Easy Digital Downloads – eCommerce Payments and Subscriptions made easy vs FluentCart A New Era of eCommerce – Faster, Lighter, and Simpler

The Best WordPress eCommerce Plugin to Sell Digital Products Easy Digital Downloads is the most powerful WordPress ecommerce plugin built specifically for selling digital products and digital downloads. Whether you sell ebooks, software, templates, music, photography, courses, or any other digital product, Easy Digital Downloads gives you everything you need to run your digital store – with unlimited products, unlimited transactions, and zero listing fees. Over 50,000 digital creators and online store owners trust Easy Digital Downloads to sell digital products on WordPress. With more than 30 million orders processed and hundreds of millions in digital sales, EDD is the proven ecommerce solution for your digital download store. Easy Digital Downloads Pro This plugin is the lite version of Easy Digital Downloads Pro, which comes with subscriptions and recurring payments, software licensing, content restriction for memberships, abandoned cart recovery, and 70+ premium ecommerce features. Click here to purchase the best premium WordPress ecommerce plugin for digital products now! Start Selling Digital Products in Minutes You shouldn’t need a computer science degree to sell digital products online. Easy Digital Downloads makes it simple to create your digital store and start selling within minutes. Run the Setup Wizard and you’ll immediately have access to an integrated shopping cart, flexible payment processing with credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, a streamlined ecommerce checkout, customer management, detailed ecommerce reports, secure file storage for your digital downloads, discount code management, and more. Too often, creators must choose between powerful ecommerce features and affordable pricing. Easy Digital Downloads gives you both. Our free WordPress ecommerce plugin provides the foundation to sell digital products, while our Pro plans unlock advanced digital store features as your business grows. That’s why some of the most successful digital product businesses trust Easy Digital Downloads for their ecommerce store. Secure Digital Product Payments with Stripe, PayPal & More With 1-click connections to the most popular payment processors, you’ll be selling digital products within minutes. Your customers can checkout with ease using the most popular payment methods in their region of the world. With Stripe and PayPal powering your digital store, your ecommerce payments are ready to go global across 200+ countries. All of our official payment integrations are built to securely process payments for your digital store, connecting directly with trusted payment processors to keep your digital product transactions safe and reliable. What can I say? Stripe is my go-to payment processor, and without [EDD] I don’t know what I would do. Connect EDD to your Stripe account in seconds, and you’re done! Matt Whiteley – Whiteley Designs Easy Digital Downloads is a verified member of the Stripe, PayPal, and Square partner programs, so you can process ecommerce payments with confidence knowing that EDD meets their strict quality standards for selling digital products. Accept payments globally in your digital store with these payment methods available immediately: Credit Card Payments for Digital Products (via Stripe and Square) Apple Pay Google Pay WeChat Pay AliPay Amazon Pay GrabPay Bancontact EPS giropay iDEAL Klarna Przelewy24 PayPal PayPal Credit CashApp Link by Stripe Venmo and more! With our smart payment method integrations for your digital store, you get access to the latest payment methods as soon as they become available – without any code changes or updates to your ecommerce plugin. Powerful eCommerce Reports for Your Digital Store Unlock the full potential of your digital store with Easy Digital Downloads and its powerful ecommerce reporting features. Dive deep into the heart of your digital product business with tools designed to give you insights into what’s happening now and help you make decisions that grow your digital download sales. With the included date comparison tools, you can monitor trends in your digital product sales, revenue, customers, and other ecommerce data from one period to another. Some of the ecommerce data points you get access to include: Customer Growth for Your Digital Store Revenue and Digital Product Sales Filtering by Digital Product Detailed Tax Reports for eCommerce Detailed Category and Tag Reports Revenue and Digital Product Sales by Country Revenue and Sales by Payment Method Recurring Revenue Reports (Requires Pro) Sell Any Type of Digital Product Easy Digital Downloads lets you sell any file type as a digital product. Sell ebooks (.PDF, .EPUB), sell software and plugins (.ZIP), sell templates and design assets (.PSD, .AI), sell music and audio (.MP3, .WAV), sell video (.MP4, .MOV), sell documents (.DOC, .XLS), sell photography (.JPG, .PNG), or any other digital download. Create single digital products, product variations with different pricing, or bundle multiple digital products together – all with no listing fees and no limits on how many digital products