Selling digital products on Shopify in India (2026): apps, GST, gateways and the right plan

You can sell e-books, courses, presets and software on Shopify in India with the Basic plan (₹1,994/mo billed monthly, ₹1,499/mo yearly) and Shopify's free Digital Products app. Payments go through a third-party gateway like Razorpay or Cashfree, since Shopify Payments isn't available in India. GST treats downloads as a service, so register once you cross the ₹20 lakh threshold, or earlier if your gateway asks.

I'm Tanuj, a Shopify developer in New Delhi. Most of my work is physical D2C stores, but digital products come up more often than you'd think: a skincare brand selling a routine guide, a fashion label selling size-fit lookbooks, founders selling a course next to their main catalogue. The setup is simpler than a physical store. The money questions (which plan, which app, which gateway, what GST) are where people get stuck, so that's what this post covers. For the full plan-by-plan breakdown, my Shopify pricing in India hub has every number in one place.

What does it cost to sell digital products on Shopify in India?

Three bills: the Shopify plan, an app (often free), and payment fees on every order. Here's the platform side, from Shopify's India pricing page, checked October 2026:

New stores get "3 days free, then ₹20/month for 3 months." Prices on that page are shown without tax, so check your invoice for any GST added.

The fee column matters more for digital sellers than for physical brands. A physical D2C store in India often does a big share of orders as cash on delivery, and Shopify charges no third-party fee on manual payment methods like COD. Digital products are almost always prepaid (you can't cash-on-deliver a PDF), so every rupee you sell goes through a gateway and picks up Shopify's percentage plus the gateway's own fee.

You may also see a Starter plan at ₹399/mo on Shopify India pages. Shopify's Help Center says "The Starter plan isn't available to new stores," so don't plan around it. New Indian sellers start on Basic instead.

Which app should deliver the files?

For most stores, Shopify's own app. I'd only pay for an alternative if you need video streaming, PDF stamping or license keys.

Notes from the listings, all checked on the Shopify App Store in October 2026:

• Shopify Digital Products is built and supported by Shopify, rated 4.8 from 1,337 reviews. Per Shopify's Help Center, files can be up to 5 GB, you can attach several files per variant, and orders can fulfil automatically with unlimited or limited downloads. One catch worth knowing before launch: if you edit or delete a file, customers who already bought it lose access through their old link. Upload a new version as a new file and keep the old one until you've emailed past buyers.
• Sky Pilot is rated 4.8 from 420 reviews. The free plan gives 100 MB storage and 1 GB monthly bandwidth, which is fine for a few PDFs. Paid tiers come with 14-day trials and 17% off on annual billing. This is my pick for courses with video, because hosting video on Google Drive and linking it is how course content leaks.
• SendOwl is rated 3.4 from 91 reviews, and several reviews complain about price increases. Its Launch plan caps you at $10,000 in sales a year. For an Indian seller starting out, I can't see a reason to pick it over the first two.

App subscriptions are billed in USD on your Shopify invoice, so they move with the exchange rate.

Which payment gateway works for digital products?

Any of the major Indian gateways that integrate with Shopify. Two published rate cards, checked October 2026:

Cashfree is also running a 0% offer on the first ₹20 lakh for new merchants who sign up by 31 March 2027. Razorpay offers custom pricing above ₹5 lakh a month in volume. I compare gateways in more depth in Shopify payment gateways in India.

A worked example on a ₹999 course sold on Basic through Razorpay:

That 4.4% is before GST on the sale itself, if you're registered. On a digital product with almost no cost of goods it's fine, but it's worth knowing the real number. Gateways also review your website during onboarding. Before you apply, publish refund, delivery and contact pages that describe the digital product clearly. "Delivery" for a download means "instant email link," and saying so helps.

How does GST work for digital products sold from India?

I'm a developer, not a tax adviser, so take this as the map and get your CA to confirm the details for your product.

