11 Best Websites To Sell Beats Online (2024 Top Picks)

Welcome to our guide to the best websites to sell beats online.

If you’re skilled at producing music, you could make a full-time income selling your beats to artists.

And the easiest way to do that is by listing them on online marketplaces and websites.

To help you get started, we’ll be sharing what we think the best places to sell your beats online are, and who they’re best for. We’ll also be listing each platform’s pros and cons to help you sort through your options.

#1 – Your own website

The best website to sell your beats on is one that you own. That way, you have complete control/ownership of your store and get to keep 100% of your profits.

A lot of producers think that their only option is to list their beats for sale on third-party marketplaces. But the problem with that is most marketplaces tend to take a big cut of your sales, so you only keep 50-70% of your revenue.

You can get around this by building your own ecommerce store and using it to sell directly to customers so that you cut out the middleman.

Not only does this mean you’ll earn more money on each sale, but it also gives you more flexibility with the way you run your business. When you sell through your own site, you have complete control over every aspect of your store, which opens up new opportunities.

For example, you could customize your checkout so that, when a customer buys one of your beats, you upsell another complementary product they might like (e.g. another beat, sample pack, artist merch, etc.) to increase your average order values.

Or you could implement opt-in forms on your site that capture visitor email addresses and add them to automated email sequences that nurture them to conversion.

Selling through your own website is also beneficial for your brand. It makes you seem more credible and established as a producer, which is important if you’re trying to build a name for yourself in the music industry.

Plus, when you promote your beats through other channels (like YouTube, TikTok, etc.), you’ll be sending traffic to your own website and growing your following rather than somebody else’s.

And the good news is, building your own website isn’t even hard. In fact, it’s easy.

All you have to do is sign up for Sellfy and you can build a simple online store in under an hour.

Just connect a domain and payment processor, design your storefront, upload your beats to your digital product catalog, and set a price. Then, you’re ready to start selling.

And once your site is up and running, you can take advantage of Sellfy’s built-in email marketing tools to drive sales.

We’d recommend signing up for the Starter plan if you’re just starting out. It lets you upload unlimited digital products and process up to $10,000 worth of sales per year, which should be plenty for new sellers.

Another neat thing about Sellfy is that it has a built-in print-on-demand feature. So if you ever want to expand your product catalog to sell more than just beats, you can design and sell your own branded merchandise without having to invest in any stock upfront.

Pros

Complete control and ownership
Opens up more monetization opportunities
Keep 100% of your own profits
Build your own brand

Cons

It’s harder to make sales (no existing customer base or traffic to tap into)
Initial setup is more difficult than signing up for a marketplace
You’ll have to devote more time to marketing

#2 – BeatStars

BeatStars claims to be the world’s number-one marketplace for buying and selling beats. It’s our personal favorite third-party platform and a great place to list your tracks.

You can get started for free on BeatStars and list up to 10 beats without paying a penny. However, if you list your tracks for free, you will be charged a 30% commission on all of your sales.

BeatStars also offers paid premium memberships which allow you to sell unlimited beats with 0% commission fees.

Another cool thing about BeatStars is that it gives you the option to distribute your music on other popular streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, to open up new revenue streams.

And the recently-released BeatID system helps producers to protect their beats and track where they’re being used across the web.

Pros

Can list up to 10 tracks for free
Popular marketplace with a good reputation
Can be used as a distribution platform

Cons

Beats listed for free subject to 30% commissions

#3 – Airbit

Airbit is a popular but competitive beat marketplace that plays host to some of the best in the game including legends like Beyoncé and Eminem.

The Airbit platform is great for creators, as it’s really easy to use and has everything you need to start selling beats professionally.

When you upload your beats, they’ll be listed in the marketplace where they can be organically discovered by Airbit users. And you’ll also be able to create an Infinity Store on the platform that allows your fans to follow you and keep up to date with all of your new music.

In addition to this, you’ll also have access to some useful legal resources, such as templates for licenses, contracts, and more. These resources can help you make sure that you’re paid every penny that you’re entitled to when selling your beats online.

Like BeatStars, Airbit has a free plan that you can use to list up to 10 beats. Or you can opt for a paid plan that includes unlimited beats and credits to promote your music on the platform.

One of the main perks about Airbit is that they charge 0% commissions across the board, so whether you’re a new creator just looking to list a few beats for free, or you want to take things more seriously, you won’t be charged any commissions on your sales.

Pros

0% commission even on free listings
Useful additional resources for beat creators
Well known platform with a good reputation

Cons

Lots of competition
Hard to promote music in the marketplace without paying for Platinum plan

#4 – AudioJungle

AudioJungle is a well-known platform for buying and selling royalty-free beats. It’s part of the popular digital downloads marketplace Envato Market, which receives millions of visits every year.

If you’re looking for a place to sell things other than music tracks, then AudioJungle may be the right choice for you. You can use the platform to sell everything from jingles and sound effects to music kits and packs.

