Rick Pino Digital Product Academy Review: 4 Pillars of a Successful Digital Product

Rick Pino’s Digital Product Academy is a collection of training and mentorship programs. It follows Rick Pino’s 4 Pillars of creating successful digital products. It also covers the marketing, sale, and automation of your digital product business. The strategy focuses on using AI-powered tools, running paid ads, and using social media platforms for marketing. Digital Product Academy’s 5-Day Live Challenge is the first step to unlocking Rick Pino’s other training and mentorship offers.

Digital Product Academy reviews are mixed. A few students have said on YouTube that they like the training programs and helpfulness of the community but criticized the expensive upsells. Reviews on Reddit are very negative, with one user saying they spent over $6,000 but got no value out of the training. Users also complain about their no refund policy, lack of transparency, and the high requirements of starting and running a digital product business.

I’ve been in the business of creating and selling digital products for over a decade. I also used paid ads at first, but eventually moved to organic marketing because of the high cost of ads. This article reviews Digital Product Academy and its strategies. It includes a list of what the initial 5-Day Live Challenge covers. I included Jeremy Blair’s experience with Digital Product Academy. You will also discover all about Rick Pino and what his claims about digital products are.

Digital Product Academy Pros and Cons

Pros

• Private community for support and networking
• You can have a peek of the business model through the low-cost live challenge

Cons

• Over the top claims about selling digital products
• Does not include any organic marketing training
• The business involves hidden costs not mentioned in the initial trainings

Price: Digital Product Academy’s 5-Day Live Challenge costs $47. The upsell costs around $1,000 to $5,000. Digital Product Academy high-ticket offer costs as high as $48,000 a year.

Refund Policy: Digital Product Academy does not offer any refunds.

Origin: Digital Product Academy was founded in 2020.

Reputation: Digital Product Academy has a mixed reputation among its students.

4 Pillars of a Successful Digital Product

1. Enroll Your People: Rick says to prioritize being relatable to encourage people to engage with your business. Establishing authenticity and creating a sense of safety builds trust and motivates engagement.
2. Educate Your People: Help your audience understand the value you offer by educating them. Break down concepts with visuals, stories, and clear principles This ensures your audience understands both the problem and the solution you offer.
3. Engage Your People: After educating them, keep the audience engaged. This is about creating a learning environment that encourages interaction. Engagement should go beyond simple teaching. It should involve participation, questions, and community involvement to keep people invested and moving forward.
4. Empower Your People: The previous steps empower your audience to make informed decisions. It makes them feel capable and ready to take action, which drives sales and long-term business success.

What Does the Digital Product Academy 5-Day Live Challenge Cover?

• Day 1: The Foundation. Understand why many fail to create passive income and learn the exact system to ensure your success.
• Day 2: The Blueprint. Discover a 7-step formula that has enabled students to earn an extra $5,000–$10,000 per month.
• Day 3: The System. Learn how to separate your time from your income using proven systems.
• Day 4: The Secret Sauce. Strategies to create enough passive income to leave your 9–5 job and pursue your purpose.
• Day 5: The Legacy. Consolidate your knowledge to create and sell digital products, aiming for the freedom you’ve dreamed about

You also get extended training sessions and Q&A with Rick Pino and access to the private Facebook group. There are also upsells, like the $47 Challenge Accelerator Bundle and the $97 Online Wealth Matrix Formula, for additional resources. At the end of the challenge, you will be offered other high-ticket programs.

Who Is Digital Product Academy For?

• Experts in certain topics who want to capitalize on their expertise.
• Industry leaders looking to teach others while earning online.
• Entrepreneurs who want to expand their business to digital products
• Anyone with skills or hobbies who wants to earn by teaching others.

Jeremy Biar’s Experience With Digital Product Academy

Jeremy Biar joined Rick Pino’s Digital Product Academy to get support in creating and marketing his digital products. He had an online business called Common Goods and had experience in financial advising. After joining Digital Product Academy, he made substantial changes in his operations, which reduced the time he spent on them. He refocused his time on creating digital products and scaling.

