Equitable.
Sustainable.
Built for artistic and
creative control.
Vinylaunch is the only platform where artists crowdfund albums, book full tours, connect with every industry service they need, and stream their music — all while keeping 100% of every crowdfunding pledge.
Artists from $5/mo · Service providers from $5/mo · Fans always free · Month to month, no annual plans ever
You should not have to sell the rights
to your music
to make your music.
Artists don't sign away their music because they want to. They sign because making a record costs money up front, and since the industry's inception the only people holding that money wanted the rights in exchange. The advance was never a gift. It was the price of admission — and most artists spend years paying it back before they see a dollar.
Vinylaunch is built to make that trade unnecessary. We're not a label. We're a technology company re-engineering the music industry around the musician — giving artists enough income of their own, from enough different directions, that they never have to ask anyone for an advance in the first place. Their fans and the platform's economics are the advance. Oh — and it doesn't hurt that we're a company founded on principles that put artists and fans above profits. Launching artists, not rocketships.
- The money comes from one place: a label or investor
- You get it by handing over your masters, your publishing, or both
- You earn nothing until the advance is paid back
- Running a career means a manager, an agent and a label, each on a percentage
- Fans reach you through someone else's algorithm, and the industry through gatekeepers
- The best rate means committing to a year up front
- Labels and platforms extract as much as they possibly can — and everyone accepts that as simply how the industry works
- The money comes from fans, record stores, pre-orders and your own work
- You get it by paying a small monthly subscription. That's the whole trade
- You're paid from the first dollar, with no advance to recoup
- The first artist self-management and industry ecosystem of its kind
- Direct lines to your fans and to the industry, with no gatekeeper in between
- A low monthly rate. No annual payment required to get the best price
- Platform fees are intentionally small — enough to operate and fund the mission, not to gatekeep your livelihood
An advance you never
have to pay back
No single one of these has to carry a career — and that's the point. When your income comes from a dozen directions, none of them has leverage over you. Here is everything an artist can earn from on Vinylaunch, and what they keep from each — twelve of them, which is exactly why this is a difficult platform to explain in one sentence.
Six rooms, one loop
A music career isn't a ladder, it's a cycle — what you earn at the end pays for the beginning again. Below is every part of the platform, arranged the way an artist actually moves through it. The gold row is what the artist does. The purple row is where the rest of the industry comes in.
- Run a campaign for a record, a video, gear or a merch run
- Show it to the industry first, then the public
- Nobody is charged unless you hit your goal
- Set rewards, limits and shipping
- Record stores commit early and privately
- Wholesale prices only stores can see
- First look before anything goes public
- Post what you need, receive offers
- More than 60 kinds of professional
- Agreements that pay out in stages
- Pay from money you already raised
- Bid on real work with real budgets
- Agree, deliver, get paid in one place
- Keep 100% of your rate
- Build a record of delivered work
- Upload and organize your catalog
- Log who wrote and played what
- Splits both people agree to
- Send demos to matched professionals
- Producers, engineers, mixers
- Mastering and session players
- Sign up to receive demos in your genres
- Fulfill your fans' merch pledges
- Upload to streaming
- Release first to platform supporters
- Share across the platform to industry and content creators
- Watch your music reach your fans
- Radio stations and internet stations
- VoxCasts and VLogCasts, cleared to use your music
- Record stores stocking the record
- Advertisers buying by genre, never by person
- Plan a tour on a map
- Venues make offers on each date
- Sell tickets on the platform
- One private thread per tour and per show
- Venues, promoters, talent buyers
- Crew, backline, logistics — plus music-loving lodging hosts
- Offering on a show is always free
- Confirm your own bookings publicly
- Every dollar listed by where it came from
- Co-writers paid automatically
- Fan money, sales, tickets, ads, all together
- Year-end tax summary any time
- Vendors, band members and co-writers
- All paid from the same statement
- What they are owed is what lands in their bank
What's in an artist's account
One subscription, $5 a month for founding members. Here's more of what it opens.
Crowdfunding that can't burn a fan
Cards are saved when someone pledges and charged only if you reach your goal. Nobody pays for a project that doesn’t happen.
