# Sell digital products: courses, templates and e-books in the EU How to sell digital products from your own online store in the EU: courses, templates and e-books, VAT and OSS, the 14-day withdrawal rule and licences. Source: https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/digital-products-online-store · CloudCart · 2026-11-06 In short: digital products are courses, templates, e-books and other files the customer receives over the internet right after payment, with no warehouse and no courier. Across the EU, sales to consumers in other member states are taxed at the customer's VAT rate once your cross-border sales pass €10,000 a year, and the 14-day right of withdrawal ends at download only with the buyer's express consent. This guide from the CloudCart team is written for stores selling digital products anywhere in Europe. The legal rules come from EU law on EUR-Lex and the European Commission's pages, and the CloudCart steps follow our admin. National rules (VAT registration thresholds, reduced rates) differ per country, so confirm your own setup with your accountant. ## What digital products are and which types sell A digital product is anything the customer buys and receives as a file or as access to content, with no parcel. EU consumer law calls it "digital content" when it is supplied without a tangible medium: a download, a video, audio, software. A live course with a teacher counts as a service, so different VAT and withdrawal rules apply to it. The VAT column shows how EU VAT law classifies each type when you sell to a consumer. | Type | Examples | How the customer receives it | VAT treatment in the EU | | E-book | A PDF or EPUB guide, a recipe collection | A file to download | Electronic service; many countries allow a reduced rate | | Template | Canva template, budget spreadsheet, contract template, training plan | A file or archive to download | Electronic service, standard rate | | Recorded course | Video lessons, worksheets, automatically graded quizzes | Access to lesson pages for a set number of days | Electronic service, standard rate | | Live course or webinar | Zoom group, mentoring programme, teacher-led training | A link to the sessions plus materials | Educational service, taxed where the consumer lives | | Photos, music, presets | Stock photos, sound packs, photo editing presets, fonts | A file to download | Electronic service, standard rate | Products built around one specific task sell best: "a 4-week meal plan" sells more easily than "everything about nutrition". If you are choosing between a digital product and physical goods, the margin and capital comparison is in our guide to [ecommerce business models](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/ecommerce-business-models). ## Selling online courses: recorded, live or membership There are three working formats for selling courses online, and your choice decides the VAT treatment, the withdrawal rules and how much of your time each sale takes. A recorded course sells again and again without you. A live course carries a higher price, but every group needs your hours. - Recorded course. The lessons are ready and the customer watches them whenever they like. For VAT this is an electronically supplied service when the teaching is automated and needs limited or no human intervention (Annex I, point 5 of Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011 ). - Live course. A teacher delivers the sessions over the internet. Article 7(3)(j) of the same regulation excludes from electronic services the teaching where the content is delivered by a teacher over the internet. - Membership. The customer pays for access to a group of pages for 30, 90 or 365 days: new lessons each month, an archive, a community. They renew with a new purchase. In CloudCart a recorded course and a membership are built the same way: a digital product that unlocks selected pages for a set number of days. How to build tiers such as "Basic" and "Full" is covered in detail in our guide to [subscriptions and memberships in CloudCart](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/subscriptions-memberships). Important: upload lesson videos to a video service with restricted access and place the link on the lesson page. Store storage is 1 GB on Baby Pack and 3 GB on Starter Pack (see [CloudCart pricing](https://cloudcart.com/en/pricing), November 2026), and one hour of HD video can take more than 1 GB. ## How to sell a digital product in CloudCart, step by step In CloudCart you create a digital product from Products → Add product by choosing Digital product, on every plan from Baby Pack up. You pick one of two modes at creation, and after that the product is edited like any other in the [catalog](https://cloudcart.com/en/catalog): price, images, description, SEO. - Create the product. Products → Add product → Digital product. The mode is chosen once, at creation. - Choose the mode. Downloadable files ("E-book, PDF, images, audio files etc.") is for files. Landing pages ("Access to specified pages and