Sellfy Review

Sellfy Review: Features, Pricing, Pros and Cons

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By Ewen Finser

Last Updated on December 8, 2023 by Ewen Finser

Sellfy Review Verdict:

If you need to get a store setup FAST, Sellfy is the easiest and most simple tool I’ve tried. While it doesn’t have some of the advanced features of incumbents like Shopify, it also doesn’t have the steep learning curve or higher annual costs. The generous 14-day free trial (no credit card required) is also an excellent way to test it out.

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Way before you even considered checking out an expert Sellfy review, you probably thought of trying out at least one Hall of Famer. I’m talking about the likes of ShopifyWooCommerceMagentoand BigCartel, which are widely recognized as the best of the best when it comes it comes to e-commerce platforms.  

Well, good for them. But, there’s another side to the story… 

Although most of these dominant platforms we’ve mentioned are extensively flexible, it turns out they might not be suitable for every single online merchant. Some sellers would prefer a much simpler approach. So, they tend to go for small but specialized platforms like SamCart, ThriveCart, Cratejoy, and now, Sellfy.  

Yes, that’s right. Sellfy is now a prominent contender in the e-commerce platform space alongside Shopify and the rest.  

However, unlike the latter, it doesn’t try to handle everything. Instead, Sellfy tends to focus more on digital products. It’s the type of platform you’d consider if you’re thinking about selling downloadable files.  

But, here’s the thing. Sellfy is certainly not the first platform to specialize in that. We’ve tried out quite a number of alternatives already. And to be honest, some of them have proven to be exceptionally good.  

So, here’s the big question- Is Sellfy capable of outdoing them? Are there any specific features that would make you consider Sellfy and ignore the rest?  

Well, that’s precisely what this Sellfy review piece is all about. It explores not only the main features but also all the accompanying weaknesses you should expect on the platform. Therefore, at the end of it all, you should be able to make an informed decision about the whole thing – proceed with Sellfy or drop it altogether?  

Sellfy Review – Overview 

Sellfy, to begin with, is no ordinary e-commerce platform. It’s a system that fundamentally offers tools for selling digital stuff like ebooks, music, videos, artwork, etc. That means it targets creatives like designers, filmmakers, writers, musicians, painters, and artists.  

Ok, that might sound like a pretty limited volume of vendors. But, interestingly, Sellfy has managed to attract more than 300,000 users in just 8 years.  

Yes, that’s right. The platform was started in 2011, and it has since grown quite extensively as a simple storefront solution. You can leverage it for setting up and running a custom storefront, on which you can manage and market your products, as well as process orders, payments, and downloads.  

sellfy home page

On its main site, the Sellfy program claims it can help you get your store up and running in five minutes with their website builder. Or in other words, assist you to create and completely customize a fully-fledged e-commerce website in 5 minutes.  

That’s a bold claim, I must admit. But then again, it starts to make sense when you learn about Sellfy’s simple ecommerce website software tools.  

As a matter of fact, “simple” basically sums up Sellfy’s selling point. It attempts to offer the quickest and simplest way to manage and sell digital stuff on the web.  

Don’t get me wrong though. Your storefront doesn’t necessarily have to be a website. It just so happens that Sellfy allows you to alternatively set up a storefront on third-party platforms like social media. The trick here is to simply embed a buy button for your items and voila!  

When it comes to a payment option, Sellfy integrates processors to handle online transactions and instant payouts. But, that’s not all. The platform goes ahead and supports several other integrations, 750 of which are facilitated by the link it shared with Zapier.  

Now, if you’ve heard about Sellfy’s marketplace, you might be wondering why we are yet to talk about it. Well, the truth of the matter is, there’s actually nothing to talk about. Sellfy scrapped its marketplace back in 2017 to focus entirely on supporting individual stores.  

The platform is now recognized as an all-in-one solution for creating online stores, handling digital goods, processing payments, facilitating product deliveries, and marketing items, among other functions. So, in a way, Sellfy is not just about setting up businesses, but also building and growing them.  

Sellfy Review – Main Features 

Ease of Use 

Thankfully, you don’t have to pay anything to get started on Sellfy. It offers a 14-day free trial period to help you try out its features without submitting your credit card information.  