- Fund almost anything — an album, a single, merch, a video, gear, or a piece of music technology
- 30 days by default, up to 60 if you need longer — most independent projects are funded by friends, family and time, not a launch-day blitz
- Two stages — show it to the industry first, then open it to the public
- One cancellation window at the end, 5 days, and only one
- A second chance if you're close — finish at 93% or more and the campaign extends 5 days by itself. Reach 97% during that and you get 5 more
- The Vinylaunch Boost — finish at 95% or more on a goal up to $5,000 and Vinylaunch closes the gap out of its own fee. Never more than we earned on the campaign, once a year per artist
- Sell out early and close early, with the campaign guaranteed to fund
- The money goes straight to you. Vinylaunch never holds it
- Shipping is charged separately to the fan and never counts toward your goal
- Track fulfilment as you ship, with backers confirming they received it
Hire anyone, from inside your account
Say what you need. Take offers. Agree the terms in writing. Pay as the work gets done rather than all at once.
- More than 60 kinds of professional — recording and production, live and touring, video and photography, business and legal, merch and design
- Offers shaped to the job — a venue offers a door split, a merch company offers per-piece pricing
- Agreements in writing — one payment, monthly, in stages, or a share of revenue
- Pay in stages automatically once your campaign funds
- Judge people on delivery — a professional's record here is built from artists confirming work was actually done, not from star ratings
- Everyone is verified before any money moves
- No fee at all on work for a show you are both booked on, or work paid from a crowdfunding raise
- Wear two hats if you also produce or engineer for other artists
Your catalog, kept properly
The record of who made what, built to hold up years from now when it matters.
- Upload and organize releases, tracks, credits and artwork in one place
- Say how the song was made — you wrote it, you co-wrote it, it's a cover, or it's public domain
- Splits both sides sign off on, so nobody argues about it later
- Say whether AI was involved, honestly, at upload
- Send a demo — build a short tape with a note, art and video, then send it to professionals who work in your genre and read their private feedback
- An AI advisor on every page — A!gent, included for signed-in users wherever you are on the platform
- 5 GB of storage included, double that for founding members, more at $5 per 5 GB
- Launchpad Pro, +$20 a month — STEMhub, the artist-to-artist stem marketplace (list and buy stems), plus 10 GB more storage. Optional, and priced to what it costs to run
A real streaming app, not a media page
Your music lives inside a proper listening app with a library, playlists, offline play and search — not a player bolted onto a profile.
- Decide who hears what — everyone, fans only, or supporters only, and set early access windows
- Fans can listen offline if they're paying
- Every song gets a shareable link that plays anywhere
- 556 genres, not the usual fifty — with where a genre came from kept separate from where an artist is from, so nobody has to argue about who owns a sound
- Tag genres per song, so one acoustic ballad doesn't misfile your whole catalog
- The recommendation algorithm is off unless a listener turns it on. We don't sell engagement, so we can afford to let people choose
- See how your music is doing — privately, never ranked against anyone else, including a map of where in the world it’s being played
Book it, staff it, sell it, run it
On the platform, the artist comes first. On the road, the fan does — because when the logistics fall apart, the fan is the one holding a ticket.
- Plan a tour on a map, date by date
- Venues make offers on individual dates; record stores and radio stations can host or appear on a stop
- A confirmed show means the venue confirmed it, not that you said so
- Sell tickets on the platform and scan them in at the door from any phone, or link out to whoever the venue uses
- GA, VIP and free shows — set ticket tiers per date, or give tickets away at no charge
- Tickets in fans’ names, not scalpers’ — a per-person limit on every date, and a fan who can't go puts their ticket back on sale and gets face value once it resells
- See where fans want you — fans name the city they’d buy tickets in, and RSVP to the dates you announce
- Pair a crowdfunding campaign with the show — rewards fans pick up at the door, or experiences on the night
- Sell merch at the table from a QR code on any phone, with no Vinylaunch fee
- Close out the night, on the night — venue, crew and acts paid from the show’s own ticket money, in a published order
- One private thread per tour and per date — only people on the bill can be in it, so there's no cold messaging
- Hand a manager the day-to-day without handing over cancellations, refunds or where the money goes
- If a show is cancelled, every ticket holder is refunded in full — ticket, fee and processing — automatically
- If a fan can't make it, they're refunded 90% of the ticket price automatically the next day. The rest stays in the show's money for you and the venue
One statement, itemised, downloadable
Every dollar comes with a record of where it came from, and the people you owe get paid without you doing anything.
