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Editing my review, as Shopify does not allow replies:
I did respond to your emails—"No thank you, please close my account" is a clear response. I'm not interested in a promotional offer, especially one limited to 12 months. You also asked which service I switched to. That’s not information I’m obligated to share. As a provider, it's your responsibility to understand the competitive landscape.
Additionally, your platform only supports hosting up to 250 files, which does not accommodate larger businesses like mine. For years now, my files haven’t been hosted directly on SendOwl—only links have been provided. So no, your service does not offer true file hosting at scale.
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Based on the reviews here, it’s clear we’re not the only company frustrated with SendOwl. We've used SendOwl as a backup to Digital Downloads for the past 10 years at our grandfathered rate of $29/month. Recently, we received just 30 days’ notice that our rate would be adjusted to be "in line with similar apps." I didn’t expect the increase to be so extreme — our new rate is $599/month, a staggering 1965% jump. This is nowhere near competitive with other apps. The most frustrating part is that SendOwl won't actually host my files — they only host links to my files. Meanwhile, other apps host the actual content. So not only am I paying more, but I’m getting less compared to what other platforms offer.
Fortunately, this has motivated us to move to self-hosting for a fraction of the cost.
Not a good look, SendOwl.
We appreciate your candid feedback and understand that changes to pricing can be challenging.
This adjustment marks our first price increase in over 15 years. During this time, we've maintained legacy plans to support our long-standing customers. However, to continue providing reliable and scalable services, it became necessary to realign our pricing structure.
Shopify App Store
While we cannot discuss specific account details due to privacy considerations, we can share that our new rates are competitively positioned. In fact, I personally managed your support tickets and when evaluating the relative fee based on a percentage of sales (note: our SaaS pricing does not actually charge a % of sales or per order fee, it is all inclusive on those regards), our pricing is approximately one-tenth the cost of a key larger competitor.
Regarding file hosting, we offer both hosted and self-hosted options to provide flexibility based on your preferences. Choosing to self-host is a feature available for your convenience, not a requirement imposed by our platform.
We also want to note that we reached out to discuss your specific account details and explore potential solutions. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response to engage in a productive conversation. Our support team remains available and willing to work with you to find a suitable path forward.
We value your business and wish you the best of luck going forward.
SendOwl is dramatically more expensive than comparable fulfilment tools – our plan was up to 3'000% of what we'd pay with a competitor solution.
Upon contacting support, we were instead offered a per-order custom plan that would have increased the cost by factor 10 (so 30'000% higher than competitors).
SendOwl’s pricing feels completely detached from the actual value it provides, especially if you don't use features like file hosting or checkout. It's unfortunate that there’s no more suitable plan for businesses that only need simple license-key delivery.
On top of that, it's not possible to cancel the subscription in the account panel. The "close account" button only displays a discount offer, while actually closing the account requires emailing support. The account-closure process feels openly hostile to users.
I was pretty happy with this service and I have used it for almost four years..BUT....they just increased my price from, wait for it, $24 USD per month to $299 US dollars per month.
I run a pretty small business and this is outrageous. I have already shifted to "Easy Digital Products" which is much more affordable and actually easy to use.
Shocking and stupid move by Sendowl.
Hi there – we’re genuinely sorry to hear this is how you’re feeling. We reached out more than five times to try and find a solution tailored to your account, and while we won’t share specifics for privacy reasons, we can say that based on your usage level, the current pricing is still a fraction of what several larger competitors would charge for comparable features and volume.
Our goal has always been to help creators and businesses succeed, and if another platform is doing that better for you right now, we truly wish you the best. That said, we’ve had many customers who’ve tried other options and ultimately returned—we’d be happy to welcome you back if things don’t work out elsewhere.
All the best,
The SendOwl Team
A 737% price increase is just greedy. I've loved SendOwl for years but this is terrible! Can no longer use or recommend.
Just went to uninstall the app and close my account. The page that they sent me to has a Close Account button that doesn't work. Instead, I'm told to email customer service. Not good business practice. I'm warning everyone in case you wait until right before your subscription ends to close your account! Make sure you close early to give them enough time to respond and actually close the account since the button doesn't work.
We appreciate your years of service, and sorry to hear you will be moving on. We did reach out to all merchants a few times, and do hope you reached out to support with any questions or ways to reduce your costs.
We are confident our new pricing is very much in market for our services and scalability. We had not raised priced for legacy users in 15 years, and needed to do this reset to market rates to be able to invest in our product and service. Moving forward, there will be no large increases such as this.
Wishing you all the best in your business moving forward.
I’ve been using this company since 2020 without any issues. However, they’ve recently changed their business model. What used to cost me $15 now costs $175 — that’s more than a 1,066% increase.
Because of this drastic price change, I’ve decided to leave SendOwl and look for a better alternative.
Thanks for your feedback and for being a longtime user. This was a one-time pricing update after 15 years without changes, and while we understand it felt significant, we did our best to notify all impacted users in advance. If you'd like to reach out to our support team, we're happy to review it with you directly and see if there's any way we can help. Either way, we appreciate your time with us and wish you the best moving forward.