Well, the signup process is pretty straightforward and it should direct you to Sellfy’s onboarding guide, which comes in the form of a 7-part checklist. The point here is to guide you through the basics of creating and customizing an online store, as well as managing plus selling your digital products.  

In essence, the entire onboarding process takes about two minutes or so. And just like that, even beginners who’ve never worked with an e-commerce platform before should be able to proceed accordingly.  

Speaking of which, managing your store is not a problem at all. Sellfy has designed its dashboard to provide a favourable balance between simplicity and functionality. As a result, you’ll notice the system is not only refreshingly simple and well-organized but also fairly intuitive.  

sellfy products

Right on the Home menu, for instance, is the principal overview section, which provides access to all the critical tracking functions. You can easily toggle between Analytics, Orders, Subscriptions, and Customers for quick insights into your overall business health.  

Then next to that is the Products area, from where you can easily add and manage your items. Sellfy even goes ahead and allows you to share the products freely on social media through a click of a button.  

And speaking of buttons, it doesn’t take much to extend your sales potential. You can proceed to embed Sellfy’s Buy button on third-party websites (e.g. your own website), including social media platforms like Facebook and Youtube. That would be a thoughtful way of converting your current social media followers and audiences into customers.  

Customizing Your Online Store 

The default Sellfy storefront is clean, simple, and organized. You can jump right into the customization process and start editing the layout as well as its content. Apart from adjusting the layout’s colour schemes, Sellfy allows you to work on the header, buttons, logo, page style, etc. Just the basic stuff.  

Sellfy storefront editor

Sadly, you don’t get advanced customization capabilities. I guess that would, in the end, compromise Sellfy’s fundamental goal of keeping everything simple. The farthest you can go here is adding your social media profiles and probably editing the accompanying store pages.  

Yes, that’s right. Sellfy’s Storefront comes with the standard web pages you’d find on a basic online store. The default pages include Contact, Terms, and About.  

Customizing any of them is as easy as clicking on the page and then configuring the corresponding layout options. You can even choose to change the pages or eliminate them altogether.  

You’ll find such options on the Store Settings menu. They provide a host of configurations for tweaking general settings, tax variables, product categories, store pages, embed buttons, and transaction processing gateways.   

That said, you might want to bring in third-party apps to enhance your online selling functionalities. Sellfy happens to support a range of decent integrations.  

Google Analytics, for instance, comes in handy for tracking your traffic numbers and sources. Twitter Ads Conversation Tracking, on the other hand, suits businesses that sell via Twitter. Then when it comes to customer engagement, you can proceed to integrate tools like Facebook Live Chat.  

All in all, the most important integration here is Zapier since it essentially provides access to hundreds of other possible app integrations.  

Embedding Products 

Sellfy makes it easy for online merchants to set up a dynamic selling framework made up of multiple holistically-connected channels. You’re free to sell directly from your blog, SoundCloud page, YouTube channel, or any other third-party platform you can think of. And that alone translates to unlimited growth potential.  

Now, to save you the cumbersome process of coding the integrations, Sellfy offers you three pre-built templates. You can embed your products through either its Store View, Product Card, or a Buy Button. Whichever you choose, Sellfy will generate a relevant code to place on third-party platforms.

sellfy embed code generator

All in all, the Buy Button is particularly handy because it simply provides a shopping cart that shoppers can use conveniently. Hence, a much faster conversion and checkout process.  

Product Management 

Sellfy has one of the simplest product management systems we’ve seen so far. The interface is pretty straightforward and its accompanying functions are all self-explanatory. So, of course, you won’t need any guidance here.  

Now, when you try to upload your digital items, you’ll notice that Sellfy comes with the same old physical product structure we’re used to. It essentially allows you to specify not only the item name but also the corresponding description and product price. Plus, you can also introduce a descriptive image for a more intuitive product page.  

Sellfy product preview

And while you’re at it, you might want to include your main product keywords in the product description sections. This will subsequently optimize your sales pages for search engines.  

Now, if you’re dealing with an extensive collection of products, you’ll be pleased that Sellfy doesn’t limit the number of items you sell. Even its entry-level subscribers are free to upload as many products as they want.  

