The 12 Best Digital Products to Sell in 2026, Ranked by Real Search Demand

A digital product is anything you make once and sell as a file or online access: a template, a printable, a pattern, an ebook, a course, or a membership. There's no inventory or shipping, and you can sell the same file thousands of times.

That's the pitch, anyway. Most "best digital products to sell" lists are written by the platforms that want you to sell on them, and they lean on anecdotes like one creator's $15,000 month. We took a different approach: we looked at what US buyers actually search for, how that demand changed over the past year, and how crowded each category is.

How we ranked these products

We pulled US monthly search volume and 12-month trends from Semrush in October 2026 for the main search term for each product type (for example, "canva templates," not "how to sell canva templates"). Buyer searches are a reasonable proxy for demand. Searches about selling a product type are tiny by comparison (usually under 500 a month), which tells you most people looking at these products are buyers, not competitors.

We then weighed three things:

• Demand: how many people search for the product each month.

• Momentum: whether that demand grew or shrank over the past 12 months.

• Competition: Semrush's keyword difficulty score (0–100), a rough signal of how established the top sellers are. Lower is easier to break into.

We also considered how practical each product is for one person to make. The final order is our judgment, not a formula.

A caveat on big numbers: high search volume can include people looking for free versions. "Coloring pages," for example, gets about 368,000 searches a month, but most of those people want free printables. That's why you should treat volume as interest, and not guaranteed sales.

Quick comparison

Source: Semrush, US database, October 2026. Keyword difficulty (KD) is Semrush's 0–100 estimate of how hard it is to rank in Google search.

The 12 best digital products to sell in 2026

1. Canva templates – best overall for beginners

Demand: "canva templates" gets about 14,800 US searches a month and has grown over the past year. "Instagram templates" adds about 2,400, and "social media templates" about 2,900.

Canva templates are pre-designed layouts that buyers open and edit in Canva: social media posts, resumes, media kits, pitch decks, or wedding signs. You share a template link with the buyer, so there's no file to manage.

Why it ranks first: demand is rising while some other template types are cooling, the tool is cheap or free to start, and you can serve a specific audience (real estate agents, therapists, wedding planners) instead of competing with everyone.

Watch out for: Canva's license terms. You need to sell templates as editable designs rather than reselling Canva's own stock elements on their own, so read Canva's content license before you list.

2. Spreadsheet and budget templates – best for numbers people

Demand: "google sheets templates" gets about 18,100 searches a month, and "budget spreadsheet" about 9,900, which has been rising. "Excel templates" adds about 5,400.

Budget trackers, debt payoff planners, small business bookkeeping sheets, wedding budgets, and content calendars all sell. Buyers pay for the formulas and structure, not the design.

Why it works: spreadsheets solve a specific, recurring problem, and a well-built one is hard for a buyer to make themselves. If you have finance, operations, or project management experience, this is a natural fit.

Watch out for: the generic "budget template" search is competitive (KD 66). Niche versions, like budgets for freelancers with irregular income or sinking-fund trackers, are easier to stand out with.

3. Crochet, knitting, and sewing patterns – best for crafters

Demand: "crochet patterns" and "knitting patterns" each get about 49,500 searches a month, and "sewing patterns" about 22,200. "PDF sewing patterns" adds about 880.

Patterns are written instructions, charts, or printable templates for making something by hand. This is one of the largest and steadiest categories on the list.

Why it works: crafters buy patterns repeatedly, and a good designer builds a following. Competition for "knitting patterns" is relatively low (KD 25).

Watch out for: you need to be able to design and test the pattern yourself. Buyers are quick to leave reviews about errors.

4. Printables – best low-cost way to start

Demand: "printables" gets about 165,000 searches a month and grew over the past year, with a peak in mid-2026.

Printables are PDFs people print at home: checklists, chore charts, meal planners, kids' activity sheets, party games, and classroom decor.

Why it works: they're quick to make, cheap to test, and easy to bundle. They're a good way to learn what your audience will pay for before you build something bigger.

Watch out for: a lot of that demand is for free printables, and the category is crowded. Printable wall art in particular has cooled, with searches down by roughly half over the year.

5. Online courses – best for deep expertise

Demand: hard to measure with search data, because people search for topics ("learn bookkeeping") rather than for "online courses." "How to sell online courses" gets about 590 searches a month from would-be sellers.

Courses are video or text lessons hosted on a platform like Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, or Podia. They take the most work on this list, but they also carry the highest prices. On Stan, the average sale across digital products, courses, and memberships was about $67 in 2025, according to the company's own reporting (Contrary Research).

Why it works: if you already teach something, through clients, a job, or social content, a course packages it so you can sell it without trading more hours.

Watch out for: courses rarely sell without an existing audience. Many creators start with a smaller product, like a template or a workshop recording, to prove people will pay.

6. Paid communities and memberships – best for recurring income

Demand: Skool, the community platform, draws about 135,000 US brand searches a month, and that number is still rising. Generic searches like "membership site" are small (about 390).

A paid community charges members monthly for access to a group, live calls, resources, or a course library. It's the main exception to "make once, sell forever," because members expect ongoing value.

Why it works: recurring revenue smooths out the launch-and-crash pattern of one-off products. Kajabi's 2025 creator survey reported that creators with community offerings earned about twice as much, though that's the company's own self-reported survey.

Watch out for: most communities are small. One third-party analysis of public Skool groups put the median paid community at about $27 a month with about 200 members. Treat that as a rough estimate, not an official figure.

7. Procreate brushes – best low-competition niche

Demand: "procreate brushes" gets about 12,100 searches a month with steady interest and a low competition score (KD 27).

