SendOwl , 162 reviews

Overall rating
4.4
Counts per rating level
  • 83% of ratings are 5 stars
  • 4% of ratings are 4 stars
  • 1% of ratings are 3 stars
  • 2% of ratings are 2 stars
  • 9% of ratings are 1 stars
What merchants think

Feedback submitted

Merchants highly recommend this app for automating digital product delivery, with features like PDF stamping, customizable emails, and automatic order fulfillment. They appreciate its seamless Shopify integration, detailed analytics, and the ability to send product updates. The app is praised for its reliable performance, quick issue resolution, and responsive customer support. Merchants also find its interface user-friendly and its pricing reasonable.

Edited April 2, 2020

Usually reliable tool shopify, with even some interesting features like pdf stamping and drip function.
Been using this for years. Lately got somewhat disappointed with communication, like in a recent two day semi-outage, where nothing was proactively communicated, not before, not during, not after. Hence detracted one star.

amazonias
Belgium
About 6 years using the app
June 10, 2014

very easy to use e quick. This application has met our needs.

IPE Suite - Poker Training Software
Italy
Over 1 year using the app
April 5, 2021

I used this app to help me deliver my ebooks and it works but it comes with a few kinks and intricate complications. For instance, when customers go to download from their email, they should be able to immediately download and not receive another long link to download from. The process for the customer to receive their product should be seamless but it isn't so much so. I wasn't aware of this process until I acted as a customer of my own store to see how the process was going. It wasn't that great to me.

Forth Rivers
United States
About 1 year using the app
SendOwl replied April 5, 2021

Thanks for your review and feedback!

You are correct that we generate an order download page for every customer and they need to go to their unique order page to download their purchase(s).

We do it that way for a couple of reasons.

The first is that some orders contains dozens of files and adding each of those links to the Shopify order email would make the order email difficult to read.

The second reason is for download security as each link is designed to expire after a set number of uses. This helps prevent file sharing and secures the download. You can control access to the links in the buyer's order page from the SendOwl dashboard. The same level of link protection and security would not be possible if the links were shown in the email.

Having said that, I hear you and understand your concerns! I'll discuss this with the team to see if we can make the process smoother for the buyer.

Cheers, SendOwl.

Edited November 12, 2017

Though my experience began somewhat poorly, it has gotten markedly better. Customer service is very responsive and helpful. The online documentation isn't always clear, but I've been able to resolve most of the issues that I previously had. Also, SendOwl still balances content protection with ease-of-use better than other apps.

Lucetax
United States
11 months using the app
February 21, 2022

Overall it's a good app. Customer support is great if you ever need to reach out. Uploading is easy and smooth. If you are attaching your videos into your shopify products you first create the product in shopify and then link the product to the uploaded video in sendowl. The "button codes" don't apply to shopify. With sendowl you get paid within a couple of days unlike vimeo who only pays out once per month via paypal. There are also no additional fees, only the monthly subscription. The reason for the four stars is that your monthly GB usage does not roll over or start fresh. It's an overall accumulation. I do videos daily so I never stay within the monthly GB usage. I do believe Paul told me it's an additional 20 cents for every T overage. I can't remember exactly the amount so you want to ask before your trial is over. One last note if you choose not to link your video to your shopify store, sendowl's area to place a description of your videos does not do paragraphs or breaks in between the information. You need to use html format for the separations. I will stay with this app because it's a good app. I like the ease of uploading, can use it without adding to my shopify store, can add an image and a description, and the quick payouts.

Awaken The Oracle
United States
7 months using the app
SendOwl replied February 21, 2022

Thank you for sharing your feedback. We greatly appreciate you taking the time and we are pleased to hear that SendOwl is working for you.

Whilst we try to keep all accounts priced simply we do occasionally ask merchants who sell large-sized files to go on a Fair Usage Bandwidth plan. So if you exceed the bandwidth limit that is allocated in your plan then the additional bandwidth used is charged at $0.20/GB.

EDIT: Removed a comment as I was referencing the wrong thing! I was discussing bandwidth and not storage. Sorry for any confusion there!

Again, thank you for sharing your experience. Reach out if we can help with anything.

Edited March 7, 2017

So much for the claims of fast customer service. On free trial, emailed support directly, after 2 days, crickets. I've searched all my Gmail, including trash folder. Nothing. Disappointed.
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UPDATE1. Warning. I have only about 2000 products, maybe closer to 2500, and Send Owl has a warning built into their software saying they can't load my "large" number of products into their dashboard so I tragically can't use the dashboard. It says I have to use the pull down dot dot dot apps function within Shopify alone. Big bummer. Not going well so far. I wonder if I will be able to even do Drips without dashboard access? DRIPs r only reason I am interested in this app.
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UPDATE2. So working on single product level within Shopify, good news is that selecting Send Owl app in Shopify on the single product level does successfully launch you back into Send Owl app dashboard with that singular product identified and selected. Good news also that Drip is available along this path. Bad news is that the Drip file DELIVER is absolutely not working. It is basically inert. Says no matches found. No indication whatsoever as to how to attach a digital file and it really does appear to be non functional. I work strictly over my smartphone in Android environment as I despise Windows. I have already checked "request desktop site" in Android Chrome browser but no dice. Am heading to local shop to get on a desktop to do the exact same thing on Windows to see if it works there and thus see if Send Owl just isn't up to snuff in Android environment.
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UPDATE3: So here I am now, sitting in front of a desktop computer running Windoze. And the same "inert" Drip DELIVER functionality is present, so I conclude it's definitely not an Android operating problem, seeing that the same problem exists in Windoze. And then I find this bombshell under DRIP online help instructions at SendOwl:

