How I Use MadeThis to Run My Entire Online Business From One Dashboard

I want to be upfront about something before this review goes anywhere: I'm not a neutral observer. I've been using MadeThis for over a year and I pay for it every month. My opinion of it is shaped by that direct experience — the good parts and the parts I wish were different.

I've also used the alternatives. Gumroad for years before it changed its pricing model. Teachable for a course I ran in 2023. Podia briefly. Stan Store for a few months when everyone was switching to it. I have a reasonable basis for comparison, and my conclusion — that MadeThis is where I've landed and stayed — didn't happen by accident.

Here's an honest account of how I actually use it.

What I Was Looking for Before I Found MadeThis

My business at the point I started searching for a new platform was a mix of things: a few digital products (templates, a guide, a mini-course), some coaching packages, and an email newsletter I was starting to monetize. I'd been stitching together three or four tools to handle all of that — Gumroad for product sales, Calendly for booking coaching calls, a separate checkout for the coaching payment, and a newsletter platform that didn't talk to any of it.

The friction was constant. A new buyer would purchase a product and then I'd have to manually add them to my email list because the two tools weren't properly connected. Coaching clients would book a call in Calendly but pay through a separate link, which meant two steps and regular confusion. My checkout pages looked like they belonged to three different businesses because they did.

I wasn't looking for the most powerful platform. I was looking for one that unified the pieces I already had without requiring me to hire a developer or spend a weekend rebuilding everything from scratch.

How I Actually Use MadeThis Day to Day

The core of what I do in MadeThis breaks down into three things: digital product sales, link-in-bio, and product page creation.

Digital products. Every template, guide, and PDF I sell lives inside MadeThis. I upload the file, write the product page, set the price, and the platform handles delivery automatically when someone purchases. Buyers get an immediate download link and a receipt. I get a notification. That's the whole loop, and it works without me touching it.

The customization on the product pages is better than I expected. It's not Squarespace-level design freedom, but it's enough to make pages that look like a real business and not a placeholder from 2015. I can add images, structure the description, set up a simple FAQ, and have a checkout that doesn't bounce people off to a janky third-party page.

Link-in-bio. I point my social profiles at a MadeThis link-in-bio page that shows my products and most recent content. This sounds minor but it replaced a Linktree that I was maintaining separately — one less login, one less thing to update when something changes.

Storefront as a home base. My MadeThis storefront functions as the landing page for my product business. Someone who finds me on social or through a blog post and wants to see what I sell lands there. It's not my main blog (I keep that separate) but it's the commercial hub — the place where browsing turns into buying.

What Works Well

Honestly, the biggest thing MadeThis gets right is that it removes friction from the buyer's path. I've had platforms where the checkout process had enough steps to make people bail. MadeThis checkout is fast and clean. My refund rate has stayed low and my completion rate on purchases (people actually downloading the thing they bought) is consistently high, which tells me the post-purchase experience is working.

The second thing that works well: the setup time. I've added new products in under 30 minutes — upload the file, write the copy, publish. When I was on Teachable, setting up a new course required configuring sections, adding pricing tiers, adjusting curriculum settings, dealing with their landing page builder. MadeThis doesn't have that complexity for simpler products, which means I spend less time maintaining the platform and more time creating things to sell on it.

The analytics are functional. I can see which products are selling, conversion rates on my storefront, and where buyers are coming from. It's not Google Analytics-level depth, but it's enough to make decisions without needing to export data to a spreadsheet and calculate manually.

What I Wish Were Different

No honest review skips the criticism, so here's mine.

The course and membership features are less developed than dedicated course platforms. If I were running a high-touch, multi-module course with a community component, I'd want something built specifically for that. MadeThis works for simpler course products — a workshop recording, a mini-course with a few modules — but it's not trying to compete with Kajabi on the full LMS front. That's fine for me, but worth knowing if a full course platform is your primary need.

Email marketing is handled through integrations rather than natively. I connect my newsletter platform directly; MadeThis passes buyer emails to my list automatically, which works, but it's not one-stop-shop for email. I'd happily pay a bit more if there were native email sequences built in.

The affiliate program management is limited. I've wanted to set up a simple affiliate program for some of my products and the options inside MadeThis don't give me enough control over commission structures. I've worked around this with a third-party tool, but it's an extra integration I'd prefer not to need.

Who MadeThis Is Actually For

I've recommended MadeThis to friends who are:

• Selling digital products (templates, ebooks, guides, presets, swipe files) and want simple delivery and a clean storefront
• Coaching or consulting and want a place to sell their packages with a professional checkout
• Just getting started and don't want to manage five tools that half-talk to each other
• Solopreneurs who want to look professional without a web developer or a hefty platform subscription

I wouldn't steer someone toward it if they need a full LMS with community features, complex email automation, or a highly customized storefront that requires developer access. For those use cases, more specialized tools exist.

But for the creator-entrepreneur doing $0–$10k/month in digital product revenue who wants a clean, functional hub for their business, MadeThis hits the spot. It's the platform I run my business on. After over a year, I haven't seriously evaluated anything else — which is about the most honest endorsement I can give.

The Bottom Line

Here's what I tell people when they ask: go sign up for the free version, spend an afternoon setting up one product, and see if the experience feels right for how you work. The best way to evaluate any tool is to actually use it, not to read reviews — including this one.

What I can tell you is that MadeThis simplified my business infrastructure and I spend significantly less time managing tools than I did before. For someone building an online business on their own, that time saving is real money — and probably the most honest ROI calculation I can offer.