I’m excited to introduce RT Digital Downloads, a complete suite designed specifically for RapidWeaver Elements that transforms your project into an automated, self-hosted sales ecosystem.
RT Digital Downloads is the ultimate suite for selling digital files (e-books, software, music, templates, courses) with total independence. Manage secure payments via Stripe and PayPal without the headache of configuring complex MySQL databases, thanks to an ultra-lightweight, secure JSON flat-file architecture compatible with any hosting provider.
If you are tired of paying monthly subscriptions or giving up a percentage of your sales to third-party platforms, this is for you. You keep 100% of your profits, and everything runs directly on your own server.
Buy Button (for Checkout): Secure, asynchronous checkout connected directly to payment APIs (both Stripe and PayPal, and also a Test Mode for simulations).
Download Button (for Delivery): Delivers encrypted, time-limited links only after foolproof server-to-server payment verification.
Order Dashboard (for Back-Office): A protected console generated right on your server to track sales charts, manage/revoke links, and create manual orders.
Key Features:
Integrated Stripe Webhooks & PayPal IPN: Maximum anti-fraud security. No files are released until the gateway confirms the actual payment.
Automated Emails: Instantly send links and receipts. Includes 10 ready-to-use templates, but you can also use a free Online Generator (direct link here), to customize them.
Self-Healing Diagnostics: A built-in “System Check” tool automatically detects and fixes file permission issues on your server.
100% Customizable Design: Use native RW Elements controls to perfectly match the e-commerce experience with your brand.
Stop depending on third-party platforms. Take control of your digital products and start monetizing today!
I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any questions you might have about the setup.
Cheers!
Thanks - how do you cope with the complicated EU tax system in which tax has to be paid in the country the customer is residing (and where you might need a tax account in each country you sell to)? Is this something Stripe takes care of?
RT Digital Downloads focuses on selling and delivering digital products, leaving tax management to your payment gateway (Stripe or PayPal). This approach gives you two important advantages:
Freedom of choice: You can configure Stripe in whatever way you prefer for handling EU VAT
100% Customization: The design and sales flow are completely customizable to fit your specific business model
In practice, RT Digital Downloads handles:
Secure checkout with Stripe/PayPal
Payment-to-server verification before delivery
Automatic delivery of encrypted links
Dashboard for sales tracking
While Stripe (or PayPal) handles:
Taxation and VAT
Financial reports
Payment security
For multi-country EU VAT, the most common solution is to configure Stripe with OSSOH (Over One Stop Shop): set your country’s VAT in the price, and declare the differential VAT quarterly via the EU OSSOH portal.
The component is external and independent to any Stripe configuration you want to use!
Right now, the best workflow for multi-file products (like a PDF + ePub bundle) is to bundle them into a single .zip file. It keeps the checkout and delivery process incredibly fast and secure. It not only keeps your server architecture ultra-lightweight (as it only needs to secure and track a single download link per purchase), but it also provides a much cleaner experience for your customers, who can download everything with just one click instead of managing multiple separate downloads.
However, native multi-file support is a fantastic feature request, and I’m adding it straight to the development roadmap. So, thanks for the input!
Hi @dan Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kindly words. I spent a lot of time making sure it integrates seamlessly with Elements, and I can’t wait to see what people build (and sell) with it. Ready for any feedback!
Using .ZIP files doesn’t work, and hasn’t for some time. That’s because a lot of book requests are coming from mobile (which is also the reason why I do both PDF and ePub). Most mobile users have a hard enough time getting things into the right place (e.g. moving a downloaded PDF to Books via Share), so trying to work them through unzipping and all that entails on their phone is out of the question.
The other thing that your product doesn’t do that I need is deal with updates. Some of my older products are now frozen, but recent ones have gone through as many as 10 updates (including my Little Book of Elements CMS). There needs to be a way to push updates out, both as freebies, as well as coupons for special update price.
If I’m reading your docs correctly, the final “customer maintenance” aspect is already supported: that’s when someone emails me and says they lost the file, or their computer blew up and they didn’t keep a backup, etc. I gather I can push a refresh of their link from the server.
Finally, those of us who provide products without copy protection prefer to have limits to the number of downloads and/or the time in which it can be downloaded.
Good luck with the product. But in current form I can’t use it.
I’ve been around this community long enough to know that this is the first time I’ve seen someone succeed at something like this. Others have tried in the past, but without success. Element is a growing community, and having a product of this caliber at this stage is uncommon. This is one of those cases where, understandably, users don’t know how much work goes into a product like this.
