Millions of independent musicians use SoundCloud, which introduced its SoundCloud Premier direct monetization program in 2018. The program itself is not new, but it was previously only accessible through an invitation-only beta. Since that time, all qualified artists have had access to it.
The goal of every musician now is to support themselves financially through their art, and SoundCloud supports independent artists in achieving that goal, however it does have some significant limitations.
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Are you Qualified for Monetisation on SoundCloud?
For starters, it is only available to a select group of qualified artists.To qualify for SoundCloud monetization, you’ll need to check a few boxes. To begin, you must be a SoundCloud Premier member in order to earn money from your music.
To be eligible for SoundCloud Premier, you need to be:
- 18 years old or above.
- An independent, original creator.
- A Pro or Pro Account SoundCloud member.
- An artist who has at least 5,000 plays in the past month from SoundCloud monetised countries.
- Your account must have no copyright strikes.
How much can you earn on SoundCloud?
Costs associated with becoming a Premier member range from $8 to $16 per month for hosting. Fortunately, tracks uploaded can be made monetizable right away. The Verge reported that for the songs they upload, artists can receive a 55% net revenue share. Therefore, if your music earns $1000 on SoundCloud, it will keep 45% of the revenue while paying you the remaining $550. Comparatively speaking, this is a little more generous than Spotify’s 50% net revenue.
It’s difficult to estimate your SoundCloud earnings based only on streams because your SoundCloud earnings depend on more than just your plays. Instead of the quantity of times your song is played, SoundCloud’s monthly performance in terms of advertising and membership subscriptions will determine your earnings.
In general, it is still comparable to Spotify. The expected payout per play can range from $0.0025 to $0.004. So you’d get between $2.50 and $4.00 for every 1000 plays.
Boost your Tracks with SoundCloud
We have a suggestion if you want to give your music a bigger boost and exposure outside of SoundCloud. One way to show the world your music or musical brand is to use online available tools and services, while there is many of them we can only talk about the ones we tried, one of them is wenzom, that can be used for both increasing the track plays the paid way, and the free way, the latter would be the best since getting free SoundCloud plays will definitely help your track reach.
Of course let’s not forget that the best way to promote your tracks is by building your own website with your chosen domain name is one of the best ways to promote yourself, your brand, band, or podcast. This way, your target audience and internet browsers can find you and learn more about you via your website.
Enable Monetization on Your SoundCloud Tracks
Once you have confirmed that you are approved and have agreed to the terms of the SoundCloud Premier agreement, you can begin SoundCloud monetization for a single track or a collection of tracks.
- Go to your tracks page and select the desired track(s)
- Choose the monetization tab for the track and enable monetization.
- Press “Save,” and you’ll be notified in 24 hours whether your monetisation request has been approved.
SoundCloud Monetisation Countries
These are currently the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.
More Ways to Make Money on SoundCloud
You can link your online store to your SoundCloud account if you want to sell your music directly to customers on SoundCloud and avoid the middleman (and additional revenue charges). You can keep all of your revenue if you direct your fans to an external website where they can purchase your songs.
Your bio is another excellent place to provide a direct link to your online store. To add a link to your bio, go to your SoundCloud “Profile Settings” and choose “Edit.” Then click “Save Changes” after pasting the URL of your online store into the bio box.
While promoting your music is the difficult part, in addition to the free service we already mentioned that can boost your songs, well it can be done more effectively when you buy SoundCloud plays from reputable companies.
Conclusion
Massive streaming service SoundCloud contends head-to-head with Spotify for the top spot. Despite all the attention, it is not the best streaming service for paying musicians, podcasters, or other content producers. That does not imply that it ought to be avoided. Contrarily, with such a large audience, you can still make a respectable sum of money for your efforts even if you only manage to reach a few thousand streamers.
We would strongly discourage using SoundCloud alone if you want to monetize your music. The best way to distribute your music to as many people as you can as a beginner is to use other services like Distrokid, Stem, Audiomack, or CDBaby.
Read more about reputable music promotion companies.
