What is the best digital muisc store after bandcamp?

[thedunno]

Because of limited storage space I buy almost all my music as digital files nowadays.

My favorite shop is bandcamp, of which I know 85% of the sales go directly to the artist/label.
What is after Bandcamp the best digital music store? With 'best' I mean; which shops generates the most revenue for the artists?

I tried googling it, but I only found revenues for streaming. Not for digital sales through shops like Itunes, Qobuz, Amazon etc.

Anyone know?

[rcarlberg]

BandCamp is the only one that pays artists anything, unless you're in Taylor Swift territory. Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Instagram/Facebook, TikTok/TikTok Music/Resso/Luna, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, iHeartRadio, Claro Música, Saavn, Boomplay, Anghami, KKBox, NetEase, Tencent, Qobuz, Joox, Kuack Media, Yandex Music (beta), Adaptr, Flo, and MediaNet are all basically "free music" sites.

It's the times.


NB: Steve pays royalties to his artists. I didn't mean to disparage his business model.

NBB: My friends in the band Glass have had 178,000 plays on the above services (the list came from DistroKid, which I helped them get on) and their net proceeds are so far just over $0.01. They have made $1,180.80 from BandCamp during the same period.

[thedunno]

But also when you buy digital downloads?

I visited a concert of Nils Petter Molvaer this weekend and wanted to buy his last album. Its not on bandcamp so I checked Itunes and Qobuz.
On Qobuz its Eur 16,49 which is pricey for a download. (https://www.qobuz.com/nl-nl/album/st.../cnm170cvfonrb).
I dont mind paying that as long as I know a large part goes to the artist.

[markwoll]

https://www.artistshare.com/ is one, mostly jazz with a smaller, but well known artist list.

[Sputnik]

I sell physical CDs on Amazon, and their cut is very reasonable, not unlike Bandcamp, however... I think you have to use a third party to be able to sell digital downloads. They then make it available both for streaming and purchase on a variety of sites like those you mention.

I can't really find anything about uploading or selling downloads in my Amazon seller account, so I can't say what percentage they take. But assuming it's similar for a digital sale as for a CD, then that's pretty reasonable. The question is, what percent do digital distributors like CD Baby charge? Many say they're free, but they must charge something at some point. I'm happy enough with Bandcamp for digital sales, and I can could give a hoot about streaming, so I've never bothered looking into all of this, but my general sense is that a digital sale on Amazon will net the band some money. Perhaps not as much as Bandcamp, but still a reasonable amount.

Bill

[Frumious B]

If it’s on Bandcamp then I go there, but I use Qobuz a lot for the more mainstream major label type releases as I just can’t stand the idea of paying for a download that is less than CD quality.

[rcarlberg]

BandCamp requires lossless uploads (AIFF, WAV or FLAC).

[Steve F.]

I tried googling it, but I only found revenues for streaming. Not for digital sales through shops like Itunes, Qobuz, Amazon etc.

iTunes and Amazon Digital take 30% of the price that the consumer pays for the music. I don't know about Qobuz and others, but until BandCamp, 30% was the industry standard and I assume that that's what most of the others take as well.

Whatever they have to pay for credit card fees or PayPal fees comes out of their 30%, unlike BandCamp's fee of 10% where they also deduct the PayPal/Credit card fees and so it works out to approximately 15% on a $10.00 purchase, on average.

Any site where you BUY (not stream) is - IMO - an acceptable business model in terms of the artists and or labels getting a reasonable amount of the money that the consumer pays.

hope this answers your quesiton(s)

[Steve F.]

NB: Steve pays royalties to his artists. I didn't mean to disparage his business model.

Steve's business model is hugely reliant on BandCamp; it's easily 50-60% of all the money that comes in and closer to 90% of things that are over 2 years old.

NBB: My friends in the band Glass have had 178,000 plays on the above services (the list came from DistroKid, which I helped them get on) and their net proceeds are so far just over $0.01. They have made $1,180.80 from BandCamp during the same period.

Thank you for posting this information. It gets right to the heart of the matter, don't it.