Easy Digital Downloads
About Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads pricing
Easy Digital Downloads has a free version. Easy Digital Downloads paid version starts at USD 199.00/year.
Easy Digital Downloads Reviews
Feature rating
- Industry: Media Production
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Best way to run an owned digital goods e-commerce platform based on hosted Wordpress
The overall experience with EDD was and is great. Apart form having to move on a business model that included that we are the keepers of records ourselves, and having to implement some tweaks here and there, all was great.
You will need to be able to customize the product's appearance, as the default style is very outdated and has mistakes here and there. It would be nice to modernize that a little bit on their end without of course taking it to any particular style. But having the vanilla EDD theme on a product will not boost sales.
Pros
I found EDD through the need to find an e-commerce solution for my Wordpress based site fast. I was having a very bad system implemented, as the makers of the previous platform we used was purely supported and gave us more headaches than smiles.
Via search, I came across EDD and started searching more information.
It was not exactly what I was searching, as our previous solution was acting as a "keeper of records", saving us form the hustle of keeping VAT information and take care of transaction frauds, etc.
EDD has a very informative website and also all my questions towards their support team was answered so fast that made my research easy. We already had a broken webstore and needed a solution faster than yesterday.
Installing EDD on our website was very easy, they have excellent support, solid documentation and they seem open to dialog all the time, which is awesome.
What me and my team liked mostly about the software, was that they provide everything needed to sell your own digital goods, using a system of core elements and plugin extensions, making it very easy to integrate and manage the whole thing.
Anyone already struggling with the management of digital goods on their own stores or having a bad experience with the plugins or providers that they use, should consider switching to EDD.
Cons
Some minor bumps, but I can't really complain, are that EDD needs to keep all products beneath a specific pages category, so in WP you have to have all your products beneath a specific URL structure. This is somewhat limiting, but there are solutions by using extensions to hide the original product page and just use their "buy" button with custom pages of your own. A bit more work, but we can live with that.
They have a bug affecting stores based in the European Union. EDD at the moment cannot calculate discounts correctly when used with VAT calculations and showing prices including taxes. This is sad ans it should be fixed, as it takes away the ability to show the customer/site visitor, the final price on the product page and also be able to offer discounts. This pains in two domains, the ability to show the user final prices - there is evidence from research that adding taxes later on the cart, is one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. And also it takes away the ability to provide discounts like take 3 pay for 2 kind of deals, which are sales boosters. This should be addressed to free us Europeans and enable us to provide same sales experience like our colleagues in the US, that don't have to use VAT.
Reasons for Choosing Easy Digital Downloads
Bad support, bugs, difficult and very outdated interface. We actually felt like we were beta testers and not clients. Answers from their support were coming from their engineers and was abrupt and not helping at all. I'm very sad that we had to switch. We used their platform for 10 years, but lately the service was not the same at all. At the end we had a webstore that wasn't functioning at all.Switched From
FastSpringReasons for Switching to Easy Digital Downloads
Integration with various payment transaction platforms, one of them being Stripe with their excellent fraud radar technology. Full integration with Stripe. Interoperability with WP. Easy management of features through extensions. Different pricing tiers, even free to use, to grow with us. One time payment if you think about it, and if you are just getting started, free.Response from Awesome Motive
Hi Panos, thank you for taking the time to write a review. Much of your feedback has been noted. Feel free to reach out to our support if you ever have any questions!
- Industry: Internet
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Powerful, Easy-to-Use Ecommerce Software for WordPress
Pros
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) allowed me to start selling premium WordPress plugins quickly & effectively. Setting up recurring subscriptions with multiple payment gateways and software licensing is usually a complicated endeavor. But EDD made the process very manageable and allowed me to get up and running quickly.
Their support was very helpful when I needed it, but their documentation got me through most of it. And once it's up & running... it JUST WORKS. It's reliable. In 2 years of use, I've had only 1 very small issue, and it was resolved quickly.
I also love how they manage many of their popular, more essential add-ons themselves, instead of leaving it up to third-party developers. There is a great third-party ecosystem as well, but knowing that they built many of their add-ons themselves, and continue to update/support them... that's great piece of mind.