you can sell. Digital Product Checkout That Converts Your digital store checkout is where sales happen, and Easy Digital Downloads gives you a responsive, optimized ecommerce checkout that converts. The included Checkout Block is fully customizable and designed to reduce friction so customers complete their digital product purchases. Works with Gutenberg, Elementor, and other popular page builders to match your digital store’s design. Sell Digital Products for Specific Industries Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect ecommerce solution for creators across dozens of industries. Here are just a few ways digital creators use EDD to sell digital products: Sell Ebooks & Digital Publications – Sell ebooks, PDFs, digital guides, whitepapers, and publishing content. Sell Software & WordPress Plugins – Sell software with license keys, automatic updates, and activation tracking for WordPress plugins, themes, and SaaS products. Sell Online Courses & Digital Learning – Sell courses and access to educational content, training materials, and learning resources. Sell Templates & Design Assets – Sell Canva templates, Photoshop files, graphic design assets, UI kits, and digital design resources. Sell Music & Audio Downloads – Sell music, audio files, sound effects, podcast episodes, and audio production resources. Sell Photography & Digital Art – Sell photos, digital art, stock photography, illustrations, and creative digital assets. Sell Memberships & Gated Content – Sell access to membership sites, premium content libraries, and subscriber-only resources. Build a Digital Marketplace – Create a multi-vendor digital marketplace where creators sell digital products and earn commissions. Manage Your Digital Store Customers Easy Digital Downloads includes a complete customer management system for your digital store. Track customer lifetime value, view purchase history, manage profiles, and understand your digital product buyers. Every ecommerce interaction is tracked so you can make data-driven decisions about your digital products and strategy. Protect Your Digital Downloads Your digital products are safe with Easy Digital Downloads. When a customer purchases your digital product, EDD generates a secure and unique download link that only authorized customers can use. Set expiration times on download links, limit the number of downloads per purchase, and track IP addresses for fraud prevention. Your digital downloads stay protected while your customers get instant access to the files they purchased. Full Easy Digital Downloads Feature List Secure Payment Processing – Accept credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and 20+ payment methods in your digital store. Stripe Integration – 1-click Stripe setup to sell digital products and accept credit card payments instantly. PayPal Integration – Sell digital products with PayPal, PayPal Credit, and Venmo payments. Optimized eCommerce Checkout – Responsive checkout form built to convert digital product shoppers into buyers. Digital Product Management – Create unlimited digital products with variations, bundles, and flexible pricing. eCommerce Reports & Analytics – Track digital product sales, revenue, customers, and store performance with detailed reports. Discount Code Management – Run digital store promotions with customizable discount codes, expiration dates, and product limits. Secure File Downloads – Protect digital downloads with unique links, expiration times, and download limits. Customer Management – Track customer lifetime value and purchase history in your digital store. Email Receipts – Fully customizable email receipts branded to your digital product store. Shopping Cart – Built-in shopping cart for selling multiple digital products per transaction. Customer Profiles – Let customers view purchase history and manage their digital download access. Refund Management – Automated refund and dispute handling to keep your digital store records accurate. Global Selling – Sell digital products in 200+ countries with multi-currency support. Subscriptions & Recurring Payments – Sell digital product subscriptions and build recurring revenue (Pro). Software Licensing – Sell software with activatable license keys, update delivery, and activation tracking (Pro). Content Restriction – Restrict content to customers who purchased specific digital products for membership sites (Pro). Revenue Optimization – Abandoned cart recovery and AI-powered product recommendations to increase digital store revenue (Pro). Customer Reviews – Collect and display reviews on your digital products to boost social proof and sales (Pro). EU VAT Compliance – Automatic EU VAT rate management, customer VAT number verification, and compliance exports (Pro). Invoices – Generate and deliver professional PDF invoices for digital product purchases (Pro). Frontend Submissions – Build a digital marketplace where vendors submit and sell their own digital products (Pro). Commissions – Pay vendors percentage or flat rate commissions on digital product sales (Pro). Free Downloads – Use free digital products as lead magnets to grow your email list (Pro). Recommended Products – AI-powered digital product recommendations at checkout to increase average order value (Pro). 