SiteGround launched a new managed Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) hosting product today, the first of its kind among WordPress hosts. The company currently powers more than 2,800,000 domains and is targeting small businesses and digital product creators with new plans that make it easy to onboard new EDD store owners.
Plans range from $2.99/mo. (1 website) to $7.99/mo. (Unlimited Websites, 40GB web space, 400k visits monthly). The plans are priced identically to SiteGround’s managed WordPress hosting plans, but they are pre-loaded with EDD, a free EDD theme (Vendd), All in One SEO plugin, MonsterInsights, the WPForms plugin, and OptinMonster. SiteGround is aiming to flatten out the learning curve associated with launching a digital product store by weaving all these plugins together with a guided onboarding tour.
One year ago, Awesome Motive acquired Sandhills Development, the creators of EDD, along with the company’s other WordPress products and services. Awesome Motive reports that over 50,000 website owners are using EDD to sell eBooks, digital art, music, PDFs, software licenses, and other digital products. The new EDD managed hosting is the result of a partnership between SiteGround and Awesome Motive.
“There is a growing demand for eCommerce hosting optimized for digital creators,” SiteGround CEO Tenko Nikolov said. “We’re excited to partner with Easy Digital Downloads to offer best-in-class hosting experience, so creators can focus on growing their business with confidence without worrying about the technical side.”
So they offer hosting with a 4x price hike after the first year and they pre-install EDD for you.