exclusive content") is for courses and memberships and needs the Membership app: without it, the admin asks you to install it first. - Attach the file or pages. In the Product setup card, Select opens the file manager. One product takes up to 5 files; for more, upload a ZIP archive. With Landing pages you pick the course pages and fill in Access days . - Set price and description. State exactly what the customer gets: number of pages, format, lesson length, the programs that open the file, the licence. - Set the VAT rates. If e-books have a reduced rate in your country and you also sell other products, put e-books in their own category and add an exception for it (Settings → Taxes → the tax → Categories exceptions ). - Add the withdrawal consent. How and why is explained in the right of withdrawal section below. - Place a test order. Buy the product as a customer, open the email and download the file. That way you see exactly what the buyer sees. The product has no weight and creates no shipping label. A cart with only digital products can skip the shipping address: the cart setting Ask for shipping address for digital products decides this. A mixed cart (a printed book plus a PDF) always goes through shipping, and the carrier delivers only the physical item. > New store €1/month for the first 3 months on every plan Three months is enough to upload your first course or template, run ads and see real sales. Digital products are on every plan, and the offer is for new stores created through Dec 31, 2026. Create a store for €1 → ## How the customer receives the file after payment The customer receives the file by email with a download link as soon as the order is paid, and also finds it in their account in your store. The link is signed and tied to that specific order, so the email never contains a public address of the file. - Download email. It goes out for paid and completed orders even if you switched off notifications for that order, because the customer has paid for the file. - Customer account. After payment the order page leads to the files, or for a course to the pages with access. The customer keeps the purchase even if they delete the email. - Automatic fulfilment. An order with only digital products has nothing to pack: it is fulfilled the moment it is paid. - Online payment only. A digital-only cart does not show cash on delivery or payment in store. The customer pays online, for example by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through CloudCart Pay. If you also accept bank transfer, the file goes out only when you mark the order as paid, which is why card payment suits digital products best. > CloudCart Pay 0% transaction fee through Dec 31, 2026 With a digital product the customer pays by card and downloads the file in the same minute. With CloudCart Pay you pay no fee on any card payment until the end of 2026; from Jan 1, 2027 the rate is 1.29% + €0.05 for consumer cards from the EEA, excluding VAT. How CloudCart Pay works → ## EU VAT on digital products and the OSS scheme Digital products sold to consumers in the EU are electronically supplied services, and above a €10,000 yearly threshold they are taxed in the customer's country at that country's rate. E-books, templates, photos, music and software fall in this group under Article 7 and Annex I of [Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2011/282/oj/eng), which lists "the digitised content of books and other electronic publications" among them. ### When VAT is due in the customer's country The European Commission's [Your Europe page on cross-border VAT](https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-border-vat/index_en.htm) sets an EU-wide threshold of €10,000 for distance sales to consumers. While your sales of electronic services and distance sales of goods to consumers in other EU countries stay below it, you can charge the VAT of your own country. Above it, you charge the rate of each customer's country. Then you either register for the One Stop Shop (OSS) in your own country and file one quarterly return for all EU countries, or you register for VAT in each country separately. | Situation | Whose VAT | What you do | | Consumer in your own country | Your country's rate | A normal domestic sale; your national VAT registration threshold applies | | Consumers in other EU countries, total up to €10,000 a year | Your country's rate | Nothing extra | | Consumers in other EU countries, above €10,000 a year | The customer's country | OSS: one return and payment by the end of the month after each quarter | | Business in another EU country with a valid VAT number | Reverse charge by the customer | An invoice without VAT, stating the reverse charge | | Live online course for a consumer in another EU country | The customer's country, from Jan 1, 2025 | Speak to your accountant before the first sale | The last row is newer. Under [Council Directive (EU) 2022/542](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/542/oj/eng), from Jan 1, 2025 services related to educational and