So the smartest thing, at least for me, is to support the developer by purchasing the product, hoping that my contribution, along with that of others, will help provide all the features it can offer.
Actually, I’m not just impressed with the work that went into it, but that it seems to be very reasonably well documented, including how to hook up the payment services and test them.
Thank you so much for your detailed feedback! I really appreciate your review of the component’s features. Let me clarify a few points regarding how RT Digital Downloads works, which already does some of the things you need.
Regarding .ZIP files, the component allows the use of .ZIP files, just like any other file type. This is why I recommend using them if you want to use a digital delivery system for a fee. The assessment of the difficulties mobile users might encounter depends on their skills. Generally, less experienced users tend to use their PCs for purchases rather than their smartphones, but this is just a statistic.
However, a clarification is needed:
RT Digital Downloads is a digital delivery system: it allows you to sell a specific digital product (essentially a file) linked to a secure purchase transaction, without forcing the user to create an account (a choice that typically increases cart abandonment rates).
What you describe for continuous updates (e.g., 10 releases of the same book) is perhaps closer to a Membership/Reserved Area system, where the user logs in and accesses their purchase history. I will obviously evaluate the possible expansion of RT Digital Downloads to include a membership system, possibly for inclusion in the development roadmap.
Time and Download Limits: The time limit is already integrated. From within the RapidWeaver Elements inspector, you can set the number of hours each Buy Button will be valid. The generated links then become temporary. The download limit will be implemented in future versions.
Link re-send: You’ve read the documentation very well! When someone writes in saying they’ve lost a file, from the Orders Dashboard you can regenerate, extend, and then resend a download link with a simple click. A new email will be sent with the download link.
Thank you so much for your incredible support and words of appreciation!
It means a lot for me. You hit the nail on the head: building a secure, database-free ecosystem with server-to-server verification took an immense amount of development and testing to ensure it works flawlessly.
Your support, and that of the community, is exactly what fuels the future development of RT Digital Downloads. I’m fully committed to making this suite even more powerful for RapidWeaver Elements!.
Thank you so much, @thominator ! I really appreciate your feedbacks.
When developing RT Digital Downloads, making the setup and testing process as smooth and clear as possible was one of my top priorities. Payment gateways can often feel intimidating, so I wanted to ensure the documentation left no room for doubt.
For this reason, there is also a Test Mode gateway, that allows you to simulate the entire buying and downloading experience safely before going live, which is crucial for peace of mind. I believe very much in this project, so I’ll develop a good roadmap, also based on your feedback, requests, suggestions… Thank you
I have many products, but I’m experimenting with some of them using your component. I’d like to build the complete process to see if it’s actually an alternative to the service I’m using.
Thanks for the clear overview! Love the strong security with Stripe and PayPal integration, plus the customizable emails and self-healing diagnostics. Excited to see how it simplifies digital sales. Any plans to support more payment gateways soon?
Hi @AnasHyeee! Thank you so much for the kind words and support. I’m thrilled to hear you appreciate the security focus and the diagnostic tool!
Regarding payment gateways, I chose to launch it with Stripe and PayPal because they are the absolute global gold standards, ensuring the highest level of server-to-server security for file protection. That being said, the project is constantly evolving.
Which specific gateways would you love to see integrated in the future? Tell me more, so I can study the specific APIs of any new payment gateway, and decide to add it to the development roadmap.
For those who tried the live demo with PayPal (Demo 2) and were unable to complete their order, I would suggest trying again.
In fact, I had made a mistake configuring the PayPal sandbox for Demo 2 (on the PayPal website), and the IPN notification was no longer working correctly.
IMPORTANT: The problem wasn’t with the component, but with the sandbox configuration on my test PayPal account, which was set up for my live demo (it doesn’t affect any of your websites).
However, this issue has now been resolved (you will see your simulated orders on dashboard here: Demo Dashboard link).
PS: remember to use the following PayPal account details when are you paying. Otherwise, you can’t login to PayPal (this is a sandbox, for fake payments) :
RT Digital Downloads includes 3 components:
Buy Button (for Checkout): Secure, asynchronous checkout connected directly to payment APIs (both Stripe and PayPal, and also a Test Mode for simulations).
Download Button (for Delivery): Delivers encrypted, time-limited links only after foolproof server-to-server payment verification.
Order Dashboard (for Back-Office): A protected console generated right on your server to track sales charts, manage/revoke links, and create manual orders.
Key Features:
Secure checkout with Stripe/PayPal
Financial reports
Payment security
: