Digital formats such as eBooks, mp3s, and audio-books, continue to replace their physical predecessors. As this trend continues, there will continue to be an opportunity for website owners to make sales, establish connections, and generate leads, using digital download plugins.
This article will look at 5 of the best payment processor plugins for digital downloads on WordPress. We will assess strengths and use cases for each plugin, to help you find the best solution for selling and distributing content on your WordPress website.
1. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads provides a complete solution for selling digital downloadable content via WordPress. With over 60,000 active installs and a 4.5-star rating, it is also one of the most popular plugins of its kind.
This plugin offers a ‘freemium’ service. With the free version of the plugin, you are able to upload any kind of media file for download on your site, and process payment via either PayPal, or Amazon Pay.
For more features, there are payment plan options, which start at $99 per year and increment up to $299 per year for the full access to the service.
There is also an option to buy individual add-ons. For example, if you only want to add card payments with Stripe onto the free plugin, that will cost $89 per year.
Easy Digital Downloads provides everything you need to sell downloadable digital content, and it is easy to use. If you require access to premium features, it is worth bearing in mind that there is an annual billing plan in place for those features.
2. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is a flexible, premium form builder, with which you can provide digital downloads and process payments.
Pricing for Gravity Forms starts at $59 per year for a basic license. This will include over 30 different kinds of form fields, conditional logic, file uploads, save and continue, Mailchimp integration and more.
To access PayPal integration, you will need to opt for the Pro plan which costs $159 per year. For Stripe integration, opt for the Elite plan which costs $259 per year, and also gives you access to the full range of integrations.
Among the range of apps that can be integrated with Gravity Forms Pro are Trello, Slack, User Registration, and Webhooks.
Gravity Forms is potentially the most expensive option on this list, but if you’re looking for a payment processing form that is flexible, easy to use, and integrates with a variety of web apps, this is likely to be a good choice. Additionally you can save up to 50% with WPAFFILIATE50 coupon code at Gravity Forms.
3. WP Simple Pay and Zapier
WP Simple Pay is a pop-up card payment solution powered by Stripe.
With the free version of WP Simple Pay, you get the Stripe ‘Pay with Card’ button with options to display a simple payment form, or a two-step form which allows customers to enter address details before the payment stage. Use of this is unlimited, and there are several other features which include Live and Test mode toggle.
To provide download options for users, a WP Simple Pay Pro License is needed, which starts at $49 per year. At this point, it will be possible to integrate Zapier with WP Simple Pay. Zapier is an app-connection service, which allows you to connect potentially thousands of different apps together.
Specific apps that you might consider connecting with WP Simple Pay include Dropbox, Gravity Forms, and Ninja Forms.
While this method doesn’t outline a precise path for selling digital content, it is noteworthy for its potential to provide solutions in marginal and innovative scenarios.
4. ARforms
Unlike the freemium plugins we have looked at so far, which charge annually for additional features, ARForms comes at a one-off price of $37. With this comes a range of options including conditional logic, and file upload.
To process payments with ARForms, you will have to purchase add-ons for PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net, all of which are $16 each. Other add-ons you can purchase include Mailchimp, Signatures, and Digital Downloads, all of which range from $13 to $17.
ARForms has a backend drag and drop form builder. A standout feature of this plugin is the range of built-in design options it offers. There are template options for design, such as material design, as well as options to change colours and spacing visually.
If you like ARForms’ design options, and its add-ons provide the functionality you are looking for, this plugin is likely to be a good choice.
5. eForms
eForm is a premium form builder by WPQuark. This plugin is available on Codecanyon, and pricing starts at $29 for a regular license with 6 months of support.
eForm say “This is a complete form management solution, for quizzes, surveys, data collection, payment/cost estimation and user feedback of all kinds”.
As such, using this plugin will require more familiarity with website management and terminology, than previous plugins we have looked at in this article.
Perhaps most noteworthy of all when it comes to eForm, is that all of its features, including PayPal and Stripe integration, come included in the one-off price that you pay when you buy the plugin.
For this reason, eForm is perhaps the best value for money of all the payment processing form builders on this list.