Top 10 Beatstars Alternatives for Music Producers
In the world of making and selling beats, it’s important to be able to adapt to changes. Recently, Beatstars made some changes that have made music producers look for other platforms that might suit them better. Beatstars is known for being a great platform for selling beats because it’s easy to use and has lots of features. Even with the changes, many producers still like using Beatstars because it’s reliable and works well.
I’ve been in the beat-selling industry for a while and have tried out different platforms and beatstore templates. In this article, we’ll talk about six other platforms that you might consider if you’re looking for an alternative to Beatstars. These platforms have different features and options, which can help you in your journey as a music producer.
1. Airbit Infinity Store – Beat Market Place
Airbit, founded just a year after Beatstars, was created with the intent to empower creators as artists and entrepreneurs through new technologies and forward-thinking music monetization tools. Since its inception in 2009, Airbit has grown to become a powerful platform for hundreds and thousands of creators.
This platform is very similar to Beatstars and also offers something in place of the Pro Page called the Infinity Store.
Features of Airbit
- Custom Beat Store: Create a personalized beat store to showcase and sell your beats.
- YouTube Monetization: Earn revenue from YouTube videos using your beats through the Content ID system.
- Unlimited Beat Uploads: Platinum members can upload and sell an unlimited number of beats and sound packs.
- 0% Seller Commission: Platinum members enjoy 0% seller commission on the marketplace and no buyer fees.
- Global Artist Community Access: Connect with artists from around the world through the BandLab community.
- Auto-create & Post Beat Videos: Automatically create and post beat videos on YouTube and TikTok.
- Custom Licenses & Contracts: Create custom licenses and e-signed contracts for your beats.
- Co-Producer Splits: Collaborate with other producers and record the revenue split on Airbit.
- Discounts & Coupons: Offer discounts and coupons to buyers.
- Google Analytics / Facebook Pixel Integration: Integrate Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel for tracking and analytics.
Pros
- User-Friendly Interface: Airbit offers a simple and intuitive interface, making it easy for producers to upload, manage, and sell their beats.
- Customizable Beat Store: Producers can customize their beat stores to match their branding, giving them a professional and unique online presence.
- Multiple Licensing Options: Airbit allows producers to offer different licensing options for their beats, such as lease, premium, and exclusive rights, providing flexibility for buyers.
- Sales Tracking and Analytics: The platform provides detailed sales tracking and analytics, allowing producers to monitor their sales performance and make informed decisions..
- Continious Audio Play back
Cons
- Subscription Fees: While Airbit offers a free plan, producers looking for advanced features may need to subscribe to a paid plan, which can be a recurring expense.
- Competition: With a large number of producers on the platform, competition can be high, making it challenging for new producers to stand out and attract buyers.
- Limited Customization in Free Plan: The free plan of Airbit may have limitations in terms of customization options for the beat store, which could restrict the branding and design choices for producers.
- Transaction Fees: Airbit charges transaction fees on sales, which can reduce the overall earnings of producers.
2. Sonaar Rebirth – WordPress Beat Store
In 2018, I discovered Sonaar Rebirth, a WordPress Template Kit tailored for musicians, music producers, and record labels, while seeking an alternative to Beatstars. This find significantly altered my approach to selling beats online. Rebirth stands out as more than just a template kit; it’s a transformative tool for music producers and beat makers. Integrated with Elementor and WooCommerce, it simplifies the online selling process for beats, music, drum kits, and more, allowing you to swiftly establish a professional beat store website.
The Elementor Template Kit functions as a DIY kit for building WordPress websites. It provides pre-designed, customizable templates, enabling you to craft a professional-looking site without coding knowledge. Rebirth and Elementor give you full control over your site’s design and functionality, empowering you to effortlessly showcase your unique style and brand.
Pros
- Modern and Stylish Design: The theme offers a contemporary and visually appealing design that is well-suited for musicians, bands, and music producers.
- Customizable: Sonaar Rebirth provides a high level of customization options, allowing users to tailor the theme to their specific needs and branding.
- Music-Specific Features: It includes features specifically designed for music websites, such as audio players, discography pages, event listings, and more.
- Responsive Design: The theme is fully responsive, ensuring a seamless experience across various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- Easy Integration with Popular Plugins: Sonaar Rebirth is compatible with popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, Elementor, and WPBakery, making it easy to extend its functionality.
