Easy Digital Downloads

Selling downloads through WordPress

Easy Digital Downloads is a plugin for WordPress that lets a website sell digital goods such as ebooks, software, plugins and PDF files. The company's own site describes it as a digital eCommerce plugin for WordPress that more than 50,000 businesses use. Products and transactions are unlimited, and the company presents the absence of a monthly platform fee as one of its main advantages for smaller sellers.

Payments, subscriptions and checkout reductions

Payments run through Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and recurring payments and subscriptions are supported. The shopping cart allows several downloads to be bought at once. Merchants can set reductions at checkout that are flat or percentage based, capped by a number of uses, and set to run between chosen dates. The company says the checkout is designed to feel quick, with few page loads and simple cart elements.

Controlling how buyers download files

After purchase, customers can download their files as often as they need, or the site owner can restrict downloads by time or by number of attempts. Buyers can see their purchase history through a single shortcode, and that table is shown only to people who are logged in. The owner can record the date, time and IP address of each download, which the company offers as a way to see how files are being used.

Reporting, the API and bookkeeping

A built-in reporting tool shows sales statistics and lets owners build custom reports. A RESTful API gives developers and outside applications access to sales and product information, in JSON or XML. The plugin connects with Mailchimp and other services so that routine tasks can be automated, and the company says it has more than a hundred integrations in total.

Add-ons, licensing and community

The core plugin can be extended with paid add-ons for advanced functions. The company also says it handles secure file delivery and keeps detailed logs of each delivery, so the owner keeps control of the files. It describes an active community of users and developers around the product.