100+ Integrations – Connect your digital store with Mailchimp, Zapier, AffiliateWP, and dozens more. Extensible, adaptable, and open source — Easy Digital Downloads is created with designers and developers in mind. With our extensive list of ecommerce integrations as well as the included hooks and filters, the possibilities for your digital store are endless. We’ve made it even easier, with 1-Click installation of code snippets via WPCode. EDD gives me a solid platform out of the box, with the flexibility of being able to customize anything I want or need to. The best of both worlds! Brian Hogg – SellingPlugins.com Grow Digital Product Revenue by Going Pro With our Pro plans you can get access to additional ecommerce features and supercharge your digital product business. Some of our most popular features for selling digital products in Pro are: EU VAT Compliance – Easily manage EU VAT compliance for your digital store. Get automatic rate updates, collect and verify customer VAT numbers, export EU VAT data for compliance, and more. Invoices – Create and send beautiful PDF invoices to your digital product customers. Subscriptions – Build a sustainable ecommerce business and add recurring revenue to your digital store by selling subscriptions for your digital products. Reviews – Let your happy customers promote your digital products for you! Schedule automatic review requests, show average ratings and rating breakdowns on your digital store. Content Restriction – Restrict content on your site and only share it with customers who have purchased specific digital products. Content Restriction is great for membership sites, online courses, and customer-only content. Software Licenses – Sell activatable license keys for software products, including WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, desktop software, SaaS solutions, and more. Frontend Submissions – Build a full-featured digital product marketplace and grow a community of creators selling digital downloads. Commissions – Pay your digital marketplace vendors with percentage or flat rate commissions when their digital products are purchased. Abandoned Cart Recovery – Automatically recover lost digital product sales and increase your ecommerce revenue on autopilot. Free Downloads – Use free digital products as lead magnets to grow your email list and sell more digital downloads. Recommended Products – Add AI-powered digital product recommendations to your store and checkout to increase average order value. …We’ve got over 70+ premium ecommerce features and integrations! These are just a few of the features available to help you optimize your digital store and sell more digital products. View our full list of premium ecommerce features for selling digital products. Built by the Digital Product Experts Easy Digital Downloads is built and maintained by a dedicated team of ecommerce experts who have been helping creators sell digital products since 2012. With 13+ years of experience building the best WordPress ecommerce solution for digital downloads, we understand what it takes to run a successful digital product business. Our world-class support team is here to help you sell digital products successfully. Whether you’re setting up your first digital store or scaling an established ecommerce business, we’ve got you covered. Better Than Gumroad, Etsy, Shopify & Other Platforms for Selling Digital Products If you’ve looked at platforms to sell digital products online, you’ve probably seen Gumroad, Etsy, Shopify, Payhip, Sellfy, SendOwl, Lemon Squeezy, Podia, Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Ko-fi, Whop, Paddle, and FastSpring. They’re popular for selling digital products, but they come with a catch. SaaS platforms charge monthly fees that eat into your digital product revenue. Marketplaces like Etsy and Gumroad take a large cut of every digital product sale, charge listing fees, and own your customer relationships. With Easy Digital Downloads, you own your digital store, your customer data, and your revenue. No monthly platform fees, no listing fees, and no marketplace commissions on your digital product sales. Easy Digital Downloads gives you the freedom to sell digital products on your own WordPress site with the same powerful ecommerce features as these platforms, plus the flexibility to customize your digital store. Stop renting your business on someone else’s platform. Branding Guidelines Easy Digital Downloads is a product by Sandhills Development, LLC. When writing about the digital eCommerce plugin by Easy Digital Downloads, please make sure to always reference us by full name before you use our short name of EDD. Easy Digital Downloads (correct) EDD (correct) EasyDigitalDownloads (incorrect) easy digital downloads (incorrect) Edd (incorrect, this is our mascot’s name!) edd (incorrect) Get Help with Your Digital Store Easy Digital Downloads is backed by world-class technical support from our globally distributed full-time support team. We also have an extensive documentation site available. If you’re looking for faster support via email, we encourage you to purchase an Easy Digital Downloads Pro pass. Digital Product Selling Resources Check out some of our popular posts for actionable advice for running your digital product business and selling digital downloads on the web. The 12 Most Popular Digital Products You Can Sell Online How to Add Lead Magnets in WordPress to Grow Your Email List How to Successfully Launch Your Digital Product How to Sell Canva Templates with WordPress The Astonishing Benefits of Selling Digital Products Subscribe to our newsletter to get posts like these in your inbox as soon as they’re published.

