printables face intense competition on Etsy. There are thousands of birthday card listings. Standing out requires great photos, strong SEO in your listing title and tags, and a clear design sensibility that feels distinct. Getting your first few reviews is the hardest part, and that usually means pricing aggressively or running Etsy ads in the early days.

How to Pick the Right One for You Right Now

Here is a simple decision framework. Ask yourself three questions and the answer will narrow the field considerably.

Question 1: Do you have specialized knowledge that produces a measurable outcome for someone else? If yes, lean toward a course or membership. Knowledge that takes someone from a problem to a result is the foundation of every successful course that charges over $200.

Question 2: Do you have design skills or access to a designer? If yes, templates and presets become viable. The closer your work is to what professional designers charge $500 to $5,000 to build custom, the more you can charge for a templated version of it.

Question 3: Do you want to start this weekend with the lowest possible barrier? If yes, printables or digital planners are your fastest path. You can build a usable planner in Canva in an afternoon and have it listed on Etsy by evening. It will not make $100 on day one, but it will teach you the mechanics of the whole model quickly and inexpensively.

Find Your X

The hardest part of digital products is not the creation. It is figuring out which product type fits the specific skills and time you actually have right now. If you are not sure where to start, go to finder.platformproof.com and use the free Platform Finder tool. It asks you a handful of questions about your skills, your available time, and your income goals and then tells you exactly which digital product category is the best match for your situation. It takes about two minutes and it removes the guesswork that keeps most people stuck in the planning phase instead of making sales.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a big audience to sell digital products?

No. A small, targeted audience that trusts you converts far better than a large general one that does not. Many creators hit $100 per day with fewer than 2,000 social media followers because their content attracts exactly the right buyer. You can also use paid ads to reach buyers without an organic audience at all, particularly on platforms like Facebook and Pinterest where targeting by interest is precise.

What platform should I sell on when I am just starting out?

It depends on the product. For planners and printables, Etsy gives you built-in traffic from day one even if you have no audience. For courses and memberships, platforms like Teachable, Kajabi, or even a simple Gumroad page work well. For templates, ThemeForest or Creative Market are established marketplaces with active buyers. Once you are generating consistent revenue, building your own store gives you higher margins and more control over the customer relationship.

How long does it take to make a digital product?

A simple printable or planner can be built in a few hours. A focused short course covering one specific skill typically takes one to three weekends to record and edit, depending on how polished you want the production. A full membership with multiple training modules and community infrastructure takes longer, often several weeks, but the recurring revenue model justifies that upfront investment.

Can I use Canva to create all five of these product types?

Yes, with some caveats. Canva is excellent for planners, printables, and social media template packs. For WordPress themes or software presets like Lightroom or Photoshop, you need the actual software. For courses and memberships, Canva can handle your slide decks and branded graphics, but the course content itself lives on a dedicated platform like Teachable or Kajabi. Canva Pro removes most of the limitations you will run into on the free tier.

What is the difference between a digital planner and a printable?

A digital planner is designed to be used on a tablet or device, often with annotation apps like GoodNotes or Notability. The buyer fills it in digitally and never prints it. A printable is intended to be printed out and used physically. Both are PDF files at delivery, but the buyer experience is completely different. On Etsy, both categories sell well. Which you create depends on whether you want to design for screen interaction or for physical use after printing.

Is it worth running paid ads to digital products right away?

It depends on your margin and your product price. Running Facebook ads to a $12 printable is very difficult to make profitable because the cost to acquire a customer through paid traffic often exceeds $12. Running ads to a $297 course or a $97 per month membership gives you far more room to operate. A general rule: the higher your product price, the more reliably paid ads will work. At lower price points, organic content and marketplace SEO are usually more efficient starting points.

Can I sell digital products without a website?

Absolutely. Etsy handles everything for planners and printables. Udemy handles hosting, checkout, and delivery for courses. Gumroad or Payhip let you sell any digital file with a simple product page and no website required. A website becomes valuable once you are generating consistent revenue and want to own your customer list and avoid platform dependency, but it is not a requirement for getting started and making your first sales.

What if my digital product does not sell at first?

Treat the first version as research, not a final product. Look at reviews on competing products in your category to understand what buyers wish was better. Watch which listings are selling and study their titles, photos, and descriptions. Most successful digital product sellers iterated through several versions before finding the positioning that converted. The low cost of creating digital products is actually an advantage here because you can update and relaunch without throwing away a physical inventory investment.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “5 Digital Products That Make At LEAST $100/day,” YouTube, 2023 (video transcript)
Udemy.com: online course marketplace
Teachable.com: course hosting platform
Kajabi.com: all-in-one course and membership platform
ThemeForest (Envato Market): template and theme marketplace
Etsy.com: digital planner and printable marketplace
Canva.com: graphic design and template creation tool
Gumroad.com: simple digital product selling platform

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