From 'Type Beats' to finding beats with hit potential: beat marketplaces allow producers to sell, license, and share beats. This guide explains how to get started, with extra pro tips and videos about making the most of selling music via beat store platforms.
Beat marketplaces are an important ecosystem for producers who want to make money with their beats. From elite music creators to beginning beatmakers: marketplaces help producers of any level with their online beat exchanges and sales. Major beat store platforms such as BeatStars and Airbit reach millions of users, so there’s big revenue potential on beat marketplaces…
Let's illustrate this with a perfect example. One of the biggest hits in 2019 proves that beat marketplaces can provide high-quality beats and collaborative success: "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X was made with a beat he purchased at BeatStars from Dutch producer YoungKio. The price of the beat: only $30! YoungKio uploaded the beat to the marketplace with the title Future Type Beat. Lil Nas, on the other hand, had only started making music recently "out of boredom." Their exchange of a single beat on the platform changed their life forever.
"Old Town Road" sampled 2008's "Ghost IV – 34" by Nine Inch Nails, leading to infringement issues. More on copyright ownership, sample clearance, and beat licensing later in this guide. Or read Sample Clearance Demystified: How to Clear a Sample to learn more about sample clearances and how to avoid issues with a copyright owner.
There’s a wide range of beat marketplaces and third-party marketplaces. Each with its own qualities. Where to start? Here’s an overview of the biggest and best beat marketplaces out there:
"I always knew collaboration would move completely to the internet. The beauty is that the best music rises to the top. (. ) It's all about the music. It's the attention economy. Everyone is creating."
—Abe Batshon (founder of BeatStars), Rolling Stone Magazine
The value of music catalogs are a hot topic in today's music industry. Similarly, a beat catalog contains everything a beat maker has worked on over the years. Beats that are either ready for release or in a demo, premix, mix, master, or work-in-progress phase. If you want to make money with your beats, it’s important to build up and organize a beat catalog. Essentially, a beat catalog is the pot of gold producers are sitting on. That's the output and result of hard work that can be used to sell beats, land sync deals, get beat placements, or even get into ghost production.
Just like searching for samples on Tracklib, it's all about the filtering options to find the right style. In a way, 'Type Beats' originated from beat store platforms and beat hosting platforms like SoundCloud. The entire process of each marketplace is completely different, so keep that in mind when offering your beats on a certain website. Use advanced features to analyze your competition, the featured beats by elite music creators, and the behavior of beat buyers to learn what type of work they’re after. First, get a feel from the buyer's perspective instead of your own perspective as a seller. Understand your audience.
The trending tracks on BeatStars and Airbit's Top Charts have one thing in common: all beats have complete metadata (genre, BPM, key, usage rights). Always make sure to be as thorough and precise as possible.
Next to that, all bestsellers have the right tags. Some beat makers even add certain moods to the metadata. Examples include drake type beat*, *travis scott, playboi carti, a boogie wit da hoodie, hard beat, or moods like ambient and sad.
Lastly, some elite music creators on beat marketplaces add a special deal such as 'Buy 1 Get 4 Free' to the title of a beat to spark interest from buyers.