SendOwl

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.

**"Beware! This app is fake and loots money by hiding the cancellation option. I uninstalled it within minutes during the free trial, but they still charged me for a full month. There is no clear way to cancel the subscription. Almost every genuine review here shows the same issue – all store owners are facing payment scams with SendOwl. Do NOT download this app. Check all the negative reviews before trusting them. For proof/screenshots, WhatsApp me at +91 8800002552."**

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.

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!

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.

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.

my plan has gone from £24 to £249. I speak to the customer service and its absolute madness. £200+ to sell a few ebooks. Trying to pull the wool over your eyes in price increases.

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.

I used to LOVE This app - (installed it back in 2019 as couldn't find any other alternatives). They have just moved my pricing from $36 to $190 and didn't bother telling me. That's not how you treat your customers - whoever made this decision within your business - should be fired. You have likely lost a ton of business. BAD, BAD, BAD!!

worked great, but with a price hike that puts the monthly fee more than my monthly take - unsustainable. no thankyou.

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. _________ 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.

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.

Pure rip off. I used them dir years, but they suddenly changes their price from 15$ to 89$… it seems like they sand 1 email a few weeks ago where they had a small warning about a price increase written somewhere in the long email. This company is ripping you off and what they offer is not better than the other providers, so just use someone else..

I'm a long time (since 2010), established brand with no negative reviews or other issues, but I realized today another paid plugin here in Shopify is creating downloads my browsers are blocking as dangerous files (!!!). That's not a great user experience, so I began seeking out alternatives. Before I could even attempt to use the app, I got repeated 500 server errors and an error code that suggested I contact support. With no discussion or explanation, I received this email this afternoon, after installing the app and giving them access to my customers and account info as required? I don't understand the reasoning, but I am highly concerned about the outcome now. The message: "Hi After conducting a review I am sorry to say that we are not able to approve your account. I understand this will be a disappointment to you and given our security practices, I am not able to share the details of the review process or the reason for our decision. Paul Tomes Head of User Operations, SendOwl." I am completely baffled, dismayed and, evidently, not allowed to request info on why they would choose to do this, so I'm sharing my experience in order to let others know. At the very least, I would attempt to create your account before installing the app so they don't gain access to sensitive information. As for me, I guess my goat care resources must be troublesome, so I'll go on my way to find another solution, with no idea what I did wrong to warrant this treatment in the first place.

From $24 USD to $299 USD a month - that's a 1145.83% price increase... Ridiculous!! I have been using SendOwl to deliver digital downloads to my customers since I started my shop 5 years ago. I use it solely for the Shopify integration, I need no other features. I have ~ 100 digital products in my catalogue, but I don't even need the 5 GB file storage. Sorry, I am running this little business all by myself and I can't justify paying $299 a month just to deliver download links to my customers.

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.

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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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

I've used 20+ apps and this is the first negative review I've left. This app is complete garbage. Installing is a nightmare, managing your files is basically impossible and updating your files is literally impossible. I wish I had just built something from scratch instead of wasting my time/money.

They are fine for the basic case, but start to fail pretty badly if you do anything complicated. So far we have had problems with: Editing Orders, if you have an app that edit orders on shopify after the fact like a Post Purchase Promotion app send owl will fail to pick it up and not send it out to your customers Partial Refunds: if you give a partial refund to your user send owl sees that as a refund on the whole order and cancels the digital order. Their support is ok and getting back but in the end not very helpful. If you are bootstrapping something simple this is the app for you, but I would suggest against this app if you are dealing with 1000+ customers. Updating after reaching out and trying to work with support: I complained about orders being incorrectly cancelled. They assured me that unselecting a checkbox in their app would make it so they didn't get cancelled. That was wrong and after mass partial refunding orders I now have hundreds of orders to fix. I would strongly suggest against using this app and find one that works and has good support that understands their own product.

Support for this app is horrible.They dont get back to you at all. I have reported them to shopify also and actively looking for the substitutes.

DO NOT USE THIS APP if you have recurring orders/subscriptions! I have sought support on this aspect twice and been met with astonishment and limited understanding. I wish to throw SHOPIFY under the bus here as well, as they truly do not care about how their 3rd parties interact with the shopfront. Imagine if hundreds of your customers were to each receive hundreds of automated emails over a 30 minute period. I've been crippled with shame and embarrassment. SendOwl, you're welcome to reach out to me for details of this horrific experience. Shopify, I suggest you look in the mirror as well.

29 April 20 - This is my second review - both 1 star -(please refer first below): Over the last 2 weeks I have had significant issues with Send Owl saying they have delivered my product but the customer adamant they haven't received it. Over 80% of the time, the file were sent in the same sales order as other files still on Shopify's Digital Downloads - which were all received fine and within minutes (so there is no issue at the customers end). Send Owl repeatedly pushed aside my concerns telling me they had a digital signature that these customers (8 over the past 2 weeks) had received the file. Customers tell me otherwise. There is no point digitally receiving it if you can't find it. Send Owl have damaged my business reputation and will not make any attempts to get to the source of the issue. I have been raising these issues for a year now. Some months are good. Others terrible. I am now on the search to find an alternative solution (DD does not allow 2 files in one order so I cannot use them unfortunately). Do not use Send Owl. I now begin the huge task of moving a significant number of files to an alternative provider. ************************************************************* June 2019 - This app was working fine but over the last 3 weeks customers have been complaining that either the link doesn't work or their anti-virus software is blocking the site. I also use Shopify Digital downloads and have never had this problem. I have contacted SensOwl 4 times over the last 2 weeeks. They have responded but told me is was a result of the customers "over zealous anti-virus" software. This is not good enough and a customer is scared off my product because of this. It is damaging my business reputation and Send Owl have done nothing to try and get their site verified with Norton or other virus protection sites to address the issue. Be very aware. This software has damaged my business.

MESSED UP MY SHOP! wish I could give this 0 stars. Customers couldn't download the free e book without doing a whole check out with their shipping address and billing address etc. I asked the help about this and they seemed like had no idea how their app worked. It was a pain in the ass to delete the app. and when we finally did our shop got messed up and our add to cart disappeared. really pissed off with this app. terrible experience.