Music

Bandcamp has helped pay artists more than $100 million

by Tyler Munro

Bandcamp is the best, and we’ll take every opportunity to talk about why. And today, we’ve got a fantastic reason: According to a post on their site, users have now used the platform to give artists more than $100 million.

Here’s how the numbers break down:

– Fans use the site to give artists $3.5 million every month
– People buy more than 16,000 albums a day on the site, or roughly one every five seconds.

All of this is a complicated way of saying that they’re doing well. And it makes sense.

Unlike iTunes, Bandcamp puts the emphasis on artists and record labels. Uploading music to Bandcamp is free, and the company takes a modest 15% sales cut; if sales pass $5000, Bandcamp’s cut drops to 10%. Compare that to iTunes, which on average gives artists less than 10% of sales, and you can see why people are quickly turning to the platform.

Sales on Bandcamp are rising steadily even as the industry trends downwards, climbing 30% in the last year while the rest of the music biz is down 11%.

So, if you haven’t checked Bandcamp out, what are you waiting for? There’s a reason labels like Relapse Records, who’ve put their entire catalogue, past and present, on the site, are buying in.