- Every source listed separately — pledges, sales, tickets, fan subscriptions, ad revenue, work you did for others
- Co-writers and collaborators paid automatically from the split you agreed
- Paid monthly once you're over $25, and every quarter whatever the balance — nothing is held longer than that. Campaign money and direct support reach you straight away
- Year-end tax summary you can download any time
- Set money aside in your own payout account toward your next project
- Processing fees are shown before anyone pays. No surprises at checkout
- What you are owed is what lands in your bank. Whoever is paying covers the card processing on top of your number, and nothing at all is deducted on the way out to you
- Payouts run automatically. No withdrawal requests, ever
Preference, Safety, and Privacy, all Controlled
The unglamorous things that decide whether a platform is worth trusting.
- Block genres — make Vinylaunch the music app you want it to be.
- Full algorithmic control — recommendations are off by default; turn them up only as much as you want
- Block anyone — it works both ways and it's total, everywhere on the site
- Disappear from search while your direct links still work
- Two-factor sign-in with an app and backup codes. No text messages, no social logins
- We ask you to prove it's you before money or account details ever change
- Artists can pause instead of cancelling — three months free, longer if you need it, nothing deleted
- Run more than one project from one login — separate band accounts with their own finances, one sign-in
- If something goes wrong, you see the warning, the reason, and how to appeal it
- Copyright complaints handled properly, and everything uploaded is screened
Seven ways in
Every kind of industry professional gets their own account, their own rate, and their own way of reaching artists. All of them share the same contracts, the same payments and the same protections.
Service Provider
Producers, engineers, mixing, mastering, photographers, videographers, designers, publicists, lawyers, merch, logistics — more than 60 categories.
- Work that's already funded and already described. No pitching into a void
- You earn your agreed compensation. Platform fees and card processing are added on top and paid by the artist, venues or backers
- Smaller shops get more free bids than large ones — from 20 a month down to 5 on crowdfunding campaigns, then $1–$10 each on your next invoice. A bid that goes nowhere comes back
- Offers on tours and shows are always free and unlimited
- Written agreements — one payment, monthly, in stages, or a revenue share
- Your reputation is built on delivery — artists confirm the work was done, and that's what people see. Not a popularity contest
- Get listed in the directory, if you want to be. Profiles start private
- Bring your staff on under your profile, with separate permissions each
- Receive demos from artists in the genres you actually work in
Venue
Clubs, halls, breweries, DIY rooms — anywhere a show happens.
- Make offers on tour dates passing through your city, free and unlimited
- Nothing is announced: An artist can't schedule an event at your venue without your approval.
- Everything routed to you in one dashboard
- Offer what actually makes sense — a door split, a guarantee, a bar percentage
- Private Chat Thread: with the artist and the Service Providers working the show.
- Hire your own crew for the night, paid from your side of the deal, and see the night’s outlook before you commit
- Flexible Ticketing Solution: Plan your show using existing 3rd party ticketing agencies. Or, use Vinylaunch's in-house ticket solution — a flat 5% paid by the fan at checkout, nothing taken from your settlement — and scanning works from any personal mobile device.*
Record Store
For real stores with a shopfront. See what's coming and how much demand there is before you commit shelf space.
- See campaigns before the public does
- Signal interest without a purchase order
- Wholesale prices only stores can see, enforced properly and not just hidden
- Host in-store shows and release-day events through the show planner
- A store page: opt-in profile page within the platform's Service Providers Directory
Radio Station
If you're publicly funded or run out of a public school, you pay nothing.
- Find artists by genre and region, with their whole catalog behind them
- Appear on tour dates when an artist adds a session or interview stop
- Claim your station on the platform — your real call sign and dial position, held for you in your market
- A station page in the directory, if you want one
Creator Channel
VoxCasters, VLogCasters, writers and DJs. The clearance problem, solved before you press record.
- Artists control how their work is used across the platform — and creators can use their music without the threat of takedowns or demonetization
- 10 GB of audio included, with video added in blocks of $5 per 10 hours of video
- Your own internet radio station at no extra cost
- You own your advertising. The ads on your channel are yours to sell to the audience you built — not something a platform runs over the top of you. We take 7%. The artists you feature share 15%–46.5%, scaled to how much of the piece is their music — so a short clip costs you little and a piece built on someone's song pays them properly. You keep 46.5%–78%
- Video, images or long-form writing, all in one channel
Internet Radio Station
A station sits on top of a Vinylaunch account. Your call sign is your identity on the platform.
