WordPress Plugins for a Digital Store: 10 Honest Picks for Small Shops

Contents14 sections

A small digital store sells things people download or access online: ebooks, templates, music, courses or software. WordPress can run one well with a handful of the right WordPress plugins for a digital store. A plugin is an add-on that gives WordPress a new feature.

This list covers the store itself and the quiet essentials around it: emails that arrive, backups, security and privacy. You do not need all ten. Most stores need one store plugin and three or four of the others.

At a glance

Here are all ten side by side. Each one is described in more detail below.

Plugin	Best for	Its job in your store
Easy Digital Downloads	Selling digital files	Store, cart and file delivery
WooCommerce	Selling physical items too	Store, cart and file delivery
SureCart	An all-in-one hosted checkout	Store and checkout
WP Simple Pay	A single payment form	Payment form
Download Monitor	Free downloads and tracking	File downloads
Kadence Memberships	Selling access, not files	Memberships
WP Mail SMTP	Making sure receipts arrive	Email delivery
UpdraftPlus	Backups	Backups
Wordfence Security	Security	Security
Complianz	Cookie consent	Privacy

How we chose

Each plugin had to pass all of these checks:

1. It has a free version in the official WordPress plugin directory.
2. It has been updated in the last few months and is marked as tested with WordPress 7.0 or newer.
3. Its free version is genuinely useful on its own, and we say plainly what costs extra.
4. It solves a real need for a store that sells digital products.

We read each plugin’s directory listing and documentation and checked what the free version includes. Where a free version adds a fee to each sale, we say so, because it changes the real cost. Fees can change, so check the current figure on the plugin’s page before you decide.

1. Easy Digital Downloads

Best for: selling digital files.

Easy Digital Downloads is built for one job: selling files such as ebooks, templates, music or software. It is also what runs the Locker Forge store, so we know it well, and we have judged it by the same standards as everything else here. The free version includes a shopping cart, a checkout, card payments through Stripe and Square, PayPal, customer records, discount codes, reports and protected download links, so only paying customers can download the file.

Strengths: Made for digital products, so there is little to switch off. Protected download links that can expire after a set time. Card, PayPal and wallet payments in the free version.

Keep in mind: The free version adds a small extra fee to each sale made through its built-in payment connections. A paid plan removes it. Subscriptions and software licences need a paid plan.

2. WooCommerce

Best for: a store that may sell physical items too.

WooCommerce is the best-known shop plugin for WordPress and one of the most widely used plugins of any kind. It sells physical and digital products side by side, including instant downloads. Payments are added with separate, free payment plugins such as WooPayments, WooCommerce Stripe Gateway or WooCommerce PayPal Payments. A huge range of free and paid extensions covers almost anything else.

Strengths: Handles digital and physical products together. Enormous choice of themes, extensions and help. Free core plugin with free payment options.

Keep in mind: More settings to learn if you only sell downloads. Features such as subscriptions usually come from extensions, many of them paid.

3. SureCart

Best for: an all-in-one hosted checkout.

SureCart takes a different approach. The plugin connects your site to SureCart’s cloud platform, which handles payments, subscriptions, taxes and checkout away from your server. That keeps your site lighter. The free plan includes unlimited products, a customisable checkout and subscriptions, and it connects to Stripe, PayPal and other payment services.

Strengths: Subscriptions included on the free plan. Less work for your own server and database. Many payment services supported.

Keep in mind: You need a SureCart account, and your store relies on their platform. The free plan adds a transaction fee. Paid plans remove it.

4. WP Simple Pay

Best for: a single payment form.

Sometimes you do not need a shop at all, just a “Pay now” form. WP Simple Pay creates Stripe payment forms you can place on any page, and it now includes recurring payments for all users. It is ideal for one product, a service or a deposit.

Strengths: No cart or shop pages to set up. Stripe’s secure checkout. Ready-made payment form templates.

Keep in mind: It takes payment but does not deliver files, so you send the download another way. The free version adds a fee on each transaction. A paid plan removes it.

5. Download Monitor

Best for: free downloads and tracking.

Download Monitor is a download manager first. You add files, keep several versions, place download links on any page and see how often each file is downloaded. That makes it excellent for free resources, such as a sample chapter. It also has an optional shop setting that sells downloads with PayPal, which suits a very small catalogue.

