sell music online

Digital Distribution is not the key when it comes to marketing your music successfully. These days own your business by selling music directly from your website and facebook with your own direct to fan music store. Let’s take a look at the top three direct to fan music platforms in 2018.

BandCamp

BandCamp offers its artists a free platform and takes 15% for digital sales and 10% merch. While this service started out as just a music store for artists it has become a very powerful music market-place. Currently their homepage reads: Fans have paid artists $267 million using Bandcamp, and $6.4 million in the last 30 days alone.

Artists who use the Bandcamp store have a variety of selling options including the customer friendly: Name Your Own Price. While BandCamp’s slogan is: Directly support our artists who make music this can be a bit confusing. Here’s why: Every Artist who uses BandCamp receives their own store link to share with fans, something along the lines of bandcamp.artistname.com. In other words, BandCamp’s name is first, not the artist which is a bit ironic. Perhaps their mission statement would be better worded: Directly support the Bandcamp artists who make their own music.  But we can’t hold BandCamp accountable for getting something back for being free. In this case, all musicians who use BandCamp are indirect ambassadors to the BandCamp brand. See below BandCamp pricing and Guidelines. 

Pricing Guidelines 

Digital Distribution and Direct Distribution through BandCamp

TunePort

Tuneport markets itself as a direct-to-fan music store for audio creators worldwide. As an audio store, TunePort has gained serious recognition with some major recording studios including the popular SoundCity from Dave Groh’s documentary. A few of its current clients/partners include Sound City’s Boom Bap Studios, Wu Tang and  Berklee’s Online Founder Dave Kusek from New Artist Model.

TunePort offers custom music selling options for artists to help build an organic fan-base from their website and facebook page. A few of these selling options include: royalty-free, TV/Film license, uploading large audio files, uploading licensing agreements/contracts and giving away free downloads in exchange for an email. One huge plus with TunePort is its focus on creating fan engagement. Examples include: Thank you notes, music videos, album art work, pictures in the studio, behind-the-scenes footage and so much more.

Unlike BandCamp, TunePort is not free and requires a one-time payment of $45, $65 or $85. Artists make 90% of their sales and TunePort takes 10% to keep the lights on. View TunePort’s Pricing Below.

Pricing & Guidelines 

sell music with the tuneport direct to fan music store

CD Baby

CD Baby offers a direct to fan music store along with digital distribution, music marketplace and publishing. While CD Baby does offer a variety of selling options, their music store consists of standard mp3, the opportunity to sell albums giving away free downloads in exchange for an email. Their digital music store is included with both the CD Standard and CD Baby Pro Package. Their pricing ranges from $9.95 per single track to $35/album Standard & $34.95 to $69 per Album. View the pricing for CD Baby’s Direct To Fan Music Store below. For more info on distribution channels visit here.

Pricing & Guidelines 

Digital Distribution and Direct Distribution with CD Baby

Which Direct To Fan Music Store Is Best For Me?

 

BandCamp 

BandCamp offers a more variety of selling options in their direct to fan music store including discount codes & the opportunity for artists to “name their price.” While this can be a great advantage, this also means that customers can buy songs for .01. A huge benefit is artists can  can sell their music in the market place too & make more sales. While this is a cool incentive, artists lose a piece of their brand due to the free policy BandCamp offers to its members.

TunePort

Artists who are truly looking for a way to sell their music online with a direct-to-fan music store that matches their needs should seriously consider TunePort. From licensing music for TV/FILM, to offering a really cool way for Artists to interact with Fans, TunePort has a lot going for it. Most importantly TunePort keeps its name out of their business and gives the option to artists to sell music their way. However, TunePort is not free and caters towards artists seriously pursuing a full-time music career without a label/3rd party backing.

CD Baby

If you are interested in a variety of selling options like streaming, digital distribution and personal, go with CD Baby. Be aware that prices can vary and can get costly if you want to promote singles vs. albums.

To conclude, digital distribution is only half the battle. Whether you choose TunePort, BandCamp or CDBaby, owning a direct to fan music store is one step closer towards owning your business as an Independent Music Artist and taking your career to the next level

sell music online