Meet FluentCart. It’s a performance-first, self-hosted eCommerce platform for WordPress. Build your ideal store, whether you sell physical products, subscriptions, downloads, licenses, or all of them. No third-party dependencies, no platform lock-in, and no transaction fees. Just a powerful store on your terms. 👉 Official Website Link: Official Website 👉 Join Our Community: FluentCart Community 👉 Official 5 Minutes Guide: Getting started with FluentCart 👉 Contribute: GitHub Repository Built from the ground up with flexibility, performance, and long-term scalability in mind, this isn’t a fork of existing plugins. This is a fresh take on what a WordPress store should be: lean, powerful, and completely under your control. FluentCart adapts to your model without adding bloat or cutting you into a SaaS fee structure. FluentCart is ideal for solo creators, growing businesses, and developers building client stores. If you’re tired of overcomplicated dashboards and bloated add-ons, this is your answer. Forget about transaction fees, because FluentCart charges exactly 0 transaction fees on both Free and Pro installations. FluentCart is for you if you’re looking to free yourself from rigid checkout flows, or vendor lock-ins. Run your store with clarity and confidence, whether you sell ebooks, handmade goods, software licenses, or monthly product bundles. Sales Models FluentCart supports a variety of sales models, all in the same store. Offer one-time products or digital downloads, manage subscriptions with flexible billing intervals, add setup fees or installment plans, and issue time-limited licenses. You can mix and match hybrid product types without relying on third-party add-ons. Best for Subscription goods Gated downloads Licensed software Online book stores B2B catalogs Maintenance services Tiered subscriptions Digital file hosting Software distribution Membership access Fashion stores Course Websites Grocery Shop Agro Catalogs Agency services Features List by Category Product & Catalog Management Simple Products – Create one-time purchasable items with fixed pricing Variable Products – Offer products with multiple attributes (e.g. size, license type) Subscriptions – Configure recurring products with billing intervals and durations (No Transaction Fees) Installments – Support split payments over time for high-ticket items (PRO) Setup Fees – Add one-time setup charges on top of recurring payments Subscription Bump Offers – Show discounted upgrade paths with discounts Licensing Support (Pro) – Attach license keys to products and define expiry rules (PRO) Product Categories – Organize products for easier navigation and filtering Product Labels – Tag products for promotional badges (e.g. “New”, “Popular”) Downloadable Files – Securely attach files to digital products Checkout & Payment One-Click Checkout – Optimized checkout experience for faster conversions Custom Payment Gateways – Add or extend gateways using hooks and filters Stripe Integration – Fully-featured Stripe payments with no extra plugins PayPal Integration – Built-in PayPal support with easy configuration Manual Gateway – Accept Cash on delivery Failed Renewal Handling – Automatic retry logic for subscription renewals Prorated Charges (Pro) – Calculate and bill customers proportionally for changes Coupon Support – Enable discounts, promos, and launch offers via coupons Customer & Subscription Management Customer Profiles – View and manage full purchase history and subscriptions Customer Notes – Add internal notes visible only to store admins Subscription Dashboard – Let users manage billing, pause/cancel subscriptions Support Dashboard Integration – Pull customer history into Fluent Support Automated Notifications – Send email alerts for purchase, renewal, failures with FluentCRM User Roles – Control access to FluentCart admin tools by role Analytics, Marketing & Growth Reports Overview – Track order volume, Revenue by Quarter, Revenue by Country Sales Reporting – Track order volume, most sold products and variants, Customer LTV and more Order Analytics – Average order value, order items, order heatmap, orders by country, and more Revenue Analytics – Net revenue sorted by Time, Country and Payment Gateway Refund Analytics – Total refunds, Avg. Refund value, Refund Rate, Filter by Country, Payment method and Intervals Product Data – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Subscriptions Report – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Product Data – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Customer Data – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Advanced Filtering (Pro) – Date and Other Filters for tracking beyond 30 days data Performance & Developer Experience Custom Database