How to sell digital services, commissions and coaching online

A digital service is work you do after the buyer pays: a commission, a setup, a coaching call, a review. Unlike a key or a download, nothing is delivered at the moment of payment, so the sale rests on trust and clarity. The buyer needs to know exactly what they’re getting and when, and you need the details to start without a week of back-and-forth. A good service checkout handles both.

What sells well as a digital service

Services work best when the result is specific and the buyer can’t easily do it themselves:

• Commissions: illustrations, emotes, overlays, logos, banners, custom music or edits.
• Setup services: configuring a Discord server, installing and setting up a plugin, building a store, migrating data.
• Coaching sessions: one-to-one calls, gameplay or portfolio reviews, lessons.
• Done-for-you work: audits, written reviews, video edits, copy.
• Retainers: a set amount of work each month for the same client.

Services also pair well with products you already sell. A plugin seller can offer paid installation. A template seller can offer customization. The buyer who just bought from you is the easiest service sale you’ll make.

Package a service so buyers can say yes

Open-ended offers (“message me for a quote”) lose buyers who don’t want to negotiate. Turn each service into a package with five things written down: what’s included, how many revisions, the delivery time, what you need from the buyer, and what costs extra.

Tiers make the choice easy. For an emote commission, for example:

Package	Includes	Good for
Single	One emote, two revisions	Trying you out
Set	A set of emotes in one style, two revisions each	A new channel or server
Full kit	Emotes, badges and a panel set, priority delivery	Launching or rebranding

Make each package an option on one product, each with its own price. For how to set the numbers, see how to price digital products.

Set up a service checkout

On ShopFast, a service is a product type in Products → Add product, with the same checkout and payment methods as everything else in your store. A few settings do most of the work:

• Checkout questions collect what you need before payment: a username, a reference link, a deadline, a time zone.
• The buyer message. Every product can send a message to its buyers. For services, use it for next steps: a booking link, an intake form, or how to send reference files.
• Order limits. Per-order and per-customer limits stop someone from buying ten coaching sessions by mistake or booking more of your time than you have.
• Tips and pay what you want. Checkout can take a tip for a commission, and a pay-what-you-want price suits work like portfolio reviews.

To try the whole flow before buyers do, run a test sale from Get started (getting started).

Deposits, milestones and large projects

Fixed packages suit small jobs. For larger work, split the payment so neither side carries all the risk:

• Deposit and balance. Sell a deposit as one product and the balance as a second, sent once the work is ready.
• Milestones. For long projects, one product per stage, each paid before that stage starts.
• Discount codes for returning clients or a bundle of sessions.

Every payment comes with an order record, and invoices are available for clients who need them for their books (invoices).

Sell coaching sessions

Coaching is time, so the product is a session, not an outcome. Say how long a session is, what happens in it, and what the buyer should prepare. Use the buyer message to send your booking link from whatever scheduling tool you use, so the buyer picks a slot right after paying.

For ongoing coaching, sell a membership with auto-renew on a saved card, with a set number of sessions or reviews each month (auto-renew). Add a Discord role so clients get a private channel between calls (selling Discord roles). See also how to sell subscriptions online.

Deliver the work and keep a record

Services are more exposed to disputes than keys, because there’s no automatic delivery record. Build your own:

• Keep the conversation in one place. Support tickets in your dashboard keep requests, replies and approvals together, instead of spread across apps.
• Confirm delivery in writing, with the date and what was handed over.
• Ask for a review once the work is done. A review left from a real order shows as a verified purchase.

If a buyer is unhappy, they can open a claim with Report a problem on their order page, and you have three days to reply. Refunds can be full or partial, to the payment method or as store credit. Chargebacks from Stripe and PayPal arrive with their evidence deadline, and your written records are your evidence (buyer protection, preventing chargebacks).

Rules to know before you sell services

• Refunds. Withdrawal rules for services in the EU and UK aren’t the same as for digital content. Read them before you promise no refunds (refund policy for digital products).
• Taxes. With your own gateway, tax on your sales is yours to handle (VAT on digital products).
• Other platforms’ terms. Services that require logging into a buyer’s game or social account often break that platform’s terms (can you sell game accounts?). Coaching and reviews done from your own account avoid that problem.