SoundCloud is finally letting artists sell music directly to fans – with zero commission

SoundCloud has spent years being the place where you stumble across your next favourite artist. Now, it wants to be the place where you actually buy their music, too.

The company is currently testing a new feature that lets artists sell and deliver music directly from their SoundCloud profiles, meaning fans can discover a track, decide they want to own it and buy the download without being sent off to another platform.

Artists can set their own prices and offer music in formats including MP3 and WAV. More importantly, SoundCloud takes no commission from those sales. Once standard fees and taxes are deducted, artists keep 100% of the revenue.

It’s a notable addition to a platform that has traditionally been much better at getting music heard than getting it sold. A stream might introduce an artist to a new fan, but a direct purchase puts actual money into the artist’s pocket.

SoundCloud says there’s already a sizeable appetite for that. Around 250,000 artists currently direct fans to external platforms to buy their music, with 2.4 million tracks linked to purchase pages. The company says more than 500,000 SoundCloud users are sent to those external sites every year, while 28% of surveyed artists either already sell downloadable music or want to start.

The feature will initially be tested with 200 US-based Artist Pro creators. Feedback from the beta will help shape the service before it rolls out to all eligible creators later this autumn.

Participating artists will be able to monitor their sales through Artist Studio and the Fan Support Dashboard. Direct sales will also add to SoundCloud’s existing artist monetisation tools, including Fan-Powered Royalties, Fan Support, on-demand vinyl and ticketing.

“Artists should be able to build their audience in one place, on one platform,” says SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton. “SoundCloud has always been where artists find their first fans and build real communities. We’re continuing to bring more of what they need to grow their careers into that same experience, while letting fans directly support the music they love.”

SoundCloud’s move follows the lead of Bandcamp, which has long championed direct-to-fan music sales and launched its Bandcamp Fridays initiative in 2020.

Learn more at SoundCloud.

Crystal Koe is a Singapore-based writer covering music and gear news for Guitar.com and MusicTech.com since 2021. A former choir kid with an unhealthy karaoke habit, she once ran an online store peddling earphones to strangers on the internet. Her music taste runs wide — from punk and pop-rock to cool jazz and creepy film scores — and she thinks everyone should listen to Kill The Poor by Dead Kennedys at least once before they die.