Why do I prefer using Bandcamp than any other platform or streaming service to sell my music?

Why is it better than Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify and all the rest?

There are many reasons I think Bandcamp is the best platform for independent artists. Bandcamp gives you control of the commercial aspect of your music business. And if you are an artist/musician, sometimes that part is the most difficult. On Bandcamp, not only can control your pricing, creatives and upload whenever you want, but most importantly, gather all your fans all in one place.

Sound Quality

Bandcamp is one of the only places that offers high quality downloads like .aiff, .wav or .flac. The songs stream instantaneously in the Bandcamp app. You can choose which songs you want to offer before a release and you can setup album preorders.  Unlike iTunes and other services, you can upload and release immediately — there is no middleman — and you don’t need to wait for any distributor or platform to approve your release. It’s just you and the platform and all your Bandcamp activity goes straight to your email.

Bandcamp Emails

They say, “God is in the details” and sometimes it’s the little details that make all the difference. Bandcamp’s emails are joyful. Little things like the “Cha-ching! Another $7.00 for your album” and “Ba-da-boom! Another $6.00” for this in the subject line – it really makes the financial exchange more playful — less ‘transactional’ and more something to celebrate about. Bandcamp deposits the money in your Paypal account right away. You don’t have to wait for every QTR like you do from iTunes and Spotify. You can even see your supporter’s avatar right under your release. They can leave a review and you can contact them to thank them personally.

There is a lot more to Bandcamp then I’ve mentioned here —  like easily adding physical merchandise, notifying fans when the item is shipped, personal notes, free download codes, exporting your fans email list in an excel file, purchases and finally they report to the music charts for you.

Fans

If you are a fan, you can instantly stream or download your purchase and showcase your collection. And if you are looking for discovery, Bandcamp sends out an email to all fan accounts about what the people you are following are purchasing, so it is a great way to discover new music by exploring the collections of like-minded fans.

Faith

There’s a lot of noise out there that people don’t buy music anymore, well…just go over to Bandcamps homepage and check out their — “Selling Right Now” carousel. – you can see real time purchases of people buying music.It says right there:

Fans have paid artists $290 million using Bandcamp, and $7.2 million in the last 30 days alone

Proof people are still buying music.