How do you sell digital planners?
·Founder, Stakk
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23 September 2026
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6 min read
You build a hyperlinked PDF, sell it as a download, and the buyer loads it into a note app on a tablet and writes on it with a stylus. Unlike a printable, it is never printed, so the two things that decide whether it works are the internal links between pages and the setup instructions you ship with it. Most refund requests in this category are not about the design. They are about a buyer who could not get the file into their app. Checked 13 September 2026.
A digital planner looks like a paper planner and behaves like a website. The buyer taps a tab down the side and jumps to March, taps a date and lands on that day's page, then handwrites on top of it. All of that is ordinary PDF link machinery, and none of it is visible in a preview image, which is why the listing has to say the planner is linked and the file has to prove it.
What is actually inside a digital planner file?
One PDF, with every page built at the same dimensions and a link layer on top.
The structure is usually a cover, a year overview, twelve monthly spreads, a weekly or daily section behind each month, and a set of extra pages such as notes, habit trackers, budgets and lists. Tabs run down the side or across the top of every page and are clickable on all of them, not just the cover. The dates on a monthly grid link forward to the matching daily page, and each daily page links back.
Two details separate a planner that feels finished from one that does not. Every page needs a way home, so a small home or index button on each page saves the buyer from scrolling through 400 pages. And the link targets have to be checked after export, because reordering pages in a design tool late in the build is the usual way a January tab ends up pointing at February.
Which format and page size should a digital planner be?
PDF is the format, and it is not really optional. Note apps on a tablet import PDFs, keep the internal links working, and let the buyer write on top without altering the page underneath.
Build it landscape rather than portrait, because a tablet is usually held landscape and a portrait planner leaves two grey bars on screen. Match the shape of common tablet screens rather than a paper size, so the page fills the display instead of floating in the middle of it.
Keep the file as light as the design allows. Every image you place gets carried in the export, and a planner padded with high-resolution photographs on 400 pages becomes a download that struggles on a phone and a file that lags when the buyer scrolls. Flat color, vector shapes and one texture go a long way here.
Export with the links active and then open the exported file yourself on a tablet before you list it. That is the only real test, and it takes ten minutes.
Does the buyer need a particular app to use it?
They need a note app that imports PDFs and supports handwriting, which on a tablet usually means something like GoodNotes, Notability or Xodo. The planner itself is app-agnostic, but the experience is not, and that gap is where support questions come from.
Say in the listing which apps you tested it in and on which device. Say that a stylus is expected. Say clearly whether the planner is usable on a phone, because someone will buy it for a phone and be disappointed.
The single most useful thing you can add is a first page inside the PDF titled how to load this, written for someone who has never done it: download the file, open it in the note app, then work inside the app rather than in the file viewer. A buyer who annotates in a plain PDF viewer and loses their writing will not blame the viewer.
What makes a $9 planner different from a $40 one?
Depth of linking and how much of the year is done for the buyer.
Dated versus undated. An undated planner has generic weeks and sells all year. A dated one has every real date in place, links built to match, and holidays marked. It costs a lot more to build and it expires, which is why it carries a higher price.
Number of linked sections. A $9 planner is often a single system, such as twelve months and a weekly spread. A $40 one bundles the planner with separate linked sections for finance, meals, fitness or a business, each with its own tabs.
What comes with it. Digital sticker packs as transparent PNG files, a couple of cover options, and a short walkthrough video are the three add-ons buyers value most, because all three remove work they would otherwise do themselves.
What does not raise the price is page count on its own. Four hundred unlinked pages is a worse product than eighty linked ones.
How does the file get to the buyer after checkout?
As an instant download on the confirmation page, repeated in an email, with no account to create. A digital planner is often bought on the same tablet it is going to live on, so the download has to work in a mobile browser and open cleanly into the note app from there.
The whole delivery chain for a digital planner. Every step after the payment happens on the buyer's device, which is why the setup page inside the PDF does more for your refund rate than the checkout does.
If you sell sticker packs alongside the planner, keep them in a separate zip rather than inside the planner PDF. Stickers need to be individual transparent PNG files the buyer can copy, and burying them in the planner makes them unusable.
Where should you sell a digital planner, and what does each place charge?
Marketplaces put you in front of people already shopping. Your own checkout puts you in front of people who found you some other way, which for planners is usually Pinterest or Instagram and a bio link that leads straight to a payment. The fee structures differ more than the percentages suggest.
| Where you sell | Monthly | Per sale | Card processing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etsy | None | $0.20 a listing plus 6.5% of the order | On top, rate varies by country |
| Gumroad | None | 10% + $0.50 | On top |
| Ko-fi Standard | None | 5% | On top |
| Ko-fi Gold | $12 | 0% | On top |
| Payhip free plan | None | 5% | On top |
| Stakk | None | 10% + $0.50 | Included |
| Systeme.io free plan | None | 0% | On top |
| Whop | None | 2.7% + $0.30 | Included in that rate |
Etsy's $0.20 is charged when you list, in its own words regardless of resulting sales, and again every four months when the listing expires and renews. A planner shop with one hero product and a few color variants feels that far less than a shop with a hundred listings, which is worth knowing before you split every cover into its own listing. Ko-fi's pricing page is unusually blunt about the other half of this: it does not process payments and never holds your money, a distinction the breakdown of who owns the Stripe account goes through properly.
When is Stakk not the right fit for a planner shop?
On price alone, we are beaten. Systeme.io runs a permanently free plan with no transaction fee, and Whop takes 2.7% + $0.30 with no monthly cost, both cheaper than our 10% + $0.50 at every price. If you already have traffic and just want the cheapest checkout, use one of those instead. Stakk is also wrong for a planner club: we have no subscription billing, so a dated planner delivered monthly on a recurring charge cannot be built here at all.
Where we earn the difference is the second product in the same sale. On Stakk the order bump sits on the checkout and rides the same charge as the planner, so the sticker pack carries one fee rather than starting a second payment, and the post-purchase upsell afterwards is one tap against the card on file. Both are on every account with nothing gated behind a tier, which is rare in a category where the free plans that do ship a checkout add-on usually stop short of the post-purchase half. The layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.
Want to sell your planner with the sticker pack attached?
Stakk is 10% + $0.50 a sale, card processing included, with no monthly fee and nothing to pay on a quiet month. Upload the PDF, price it anywhere from $1 to $999, attach the sticker pack as an order bump on the checkout, and the buyer gets both in one payment and one download email. The money lands in your own Stripe account rather than a balance we hold, and you can have the whole thing live in about ten minutes.