Attention Shopify users!

While SendOwl links to your Shopify account to help you sell and securely deliver digital products, bundles, software and much more, we are not able to integrate our ‘File Access’ or ‘Drip’ subscriptions with the Shopify checkout process.

>>>Egads. Sigh. So disappointing. This is obviously a very high quality product as long as your parameters fit within THEIR parameters. And their parameters are fairly wide, better than any other Shopify app I know of with regards to digital downloads. But unfortunately, if you want to do DRIPS, it's just not going to work within the Shopify environment. Which shocks me, seeing as it seems like this is designed to be a Shopify-friendly app. I'm keeping the 1-star rating because, for me, without the DRIP functionality available as a Shopify-centric merchant, this app is not valuable to me. It is doubtless valuable to others but make sure it will do for you what you expect/want it do as it's not a given, obviously. That's what free trials are for, clearly. And reviews.

Here's the link where you'll find the warning that DRIP doesn't work with Shopify products:

https://help.sendowl.com/help/drip-subscriptions

PS Basically, Shopify's Digital Downloads is offering to me for FREE what SendOwl wants to charge astronomical monthly sums. We've been using Digital Downloads for 2+ years and it works flawlessly for simple 1-time digital downloads associated with single product purchases. Don't see the need for SENDOWL with this limitation that they bury deeply in their DRIP help files.
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UPDATE4. Looked at Fetch, have message into them as to whether they can do anything similar to DRIP on Shopify. Waiting to hear back from them but see no evidence on their website that they have a DRIP-like function. However, a combination of CHARGERABBIT and SKYPILOT (both from the same developer, they're designed to be companion apps) looks VERY promising to accomplish DRIP-like functionality ON SHOPIFY. Will update as soon as I know more. I've got messages into them as well. And no, I don't work for CHARGERABBIT/SKYPILOT, I'm just a Shopify merchant looking for solutions for Shopify merchants and sharing what I find. I do tons of reviews here on Shopify, always evenhanded and straightforward and FAIR.
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UPDATE5. So after writing this review Send Owl finally contacts me. So it is clear that Send Owl does NOT use the Shopify checkout process which is why its DRIP function doesn't work on Shopify. This also means that Send Owl does NOT update the Shopify order register when an order is placed. Instead, Send Owl only updates the Send Owl order register since this is where the order actually transacts. This is a HUGE problem if u r running an affiliate program like LeadDyno that MUST have all of ur orders registering in Shopify in order for ur affiliates to get correctly and fully paid for their sales. Or any other app dependent on the Shopify order register actually registering your orders as a Shopify merchant. Charge Rabbit, unlike Send Owl, has already indicated to me that they DO register their orders under the Shopify orders register so I am going to try Charge Rabbit. Send Owl says they may or may not improve Send Owl to register orders in the Shopify orders register. I can't wait for this possible but not promised indefinite date improvement. It's a deal killer for me. Easy call. 1-star still.
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UPDATE6:

George and company in Feb of 2017 did eventually make the DRIP process register in the Shopify order register. That should, in theory, cause apps like LeadDyno to pick up those DRIP transactions to pay affiliates. And help any app like LeadDyno that relies on the Shopify order register to work properly.

I looked at it briefly at the end of my free trial and it looked good on paper. But I've yet to try it out in the real word yet cuz I'm not ready to start the paid sub yet.

I may eventually upgrade to 5 stars, but for now, raised from 1 star to 4 stars.

Pure Hearts International
United States
About 1 month using the app
January 26, 2022

Great so far! Worth the monthly fee as well! I appreciate the added features like link expiration limits, putting the customer's names on the PDF's for security, and that they DON'T automatically mark certain purchases as fulfilled when the digital downloads are sent in addition to physical products that are not yet fulfilled. My only issue is that by having the customer name automatically put on the PDFs, it takes away the interactive feature from the PDF.

Auralign Shop
United States
About 1 month using the app
SendOwl replied January 26, 2022

Hi! Thanks for the great review and feedback! It is true that stamping the PDF does lock it so that the stamp can't be easily removed. However, we've heard similar concerns and we have an updated PDF stamp planned for this year which should tackle this very issue! Cheers, SendOwl.