- Pre-Built Demos: It comes with several pre-built demo sites that can be imported with a single click, helping users get their site up and running quickly.
- SEO-Friendly: The theme is optimized for search engines, helping users improve their website’s visibility and rankings.
- Customer Support: Sonaar offers dedicated customer support to assist users with any issues or questions they may have.
Cons
- Initial Cost: While there are no monthly subscription fees, there may be an initial cost for purchasing the Sonaar Rebirth template kit and any required plugins.
- Hosting Limitations: Unlimited beat uploads are subject to the limitations of the hosting provider, which may impose storage or bandwidth restrictions.
- Learning Curve: Despite its user-friendly interface, some users may still experience a learning curve when first using Elementor and WooCommerce, especially if they are new to WordPress.
- Dependency on Plugins: The reliance on multiple plugins, such as Elementor and WooCommerce, means that users must ensure compatibility and updates for smooth operation.
- Competition: As a WordPress-based solution, users may face competition from other producers using similar tools and templates, making it essential to focus on unique branding and content.
- Technical Support: While there is documentation available, users may require additional technical support, which may not be as comprehensive as platforms with dedicated customer service teams.
- Customization Effort: Although the templates are customizable, achieving a highly unique design may still require additional effort and time to tweak the elements to match specific branding needs.
3. Beatifyy Pro – Shopify Beat Store
Beatifyy Pro is a new Shopify template designed exclusively for beat makers, offering an affordable option for selling beats, music, sound kits, and other digital products. This template, based on the Shopify Dawn theme, provides a range of features including unlimited beat uploads, an integrated audio player, built-in SEO, easy management, integrated analytics, and licensing integration with a Licensing App. One of the greatest advantages of Beatifyy Pro is its speed, usability, easy beat management, easy customization, low monthly fees, and more. It utilizes free Shopify apps, eliminating the need for additional charges, making it a cost-effective solution for music producers looking to sell their creations online.
Pros
- Tailored for Beat Makers: Specifically designed for music producers, musicians, and beat makers, offering features that cater to their needs.
- Unlimited Beat Uploads:No restrictions on the number of beats you can upload, providing flexibility and ample storage for your music.
- Integrated Audio Player: Built-in audio player allows customers to preview beats directly on the site, enhancing the shopping experience.
- Built-in SEO: SEO features help improve your store’s visibility on search engines, attracting more potential buyers.
- Easy to Manage: User-friendly interface makes it simple to manage your digital products, even for those with limited technical skills.
- Integrated Analytics: Provides insights into customer behavior and sales performance, helping you make data-driven decisions.
- Compatibility and Functionality: Based on the latest Shopify Dawn theme release, ensuring up-to-date compatibility and functionality.
- Cost-Effective: Utilizes free Shopify apps, eliminating the need for additional charges and making it an affordable option.
- Support Youtube shop
Cons
- New in the game, still room for more features and growth.
- Template Constraints: While customizable, it may have limitations compared to fully custom-built websites.
- No Continuous audio playback: Continuous audio playback does not work on Checkout and Blog pages, which may disrupt the user experience for those sections.
- Competition: With many beat makers potentially using the same template, it may be challenging to stand out without significant customization.
4. Traktrain – Beat Market Place
Traktrain is a platform for buying, selling, and leasing instrumentals. Their top priorities include providing producers with the best user experience by taking a 0% sales commission and offering buyers a curated marketplace of quality instrumentals.
Traktrain offers producers three plans:
- Free Plan: Limits uploads to 15 tracks.
- $9/Month Plan: Includes payment splitting, track publishing scheduling, and other perks.
- $19/Month Plan: Raises the upload limit to 1000 tracks.
Traktrain’s community is one of its strongest assets, setting it apart from competitors. The team’s various creative backgrounds enable them to understand their community’s needs and challenges, not only from a business perspective but also in terms of the beat-making landscape.
Traktrain engages with and champions its users through various channels, including social media, a Sky Lounge group chat on Telegram, YouTube interviews with members who’ve had successful placements, and a weekly podcast showcasing a selection of instrumentals from members’ catalogs.