But, get this. For an online store with numerous items, it’s always a good idea to group and arrange everything according to their product categories. 

Luckily, Sellfy has a simple but handy product category feature that can help you organize each item accordingly. The categories here accommodate all sorts of digital products, including books, videos, photos, subscriptions, etc.  

And as you enter the product category names, you should consider pairing each one with a matching slug for SEO purposes. A category like “Cooking Books”, for instance, should have “Cooking-Books” as the corresponding slug. The point here is to get Google to notice your products and perhaps direct solid leads straight from its search results pages.  

Then when traffic starts trickling in, you could leverage Sellfy’s “Pay What You Want” feature for increased conversion rates. And in case you’re wondering, this function does exactly that. It basically gives your customers the privilege to determine their purchase prices based on what they can afford. 

I guess that would be a good way to promote your products as you start off. It could help you hit the ground running and perhaps even win yourself loyal customers right off the bat.  

Well, if you want, you also could maintain “Pay What You Want” permanently. Although that would sound like a risky proposition, we’ve seen a fair deal of businesses doing well with such a model over the long haul.  

Sellfy order history

Come to think of it though, I’d say subscription-based businesses are the best when it comes to “Pay What You Want”. You get to keep a customer for a prolonged period of time by simply allowing them to choose a fair rate.  

And that shouldn’t be a problem at all on Sellfy since it provides the basic tools you’d need to create and sell subscriptions. 

You can, for example, choose between annual, monthly, and daily subscription billing systems. Sellfy will then proceed to automatically renew your customers’ memberships on a recurrent basis.  

Well, you can now compare these subscription capabilities with what you get from, say Shopify or BigCommerce. Which one do you think you’d pick?  

If you’ve read our Shopify vs Cratejoy review, then I bet you’d possibly choose Sellfy over Shopify. While the latter can accommodate subscription products, this option doesn’t come on the default package. You have to purchase an extra add-on to sell subscriptions.   

However, it would be a completely different story if we considered Sellfy vs Cratejoy instead. But, since there are many factors to assess when it comes to that, I guess we’ll rather cover the whole thing in its own review piece.  

Whichever way you look at these two though, one thing you can expect Sellfy to excel in is balancing between flexibility and simplicity. You can easily use it to sell all types of digital product subscriptions. Plus, it grants you the privilege of configuring parameters like subscription pricing, time period, product preview, category, description, and name.  

Marketing and Promotion Tools 

Ok, I must admit that at first, I didn’t expect to find any outstanding marketing tools on Sellfy. Most of its competitors offer just the standard social media sharing functionalities along with typical SEO tweaks.   

Sellfy, however, takes it up a notch by including email marketing capabilities, as well as product discounts, plus promo coupons. And if you’d like to encourage your customers to spend more, there’s even the option of using upsells. 

That said, it turns out you can configure your emails to automatically target specific groups of customers. Sellfy gives you the power to segment your customers or contacts based on parameters like product categories, subscription status, and purchases. That should make it easy for you to prompt repeat purchases by simply engaging customers on what they like.  

Send an email to your fans

Then to drive customer loyalty, you might want to supplement that with discount offers. Sellfy’s discounts come in the form of codes, which you can set at any time after selecting a product and specifying the corresponding discount amount, plus the date of expiry.  

Ultimately, you can rely on the system to automatically apply your precise discount rules immediately customers enter their codes.  

And you know what? Sellfy’s discounts can also be cleverly used in upsells to encourage customers to buy more stuff. 

Now, for clarity’s sake, upsells are special offers that come in the form of complementary product suggestions. Or in short, you get to advise a customer about additional items they could purchase to supplement stuff they already have in their cart.  

And to help you run effective upsell campaigns for your digital products, Sellfy gives you the freedom to not only name your campaigns, but also choose the accompanying items, as well as define the dates of expiry, discount percentages, plus the display messages.  

A compelling call to action here could go a long way towards boosting your average income per sale. So yes, it really is that simple.  

Getting Paid 

So far, Sellfy avails only two payment processors- PayPal and Stripe.  