Strengths: Clear download counts and logs. Multiple file versions. Optional simple shop for selling downloads.

Keep in mind: Payment choices in the shop are limited compared with a full store plugin. Features such as email gating come in paid extensions.

6. Kadence Memberships

Best for: selling access, not files.

If what you sell is access, such as members-only lessons or articles, a membership plugin fits better than a shop. Kadence Memberships, previously called Restrict Content, lets you create free and paid membership levels, take payments with Stripe in the free version and hide pages, posts or blocks from non-members. Members get their own account area.

Strengths: Unlimited membership levels. Stripe payments in the free version. Members can manage their own accounts.

Keep in mind: Not designed for selling individual files. PayPal and many extras need the paid version.

7. WP Mail SMTP

Best for: making sure receipts arrive.

Your customers get their receipt and download link by email. Out of the box, WordPress sends email in a way that inbox providers often distrust, so messages can land in spam. WP Mail SMTP sends them through a real email service instead. SMTP is simply the standard way email is sent between servers.

Strengths: Works with many popular email services. Setup wizard guides you through it. Helps with the common “I never got my download” problem.

Keep in mind: You need an account with an email service, some of which charge. Email logs and some services are in the paid version.

8. UpdraftPlus

Best for: backups.

A backup is a saved copy of your site you can restore if something goes wrong. For a store, it also protects your order records. UpdraftPlus backs up on a schedule to services such as Dropbox, Google Drive or Amazon S3, and restores from the dashboard.

Strengths: Scheduled backups to many storage services. Restore from inside WordPress. The free version handles full backups and restores.

Keep in mind: Backups take up space in your cloud storage account. Automatic backups before updates and incremental backups are in the paid version.

9. Wordfence Security

Best for: security.

A store holds customer details, so security matters. Wordfence adds a firewall, which blocks known attacks before they reach WordPress, a scanner that checks your files for malicious code, and login protection including two-factor sign-in.

Strengths: Firewall and malware scanning in the free version. Two-factor sign-in for your admin account. Alerts you to known security problems in plugins.

Keep in mind: The free version gets new firewall rules later than paid users. It has many settings, so start with the defaults.

10. Complianz

Best for: cookie consent.

Payment services and analytics often set cookies, small files that remember visitors. Many countries require visitors’ consent for some of them. Complianz walks you through a wizard, scans your site for cookies and builds a matching banner and cookie policy.

Strengths: Wizard setup with no code. Automatic cookie scan. Covers many regions’ privacy laws.

Keep in mind: It helps you comply but is not legal advice. The full website scan and some document tools are in the paid version.

Which ones do you actually need?

Start with the question “what am I selling?”, then add the essentials.

If you sell	Store plugin	Then add
Files, such as ebooks or templates	Easy Digital Downloads or SureCart	WP Mail SMTP, UpdraftPlus, Wordfence, Complianz
Files and physical items	WooCommerce	The same four
One product or service	WP Simple Pay	UpdraftPlus, Wordfence
Free files, to grow a list	Download Monitor	UpdraftPlus, Wordfence
Access to members-only content	Kadence Memberships	WP Mail SMTP, UpdraftPlus, Wordfence

A worked example

Sam sells printable planners as PDF files. Sam installs Easy Digital Downloads, connects Stripe and adds three products. Next comes WP Mail SMTP, so receipts with download links reach buyers’ inboxes, then UpdraftPlus with a daily backup to cloud storage and Wordfence to protect the login. Finally, Complianz shows a cookie banner because the site uses analytics. That is five plugins, with the essentials covered.

Installing a plugin from the directory

1. In the dashboard, go to Plugins › Add Plugin.
2. Type the plugin’s name in the Search Plugins box.
3. Check the author name on the card so you pick the right plugin.
4. Click Install Now, then Activate.
5. Look for the plugin’s new menu item or setup wizard and follow its steps.

Add one plugin at a time and check your site after each. If a plugin will not activate because it needs another plugin first, our solution WordPress Plugin Dependencies explains what to do.

Still deciding on a platform? Our guide WordPress or Joomla for a Small Store? compares the two fairly. Before you open the doors, work through our free Before-You-Launch Checklist.