On AudioJungle, you can set your own prices, so the prices of beats on the site vary quite a lot. However, with so many visitors to the site, it’s quite easy to get discovered on the platform. You will also be charged an author fee, which depends on a number of factors and can be changed at any time.

Pros

Diverse marketplace with lots of selling options
Easy to use platform
Popular with good discoverability

Cons

Fee/commission structure is unclear

#5 – PremiumBeat

PremiumBeat is the audio arm of the popular stock image marketplace Shutterstock. It has a great reputation and a large audience, so it’s a good choice for selling your beats online.

In order to get your beats listed on PremiumBeat, they must be 100% original and free of third-party rights.

Plus, they’ll need to be exclusively available on PremiumBeat, which means if you list them here, you won’t be able to sell them anywhere else or on your own website.

Obviously, that’s not ideal. But the good news is that PremiumBeat is an incredibly popular marketplace with a thriving customer base, so it’s pretty easy to make sales (as long as your product is good).

Whether or not that’s a worthwhile trade-off for exclusivity is up to you—but it’s worth considering.

Pros

Large customer base
Less competitive than some other marketplaces
Good support

Cons

Exclusivity requirement
Vetting process (You have to submit your music and wait for the content team to see if you’re a good fit before you can list your beats in the library)

#6 – TrakTrain

TrakTrain is another popular audio marketplace worth checking out. It doesn’t charge any commission fees on your first 15 MP3 uploads and has some advanced features that serious producers will appreciate.

One of the things we like most about TrakTrain is how flexible it is when it comes to selling your beats. You can do things like set up co-producer agreements in which you split the sale revenues with another user.

Or you can offer your beats for free when visitors follow you on social or subscribe to your mailing list. This is great for beginners who are just starting out and trying to build their reputation.

There are also marketing tools to help you drive sales, like the option to run promotions and discounts, ads, and more.

Pros

No commission fees for up to 15 uploads
Useful additional tools like co-producer agreements
Offer free beats for followers and subscribers

Cons

Free plan doesn’t offer discount features
Free plan doesn’t include custom contract options

#7 – Bandcamp

Bandcamp is an ethical online music marketplace that puts artists first. It stands out for its generous revenue model and rich community features.

Bandcamp lets you set your own prices, so you can charge as much or as little as you want. Plus, you can even set up pay-what-you-want pricing, where your fans are charged a minimum fee for the beats but have the option to pay more if they want to.

And because Bandcamp has such a great community, fans choose to pay more around 50% of the time in order to support their favorite artists.

The platform only takes 15% of your sales in fees, which leaves 85% for you. That’s better than most.

Pros

Pay-what-you-want pricing options are good for growing artists
Lots of community features
Low commission fees

Cons

Useful tools like stats and analytics are only included in the Pro plan
No commission-free option

#8 – SoundClick

SoundClick is an uber-popular music marketplace that’s been around for a long time. It gets a good amount of monthly traffic and has a huge library.

Our favorite thing about SoundClick is that, unlike most platforms, it lets free users upload an unlimited number of tracks.

The tradeoff is that SoundClick takes a 30% cut of sales of licensed beats. However, you can get around this by signing up for a paid Gold membership. Gold membership costs $15/month, which is well worth it if you’re making regular sales.

Pros

Upload unlimited track for free
Popular platform with a good audience

Cons

Membership required for 0% commission
Commission rate is high for free customers

#9 – Audiodraft

Audiodraft is a good choice for producers that are hoping to sell beats to corporate users. It has a very specific target market and caters mainly to businesses looking for audio branding materials.

Audiodraft lets you keep 70% of your sales revenue, which is pretty standard. You can choose how much you sell your beats for.

The exception to this is if your beats are selected to be featured in the ‘Music Library’. Music Library tracks are hand-picked by Audiodraft’s curation team and have set prices.

Pros

Great for selling to corporate clients
‘Music Library’ model increases discoverability

Cons

No commission-free option
The commission rate is higher than some other option

#10 – Soundee

Soundee is a less well-known marketplace with less competition than some of its competitors, which makes it easier for new producers to get noticed.

Soundee offers both free and paid plans. Free users are subject to 30% fees on all sales, but paid users get to keep all of their profits in exchange for a monthly subscription fee.

Soundee has some cool features that you don’t often see elsewhere. For example, it’s one of the only platforms that lets you accept cryptocurrencies as payment. It also lets you share beat sales with co-producers, integrate your email marketing software, and more.

Pros

Low competition
No commission option is available
Useful additional features like sharing sales with co-producers and integrating other tools

Cons

30% fees on free plan sales
The free plan is limited to 10 beats

#11 – Soundgine

Soundgine is a great place to sell pretty much any type of audio from hip-hop beats to movie scores, and even full albums.

The interface is very easy to use, which makes it easy to start selling. All you have to do is sign up, design your beat store, and upload your tracks. Then, connect a payment gateway (e.g. Stripe, PayPal, etc.) and you’re good to go.