Schema – Built for speed, not tied to WordPress post tables Lightweight Architecture – Minimal plugin bloat and clean dependency footprint Custom Endpoints – Extend customer dashboard or checkout with new features Full REST API – Access product, customer, and order data programmatically Action & Filter Hooks – Modify behavior across store logic Block-based Components – Gutenberg-ready interface for checkout and forms Headless Ready – Serve as backend for mobile/web apps and Jamstack frontends Admin & Store Operations Order Management – View, filter, and update orders directly from dashboard Inventory Tracking – Track stock levels and automatically disable out-of-stock items Tax – Handle Global and EU Tax with custom Tax classes Shipping – Manage shipping regions and custom methods Refund Tools – Process manual or automatic refunds (gateway-dependent) User Role Management (Pro) – Assign operational access Storewide Settings – Control pricing formats, currency, etc. Custom Email Templates – Send branded emails for purchase events eCommerce for Developers FluentCart was built by developers who understand the pain of working with rigid eCommerce systems. Its architecture is entirely action and filter-driven, letting you override, extend, or customize anything without hacks or fragile workarounds. All data is stored in dedicated database tables for performance and portability. We’ve optimized the queries so Orders can be processed 3X faster compared to the market leader. On top of that we’ve built FluentCart for complete programmatic control. REST API endpoints are available for all key resources. Due to this the frontend can be completely decoupled with technology like Vue and Alpine. Whether you’re building custom apps on top of FluentCart or creating complex checkout flows, this plugin is built to stay out of your way and give you the keys. Customization and Design No more fighting layouts. Style your cart, checkout, and product pages exactly how you want using your theme, no forced stylesheets or layout overrides. Customize every part of the experience: product card components, variation pickers, quantity selectors, checkout forms, and thank-you pages. All templates are overrideable. Whether you’re designing high-converting sales funnels or frictionless repeat purchase flows, FluentCart is built for modern storefront aesthetics. You can set store branding with global customizations as soon as you setup FluentCart. The responsive blocks act as standard Gutenberg blocks so your store doesn’t break under any circumstances, even on mobile. Moreover, you get direct compatibility with popular store themes along with page builders like Elementor and Bricks Builder. If you need even more customizability, the option to use advanced CSS is also available to give you complete design control. Blocks Product Grid Search Bar Customer Dashboard Check out Product Cards Product Gallery Product Info Buy Section Buy Now Button Add To Cart Button Available Stock Business Growth FluentCart includes tools that help you operate at scale. From revenue analysis to team coordination, it comes with every operational tool pre-integrated, so you don’t need workarounds or extra plugins to manage growth. Reports You get detailed breakdowns of subscriptions, refunds, and subscriber churn rates. Filter performance by product, category, date range, to evaluate the ROI of every sale. Payments Payments are at the heart of eCommerce. FluentCart handles automatic retry logic on failed subscription renewals, supports prorated charges for mid-cycle upgrades or plan changes, and lets you offer installment payments—all without custom coding or third-party checkout tools. You can switch gateways, track payment history, and automate invoicing with ease. Access Control User Role management means you can safely scale your internal team too. Grant access to team members based on function. Everything is role-based, compartmentalized, and securely accessible from the backend. Every feature is tightly integrated, so your operational data flows through one system. No external dashboards. No syncing delays. Just live, accurate, and usable insight to help you grow smarter. Reinventing eCommerce Building stores on WordPress has been riddled with slow queries, bloated schemas, bloated add-ons, and unscalable databases that make your store feel sluggish as it grows. SaaS platforms offload those problems by locking you into hosted environments, but charge you platform fees, gateway markups, and provide exactly zero control over your backend. At its core, FluentCart runs on a custom database schema purpose-built for digital and subscription commerce. No legacy baggage. It uses fast, indexed tables that prioritize the read/write operations that matter most for modern stores such as, orders, customers, products, subscriptions, licenses, and transactions. This keeps your store snappy even under load, without relying on caching hacks or third-party optimizers. All data is structured for scalability. Whether you’re haqndling 50 or 50,000 orders, FluentCart maintains consistent performance with predictable query logic. No degrading response times as tables balloon, no complex migration paths when scaling up, and no reliance