If you are a serious producer, you have more than likely considered selling your beats online. The problem is….where should you sell them at?
There are a handful of sites that will off you your own online “store” to shop your beats in exchange for a cut of your profits. Which ones are best?
Before I get into reviews, let me first say that I am an avid believer utilizing every avenue you can to promote your beats. So even though some of these beat selling websites are a little sub-par in certain areas, I’d advise that you use them anyway for the sake of promotion.
Here are a few beat selling websites that I have had experience with:
MyBeatShop.com: MyBeatShop has been the most valuable beat-selling website in my experiences. I’ve made thousands from this website alone. It is easy and quick to upload beats, I’ve always been paid on time, and it offers a nice community of producers to interact with. There are beat battles for cash/no cash and all-time and monthly rankings for sales, battles, etc.
Now for the bad parts: The customer service is horrible. It is impossible to reach the staff by telephone because their phone inbox is always full. The site design is ugly – looks very amateurish. The site takes 20% per sale as a comission AND charges for beat space. This is a bit much considering how many beats they sell. Oh and did I mention the customer service is horrible? Oh I did? Well that’s cool ’cause it deserves to be mentioned twice.
Despite a lot of bad areas, at the end of the day this site has made me a lot of money, so I definitely suggest you check it out and get your beats on it!
RocBattle.com: RocBattle is probably one of the first, if not THE first beat-selling website for producers to shop their beats. A lot of producers have had a ton of success selling beats on this website.
The site is a lot nicer looking than most other beat-selling websites. The design and graphics/artwork looka LOT more professional than, say, MyBeatShop. It is very simple to upload beats to the site, and the upload time is quick. You can also order your beats after you upload them which is, to me at least, a very valuable tool.
Battling your beats is a big part of the website (hence the name RocBattle of course). You can select any one of your beats to battle against a beat from another producer. It is important to participate in battles, as it increases your song plays and exposure and can drive you up in the rankings if you are able to win a lot. These things will ultimately help to contribute toward the ultimate goal – more sales.
The bad part about RocBattle, at least in my experience, is that it seems a lot harder to sell beats on than MyBeatShop unless you are very active, win a lot of battles, or lower your prices to next to nothing. There is a lot of competition, and it is a bit more difficult to get recognition unless you earn it through battling and establishing a reputation. Overall though a very nice site that is definitely worth your efforts!
ThBeatTrader.com: TheBeatTrader charges $2.00 per “beat space,” which I believe is a bit overpriced. The site design isn’t the absolute worst, but it is still pretty amateur looking. They don’t have nearly as big as a community as MyBeatShop or RocBattle, and it seems a lot harder to be “in the spotlight” on this site. Again, I’ve had very minimal success on this site, so unless you plan on doing a lot of direct marketing yourself, don’t expect a ton of sales.
BeatSwagger.com: I only put a few beats on this site, because the site design makes it seem, well….a bit shady. There’s really not much to say about the site, except the design sucks, the site content is minimal to none, and I only got one sale on it. But hey…one sale is better than none, right? So what the hell…sign up anyway!
Those are the main sites that I’ve had some experiences with. Again, even though some of the sites are a bit lacking, I can’t stress enough that it is not a bad idea at all to sign up anyway for exposure and promotional purposes. These little things can go a long way in establishing yourself as a producer in the online community!
Until Next Time,
Tim Adamek
Open Minds Entertainment LLP
Posted under Selling Beats
This post was written by ome21 on September 19, 2008
Hello, I’m producer also and I just found your article. May question is: is it possible the same beat for sle on all four sites or more?
Yeah it is possible to sell the same beat on multiple websites, but only “non-exclusive” rights. Exclusive rights can only be sold one time.
Thanks you for your post. I’ve sold nearly 100 tracks on thebeattrader. But it’s been down for months and I’m still waiting on payment. And their customer service is horrible too.
Any reason for not including Soundclick.com? I’m checking them out for success/failure stories from producers since they get a ton of traffic compared to some of the other sites I’m familiar with.
thx
Thanks for the advice it helps alot, keep up the hard work.
i just began selling beats and i need to know how to target an audience
What about soundclick? That’s the most popular site imo. Also been doing a lot of research on the subject and I think the best thing a producer can do is build his or her own site with their own domain,join all of the beat selling sites, discussion boards,etc. Then use those sites to direct traffic to their own website. Why you ask? Because that way you distance your potential customers from your competition (the other 10 thousand producers selling online) at least by a couple clicks and that could make all the difference. If rappers are browsing your beats on one of those sites, its too easy for them to click a link to another artist. On your site, you don’t want any links to take them to your competition. Only link to your site, not from it. Also if you sell a beat and a talented rapper blesses it nicely, people may ask him/her where they acquired such a banga. They’ll say your website for sure instead of soundclick(or whatever) with the very real possibility of them leaving your name out completely… those mutha*****z!