- Programme a station from the platform's catalog, on a real broadcast clock
- Your breaks, your call — run the platform ad rotation and earn a share, or run none at all
- Included in a creator channel subscription
- Extra call signs are $3 each, up to 5
Advertiser
Advertising here runs through the creators, artists and stations whose audience you want. Reach people by what they're listening to — never by who they are.
- Pick a host whose audience fits — use the "Advertise with me" button on their page, choose a format and how many impressions
- Matched by genre, time of day and what is playing. Never by identity, browsing history or bought data
- A person reviews every advert before it runs, and hosts choose their own advertisers
- Go platform-wide for 25% more — your ad joins rotation across the platform, and the host who brought you in is still paid
- Your money pays the people your ad runs beside — the host, and the artists whose music it plays around
Artist and Provider
For the person who's both. One login, two hats, no second account.
- A full artist account — catalog, campaigns, streaming, tours, fans
- A full provider profile — take offers and get paid for work you do for others
- Two public faces, one set of finances
- Artists who run a channel add it the same way, for $10 more. Hold a channel and Launchpad Pro together and $5 comes off your base
Pay for music and know
where the money went
On most streaming services your subscription goes into a pot and gets divided by whoever got the most plays worldwide. On Vinylaunch your money follows what you actually listen to, and the platform's share doesn't grow when you get more generous.
Listen for nothing
Unlimited music, paid for by adverts — and artists are paid for those plays.
- The whole catalog, no play limits
- Adverts under 15 seconds, no more than one every 5 to 10 minutes
- Follow artists, build playlists, back campaigns
- Your listening is never sold to anyone, at any tier
Ad-free music and offline play
The utility tier. Quieter listening, music on a plane.
- Ad-free music streaming
- Download for offline listening
- Publish playlists other people can find and play
- Note: VoxCasts, video channels and radio shows still carry ads, because that income is how their makers and the artists on them get paid
Pay the artists you listen to
Everything above the flat $3 goes to the artists you've chosen. Not to a global pot.
- Heart an artist and they join your list. The more you pay, the longer your list gets
- See exactly where your money goes every month
- Change your mind whenever — reorder your list, add, remove
- Early access to new campaigns and show tickets, and 2 more tickets per show date than the usual 4
Name your own price
Pay what you want. It's shared out according to what you actually played that month.
- No ceiling. $11+ or $100, it works the same way
- Vinylaunch still takes only $3. Everything else reaches artists
- First in line for new campaigns and show tickets, with 4 more tickets per show date
- Buy tickets for several shows at once in one checkout
- Add a contribution to the Foundation if you want to — added on top, never taken out of the artists’ share
Support an artist directly
One-off or monthly, straight to the person who made the thing you love.
- No platform fee at all. Zero. The only stream where that's true
- Unlock supporter-only songs some artists keep back
- Works logged out too, for one-off support
Be part of how it gets made
The record you're waiting for is being funded on the same site you're listening on.
- Back a record before it exists and get the vinyl, the shirt, or an experience at the show
- You're never charged unless it funds. Your card is only saved until then
- If a show is cancelled, your ticket is refunded in full automatically — the fee and processing too
- If you can't make it, you get 90% of the ticket price back the next day. No insurance to buy, no form to fill in
- If the venue changes to a cheaper room, the platform tells the artist to refund you the difference
- Turn recommendations on or off. Off is the default — you choose what you're shown
- Take your library with you if you ever leave
There is no single percentage
Different kinds of money are treated differently, and anyone who gives you one number is simplifying. Here they all are. Card processing is always shown as its own line before anyone pays — never added at the end. If you are used to hunting for the real number on page four of a terms page, this may take some adjusting.