Procreate brushes are custom brush files for the Procreate drawing app on iPad: textures, lettering brushes, stamps, and color palettes.

Why it works: buyers are other artists who value a specific style, and the search results are less dominated by big brands than most categories on this list.

Watch out for: you need to be an illustrator, and the audience is limited to iPad users.

8. Website and Notion templates – best for no-code builders

Demand: "framer templates" gets about 12,100 searches a month with very low competition (KD 19). "Notion templates" gets about 22,200, but searches are down roughly 45% over the past year.

Website templates are ready-made sites for builders like Framer, Webflow, or Squarespace. Notion templates are pre-built workspaces for planning, studying, or running a business.

Why it works: Framer is the stand-out here, with real demand and little competition. Notion's own marketplace makes selling simple: Notion is the merchant of record and takes 8% plus 40 cents per sale (Notion).

Watch out for: Notion templates had a boom, and the cooling demand means more sellers chasing fewer buyers. Pick a narrow use case.

9. Lightroom presets and LUTs – best for photographers and videographers

Demand: "lightroom presets" gets about 12,100 searches a month, with a jump in the most recent three months. "LUTs" (color grading files for video) get about 8,100.

Presets and LUTs are one-click color edits that give photos or videos a specific look.

Why it works: if you already have a recognizable editing style and a social following, presets are a natural add-on.

Watch out for: presets are hard to sell without a portfolio people already admire. Free preset packs are everywhere.

10. Digital planners and stickers – best seasonal play

Demand: "digital planner" gets about 9,900 searches a month, but it's strongly seasonal, peaking around New Year. "Digital stickers" gets about 1,000 with very low competition (KD 11).

Digital planners are interactive PDFs used in apps like GoodNotes or Notability. Stickers are image files people add to those planners.

Why it works: buyers who like digital planning tend to buy add-ons and refreshes every year.

Watch out for: timing. Interest drops after January, and searches for digital planners trended down over the past year. Launch new planners by November.

11. Ebooks and guides – easiest to make, hardest to stand out

Demand: "ebook" gets about 27,100 searches a month, but competition is extremely high (KD 94). Seller-side searches like "sell ebooks" get about 480.

Ebooks and PDF guides are the simplest digital product to create if you can write.

Why it works: a focused guide for a specific audience, like a visa checklist for nurses moving to the US, can sell steadily through your own social posts or newsletter.

Watch out for: don't count on search traffic or marketplace browsing. Ebooks sell to people who already trust you.

12. Lesson plans and teaching resources – best for teachers

Demand: "lesson plans" gets about 5,400 searches a month, rising and falling with the school year.

Teachers sell lesson plans, worksheets, classroom decor, and unit bundles to other teachers, often through marketplaces like Teachers Pay Teachers.

Why it works: teachers trust materials made by other teachers, and a single strong unit can sell for years.

Watch out for: check your school district's policy on selling materials you created for your job before you list them.

What sells on Etsy specifically?

Etsy is still the biggest marketplace for many of these products. It had 86.5 million active buyers and 5.6 million active sellers in 2025 (Etsy 10-K). Printables, planners, patterns, Canva templates, and SVG cut files for Cricut machines are all core Etsy categories.

Two things to know before you go all in:

• Interest in Etsy digital products is cooling. US searches for "digital products to sell on etsy" peaked at about 1,900 a month in mid-2025 and have since dropped to about 470, a fall of roughly 75%, according to Semrush. Searches for printable wall art and digital planners are down too. More sellers are competing for steady or falling demand.

• Etsy has rules for digital items. Etsy requires that what you sell be made or designed by you, and you must disclose when AI tools were used in your creative process. Check Etsy's Creativity Standards before listing AI-assisted work.

Digital products we'd be careful with

• PLR and "master resell rights" (MRR) bundles. These are packs of generic products you're sold the "right" to resell. Searches for MRR are collapsing, and buyers have learned to recognize the content. You're usually competing with thousands of people selling the identical file.

• AI prompt packs. "AI prompts" still gets about 8,100 searches a month, but interest is softening, and free prompts are everywhere.

• AI-generated wall art. It's fast to make, which is exactly the problem: the category is flooded, and marketplaces are enforcing disclosure rules.

Where to sell digital products

You have three main options:

• Marketplaces like Etsy, Gumroad Discover, or the Notion Marketplace bring their own buyers, but take a bigger cut.

• Storefronts like Stan Store, Payhip, or Gumroad's direct links let you keep more, but you bring the traffic.

• Course and community platforms like Kajabi, Teachable, or Skool charge a monthly fee and suit higher-priced products.

We compare fees, what you keep per sale, and which platforms handle sales tax in our guide to how to sell digital products.

How taxes work when you sell digital products

Once you sell regularly, the IRS sees you as running a small business. That means:

• Your profit is taxable, and you'll owe self-employment tax of 15.3% on top of income tax. It applies once you have $400 or more in profit for the year.

• You may not get a 1099. For 2026, most platforms only send a Form 1099-K if you have more than $20,000 in sales and more than 200 transactions (IRS). You still owe tax on everything.

• Sales tax is a separate question. Some platforms, like Etsy and Gumroad, collect and pay it for you. Others leave it to you.

• Your costs are deductible: platform fees, Canva or Adobe subscriptions, an iPad you use to design, ads, and more.

Our full tax guide for digital products and online courses breaks down each platform's 1099 rules, sales tax, and what to set aside.

Keeper can track your sales across platforms and find write-offs like software subscriptions and platform fees automatically, then file your taxes with all of it included.

Search data from Semrush (US), October 2026. Platform details were checked against official pages on October 8, 2026. Keeper has no affiliate relationship with any platform mentioned. This article is for general education and isn't tax advice.