Jeremy said he spent over $10,000 on Digital Product Academy. While he mentioned it hasn’t paid off yet in 2 weeks, he believes it was worth the investment. Jeremy liked the quality of the community and coaching. He also highlighted the actionable content of the training materials. However, he criticized the high cost and many upsells.

Who Is Rick Pino?

Rick Pino is a business coach, Christian missionary, and musician from Austin, Texas. He was a Ministry leader with the Heart of David Movement. His career saw him do missionary work in 55 countries for about 25 years. Rick has built a large following of fellow Christians from his missionary days. Taking advantage of his following, he shifted to teaching others about creating online businesses. He makes 8-figures from his digital products and coaching business. Rick Pino also started a digital marketing agency around 2019, called Adara Media Group. However, it does not appear it was successful and was closed soon after.

What Is Rick Pino’s Claim About Digital Products?

Rick Pino claims that you can make $5,000 to $100,000 a month selling digital products as a beginner. He says that you can achieve this by using paid ads to sell products such as eBooks, courses, and templates. You can also earn passive income by using AI-powered tools to create digital products.

The Facts of Selling Digital Products

• Spotify found that most digital product sellers earn under $1,000 a month. Experienced sellers make $2,000 to $10,000 a month. Making $5,000 to $100,000 a month as a beginner is very unlikely.
• Paid ads can be effective but are costly. For example, Facebook Ads cost as high as $2 to $3 per click. Hootsuite says that the average cost per acquisition is as high as $50 to $100.
• Beginners with no experience with running paid ad campaigns risks = losing money with ineffective ads. WordStream reports that the average conversion rate for paid ads is 2% to 5%. It is lower with digital products due to the competitive market.
• Digital Commerce 360 says the refund rate for digital products is as high as 30%. Most consumers tend not to buy products without refund guarantees.
• The market for digital products like eBooks, courses, and templates is saturated. For example, Thinkific shows that in 1 year, they got 10 million new courses on their platform.
• There are additional costs, such as platform and processing fees. Automation also involves recurring costs, which further lowers profit margins.

Considering the facts of selling digital products, Rick’s claims are unrealistic. Achieving $5,000 takes a lot of work and experience. Reaching $10,000 a month often means selling high-ticket offers and brand building.

Top 5 Digital Products to Sell in 2025

1. Local Lead Generation Websites: These websites use SEO to generate organic leads for local businesses and can be rented out for $500 to $3,000 a month. Profit margins are as high as 95% since there are no ads or need for automation tools.
2. Online Courses and Workshops: You can monetize your skills and specialities by selling training programs online. It can be passive, as you can continue to sell the same program indefinitely.
3. E-books: This includes guides, self-help books, or educational materials. E-books can earn passive income and can be created quickly with the help of AI-powered tools.
4. Printables: This includes planners, trackers, calendars and worksheets. Printables have the potential to earn passive income and can be created quickly using design tools.
5. Software and Digital Tools: Programs like plugins and apps have high earning potential. They can create recurring income through subscriptions and have low overhead costs.

The best digital products to sell online should depend on your knowledge and passion. It should also align with your strategy and goals.

How I Earn $52K From Local Lead Generation Websites

I earn over $52K from renting out dozens of local lead generation websites to local businesses. Each site takes me 1-2 days to design a website and use local SEO to rank it. It takes a week to a few months to show up on Google. Once ranked and attracting traffic, I then rent it out to local businesses. Once rented, I only need to go back to update it if it drops in ranking. This earns me predictable monthly income without selling or marketing anything.

When ranking a local lead generation site on Google, I often only have to outrank a handful of sites. When selling digital products, you have to compete with hundreds or thousands of other creators. Scaling a digital products business means investing more time and money into creating more products and increasing your marketing efforts. To scale a local lead generation business, you just need to repeat the rank-and-rent process as many times as you want. These reasons are why local lead generation websites are my number 1 digital product.