4. Bandcamp
Selling directly to your audience: real fees, formats, how to get paid, Bandcamp Fridays, its ban on AI music and when it's worthwhile.
Bandcamp works the opposite way from streaming: your audience buys from you directly and you pay the platform a fee. You don’t need a distributor, and one sale can leave you more than thousands of streams. In rock and metal it’s a natural home: plenty of people there buy music and merch.
How much it keeps
According to Bandcamp:
It goes back to 15% if your last 12 months of sales fall below that amount. The fee only applies to the first USD 100 of each item.
Calculated before shipping and taxes. T-shirts, CDs, vinyl and cassettes are a normal part of the store.
Charged separately, and it weighs more on small sales. So it's worth selling at a reasonable price rather than a dollar.
Example: with a USD 7 EP, after taking off 15% and about 5%, you’re left with around USD 5.60. It would take many streams to match that sale.
Bandcamp Fridays
On certain Fridays, Bandcamp waives its fee, and only the processor’s is taken. They tend to concentrate sales, so it’s worth releasing new things and giving notice beforehand. The dates change each year: this external source lists them, and it’s worth confirming them with Bandcamp.
How to upload
- Format: uncompressed (WAV, AIFF or FLAC), stereo, at least 16 bits and 44.1 kHz.
- High resolution: it accepts 24 bits, and recommends leaving 0.5 dB of margin.
- Don’t convert an MP3 to WAV. Bandcamp generates the download versions from your file.
- Free listening: by default, a fan can hear each full track 3 times before being prompted to buy.
How to get paid
Bandcamp pays through PayPal, within 24 to 48 hours by default. According to external sources, it also adds Stripe, with changes to PayPal at the end of 2026: confirm which option works in your country before relying on it. Above USD 5,000 a year, it asks for tax details.
AI: the clearest stance
Since January 2026, Bandcamp prohibits music generated wholly or in substantial part with AI, and reserves the right to remove music it suspects is.
Its terms say it won’t use your music to train models without your permission, and its use policy bans scraping the site for that. If this topic worries you, it’s one of the most protective stances among the platforms in this guide.
Bandcamp neither replaces streaming nor competes with your distributor. You can be on both, and add it whenever you want. It takes an afternoon to set up.
Streaming or Bandcamp
They aren’t mutually exclusive. Use both: streaming to get discovered, and Bandcamp for those who want to support you. For a metal album, it’s also where the vinyl and the T-shirt sell.
Common mistakes
Quick path: Bandcamp
Quick path
- Create your artist account under the same name.
- Check which payment method works in your country.
- Upload WAV or FLAC, not MP3.
- Set a reasonable price, or pay what you want with a minimum.
- Add credits and lyrics.
- Add merch, if you have it.
- Tell your audience before a Bandcamp Friday.
Expected result
Expected result
Your own store where your audience buys from you directly, alongside your streaming presence. With few sales you can already see real income. Next is a platform that mixes social network and streaming: SoundCloud.