While you’d perhaps prefer more options, a PayPal account and Stripe alone should work just fine because they happen to be two of the most extensively networked payment gateways in the world. Each of them boasts of building a global footprint that supports merchant accounts in numerous countries.  

Sellfy Checkout

However, if you compared the two, PayPal turns out to be the more dominant option because its coverage extends beyond 100 countries. Stripe, on the other hand, has only pitched camp in 24 countries.  

That notwithstanding, you should be able to process payments from customers worldwide. Both PayPal and Stripe provide instant but secure digital payment gateways for all the major credit and debit cards. Your customers’ card information will be adequately secured through encryption.  

It’s not all good news though. Because as it turns out, the process of integrating these payment processors is not as straightforward as you might assume. Instead of providing the payment gateways as apps, Sellfy requires you to copy PayPal’s or Stripe’s API code and then paste it into your Sellfy account.  

Security 

As we’ve established already, you can rely on PayPal and Stripe to secure your customers’ payment details through encryption.  

While that would be good enough for most people, Sellfy goes ahead and does its part to maintain a completely secure environment. More specifically, it combines SSL encryption with PCI DSS compliance, among other reliable security measures.  

One of the most notable ones is file download tracking, which is pretty effective at preventing unauthorized distribution of digital products. Sellfy manages to control file access by sending a special download link to the original buyer and then restricting the number of download instances to just five. Beyond that, any additional download attempt is blocked automatically.  

Sellfy Review – Target Users 

All things considered, Sellfy was seemingly developed for online merchants who’d like to sell digital products or membership subscriptions. And the good thing is, you don’t need an e-commerce site.  

You can proceed to leverage Sellfy for the long haul without ever creating your own website. All it takes is simply embedding Sellfy’s shopping cart templates onto third-party sites and voila!  

That said, the digital stuff we’re talking about here is not limited. You can use Sellfy to sell any downloadable file- software, videos, audio files, books, documents, Zip files, images, you name it.  

The subscriptions, on the other hand, can be configured to renew on an annual, monthly, or weekly basis. Sellfy will go ahead and facilitate the corresponding payments.  

Now, overall, the one thing that sets Sellfy apart from the rest is its extremely simple approach to online selling. The entire framework here offers simple easy-to-use tools for building and managing online businesses without any technical skills.  

In essence, you only need a couple of minutes to create and customize an online store with Sellfy. That means even beginners should be able to hit the ground running on this platform.   

Sellfy Review – Pricing 

The good thing about Sellfy’s overall pricing is, there are no transactional fees or hidden costs. So, what you see is what you get over the long haul.  

The only transaction fee you’re bound to pay here are the standard charges levied by PayPal and Stripe. That translates to about 2.9% + 30¢ for every single transaction.  

Well, the unfortunate bit is that you won’t find a free package on Sellfy. While it’s understandable that maintaining the platform’s resources costs the company money, I bet they’d afford to provide a free package with limited features.  

Or instead, possibly offer a reasonably long free trial period. 14 days seems like a very short time frame for anyone who’d like to get a good feel of the platform’s features.  

That notwithstanding, I’d say the prices here are pretty fair. The most you could pay for the entry-level plan is $29 while high volume sellers making over $200,000 annually are charged slightly above $130 for their custom packages. The intermediate package, on the other hand, charges businesses making up to $50,000 annually about $59 per month.  

But guess what? You don’t have to pay any of that. It’s possible to reduce your subscription costs by 34% through Sellfy’s yearly billing option.  

Therefore, the Starter plan goes down to about $19 per month, while the Business plan drops to $39 per month, and then the Premium plan applies a Sellfy discount of $40 to sell at $89 per month.  

