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I always get a big rush of motivation by reading income reports from other creators. In fact, reading an Etsy income report from a creator I followed on YouTube was the main reason I opened my first shop in 2020.
In this report, I will be sharing How Much I Made in 2022 Selling Digital Products through multiple income streams, alongside a brief summary of my history with the program, and the amount of work I put in for each.
What were my sources of income in 2022?
Anyone who follows me knows how often I pledge the importance of having diversified sources of income. In 2022, I had the following sources of income, purely selling digital products:
- 2 Etsy Stores
- Amazon KDP
- 2 Shopify Stores
- Merch By Amazon
- 3 Gumroad Shopfronts
- Digital Sales through Blog + Woocommerce
- Other Print on Demand sites (Redbubble, Society 6, Teespring)
I have an article detailing all the Equipment I use to run my digital product businesses, for anyone looking to start their journey.
It is important to clarify that Amazon KDP and Merch by Amazon, aren’t strictly ‘digital products’. Technically, they are ‘Print on Demand’ or POD. I do classify these products as digital products, as on my end I design and upload everything digitally. I do not need to worry personally about printing or shipping, and thus my part of the process is purely digital.
What software is needed to sell digital products online
You really only need a design software. However, there are thousands of tools out there that will help you speed up the process, build your business more quickly and improve your workflow.
SEE THE FULL LIST OF SOFTWARE I USE TO SELL MY DIGITAL PRODUCTSHow much did I make selling digital products on each platform?
Etsy Shop #1 – Planprintland
My first digital product shop on Etsy (Planprintland), which I share publicly, did a total of $82,053 AUD ($56,670 USD). This shop was very low on my priorities in 2022, with only 10-15 hours maximum spent on the shop each month. I am by no means the top seller – in fact, have a look at the top digital product shops on Etsy to see just how successful some shops are.
Most of this was maintenance work, rather than working on new digital product listings. This was a great source of passive income in 2022. Earnings did slowly decrease each month as I neglected this shop.
Had I maintained work on this store, I could have easily managed to earn a 6 figure income from this shop alone. If you are new here, I generally recommend Etsy as the best beginner platform to sell digital products, due to Etsy’s low upfront fee structure, leading to a high chance of your Etsy store to be profitable. This store also had a conversion rate of 3.4%, which is above average for Etsy stores.
Use this article if you want to know How to Start an Etsy shop.
Etsy Shop #2
I started my second Etsy store in January 2022 as a new year project. At this stage, I do not publicly share the name of this shop. In its first year, this shop earned $78,187 AUD ($54,007 USD).
To all you newcomers – I hope this proves to you that you can still earn money in 2023 and beyond by selling digital products on Etsy. This shop was my main focus for 2022, with the majority of my time spent creating new products and optimizing my store methodically.
The income in this shop has continued to grow into early 2023. I have written an article if you are wondering how much you can make selling digital products on Etsy.
Amazon KDP
In 2022, grossed $79,868 AUD ($55,097 USD). Amazon KDP was one of my first side hustles, which I started in 2019. This income includes a mixture of low-medium content books, as well as a small number of E-books. Despite very little work on KDP, my earnings continue to increase due to the amount of reviews on my products increasing over time.
Most of my time on Amazon KDP is spent maintaining ads and monitoring ad spend, with very little time spent creating new products. Competition has increased greatly on KDP since I started, and thus I feel my efforts making new products is better spent elsewhere. In Q4 I always put a lot more focus into KDP.
I use Publisher CHAMP for KDP analytics – It is a much better experience than the native KDP reports, and is well worth the cost!
Shopify Store #1 – Planprintland.com
Each of my Etsy stores also has an accompanying Shopify store. Similarly to my Planprintland Etsy shop, I spent very little time on this Shopify store. In fact, since the beginning this store has been nothing more than a backup in case something should go wrong with Etsy.
Even at the start of 2023, I still have only uploaded around 1/5th of my total digital products to this shop. I do no marketing to this store (besides having links on my social media and through Pinterest).
Despite this, my Planprintland Etsy store made $1772 AUD ($1222 USD) in 2022. Shopify was a very passive form of income – with a grand total of ONE customer messaging me for assistance in 2022 (compared to Planpritnland’s Etsys receiving 3-5 messages per day).