I've been a very satisfied SendOwl customer for over four years, paying $24 a month to send digital downloads to my customers. In October 2024, my bill was $24. However, in November, it unexpectedly jumped to $454.36, and in December, it escalated to $839.29. This increase was for the same services I had always used.
I corresponded extensively with SendOwl's leadership, and they assured me they would provide a discounted rate to part ways amicably. Unfortunately, my last two bills in April and May were $467.96 and $432.92, respectively. This is a far cry from the original $24 a month and is completely unsustainable for my small family business.
This has been the worst experience I've ever had with a company. When I shared my experience with several other small business owners, they realized that their SendOwl bills had also increased significantly overnight, without any warning.
I have since switched to another service that offers the same functions for a flat rate of $29 a month. It is working beautifully and even more seamlessly than SendOwl ever did. I am so relieved to be done with this company.
Brighter Day Press - best of luck to you on your new service. As context, your pricing in Nov and Dec was per the plan you signed up for (fair use bandwidth is what caused the fees). April and May were at the discounted rate as promised on the new legacy plan as explained over our support interaction. We did everything we said we would, and just wanted to make sure you knew that and if you have any questions, please do reach out to support and we will continue to help even though you've migrated.
I have been using SendOwl for a while now at $19/month for unlimited digital products. I use Amazon S3 to store the files. They are going up on the price at the end of April 2025, so my monthly fee will now be $159 instead of $19. You have got to be kidding me with the $140/month price increase?! Um no. I will go elsewhere. Terrible business practice, especially when their website still advertises "unlimited products" on their pricing page. Since I pay for the app, I expect to have no advertisements on the download page. I am not happy that the download page you are directed to from the customer email to download the files has 2 advertisements at the bottom of the file list.
Hi April. Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback. We stopped supporting legacy plans a few years ago, and we ‘grandfathered’ all merchants on legacy plans. However, while we supported those legacy plan prices for many years, it is time for all merchants to move to the new plans. I understand that your plan is more than you were previously paying. However, our pricing is still great value, and it is still cheaper than the majority of the alternatives. You mentioned the referral links on the download page - you can disable those in the SendOwl dashboard. Email us, support@sendowl.com, and we'll show you where that option is! Thanks, SendOwl
SendOwl worked great until they gouged us with a $39/month cost when it was previously $0/month but a per-transaction fee. The charge was automatic if you missed the opt-out period - which is totally non-consensual and unethical. They could've easily at least made it a smaller jump, like maybe $10/month...? And/or let people opt-IN to be charged, instead of making an extra wad on everyone who missed a single email... Canceled and moving on. Good luck!
Thanks for sharing this. We want to be clear that we take ethics seriously and always operate with a high moral compass. Most affected users received 3–5 emails and multiple in-app notifications about the change. For those who unintentionally missed the opt-in period and chose to leave, we offered refunds upon request. We're sorry to see you go but appreciate you trying SendOwl, and we wish you the best moving forward.
Update 1/26/23:
After 5+ years of using SendOwl and 240K+ orders processed. I finally made the switch to the "Downloadable Digital Assets" app. Let me add some credibility to the review: We run a very successful digital asset based business and have been featured in several Shopify ads, marketing materials, etc.
A year ago SendOwl was purchased and came out with new pricing, taxing each transaction that was processed through their service. I'm self hosting on Amazon S3, so my monthly bill went up minimum 2x because I was "high volume". Ironically, all plans now have a per order fee attached to them regardless of volume. And a free plan asking 5%!? Get the #$&$ out of here! Shopify has a free app for that. I have no problem paying for a product that adds new features, but they never arrived even after multiple conversations with the new owner/CEO. Add to that multiple major outage incidents over the last 2 years and I finally threw in the towel. The new app I'm using has all the features I requested from SendOwl over a 2 year period, but was never delivered and I'm extremely happy so far.
SendOwl is a great product, but the pricing model is disgusting, the customer service sucks, outages are a real issue, etc.. I'm allergic to rent seeking and thank god we had a choice to switch to a better product. Do yourself a favor and avoid this app.
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Original Bad Review:
Been a SendOwl user for years. The product works. New features have been slow or non-existent and the customer service is awful. We've had amazing results delivering files to our customers until today. Several hundred orders are going unfulfilled and we're getting the classic "non answer" customer service.
Look at other options and alternatives for digital delivery needs before settling on SendOwl
Hi: thanks for the note about SendOwl being a great product. We value all customer feedback - good and bad. SendOwl does a lot under the hood, and think our pricing is very fair. Any user can choose to be on a flat per order fee structure (avg 30 cents); the 5% is for folks that do not want to pay a SaaS fee ever. We have a lot of users that love the flexibility of it and it ends up being a lot cheaper than a 15/month plan.
That said, we are very sorry to see you go and wish you continued success. If you ever want to come back and discuss features you'd like to see, please do reach out.
-Matt, CEO
DO NOT USE. We have been a loyal SendOwl customer for years and they instituted an absurd price increase. Unacceptable and do not use this service.
Thanks for the feedback—and for being a longtime customer. We understand the pricing update felt abrupt, but it was the first major change in over 15 years and aimed at making the platform more sustainable long term. If you’d like to reach out directly, we’re happy to review your account and see if there’s any way we can help. Either way, we appreciate your time with us and wish you the best moving forward.
