As you can probably guess by the name, Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a platform for selling digital downloads. EDD is a WordPress plugin — meaning you can add it to your WordPress website for storefront, ecommerce, and checkout functionality. All plans let you sell unlimited products and make unlimited sales, and you’ll pay annually for your license.

EDD is a good option if you are happy with your WordPress website setup and just want to add the ability to sell digital downloads.

Podia is an all-in-one platform for running your entire online business that includes your website, blog, landing pages, email marketing, affiliates, and the ability to sell digital products, courses, webinars, and coaching sessions.

Podia is a great choice if you want to run your full business under one roof without having to deal with website hosting, plugins, integrations, and complicated setups. All your products, courses, and customers are already connected so you don’t have to make a bunch of tools talk to each other, and you get access to everything for one straightforward monthly price.

To help you decide which one is right for you, let’s take a closer look at the details:

Plans and pricing for Podia vs. Easy Digital Downloads

With Easy Digital Downloads, you’ll pick your plan and pay annually. Because this is a plugin, you’ll also need to factor in the price of your website hosting, domain, and any other WordPress plugins or addons you’re using.

EDD paid plans:

• Personal: $199/year: Includes unlimited products and transactions as well as ecommerce features. You can use it on one website.

• Extended: $399/year: Includes subscriptions and advanced marketing tools (like product bundles, lead magnets, and multiple currencies). You can use it on one website.

• Professional: $599/year: Includes physical product sales, marketplace features, and software licensing. You can use it on two websites.

• All Access: $999/year: Includes customer messaging and advanced accounting features. You can use it on three websites.

Podia has a 30-day free trial with all features so you can test everything out before you pay anything. After the trial, you can choose from two pricing plans:

• Mover: $39/month and 5% transaction fee ($33/month when paid annually): Mover includes your website, blog, and sales pages as well as unlimited digital products, online course creation, and third-party code. You also get access to Podia’s friendly customer support.

• Shaker: $89/month and 0% transaction fee ($75/month when paid annually): Shaker includes all the Mover features plus your own affiliate program.

All Podia plans include all email marketing features (like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns) for up to 100 subscribers. If you like, you can upgrade your Podia Email plan to add more subscribers as your list grows.

If you sign up for a monthly annual Mover or Shaker plan, Podia includes a free migration service. This means our team will move your products and customers over from another platform (like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, etc.) for free so you can get started fast.

One nice thing about Podia’s pricing plans is that you know what you’re paying from day one. With EDD, you also have to factor in the price of other features and plugins for your WordPress site, which can balloon quickly as your business grows. But with Podia, everything you need is already connected and ready to go.

What kinds of products can I sell with Podia and EDD?

Both Podia and EDD come with unlimited digital products.

With EDD, you can sell subscriptions on the Extended plan and physical products on the Professional plan. You can accept payments with credit cards, debit cards, CashApp, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and PayPal Credit.

With Podia, you can sell:

• Self-paced, drip, live, and cohort online courses

• Digital downloads like ebooks, audio files, videos, and printables

• 1:1 coaching sessions

• Live webinars and replays

• Product bundles

All Podia products can be free or paid, and you can set up payment plans, add upsells at checkout, choose a custom start date, limit seats, and create product waitlists before your products are ready. You can also sell online courses and products that are integrated with Discord for online community access.

For your payment processor, you can connect Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, iDeal, SEPA Debit, and Stripe Link.

A custom website and blog for sharing your work

You put a lot of work into your digital products, and a website is a great way to help more people find them.

Easy Digital Downloads is a WordPress plugin, so you’ll need to use it with a WordPress website. This means you’ll need to find and pay for hosting, your domain, and any other themes or templates you’d like to use.

WordPress websites and blogs have lots of customization options, but also a notoriously steep learning curve. To use WordPress and any add-ons like EDD, it’s helpful if you have some coding knowledge or can work with a developer to make it look the way you want.

Podia comes with a customizable website builder and unlimited landing pages that you can set up in an afternoon. You can build a blog, set up sales pages, and create standalone pages for your link in bio or email newsletter sign-up in just a few clicks. You can also connect a custom domain or use a free Podia subdomain.

When you set up your site, you can choose from dozens of predesigned section templates. Image grids, FAQs, testimonials, featured products, bio sections, CTAs, and email opt-in forms all look great out of the box, and you can customize them to match your branding and style.

You can also embed interactive elements from +1900 sources around the web (like YouTube videos, podcasts, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.) and customize your fonts, colors, and website spacing. Podia websites also come with customer chat messaging so students and prospective buyers can contact you. (You need an extra plugin to get that feature in WordPress.)

What’s the right fit for my business?

Both Podia and Easy Digital Downloads make it possible to sell digital products online. Easy Digital Downloads is better suited for people who like using WordPress and want to add product functionality to their WordPress website or blog.

Podia is a better fit for entrepreneurs and small business owners who want an all-in-one platform for running their online business that includes a website, blog, all digital products, a course platform, email marketing, affiliates, and customer messaging in one place.

You can try Podia free for 30 days. We can’t wait to see what you make.