Almost all products had been uploaded prior to 2022. I intend to upload the rest of my Etsy products from Planprintland to this shop before the end of 2023!
Shopify Store #2
My second shopify store quickly and surprisingly surpassed my planprintland store, grossing $7509 AUD ($5180 USD) in 2022. I did spend time making sure all my digital products got uploaded as the same time they got uploaded on Etsy which definitely helped.
I also experimented with Google Ads on the higher ticket items. I also was lucky to receive a number of high-authority backlinks which really helped with my SEO.
Merch By Amazon
Merch by Amazon was my first online side hustle. I started in 2018, but abandoned working on it completely by 2021. In 2022, I did not spend a single second working on Merch by Amazon (no new products, no ads – nothing). Despite this, my account still made $919 AUD ($634 USD).
Gumroad
I currency have 3 Gumroad storefronts, which have mainly been used for experimentation. One of the problems with Gumroad (similar to shopify), is that you need to bring your own traffic.
Again, not much time was spent on Gumroad, with most of my traffic coming from old, established sources (including an automatic email email campaign linked to one of my other digital products). The breakdown for each shop is as follows:
- Shop 1: $277 AUD ($191 USD)
- Shop 2: $68 AUD ($47 USD)
- Shop 3: $567 AUD ($391 USD)
I have experimented with uploading my best selling Planprintland products to Gumroad, but abandoned this strategy after not receiving any organic sales.
Shops 2 and 3 are a great representation of the difference between low ticket and high ticket sales. Each had 14 sales. Shop 2 (low ticket) had a lot fewer views, but a much better conversion rate. As the products in shop 3 were more expensive (high ticket), the conversion rate was much lower, however the income was much greater.
Blog + Woocommerce
In 2022, I also started a blog on wordpress with a connected Woocommerce store. This was mainly an exercise for me to learn the ins and outs of wordpress, blogging, SEO and hosting my own shop. I spent a lot of my focus on this towards the back half of 2022.
My blog also came with some other sources of income – not related to digital products (Advertising revenue, affiliate commissions). Within this shop, I am selling a total of 4, high ticket digital products. The total revenue for just these digital products was $2019 AUD ($1393 USD), which is in my opinion Fantastic for a first year blog.
There was some experimentation with Google and Facebook ads to drive traffic to this shop, which ate up some of the total margins.
Other Print On Demand Websites
Back in my Merch by Amazon phase, I also uploaded my designs to a number of other sites. The ones which I am still making money off include Redbubble, Teespring and Society 6. In total, these three sites made me a grand total of $118 AUD ($81 USD). Not great, but also not bad for websites I haven’t touched or looked at in years.
Total income selling digital products in 2022
In total, my gross revenue for 2022 selling digital products was $253,357 AUD ($173,913)
What were my expenses selling digital products in 2022?
All my income streams are combined into one single business. For this reason it is quite difficult to attribute expenses to one single revenue stream. My overall expenses selling digital products in 2022 was $83,392 AUD ($57540 USD) which can be broken down into the following categories:
- KDP Ad spend: $21,388 AUD ($14757 USD)
- Etsy Spend (Sales fees, Listing fees, Sales Taxes, Marketing fees) $55,982 AUD ($38,627 USD)
- Software Spend: $1992 AUD ($1374 USD)
- Miscellaneous Digital purchases (Assets, subscriptions) $323 AUD ($222 USD)
- Domain names, web hosting (including shopify) $1832 AUD ($1264 USD)
- Google Ads: $1421 ($980 USD)
- Facebook Ads: $406 ($280 USD)
- Other Ads: $48 ($33 USD)
I could be a LOT better with my spending. I often find myself accidentally leaving unprofitable ads running for too long, spending money on software subscriptions I do not use, and purchasing things I end up forgetting about. For someone on a tighter budget, these costs can definitely be reduced!
It may also be frightening for beginners to see the fees on Etsy – however these are charged after sales. This means that you won’t be paying fees, if you aren’t making sales (making Etsy a great beginner platform!)
What was my net income selling digital products in 2022?
After spending, my net income selling digital products in 2022 was $169,965 AUD ($116,372 USD). I am very happy with this figure, given most of my focus was given to a new shop. As shown, much of this income was extremely passive.
2022 was a great year for me in digital product sales. It is clear that time + effort = rewards when maintaining and managing a wide range of digital product shops.