How do I sell digital and physical products in one checkout?

How one Medusa checkout handles templates, courses, and prints

Medusa can put digital templates and physical prints in the same cart and the same order because it decides per item whether something needs shipping. For each variant, Medusa first checks the inventory item's Copy to clipboardrequires_shipping flag, then whether the product has a shipping profile. A shipping profile is a group of products that ship the same way, such as "Standard" for prints and "Digital" for downloads.

A Medusa cart can hold several shipping methods, one per shipping profile. That lets the customer pick a carrier rate for the prints while the digital items use a digital shipping option. Adding several shipping methods in one Store API request is available since Medusa v2.16.0.

What happens to each item after payment

Medusa's Digital Products tutorial splits the order after checkout:

1. A custom route, Copy to clipboardPOST /store/carts/{id}/complete-digital, runs Medusa's Copy to clipboardcompleteCartWorkflow, so a normal Medusa order is created with every item in it.
2. The workflow filters the order items whose variant is linked to a digital product, creates a digital product order, and creates a fulfillment for only those items.
3. It emits a Copy to clipboarddigital_product_order.created event. A subscriber sends the customer an email with download links through the Notification Module and marks the digital fulfillment as delivered.
4. The prints stay unfulfilled in the same order and go through your normal fulfillment flow in the Medusa Admin or a fulfillment provider.

Which parts are built in and which you add

Medusa's digital product support is an official guide with example code, not a core module. The table shows where each piece comes from.

What to adapt from the tutorial for a mixed cart

The tutorial tests checkout with a digital product only, so a mixed templates-and-prints store needs a few changes:

• Shipping step. Medusa returns shipping options based on the shipping address, not the cart's items. Show carrier options only when the cart has items that require shipping, and add one shipping method per profile.
• Link expiry. The emailed links come from the File Module's Copy to clipboardretrieveFile, which returns presigned URLs. The S3 provider's Copy to clipboarddownload_file_duration defaults to 3600 seconds, so point the email at the downloads page as well.
• Repeat buyers. The tutorial's download route only searches the customer's first digital order. Loop over all of them before you ship it.

How Medusa compares with Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, and Shopify

Lemon Squeezy and Paddle are merchants of record: they sell to the customer for you and handle sales tax and VAT. Neither accepts physical products, so they cannot run a templates-and-prints checkout. Fees are as of October 2026.

Shopify handles mixed orders well: its Digital Products app delivers digital items after payment while physical items follow your normal fulfillment. Medusa fits when the delivery itself is the product, such as course access, license keys, or custom file rules, and you want that logic in your own backend.

When Medusa is not the right choice

• No developer on the team. Medusa's digital delivery is code you add. Shopify with its Digital Products app gets you a working mixed store without code.
• Digital only, and you want someone else to own global tax. Lemon Squeezy or Paddle as a merchant of record removes VAT registration and filing work that Medusa leaves with you.
• A handful of downloads and no plans to customize. The setup work in the tutorial is larger than the problem.