If you love making music, you probably want to know how to make money from your music—and why wouldn’t you? Whether it’s your day job or a lucrative side hustle , selling music online is a creative way to make money doing something you love .
We’ve put together a comprehensive list of ways to make money as a musician to diversify your income. This will reduce the pressure of constantly releasing new albums and give you the freedom to pursue new projects while maintaining a stable income.
How can you make money as a musician?
Musicians can earn money in a variety of ways online and offline. Top options include licensing music for film and advertising, oman email list revenue from streaming services like Spotify, crowdfunding, selling merchandise, live performances, and platforms like YouTube or Twitch. With the right strategy, creative projects can be financially successful.
24 Ways to Make Money Online as a Musician
- Licensing of master recordings
- Sync licensing
- music libraries
- music streaming
- Digital Downloads
- sale of physical recordings
- live performances
- session work
- Songwriting for other artists
- production for other artists
- film music
- composition for advertising
- teaching music
- music therapy
- DJing
- weddings and corporate events
- merchandise sales
- crowdfunding
- Patreon and other fan support platforms
- YouTube
- Twitch
- music affiliate
- in-store media companies
- fan club
No matter what field you’re in, easily create an online store you can find ways to monetize your music business. Here are some of the best ways to make money as a musician:
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1. Licensing of master recordings
Master recording licensing is the process by which musicians or record labels grant permission to use their original master recordings in visual media such as films, china phone numbers TV shows, commercials, and video games. You can either get paid up front or through royalties that depend on factors such as usage, distribution, and reach.
When you get paid based on usage, you receive payments from a collecting society like ASCAP or BMI. These organizations oversee the public commercial use of artists’ music and collect and distribute royalties to those artists.
A platform like Royalty Exchange can help you fund your music project by selling a portion of your future royalties to investors. This provides you with an upfront payment and allows backers to potentially earn a return on their investment.
2. Sync licensing
Sync licensing, or synchronization licensing, is similar to master licensing, but the focus is on the composition or underlying musical work rather than the actual sound recording. In many cases, a licensee might choose to re-record a song rather than use the master recording.
Sync licensing is managed by songwriters, composers, or the music publisher who owns the rights to a musical composition. To make money from a sync license, you must own one or more of these properties. You will likely need to find buyers for the sync rights of your music. Sync licensing libraries like Music Gateway can also help you find buyers (more on that in a moment).
Reading tip: In this article, we show you why Spotify advertising is worthwhile.
3. Music libraries
Music libraries are platforms that connect musicians with opportunities to license their works for use in TV shows, films, and commercials. To create your own music library, you’ll need to record a large number of musical compositions and categorize them with metadata such as length, tempo, mood, tonality, genre, and instrumentation. You can then sell the entire library to end users or sell the tracks a la carte for use in sync or master licensing.
To be successful at selling a music library, it helps to have extremely high-quality recordings of your tracks. It’s also beneficial to include tracks that can potentially serve a commercial purpose. For example, soothing acoustic music might work well in an aromatherapy advert, while energetic music could be used to sell a sports car.
Some of the most popular music libraries are:
- Music Gateway
- PremiumBeat
- BeatStars
- Musicbed
- Soundstripe
4. Music streaming
You can publish tracks on music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and others and receive small payments when listeners stream your songs. The revenue per stream is quite low – less than a cent per stream on most platforms – but this medium continues to grow in popularity. Data shows that in 2023, about 109 million U.S. subscribers paid for a streaming service. In the same year, streaming music brought in 84% of recorded music revenue in the U.S.
To get your music on the major streaming platforms, you’ll need to sign up with a distributor. Most charge a fee or commission, but they’re also the ones who pay out your royalties whenever someone plays your song.
Here are some distribution networks you should consider:
- Landr
- TuneCore
- CD Baby
- amuse
5. Digital Downloads
You can sell downloads of your songs and albums, allowing music fans to own the recording rather than effectively renting it through a streaming service. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reports that total revenue from digital music downloads was approximately $434 million in 2023. While this is a significant amount, it only accounts for about 3% of recorded music revenue in the U.S. Still, you can secure a piece of the pie by releasing your tracks on platforms like iTunes and Bandcamp.