The platform has sold over 215,000 beats, with producers earning over $8.3 million. It boasts over 56,000 registered producers and has had over 500,000 beats uploaded.
Features
- Beat Selling Platform: Traktrain provides a platform for producers to upload, showcase, and sell their beats to artists and content creators.
- Lease and Exclusive Rights: Producers can offer both lease and exclusive rights to their beats, allowing artists to choose the licensing option that best fits their needs.
- Custom Licenses: Producers can create custom licensing agreements for their beats, offering flexibility in pricing and usage terms.
- Zero Commission: Traktrain does not take a commission from beat sales, allowing producers to keep 100% of their earnings.
- Community and Networking: Traktrain fosters a community of producers and artists, allowing them to connect, collaborate, and share ideas.
- Beat Store Customization: Producers can customize their beat stores with their branding, images, and descriptions to create a unique and professional storefront.
- Sales Analytics: Traktrain provides detailed analytics and reporting on beat sales, allowing producers to track their sales performance and make informed decisions.
- Secure Transactions: Traktrain ensures secure transactions between producers and buyers, protecting both parties from fraud and disputes.
- Mobile-Friendly Interface: Traktrain’s platform is mobile-friendly, allowing producers and buyers to access and use the platform on the go.
- Customer Support: Traktrain offers customer support to assist producers and buyers with any questions or issues they may have.
5. Sound Click – Beat Market Place
SoundClick stands out as a pioneer in the world of online music, having launched its platform in 1997. Back then, every artist page and link had to be painstakingly crafted by hand. Despite these challenges, SoundClick’s mission has always been to make artists’ music easily accessible online.
6. Soundee – Beat Market Place
Soundee offers a unique opportunity for beat makers to supercharge their beat sales with a special six-month offer for $97. This deal includes full access to Soundee’s features with no commissions, fees, or subscription required. With Soundee, users can take advantage of features like the Beat Store, which allows them to keep 100% of their profits without any hidden fees or transaction charges. The platform also supports all major payment providers, including PayPal, Stripe, GooglePay, ApplePay, major cards, and even cryptocurrency. Soundee’s Marketplace provides a space for artists and creators to discover, collaborate, and thrive in a community designed for musical innovation. Additionally, Soundee offers the Pagebuilder feature, allowing users to design their web store from scratch or embed it on their own website, fully customizable to match their brand. With Soundee, users can transform every visitor into a potential sale with tools like email marketing integrations, exit intents, and popups. Soundee also provides educational resources through its partnership with HEATE, offering workshops, masterclasses, mentorship, and more to help users maximize their beat sales using Soundee’s innovative features.
7. PremiumBeat – Music Market Place
PremiumBeat, a Shutterstock company, offers high-quality tracks and sound effects for various media projects. Their library includes music for videos, films, apps, games, and TV shows. With a wide range of music styles and genres, PremiumBeat provides a polished sound similar to big production houses.
Selling beats on PremiumBeat isn’t as simple as creating a subscription. Producers must submit their music for review, ensuring that only high-quality beats are accepted.
8. Beatstore.co – WordPress Beat Store
Starting as a plugin, Beatstore.co has evolved into a comprehensive beat-selling solution based on WordPress. Its user-friendly template simplifies the process of setting up a beat store. If you prefer a more straightforward integration, you can opt for their plugin, which provides core functionality without the full template.
Pros
- Ultra-Fast Load Times: Optimized for speed, ensuring quick load times for a better user experience.
- Customization Options: Includes options for logo, theme color, banner images, front page sidebar, and social media links using the Theme Customizer.
- Pre-Built Page Templates: Comes with ready-made templates for the Front Page, All Beats, Pricing, and Blog/Single Post, saving time on design and setup.
- Continuous Audio Playback: Audio plays continuously when changing pages, providing a seamless listening experience, with exceptions for Checkout and Blog pages.
- Analytics Integration: Integrated with Google Analytics to track song plays and Facebook Pixel for marketing insights.
- BeatStore Plugin Compatibility: Fully functional with or without the optional BeatStore WP Plugin, adding flexibility for users.
- Drag and Drop Customization: Home page modules can be reordered and their visibility toggled via drag and drop in the customizer.
- Improved Mobile Design: Enhanced mobile footer player design and functionality, including touch events for play buttons.