| When money moves | Artist or professional keeps | Vinylaunch takes |
|---|---|---|
| Crowdfunding a project | 100% | 7% (5% founding) — paid by the backer, on top |
| Selling from your store | 100% of the price and shipping | 7% of the item (5% if the seller or buyer is founding) — paid by the buyer on top, never on shipping or tax |
| Selling merch at your own show | 100% | nothing |
| A ticket to your show | the full ticket price | 5%, paid by the fan on top — 0% at settlement |
| Hiring a professional | they keep 100% | 3%, added on top — nothing on work for a show you’re both on, or paid from a crowdfunding raise |
| A fan supporting an artist directly | 100% | nothing |
| Fan subscriptions | everything above $3 | a flat $3 — never a percentage |
| Ads on a creator's channel | 15%–46.5% artists, by how much of the upload is their music | 7% |
| Ads on free listening and radio | 46.5% artists · 46.5% the station or host who carried it | 7% |
| Making an offer on a show or tour | — | free, always |
| Bidding on a crowdfunding campaign | — | 5–20 free a month by plan, then $1–$10 each, mostly to the Foundation |
| Money leaving the platform for your bank | the full amount owed | nothing — there is no payout fee |
The flat $3 on fan money is the sharpest edge of the whole model. Our cut doesn't grow when a fan gets more generous — someone paying $30 a month sends $27 of it to the artists they listen to, not the artist trending on the platform.
| Account | Per month | What sets the price |
|---|---|---|
| Artist or band | $5 founding · $7 after | nothing — it's flat |
| Service provider | $5 / $10 / $15 / $20 | what your business earns |
| Record store | $3 | nothing — it's flat |
| Radio station | Free – $10 | public or commercial |
| Creator channel | $10 | the base, plus $5 per 10 hours of video (new channels start at $20) |
| Launchpad Pro (artists) | +$20 | STEMhub and 10 GB more storage |
| Creator channel on an artist account | +$10 | with Launchpad Pro too, $5 off your base |
| Internet radio station | $3 · $7 for fans and record stores | who keeps the ad space |
| Fans | $0 · $3 · $4 – $10 · $11+ | how much reaches artists |
| Extra storage | $5 per 5 GB | what it actually costs us |
Month to month, always. There are no annual plans and there never will be. For artists, pausing is a proper feature rather than a retention trick — three months free, longer after that, and nothing is deleted while you’re away. Nobody here has a quarterly target for how hard it is to cancel.
Built into the company,
not into a values page
These are the answer to the only question that really matters, which is what happens to this platform once it's big enough to be worth ruining.
You never need to sell your work
The platform isn’t built to acquire catalogs, and it doesn’t need to. The whole design goal is that an artist has enough income from enough places that trading their rights for an advance stops being a decision they have to make.
Founding rates never move
The first 5,000 artists and 2,000 professionals lock in 5% and $5 a month for as long as they stay. Not for a year. Rates for everyone else are planned to rise, and that’s said now rather than found out later.
Your data isn’t for sale
Income comes from fans, platform fees and ads sold against genres — never from selling or buying listener data. Ads follow what’s playing, not who’s listening, and every one is human-vetted and tied to the artists and creators it runs alongside — so advertising never has to run on privacy-invading cookies. It’s important to you because it’s important to them.
Nobody gets rich off the platform’s back
Executive pay is capped in the company’s own operating agreement, with a hard ceiling above the cap and everything beyond it flowing to the Foundation. No one here, the founder included, can take more than the platform’s health allows.
Built to last, not to sell
Independently owned with no investors and no exit clock. The planning horizon is decades. The platform exists for the people using it, not for an acquisition.
A floor for giving
A defined share of real surplus goes to the Vinylaunch Foundation — a separate organisation with separate finances — after the operating reserve. Structural, not left to anyone’s discretion.
Private unless you say otherwise
Professional profiles start private. You can hide from search entirely. The algorithm is off until a listener turns it on. Sensitive details are encrypted and never shown casually.
Artist first here, fans first on the road
Every design decision on the platform favours the artist’s control. But when a show falls apart, the platform protects the person holding the ticket. Both, on purpose.
The rate you join at
is the rate you keep
Founding places are capped, permanent, and identical whichever door you come in through. Once they're gone, the fee and the subscription go up for everyone after — and that's published now rather than sprung later.
Vinylaunch · vinylaunch.com Anthony Beebout, Founder · anthony@vinylaunch.com
Updated October 2026. Anything marked COMING is designed and scheduled but not yet live.
Rates current at publication. Founding rates are not affected by future changes.