In today’s world full of artists and creativity, the online music industry is one of the highest-paid and most lucrative industry. If a creator or a musician does not work according to today’s audience which is solely dependent on online mode to enjoy the music, he or she can never go on top. Online music and audio sharing platforms are the best to do so. SoundCloud and BandCamp are the two most popular services for independent as well as small bands.
These help to promote and sell their content along with making their work reach a broader audience. If a musician or singer or a band is highly active on these types of platforms, this is definitely going to serve their career in a better way.
SoundCloud vs BandCamp
The main difference between SoundCloud and BandCamp is that SoundCloud has more features related to social networking whereas BandCamp has only fundamental social networking functionalities but is designed to help the user to get their music discovered and sold.
Comparison Table Between SoundCloud and BandCamp
| Parameter of Comparison | SoundCloud | BandCamp |
| Social Marketing Features | SoundCloud got a set of amazing social networking features, and these are extensively used by dedicated users and music enthusiasts. | BandCamp only has very basic social networking and marketing functions which are not comparable to SoundCloud. |
| Music Selling | SoundCloud focuses more on your music shared and listened to rather than being sold. However, it has various options related to monetization but they are not enough to make much profit. | BandCamp is purely designed to support artists get their music discovered as well as sold among music lovers. |
| Embedding The Media | SoundCloud from very initial days has various amazing functionalities available for embedding your media. | In BandCamp, the user can embed his or her tracks, albums, and EPs. However, these embeds are not comparable to SoundCloud. |
| Bloggers & Reviewer Friendly | Bloggers and publicists widely use SoundCloud and many a time request it. | However, BandCamp is not generally requested by bloggers as well as publicists. |
| Longevity & Stability | These days SoundCloud is making $100 million per annum and is stable. However, it has been on the unstable financial ground in the past. | BandCamp from day one has never faced any financial issues and assumed to be stable and well managed. |
What is SoundCloud?
SoundCloud is one of the world’s largest audio platform that enables its users to share their music among various creators, curator,s and listeners from all over the world. It is a platform that is so solely based on audio distribution. It is used to you save, upload, and promote their audio content. The recent informal version of SoundCloud allows various bands as well as an individual audio creator to drop and share any type of track they want.
SoundCloud lets a user Discover 5 songs that are on top of his or her profile. It is a platform that works on the principle of sharing more rather than selling.
What is BandCamp?
BandCamp is an online platform that is used to share music and earn profit from it. It is intensively loved by fans as well as buyers. Artists have the ability to sell their digital downloads to the music interiors. It also has the ability to sell physical copies in the form of cassette tapes and merchandise.
BandCamp is preferable for smaller bands and singers who want who started their careers and need to promote their work among music lovers but do not have a proper audience set.
The payment program of BandCamp is also pretty simple. The company has the policy of taking 15% of downloads and 10% of merch sales. After the creator reaches a goal of $5,000 profit, it starts taking only 10% of the digital profit.
The only problem is that it does not generate any revenue if a user just streams your album without purchasing it. So, in order to make a profit out of it, the user must buy some album of the creator.
Main Differences Between SoundCloud and BandCamp
- When we talk about social networking features, SoundCloud has amazing services for music as on the other hand BandCamp provides very basic networking and marketing features.
- SoundCloud is more focused on sharing audio among users. However, BandCamp focuses on supporting artists all around the world to get their music discovered as well as helps them to make money out of it.
- SoundCloud since the very beginning has several amazing functionalities to embed your media. BandCamp, on the other hand, lets its user embed their albums, tracks, and EPs. But these are not as good as what SoundCloud has.
- Bloggers and publicists are mostly active in SoundCloud as compared to BandCamp. This is because SoundCloud focuses more on sharing and reach out to these people. Also, this helps in engaging the content more efficiently and more neatly.
- In terms of stability, BandCamp is the winner. However these days, SoundCloud is quite stable but in earlier times it was seen that it witnessed highly financial instability.
Conclusion
From the above comparison, it is clear that Soundcloud is better than BandCamp in terms of sharing the works of various artists around the world. If we talk about BandCamp, one can make more money on this platform as compared to SoundCloud but in order to take a benefit of money, one has to have a better reach which can be easily provided by SoundCloud.
While both of the platforms are quite great and support and encourage musicians and artists from all over the world it is highly recommended that one should focus on their content more before thinking about the platform itself. Content is the priority for any artist and it cannot be subject catered by the want of the platform. Therefore one can only earn money from BandCamp or gather a higher engagement rate from SoundCloud if they have the content figured out.
References
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2056305119883429
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2559206.2581246
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19376529.2015.1083381