similar activities that are streamed or otherwise made virtually available to consumers are taxed where the consumer lives. The €10,000 threshold applies to electronic services, so a live course with customers from several countries needs a decision from the very first sale. ### Reduced VAT rate for e-books Since [Directive (EU) 2018/1713](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2018/1713/oj/eng), EU countries may apply the same reduced rate to e-books as to printed books. Excluded are publications wholly or predominantly devoted to advertising and those consisting wholly or predominantly of video or audible music. Each country decides whether and at what rate, so above the threshold you look up the e-book rate per customer country. Templates, photos, software and courses stay on the standard rate. The OSS return deadlines are April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31, according to the [European Commission's OSS guidance](https://vat-one-stop-shop.ec.europa.eu/one-stop-shop/declare-and-pay-oss_en), and they do not move when they fall on a weekend or holiday. Registration and setting the rates per country in the admin are covered in our guide to [OSS and EU VAT for cross-border sales](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/oss-eu-vat-cross-border-sales). ## Right of withdrawal for digital content: when the 14 days do not apply The customer loses the 14-day right of withdrawal for digital content once the download begins, but only if three conditions are met that you can prove. Under Article 16(m) of the [Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02011L0083-20220528) these are: the consumer's prior express consent to start performance within the withdrawal period, their acknowledgement that they thereby lose the right of withdrawal, and your confirmation on a durable medium (Article 8(7)). Without these three steps the customer can withdraw within 14 days of the contract and pays nothing for the file already downloaded (Article 14(4)(b) of the same directive). - Write the consent text. For example: "I agree that the digital content is supplied immediately after payment and I acknowledge that I thereby lose my right of withdrawal." - Make it a required checkbox at checkout. In the GDPR app create a policy with this text (Apps → GDPR → Policy) and attach it to the checkout form as required. The order cannot go through without the tick, and the acceptance log stores which customer accepted which text and when. - Confirm on a durable medium. Send the customer an email stating that they gave the consent, so the confirmation stays with them. - Repeat it in your terms. Describe the exception and which products it covers. What else your terms need is in our guide to terms and conditions for an online store . The GDPR checkbox shows on every order in the store, so with a mixed range say clearly that the exception applies only to digital content. A live course follows a different rule: the right of withdrawal ends only once the service is fully performed, and a customer who withdraws halfway pays in proportion to what was delivered. Important: under [Directive (EU) 2023/2673](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/2673/oj/eng), from June 19, 2026 stores that sell online must also offer a withdrawal function, labelled "withdraw from contract here" or similar, for the whole withdrawal period. How refunds and returns work is in our guide to [returns and consumer rights](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/returns-consumer-rights-online-store). ## Licence for templates, photos and courses: what to write The buyer of a digital product receives a right to use it, while the copyright stays with you. The licence states exactly what they may do with the file. Without one, a template buyer does not know whether they can use it for their clients, and you have nothing to point to when your course turns up in a file-sharing group. The licence is a short text in the product description and in your terms. Seven questions cover nearly every case: - Personal or commercial use. May the buyer use the template for their own business or for client projects? - Number of users. One licence is for one person, or for a team of up to 5. Sell a company licence as a separate, higher-priced product. - Resale and sharing. Selling, sharing or uploading the original file is forbidden, including inside other authors' courses and bundles. - Changes. May the buyer edit the template and sell the result, for example a finished poster made with it? - Term. A perpetual licence for files, or access for a set number of days for a course. - Updates. Does the buyer receive new versions of the template or new lessons? - Third-party photos and fonts. If the template contains someone else's photos or fonts, state their licence and check that yours lets you sell them inside a template. Two tiers work well for templates: "personal use" at a low price and "commercial use" at 2 to 3 times more. Create them as two separate products with clear