How to choose your first digital product: a simple selector

What makes this useful: A sourced EarnThread field guide written for creators turning attention into an owned business.

To choose your first digital product, match three things: the one problem your audience keeps asking you about, how many hours you can spend building, and how big that problem is. Small, urgent problems suit a template, checklist or short guide. Problems that need judgement suit a paid call. Long transformations suit a course, but only once you've proved people will pay. The selector below walks you through those choices in six steps, then helps you set a first price.

It's built for creators with a following and no product yet. If you want the thinking behind the framework, our guide on how to choose your first digital product covers it. This post is the practical tool.

What you need before you start

Have these three things open before you work through the steps:

• A list of 10–20 real questions from your DMs, comments, replies and calls. Copy them word for word.
• An honest weekly time budget. Count the hours you can spend building over the next two to four weeks, after you've made your normal content.
• Your audience numbers by channel. Where your followers are, and whether you already have an email list.

Set expectations, too. In Creator Spotlight's survey of 427 creators, nearly half earned below $500 in 2025 (opens in a new tab) from their creator work. Your first product is a test that teaches you what sells. Don't treat it as your income plan.

Step 1: Pick one problem from your audience's own words

Group your list of questions by theme and circle the theme that comes up most often. Then rewrite it as one sentence: "[Who] wants to [result] but is stuck on [obstacle]."

Say you're a hypothetical fitness creator on TikTok. Your sentence might read: "Busy parents want to train at home three times a week but don't know what to do in 30 minutes."

How to tell it worked: a follower could read the sentence and say "that's me." If it would fit any creator in your niche, narrow the "who" or the obstacle.

Step 2: Size the problem

Decide which of these three sizes your problem is:

• Small: the buyer needs a shortcut, a structure or a ready-made file. ("What do I post this week?")
• Personal: the answer depends on their situation, so they need your judgement. ("Is my portfolio good enough to apply?")
• Big: they need to learn a skill and change a habit over weeks. ("How do I learn to edit video?")

Teachable's guide makes the same point: an in-depth topic needs a longer, more in-depth type of digital product (opens in a new tab), while a narrow one fits a workbook or checklist.

How to tell it worked: you can say in one line what the buyer has once they've finished. If you can't, the problem is still too big for a first product.

Step 3: Run the digital product selector

Find your problem size and time budget in the table below, and you'll have your format.

The table leans towards small formats on purpose. Teachable notes that if you want to launch sooner rather than later, a checklist or template may be your best bet (opens in a new tab). Platform data points the same way: on Stan, digital downloads sold 2.2M units in 2025 (opens in a new tab), against 300K for courses and 236K for memberships.

Two tiebreakers if you're stuck between formats:

1. 01
   Your skills

   If you'd rather write than appear on camera, pick a PDF or template over a video course.

2. 02
   Your energy

   Calls pay quickly, but each one takes your time. If your diary's already full, choose a download.

Our guides on selling templates without becoming a commodity and launching a paid coaching call cover the two most common first picks in more detail.

How to tell it worked: you can describe the product in one line, such as "a 30-minute home workout plan for busy parents, as a 4-week PDF and tracker."

Step 4: Test demand before you build it

Post the one-line description and ask people to join a waitlist, reply with a keyword, or pre-order. Don't build anything yet. A free taster on the same topic works as well: if people take a lead magnet that builds an owned audience, they've given you their email and shown you they want more.

How to tell it worked: you set a threshold before you post, such as 20 waitlist sign-ups or 3 pre-orders, and you hit it. If you miss, go back to Step 1 and pick your second-most-asked question. Our guide to validating a creator offer before building it has more tests you can run.

Step 5: Price your digital product

Start from what the result is worth to your buyer, then check your price against real numbers. Here are Stan's average earnings per sale by product type in 2025 (State of the Creator Economy 2026 (opens in a new tab)):

These are averages across one platform's sellers, many of them more established than you, so don't copy them as your price. Use them to sanity-check your price. If you're charging $9 for a call, you're probably underpricing. A $300 PDF from a first-time seller will be hard to sell.

Watch the fixed fee at low prices, too. Stripe's standard US card rate is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction for domestic cards (opens in a new tab), with extra charges for international cards and currency conversion. On a $5 product, that works out to about 9% of the sale. On a $29 product, it's about 4%. Add your platform fee on top. On EarnThread, the free plan charges 5%, Growth costs $19/month with a 1% fee, and Scale costs $49/month with 0%. Our breakdown of creator platform fees shows how to add it all up.

For a fuller method, read how to price your first digital product.

How to tell it worked: you can explain the price in one sentence that refers to the result, not your effort. For example: "$29 for a plan that replaces a month of guessing."

Step 6: Publish it and track which post sold it

Put the product on a storefront page with the one-line promise, who it's for, what's included and how it's delivered. Then share it from the posts that drove your waitlist. Tag each link so you know which post, platform or campaign brought each sale. Next time, that tells you what to post more of.

How to tell it worked: after your first week, you can name the post that sold the most. That's the topic for your second product.

Your next step

Choose the smallest product that fully solves one problem your audience already asks you about, prove the demand, then price it on the result. Today, copy 10 audience questions into a note and circle the one that comes up most. Then create a free EarnThread account and set up a waitlist or lead magnet for it.