It’s another big day for direct to fan music commerce. This morning, PledgeMusic named a new CEO, signalling future expansion; Bandzoogle announced a major upgrade and now the usually tight lipped Bandcamp shared some stellar sales figures and new stats.
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The current lament is that fans won’t pay to support the music.
Yet, Bandcamp announced to today that fans had spent $150 million dollars on indie music since the direct to fan platform was founded in 2008; and $4.3 million in the last 30 days alone. Also, unlike most music tech startups, Bandcamp says that it has been profitable and self-funded since 2012.
Key to Bandcamp’s success is an intuitive platform and a fair-to-artists revenue share of 15% on digital, which drops to 10% after $5,ooo in annual sales, and 10% on physical goods. Bandcamp also shared these stats and updates:
- More record labels – a growing list of influential independent records have signed on recently, including Subpop, Merge Records, Ninja Tune, Daptone, DFA, Milk, K7, R&S, and Planet Mu. Overall more than 2,000 labels worldwide now use Bandcamp’s label features. (See: https://bandcamp.com/labels)
- Embeddable players – Bandcamp recently launched a new feature so artists, labels and publicists can share music with blogs or online outlets to break new tracks or drop exclusive album streams. The players will only stream selected tracks on the specified websites, and they include a “buy” button as well as a “pre-order” button so fans can immediately purchase or pre-order an album that they see featured on a site through the player.
- Complete Control – Artists and labels can set their own pricing, and customize the look of their site, including the URL. They can offer physical merchandise (like vinyl, cassettes, and t-shirts) side by side with their digital music, and choose which tracks to stream and which to hold back for paying supporters only.
- Community: There are nearly 1 million registered fans on Bandcamp. It is home to a number of niche communities who are passionate about the music they listen to and purchase. 20% of all sales on Bandcamp is driven organically through Bandcamp features, such as the music feed, fan accounts, and Bandcamp Weekly.