names, so the order and the invoice show which licence was bought. ## How to price a digital product Each digital sale costs almost only the payment fee and advertising, because there is no cost of goods and no carrier. The example below is for an e-book priced at €12 including VAT, sold by a VAT-registered store at 50 sales a month on Baby Pack (€14/month billed annually, excluding VAT). We assume a 10% e-book rate for illustration (rates differ by country), the card fee at the CloudCart Pay rate from 2027, and €4 of advertising per sale. | Line | Sale from an ad | Sale from email or blog | | Price the customer pays | €12.00 | €12.00 | | VAT at an assumed 10% | −€1.09 | −€1.09 | | Card payment fee (1.29% + €0.05) | −€0.21 | −€0.21 | | Advertising per sale | −€4.00 | €0.00 | | Platform (€14 ÷ 50 sales) | −€0.28 | −€0.28 | | Shipping and packaging | €0.00 | €0.00 | | Left before income tax | €6.42 | €10.42 | The figures illustrate the calculation and are not market averages. More than half the price stays with you, and a sale without ads leaves over €10. That is why your email list and repeat purchases matter most with digital products: a second product for the same customer costs almost nothing in advertising. Three pricing rules work in almost every niche: - Price by result. A proposal template that saves 3 hours of work sells for more than "a 20-page PDF". - Bundle. Three related templates in one archive for the price of two raise the average order and cost nothing to deliver. - Ladder. A €12 e-book as the first purchase, a €99 recorded course and a €299 live group for those who want more. > 0% commission At €12 or at €299, CloudCart takes no percentage Course platforms often keep a percentage of every sale. In CloudCart you pay a fixed monthly plan, and the transaction fee is 0% on every plan, whatever your course costs. How 0% commission works → ## Common mistakes when selling digital products - A public link to the file. A PDF in a cloud folder shared with "anyone with the link" spreads within a day. Attach the file to the product so it goes out with a signed, order-specific link. - One rate for everything. Where your country applies a reduced rate to e-books, charging the standard rate means paying more VAT than you owe. - Checking the EU threshold once a year. €10,000 is the total for all other EU countries together, and you cross it mid-year. Check the figure every month. - A vague description. Before payment the customer must know the format, the size, the program needed to open it and the licence. > Store run by an AI assistant Descriptions and prices in one sentence Connect Claude Code, ChatGPT Codex, Gemini CLI or Cursor with a PAT token from the admin and write what you want in plain English. The assistant creates the products, writes the descriptions, sorts the categories and changes prices in your store. How the AI-run store works → ## Frequently asked questions **How do I sell digital products from my own website?** Create an online store, add the product as a digital product and attach the file or the pages with access. The customer pays by card and receives a download link by email. Before the first sale, add a required consent checkbox for the withdrawal exception and check your VAT rates. **Do I need to charge VAT on digital products sold in the EU?** Yes, if you are VAT-registered. Up to €10,000 a year in sales to consumers in other EU countries you charge your own country's VAT; above that, you charge the rate of each customer's country, usually through the OSS scheme. Sales to EU businesses with a valid VAT number fall under the reverse charge. **What is the VAT rate on e-books in the EU?** It depends on the country. Since Directive (EU) 2018/1713, member states may apply the same reduced rate to e-books as to printed books, but publications that are mainly advertising, video or music are excluded. Templates, courses and photos stay on the standard rate. **Can customers return a digital product in the EU?** As a rule yes, within 14 days of purchase. The right ends once the download has started, if the customer expressly agreed to that, acknowledged losing the right of withdrawal and received your confirmation by email (Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU). **Do I need OSS to sell online courses in the EU?** For recorded courses and files, OSS becomes relevant once your sales to consumers in other EU countries exceed €10,000 a year. Live online courses have been taxed in the customer's country since Jan 1, 2025, without that threshold. In both cases OSS saves you a VAT registration in every country. **How do I protect my course from being shared?** Give access for a set number of days and only to the buyer, instead of a public link. In CloudCart files go out with a signed link tied to the order, and lessons sit on pages that unlock after payment. State in the licence that sharing is forbidden. Have a question about digital products in your store? Write to us at [support@cloudcart.com](https://cloudcart.commailto:support@cloudcart.com).