Digital downloads are a service under GST. The CBIC's own explainer on OIDAR (online information and database access or retrieval services) lists "provision of e-books, movie, music, software and other intangibles through telecommunication networks or internet" as examples, and gives "download of an e-book online for a payment" as a case of receiving OIDAR services.

The special OIDAR scheme is mostly about foreign sellers. The simplified registration (Form GST REG-10) exists so that suppliers outside India pay IGST when they sell to Indian consumers. If you're in India selling to buyers in India, CBIC says the normal place of supply rule applies: the location of the recipient. You charge GST like any other service supplier once you're registered.

Registration threshold. For service suppliers it's ₹20 lakh aggregate turnover in most states and ₹10 lakh in special category states. Plenty of sellers register earlier anyway, because some gateways and B2B buyers want a GSTIN.

Rates depend on classification. Most online content is taxed at the standard services rate, and e-books have had their own treatment over the years. This is the one place I won't quote a number. Ask your CA to confirm the SAC code and rate for exactly what you sell, then set that tax rate in Shopify under Settings, Taxes and duties.

Selling abroad. A sale counts as an export of services when you're in India, the buyer is outside India, the place of supply is outside India and you're paid in convertible foreign exchange (or in rupees where the RBI permits). That's the definition in section 2(6) of the IGST Act. Exports are zero rated, and exporters usually file a Letter of Undertaking so they don't pay IGST upfront and claim it back. If a big share of your buyers are overseas, read selling internationally from India with Shopify Markets too.

How do you set up a digital product on Shopify?

The steps I follow for clients:

1. Create the product as normal. Under Shipping, untick "This is a physical product" so checkout doesn't ask for an address.
2. Install Shopify Digital Products, open the product, and attach the file or a supported link (Google Drive, Notion, Vimeo, Canva and the others Shopify lists).
3. Choose automatic fulfilment with a download limit. I usually set 3 to 5 downloads, which covers a phone and a laptop without making the link easy to share.
4. Edit the order confirmation email so the download link is the first thing a buyer sees. Most "I didn't get my file" tickets come from people who never scrolled.
5. Connect your gateway and test with a real ₹1 product. Check the email arrives, the link works on mobile data, and the order shows as fulfilled.
6. Add a short FAQ to the product page: format, file size, what devices it works on, and your refund policy for digital goods.

If you sell digital and physical products together (a printed planner plus a PDF version, say), the Digital Products app can attach files to specific variants, so one product page handles both.

What I'd do

For a first digital product from an Indian brand: Basic on yearly billing, Shopify's free Digital Products app, Razorpay or Cashfree, and a CA call before your first sale to sort GST. Total platform cost is ₹1,499 a month plus around 4 to 4.5% in fees per order.

I'd move to Sky Pilot the day you sell video, and I wouldn't touch Grow until prepaid sales are past about ₹5.45 lakh a month. That's where the 1% fee saving covers the ₹5,453 difference in monthly price. The pricing hub has the crossover maths for every plan.

What usually goes wrong is the storefront. A digital product page has no photos of a physical thing to lean on, so the copy, previews and trust signals do all the selling. If you want that page built properly, or digital products added to an existing D2C store, tell me about the project and I'll come back with a fixed quote.

Related reads

• Shopify payments, COD and GST in India
• Shopify transaction fees in India, explained
• What a Shopify store actually costs per month in India

Sources

• Shopify India pricing (plan prices, trial, third-party fees)
• Shopify Help Center: Starter plan
• Shopify Help Center: manual payments
• Shopify Help Center: Digital Products app
• Shopify App Store: Shopify Digital Products
• Shopify App Store: Sky Pilot
• Shopify App Store: SendOwl
• Razorpay pricing
• Cashfree payment gateway charges
• CGST Act, section 22 (registration threshold)
• IGST Act, 2017 (section 2(6), export of services)
• CBIC sectoral booklet: exports under GST
• CBIC GST flier: OIDAR services