- Mailchimp Integration: Allows for free downloads with Mailchimp integration, helping to build email lists.
- Support for Licenses and Contracts: Integration with the Licenses and Contracts Plugin improves the add-to-cart sections and single download page design.
Cons
- Limited Plugin Compatibility: Not designed to integrate with every WordPress plugin, which may limit functionality for some users.
- Incompatibility with Page Builders: Not compatible with most page builders, restricting customization for users who prefer those tools.
- WooCommerce Not Supported: Currently, the theme does not support WooCommerce, limiting eCommerce options to Easy Digital Downloads.
- Required Plugins: Requires Easy Digital Downloads, Advanced Custom Fields, and Kirki, which may add complexity to the setup process.
- Active License Needed for Support: Users need an active license for support and updates, which may incur additional costs.
- Limited Pre-Built Pages: Only a few pre-designed page templates are included, which might not cover all needs.
- Checkout and Blog Page Limitations: Continuous audio playback does not work on Checkout and Blog pages, which may disrupt the user experience for those sections.
Watch and overview and tutorial of this template below
9. Producer Themes – WordPress Beat Store
Pros
- Tailored for Music Producers: Themes are specifically designed for music producers, artists, and musicians, ensuring relevant features and aesthetics.
- Built-in Audio Players: Many themes include built-in audio players, making it easy to showcase and stream your music directly on your website.
- E-commerce Integration: The themes often come with e-commerce capabilities, allowing you to sell beats, music, and other digital products directly from your site.
- Customizable Designs: High levels of customization options enable you to tailor the website’s look and feel to match your brand identity.
- Responsive Design: Themes are generally responsive, ensuring your website looks great on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- SEO-Friendly: The themes are designed with SEO in mind, helping improve your website’s visibility in search engine results.
Cons
- Limited theme options: While the themes are specialized, the variety might be limited compared to broader WordPress theme marketplaces.
- Dependency on updates: Your website’s functionality and security rely on the theme developers regularly updating the theme. If updates are infrequent, this could pose risks.
- Potential for overwhelm: The extensive customization options might be overwhelming for users who prefer simpler, more straightforward setups.
- Compatibility issues: There might be compatibility issues with certain plugins or newer versions of WordPress if the theme isn’t regularly updated.
- Outdated themes: Some themes may not be updated regularly, leading to outdated designs and potential security vulnerabilities.
- No active community: A lack of an active user community can make it harder to find support, share experiences, and get advice on using the themes.
10. Beatifyy Lite Starter Kit – Shopify Lite Beatstore
Among the array of beat-selling WordPress themes, Producer Themes stands out as a versatile and user-friendly option tailored specifically for beat makers. With a strong focus on customization, this theme allows you to effortlessly create a professional beat-selling website to showcase your music, sell beats, and build your brand.
Producer Themes offers a range of modern designs to choose from, ensuring that your website reflects your unique style and aesthetic. The theme includes a powerful music player, enabling your customers to preview and purchase your beats with ease. Additionally, you can track analytics to gain insights into your sales performance and customer behavior, empowering you to refine your marketing strategy and grow your business.
Conclusion:
As music producers navigate the changing landscape of Beatstars, it’s reassuring to know that there are several reputable alternatives to consider. Each of these platforms brings unique features and customization capabilities to the table, allowing you to craft a professional beat-selling platform tailored to your preferences and aspirations. The key is to find the platform that aligns with your goals and empowers you to continue thriving in the beat-selling industry.
FAQs:
1. Are these Beatstars alternatives suitable for beginners in beat-selling?
Absolutely! These alternatives cater to both beginners and experienced music producers, offering various levels of customization and support.
2. Do these platforms support different payment methods?
Yes, most of these platforms support multiple payment methods, making it convenient for you to receive payments from your customers.
3. Can I migrate my existing beats and data from Beatstars to these alternatives?
You can do so manually
4. Are there any hidden fees associated with these alternatives?
While most of these platforms offer transparent pricing, it’s a good practice to review their pricing plans and terms to ensure you’re aware of any potential fees.
5. Which alternative would you recommend for maximum customization?
If you prioritize customization, Sonaar Audience™ and Shopify Custom Beat Store are excellent choices, allowing you to tailor your beat-selling platform to your exact specifications.