In March 2021, Soundcloud made a huge announcement every artist and industry professional needs to know about. What’s the big news? Their switch to a fan powered royalty system. This new Soundcloud promotion payment system aims at putting more money and power back into the hands of independent artists.

Currently, all artists are sharing their hard-earned streaming profits with megastars. How so? On most platforms, streaming revenue an artist earns from their dedicated fanbase goes into a giant pool that’s paid out to artists based on their share of total streams. This current model mostly only benefits megastars. There is also little to no transparency or regulations surrounding the algorithms of how payouts are decided. Oh, and the algorithms change weekly and by region with no real explanation. Not cool.

The good news? Soundcloud is now offering artists a more fair alternative to this questionable system. Starting April 1, Soundcloud will pay artists for their streams based on their dedicated fans’ listening habits. The formula is simple–the more fans that listen to an artist’s music on the platform the more the artist gets paid. Period. No pooling streams in with other artists.

Fan powered royalties level the playing field when it comes to being paid for streams. Michael Weissman, Chief Executive Officer, SoundCloud stated in Soundcloud’s recent press release, “As the only direct-to-consumer music streaming platform and next generation artist services company, the launch of fan-powered royalties represents a significant move in SoundCloud’s strategic direction to elevate, grow and create new opportunities directly with independent artists.”

These new changes will start benefiting artists April 1, with hopes of encouraging other streaming platforms to review their payout processes. According to Business Insider, “The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers–a group of more than 27,000 members of the music industry–are calling on Spotify to increase its royalty payment to at least a penny per stream and also adopt a user-centric model similar to the one SoundCloud announced.”
 

Grow Your Fanbase on Soundcloud with our Soundcloud PR campaigns

Our new SoundCloud Exposure campaigns leverage our extensive network of influential artist and tastemaker accounts and playlists on Soundcloud. This organically boosts a track’s plays and reposts and increases an artist’s following on Soundcloud.

Schedule a time below to talk to submit your upcoming release to our A&R team for Soundcloud PR campaign consideration. We will explain the details on how these campaigns work and how leveraging Soundcloud can help you earn more money.

Facts About SoundCloud

  • SoundCloud generated $166 million in revenue in 2019
  • SoundCloud has more than 80 million registered users
  • 175 million people access SoundCloud once a month

*(From business of apps)