Here are their respective feature details:  

Sellfy pricing table

Starter Plan – $29 per month when billed monthly or $19 per month when billed annually 

  • Zero transaction fee add-ons by Sellfy 
  • Sell via both PayPal and Stripe 
  • Sell instantly on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social network. 
  • Download tracking and restriction tools 
  • Automatically add buyer’s email address to every page of your PDF product file 
  • See top sales locations 
  • Analyze traffic channels 
  • Track the best performing products 
  • Add Facebook and Twitter ad pixels 
  • Shopping cart 
  • Optimized for both desktop and mobile 
  • Embeddable buy now buttons 
  • Sell physical, digital products and subscriptions 
  • YouTube end screens and cards 
  • Custom domain 
  • Discount codes 
  • Store customization 
  • Unlimited products 
  • Up to $10,000 in sales per year 

Business Plan – $59 per month when billed monthly or $39 per month when billed annually 

  • Product upselling 
  • 10,000 email credits per month 
  • Zero transaction fees by Sellfy 
  • Sell via both PayPal and Stripe 
  • Sell instantly on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social network. 
  • Download tracking and restriction tools 
  • Automatically add buyer’s email address to every page of your PDF product file 
  • See top sales locations 
  • Analyze traffic channels 
  • Track the best performing products 
  • Add Facebook and Twitter ad pixels 
  • Shopping cart 
  • Optimized for both desktop and mobile 
  • Embeddable buy now buttons 
  • Sell physical, digital products and subscriptions 
  • YouTube end screens and cards 
  • Custom domain 
  • Discount codes 
  • Store customization 
  • Unlimited products 
  • Up to $50,000 in sales per year 

Premium Plan – $129 per month when billed monthly or $89 per month when billed annually 

  • Free site migration 
  • Priority customer support / customer service
  • Product upselling 
  • 50,000 email credits per month 
  • Zero transaction fees by Sellfy 
  • Sell via both PayPal and Stripe 
  • Sell instantly on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social network. 
  • Download tracking and restriction tools 
  • Automatically add buyer’s email address to every page of your PDF product file 
  • See top sales locations 
  • Analyze traffic channels 
  • Track the best performing products 
  • Add Facebook and Twitter ad pixels 
  • Shopping cart 
  • Optimized for both desktop and mobile 
  • Embeddable buy now buttons 
  • Sell physical, digital products and subscriptions 
  • YouTube end screens and cards 
  • Custom domain 
  • Discount codes 
  • Store customization 
  • Unlimited products 
  • Up to $200,000 in sales per year 

Conclusion – Pros and Cons of Using Sellfy 

Sellfy Platform Pros 

  • Sellfy offers a 14-day free trial period without requesting your credit card information.  
  • You can process online payments in more than 20 different currencies. 
  • Sellfy integrates with Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Facebook Live Chat, Zapier, and Twitter Ads Conversion Tracking. 
  • Payment information is adequately secured through SSL encryption and PCI DSS compliance. 
  • Sellfy supports both PayPal and Stripe payment processors.  
  • You can boost your sales volume by taking advantage of Sellfy’s upselling, cross-selling, and discount tools.  
  • Sellfy comes with tracking and analytics capabilities for accurate insights. 
  • The platform provides decent email marketing tools.  
  • The default Sellfy system is SEO-friendly and mobile-responsive.  
  • It’s possible to set up a fully-fledged online store without a custom domain name.  
  • Sellfy allows you to embed your online store onto third-party platforms.  
  • You can proceed to sell without a your own website.  
  • Sellfy accommodates an unlimited number of products. 
  • The platform is optimized for selling digital items (digital download or access) and membership subscriptions.  
  • The whole interface is neat, well-organized, and refreshingly simple to use.  

Sellfy Store Cons 

  • The number of app integrations is very limited.  
  • Sellfy supports only two payment processors.  
  • Your website customization capabilities are extremely restricted.  
  • The free trial period lasts for only two weeks, after which you’re required to purchase one of the premium plans.  
  • Sellfy does not provide tools for setting up and managing affiliate programs.  

Now, over to you. How many stars would you rate Sellfy based on our review?  

Would you consider the platform a hit or miss? 

And for the digital merchants who’ve had the chance to try out Sellfy, how was your experience?  

Our Verdict: If you need to get a store setup FAST, Sellfy is the easiest tool I’ve tried. While it doesn’t have some of the advanced features of incumbents like Shopify, it also doesn’t have the steep learning curve or higher annual costs. The generous 14-day free trial (no credit card required) is also an excellent way to test it out.

Feel free to share your thoughts in our comments section and let us know what you think about the Sellfy e-commerce platform. 

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