If you want to know how to make money selling beats online in 2023, I’m sharing my tips for getting your music out there and making money.
When I first started making beats, I had no idea how to go about making money online. I noticed that the music producers that I was coming across were uploading tons of beats and placing their beat tags within their music. I thought that was all there was to it.
Needless to say, I was wrong. There’s definitely a lot more to selling your beats than merely uploading a lot of music.
If you want to know how to make money selling your music online, here’s where you should start.
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How to Make Money Online Selling Your Beats
1. License Your Music
The best piece of advice I can give you is to get your beats registered with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) such as BMI or ASCAP. What making an account and registering through BMI will do for you is allow your music to be cataloged and tracked by a large organization with powerful lawyers.
BMI collects your license fees from the sources that played your music and pays you quarterly. You can even set up direct deposit.
Other PRO’s may operate differently, but they all serve the same purpose, to license your music, track it, and make money off it.
If you are new to this, this may seem like a difficult thing to do, but it’s not. Do your research and choose a PRO.
2. Sell Your Beats on Airbit
Airbit is an online beat marketplace that allows you to sell your beats using their advanced beat store.
You can use Airbit to earn revenue from your YouTube videos that use your beats, as well as unlimited websites such as SoundClick and Facebook.
An Airbit subscription is priced at $19.99 per month, or $16.66 per month if paid yearly.
3. Get on SoundCloud
If you want to make money selling your beats online, the easiest way would by uploading your music to SoundCloud.
Yes, you can make money from your music online by posting your music to SoundCloud.
What I like about SoundCloud is that it has a built-in audience. Thus making it easier for you to promote your beats, and for people to find you.
When you sell your beats on SoundCloud, if your music receives 5,000 streams a month in selected countries, SoundCloud will pay you. SoundCloud will pay you 55% of the revenue on a variable scale. What this means is that if SoundCloud as a business is doing well, you earn more.
Another reason I like SoundCloud is because you do not have to upload videos like you would on a platform such as YouTube (we’ll talk more about YouTube next). Video creation can be challenging for some people, and at the end of the day, you want to have fun making music and money.
4. Start a YouTube Channel
Another way to make money from your music online by creating a YouTube channel.
Yes, YouTube is an excellent platform for promoting your music; however, there are other ways to earn money besides promoting your beats. You can create helpful video tutorials and more on your YouTube channel.
If you can curate an audience of listeners through unique branding or pure musicianship, then you can earn a living through YouTube with Google Adsense. YouTube pays you a sum of money per every 1000 views your video gets. This number is different for everyone.
YouTube can also be used as a marketing tool to gain exposure. Make sure you leave links in your video descriptions to your website, SoundCloud account, social media accounts, etc.
GROW YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL: If you want to grow your YouTube channel fast, I highly recommend checking out TubeBuddy. TubeBuddy is a free browser extension and app that helps you gain more subscribers, rank higher in search results, and more!
5. Create Your Own Website
Another great tip for making money selling your beats online would be to create your own website. The internet is real estate, so get yourself a piece of digital real estate as soon as possible.
By creating a website, you are ensuring that you always have a stable way to make money.
To create a website, you’ll need to buy a domain and create a WordPress website using a web hosting company. You can receive a FREE domain name and cheap WordPress hosting with Bluehost.
6. Build an Email List
One of the first things you should focus on with your website is building your email list so that you can directly talk to your fans.
Having an email list not only lets you talk to your fans, but keep your fans near and dear in case one of the bigger streaming companies that you are using somehow go out of business or you lose your account.
Email lists also allow you to grow your audience with sales and giveaways. Additionally, if you perform live shows, you can email your list to let them know about future live performances.
If you’re serious about growing your email list, I use and recommend ConvertKit. They are user-friendly and offer great tools for growing your email list.
7. Use a Digital Music Distribution Service
Distribution services are a big way that people are making money from their music online. There are many distribution services out there, but one of the most popular would be Distrokid.
Distrokid does a lot of the footwork for you by putting your music on most of the popular streaming websites such as Apple and YouTube Music.
Distrokid takes its annual fee upfront with 3 different packages ranging from $19.99-$77.99. You can also opt-in for something called “YouTube Money,” where they find videos on YouTube and tells YouTube to monetize it for a 20% cut.
8. Stream on Twitch
If you are into live streaming, you may also want to check out the Twitch platform. Twitch is a streaming platform purchased by Amazon for $970,000,000 in 2016.
The platform was first geared around live streaming people playing video games but has since picked up with different genres, such as music.
The great thing about Twitch is that you can use it however you would like to promote your music. You can make money from your beats with Twitch by becoming a Twitch partner and earning a subscription button. Twitch viewers are notorious for donating, and you can even make money from ad revenue and merch.
The internet is a big place, people love music, and there’s a lot of money to be made by selling your beats online.
There are many more ways to make money with your music; however, these are some of my favorites.
Work hard, stay consistent, and you will be able to make money online selling your beats.