You can set your own prices and offer different licensing options. And if you want, you can even sell subscriptions for a recurring revenue stream.

Another cool thing about Soundgine is that it has its own state-of-the-art music player through which fans can preview your tracks and share them on social media.

Pros

Easy to use
Set up your own beat store with subscription options
Music player for previewing beats

Cons

No free plan available

Frequently asked questions

Can you make a living selling beats?

It’s possible to make a living selling beats, but it won’t happen overnight.

There are lots of music producers out there that make $5,000+ per month, but it takes time to get to that point. You’ll need to work hard to carve out a name for yourself as a music producer first and establish strong relationships with clients/artists to build up your customer base.

All you need is around 50 customers who each spend $100 per month on your beats and you’ll be making a decent monthly income.

How do I price my beats?

It’s up to you how much you want to charge for your beats. The amount music artists will be willing to pay will depend on the quality of your beats, how well recognized you are as a producer, and whether or not you’re granting them exclusive rights.

Most music producers selling exclusive beat licenses typically price them somewhere in the range of $100 to $500. But recognizable producers selling to big-name artists can charge a lot more.

Non-exclusive beat licenses are usually priced a lot lower, somewhere in the region of $25 to $100. However, you can sell non-exclusive beat licenses again and again, so while the average price may be lower, you can still potentially make more money than you would if you sold exclusively.

You might also want to use a flexible pricing model and offer different versions of your beats at different price points in order to hit a larger market (e.g. you might charge extra for a package that includes the beat and the music project files/stems).

How to make beats

If you’re serious about making beats, the first thing you’ll need to do is invest in some beat-making equipment.

At a minimum, you’ll need a good DAW (digital audio workstation) like Ableton Live, Apple Logic Pro, or FL Studio. This is the software you use to record, edit, and produce your beats. The best DAWs will come with a sampler and other plugins.

Many DAWs offer their own library of sounds to use in your beats but if that’s not enough, you can find more samples on online databases like Sounds.com.

We’d also recommend investing in a MIDI controller. This is basically an electronic musical keyboard that lets you physically play music in order to build your beats, rather than drawing all the notes into your DAW.

And the last thing we’d recommend is to purchase an external audio interface to record audio.

The Focusrite Scarlett Solo is a solid choice for beginners.

Once you have your equipment, you can start putting your beats together in your DAW. It helps to have a solid foundation of knowledge about music production before you get started, but the general process goes something like this:

Choose a tempo that fits the style of beat you’re trying to create. Tempo is measured in beats per minute (BPM).
Start by adding your drums
Add more layers like bass, pads, and leads
Add sound effects
Edit to polish it up
Create a mixdown for mastering
Export to WAV or AIFF
Import the track into a new project file in your DAW
Apply some limiting/compression, EQ, etc., and make sure everything sounds right

How to market your beats

Here are a few of our favorite marketing strategies for selling beats:

Artist outreach. Make a spreadsheet with a huge list of artists who you know use beats by producers with a similar style to your own, then reach out to them on social media or by email. Start with a genuine message to strike up a conversation. Then, let them know you make beats you think they might like and invite them to take a look. You can automate the process to reach out to dozens of artists per day
YouTube clips. Upload your beats (or clips of your beats) to YouTube with compelling titles and thumbnails, and optimize them for SEO to get traffic. Link back to your online store in the description and add a CTA inside the video itself to drive clicks.
Paid ads. Depending on your marketing budget, you could consider running ads on Google, Facebook, TikTok, etc. This can help you drive traffic and sales fast but obviously, since it requires you to spend money, it’s only viable if you can generate a positive ROI (return on investment).

How do I protect my beats from being stolen?

Quick disclaimer: We’re not lawyers, so none of this should be taken as legal advice. Copyright law is complex and you should probably consult a lawyer for advice before you take any action.

As a producer, you automatically own the rights to beats you produce, which is some protection against others ‘stealing’ your beats. However, in the event that you ever get caught up in a lawsuit and want to sue for infringement, it helps to have registered your beats with the Copyright Office.

There’s a small cost to register, however, so many music producers don’t bother with this step. Even without registering with the Copyright Office, there are some steps you can take to protect your beats from being stolen, such as uploading them to a Content ID service that automatically claims YouTube videos that use your tracks without permission.

Conclusion

As you can see, you have plenty of options when it comes to selling beats online.

If you’re serious about making a living from selling beats, we recommend creating an ecommerce store with Sellfy and selling them through your own online store.

But it’s always worth listing them on online marketplaces too (unless there’s an exclusive deal in place). That way, you’re maximizing your reach and getting the best of both worlds.

And remember: Selling beats isn’t the only way to make money online.

To explore some other options, check out these related posts:

Good luck!

Disclosure: If you buy through links on our site, we may make a commission. This helps to support the running of Startup Bonsai.

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