How Can You Make Money on SoundCloud?

SoundCloud is one of the biggest audio streaming platforms in the world. It has a community of more than 76 million music listeners and fans. So, the platform presents a great opportunity for artists to get their name out there, gain listeners, and start earning money from it. It is the platform that has seen various successes over the years where artists who have started on SoundCloud went viral overnight and have now become some of the biggest names in the industry.

The next artist might be you. Moreover, it is also a platform that gives you a stable earning option if you take the right approach and make the right strategies.

Can artists make money on SoundCloud?

This is a real question that needs to be answered. To be honest, every musician is making music to gain something. At the end of the day, it might be fame, recognition, or money. However, this question becomes too real for independent artists who need financial support more than anything to keep going and doing what they love, making music. So, to answer the question, yes, artists most definitely can make money on the platform.

SoundCloud is considered one of the world's biggest audio streaming platforms with more than 150 million tracks on its library. So, it offers a number of products for not only its listeners but also independent artists and provides several ways you can earn through SoundCloud. If you are an artist uploading tracks on the platform, you can monetize your profile and expect payouts ranging from $0.0025 to $0.004 per stream, which too, for every 1000 plays. When it comes to indie artists, they can get $2.50–$4, and the more streams you get on your uploaded tracks, the more you can earn.

How do you get paid on SoundCloud?

First, you need to start with the SoundCloud Partner program which is completely free and it is very easy to join the community. After that, you can upload your tracks, get feedback on them, and access basic statistics. However, to be able to make some real money on the platform, you need to either subscribe to SoundCloud Repost or SoundCloud Pro Unlimited.

The tier of SoundCloud Pro is based on a monthly subscription of $ 4.99 which allows you to save an unlimited number of tracks along with free access to SoundCloud's advanced insights. The SoundCloud Repost tier is for a $30 yearly subscription that comes with the opportunity to distribute unlimited music to Apple Music, Spotify, Instagram, and TikTok while keeping 80% of the entire revenue. This package has many more, it comes with exclusive features such as featured profiles, banner click-throughs, track background art, and much more.

Also Read: YouTube Monetization: How to Make Money from YouTube Videos

How to use the SoundCloud Premier Program to monetize your account?

SoundCloud has some rules regarding content monetization on the platform. If you want to qualify for this, you must be a pro account SoundCloud member, an independent creator owning all the rights to your music including complete rights for publishing, distribution, and masters, and must be at least 18 years old. Additionally, this SoundCloud premier program also requires artists to have zero copyright strikes on their pages at the time of enrollment and at least 500 eligible streams in the previous month.

How can you enable monetization on tracks?

Once you have followed all the rules and made sure that you are eligible for monetization by signing the monetization agreement, you can start the process of earning money in either one track or multiple tracks.

    • First, go to the tracks page and select your desired number of tracks where you want to start monetization. 

    • Now, choose the monetization tab for the particular tracks and then click to enable the process. 

    • For each territory, you need to select your username where you want it to be monetized on SoundCloud. At the same time, advance this process and engage more listeners by entering your description details on the metadata tab. 

    • Finish the process of monetization on SoundCloud by saving all the recent changes.

How to get royalties on SoundCloud?

To get a royalty on SoundCloud per stream, there are some criteria you need to meet as a creator. They are -

    • Your profile on the platform and the track must be set for monetization. 

    • Every stream or listen must be longer than 30 seconds. 

    • The track must occur in the monetizable territory. 

    • The track must also occur via mobile or web. The listen or streams that occur via embedded applications where no advertisements are played will not be counted for royalties.

To earn money from SoundCloud, your main focus should be on increasing your listener count, and for that, you need both quality music and quality promotion.