Cons
The reporting is somewhat lacking. The default reporting could be better, and even their Advanced Reporting add-on (which costs more) is not up to par with other software. They're working on this in their next version (3.0, aka 3DD), but they're behind the curve on this.
I'd also like a better system in place for partial refunds. Full refunds are easy via the WP dashboard, but partial refunds are more complicated.
Alternatives Considered
WooCommerceReasons for Switching to Easy Digital Downloads
I talked to a few folks, and for WordPress plugin sales, they said EDD was faster and less complicated than Woo. They also said the software licensing was easier to set up. Since I haven't tried WooCommerce for this purpose, I can't say for sure... but I can say that the speed of my site is excellent, and the set up was indeed pretty straightforward. I wanted something that I could host myself, and customize if/when I needed to, so a more hosted solution like Freemius was not as appealing to me.Response from Awesome Motive
Hi Dave, thanks for the review and helpful feedback. We agree, partial refunds are annoying and we're looking to fix that!
We're aware that 3DD is behind but know we are busy working on it every single day!
- Industry: Computer Software
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Works only for basic storefronts.
Pros
Easy to get things up and running pretty quickly. Works if you have only basic digital download requirements.
Cons
If you pair Easy Digital Downloads with more than a few addons, the bugs start to come out of the woodwork. We run recurring payments with stripe and paypal, along with software licensing and the all access addon. Running these together seems to have bugs that we spend a least a few hours a week tracking down each week.
- All access passes sometimes don't get regenerated on subscription renewals. This means we have to go in an do another manual purchase in order to generate a new pass for them, which throws off our numbers.
- If a customer renews early (to take advantage of a deal), their license expiration and subscription renewal dates get out of sync, which is very confusing for customers. https://cloudup.com/csN5haQFdhZ/f
- Customers sometime are able to cancel another customer's subscription.
- "Your license is about to expire" emails are sent to uses who have upgraded to lifetime licenses.
- No abandoned cart integration - need to use a 3rd party service and pay additional money.
- Customer's purchases are sometimes assigned to the wrong user.
Customer account UI is very difficult for clients to use. We get multiple support requests weekly related to site activations or account-related questions.
Admin UI is very difficult to use.
Takes a lot of time to implement:
- Styling checkout/account pages is all on you.
- Integrating into your plugin/theme is difficult - you need to develop a UI for the user to enter their license key, as well as validate and store it.
Response from Awesome Motive
We definitely appreciate the honest and thorough feedback. Much of what you mentioned are areas we are actively working on improving, though the symptoms you described are not being experienced by most users. Hopefully our support team will be able to help you identify some solutions to these problems!
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Weekly for 1+ year
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Review Source
Innovative Web Design and Digital Marketing by HoneyWeb Solutions
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) provides a smooth experience for selling digital products on WordPress. Its focus on digital goods means the platform isn’t bogged down with unnecessary features, making it straightforward and easy to use for those looking to sell e-books, software, music, or other downloadable items.
Pros
The EDD interface is simple and intuitive, making it easy to set up products, manage orders, and configure settings even if you’re new to WordPress or eCommerce.
Cons
EDD is designed specifically for digital products, so if you need to sell both digital and physical items, its capabilities are limited. You may need to use additional plugins or switch to a more comprehensive eCommerce solution if you want full support for physical goods.
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Best choice for digital products and marketplaces
The overall experience with EDD is excellent. Even when I run into issues, their support team is pretty quick to respond. And when I need to do higher level customizations, the community behind EDD has created a vast amount of tutorials and examples to pull from. This combination has really made me a fan for life.
Pros
The best thing about EDD is that it is simultaneously simple to use, but also full-featured for the more complex stores. Setup takes less than 5min for basic functions to get your digital product store up and running. And if you need more features, there are lots of useful add-ons to get you what you need. As compared to other ecommerce solutions I've used, I've never had an easier time getting things set up and running.
Cons
Although it is also a strength, the amount of extensions available for EDD are a bit daunting. It would be nice if it were easier to figure out which extensions you need without having to go one-by-one through all of them and read the features. There are also a handful of extensions that feel lacking in documentation and explanation of what they do.
Response from Awesome Motive
Hey Dustin, thanks for leaving us such a kind review. Your feedback has been noted and is much appreciated.