on external APIs to run day-to-day operations. And while most platforms make you pay for scale, whether through add-on upsells, platform commissions, or percentage-based transaction fees, FluentCart is truly self-hosted and pro-ownership. You pay once. You own it. There are zero transaction fees, no enforced usage tiers, and no hidden charges from payment providers. You can integrate Stripe, PayPal, local gateways, or your own custom processor using native hooks without ever sharing a cut. Data Privacy Your data stays where it belongs, on your server. FluentCart does not phone home, track your customers, share checkout data or payment details. There’s no reliance on cookies or third-party scripts for core functionality. For businesses under strict data policies or privacy regulations, like GDPR and EU DPA, FluentCart is the safest possible eCommerce option. You keep complete control of your stores data. Period. Integrations FluentCart works out of the box with major Fluent plugins including: FluentCRM: Run marketing automations triggered by store actions and segment customers with lists and tags. FluentCommunity: Managing your gated community and course sales. FluentAffiliate: Handle all your payouts and affiliate sales from a unified dashboard that syncs in real-time. More native integrations coming soon in FluentCart, Fluent Forms: Build custom forms for check out and build product surveys that engage your customers. FluentSupport: Bring your support portal right inside your store and sync purchase history across tickets and customers. Ninja Tables: Build fantastic table layouts for products and provide in-line checkout for B2B sales. FluentBooking: For managing Booking sales and Event seats. FluentBoards: Managing your stores projects and tasks. FluentSMTP: Ensure email deliverability for every email generated by your store. Payment Gateways Stripe PayPal Paddle Paystack Mollie RazorPay Authorize.Net Mercado Pago (onetime) Square (Coming Soon) AirWallex (Coming Soon) Popular page builders Gutenberg Bricks Elementor (Coming Soon) Divi (Coming Soon) Support For us, support isn’t outsourced or run by third parties. You get direct access to the same expert team that builds and maintains the plugin, engineers who understand the codebase inside and out, and who treat your issue like it’s their own store. We prioritize developer-level responsiveness and clarity in support tickets. That means no endless loops of canned replies, no asking for “more details” five times, and no dodging responsibility with vague documentation references. Whether you’re debugging a gateway integration or extending a checkout flow with hooks, our team is here to assist with clear, actionable guidance. But support doesn’t stop at tickets. You also get access to a 10,000+ member strong community of Fluent product users across our ecosystem including store owners, developers, marketers, and SaaS builders who use FluentCRM, Fluent Support, FluentBooking, and now FluentCart. It’s a collaborative environment where people share real-world workflows, custom code snippets, integration tips, and even performance benchmarks. Other Plugins By The Same Team FluentCRM – Email Newsletter, Automation, Email Marketing, Email Campaigns, and CRM Solution Contact Form Plugin by Fluent Forms for Quiz, Survey, and Drag & Drop WP Form Builder Ninja Tables – Easiest Data Table Builder Ninja Charts – WordPress Charts and Graphs Plugin Simple Payment Donations & Subscriptions Plugin by Paymattic – Best Payments Plugin for WP PDF Generator For Fluent Forms – The Contact Form Plugin FluentSMTP – WP SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, MailGun, Postmark, Google and Any SMTP Provider External Services This plugin connects to several external services for payment processing functionalities depending on your payment method configuration. Payment Gateway Services Stripe This plugin connects to Stripe’s payment processing service to handle credit card transactions, subscription billing, and payment confirmations. When customers make purchases through your store, payment data including credit card information, billing addresses, and transaction details are securely transmitted to Stripe for processing. Data sent includes: payment information, billing details, customer email, transaction amounts, and subscription data when applicable. This service is provided by Stripe: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy PayPal This plugin connects to PayPal’s payment processing service to handle PayPal payments, subscription billing, and payment confirmations. When customers choose PayPal as their payment method, they are redirected to PayPal’s secure checkout where their payment information is processed. Data sent includes: transaction amounts, billing details, customer email, order information, and subscription data when applicable. This service is provided by PayPal: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy Note: Data transmission to external services only occurs when store administrators actively configure and enable these integrations. Customer data is sent only for customers who complete purchases, and no data is transmitted without explicit integration setup by the store owner.