What Is Bandcamp? History, Features & Uses of the Music Platform

As a music creator, it can be difficult to choose a platform to share your music on.

Not only do you want creative freedom, but you also want to be able to make money off of your work, and finding this balance can be tricky.

Many sites allow you to upload music and share it. Still, very few platforms allow you control over the sharing and monetizing process.

One of the platforms that give you the most control is Bandcamp.

If you’re wondering, “What is Bandcamp?” You’ve come to the right place! Let’s take a look at what Bandcamp is and how you can use it for your music needs.

What Is Bandcamp?

Bandcamp is an internet music company based in the USA. Artists and labels can use Bandcamp as a tool to upload and sell their music. On Bandcamp, you can decide on your pricing and even sell merchandise.

History of Bandcamp

Ethan Diamond founded Bandcamp in 2008. He originally intended for the website to be an alternative to MySpace.

For all of you who are too young to remember MySpace, it was a social media platform that came before Facebook.

On MySpace, people from all over the world could share their music interests. That was the basis for Bandcamp. Diamond wanted to create a space where bands could interact with their fans and sell their music.

The main idea was that an artist would upload their music onto the site. They get to choose how they want to present their music, and which target audience can see it.

Then, Bandcamp would take care of all the technical steps; steps such as analytics, transcoding, and payments.

Bandcamp and Music Genres

Bandcamp wasn’t an overnight success story. When the site first went online, Bandcamp was mostly dealing with underground music.

It hosted all genres that were too bizarre and niche for the mainstream. Genres like video game soundtracks, vaporwave, seapunk, and furries.

As you can imagine, the market for that kind of music was incredibly slim, so Bandcamp created a space for all creators of any kind to be able to showcase their work.

Over time, Bandcamp started building up its portfolio, eventually adding more and more music genres to the site. It added the main staples like rock, pop, and country.

Still, Bandcamp stayed true to its roots and kept on all the niche genres. It even added more as time went on.

Bandcamp and Music Formats

One of the few things that made Bandcamp stand out was its commitment to physical products. With the world shifting into the digital age, people wanted fewer physical products.

No one wanted to buy CDs, cassettes, and USB sticks. So, more and more companies stopped producing physical music tracks.

Bandcamp didn’t follow the waves of the market. Part of its motto was that artists get to choose how they sell their products.

So, if the artist wanted a physical copy of the music, that’s what they got. Bandcamp also focused production on music merchandise like T-shirts, posters, and MiniDiscs.

This gave Bandcamp an advantage over its competitors.

Since no one was making physical products, Bandcamp could capitalize on that market. About half of Bandcamp’s annual sales come from these products.

So, slowly, but surely, Bandcamp built up a large portfolio of artists and customers.

Bandcamp and Fan Interactions

Another feature that was important to Ethan Diamond was fan interaction. He understood the importance of artist branding.

Moreover, how the way to create a fan base was through being original. And the easiest way to show your originality is through interactions.

So, Diamond wanted to make sure that any artist could stay connected to their fans. That’s why the site heavily focuses on interactions between artists and fans.

It’s a community where people can discuss and create music together.

Bandcamp encourages fans to leave reviews, share thoughts, and directly message the artists. That gave Bandcamp an edge over its competition.

This was because fans felt like they knew where their money was going.

As the business kept expanding, so did the number of artists that wanted to join Bandcamp. This was because Bandcamp put so much emphasis on the fact that the artist comes first.

It was no longer about catering to music styles to create a top 10 hit. The game has changed into no matter what style of music you prefer, there’s space for you on Bandcamp.

Bandcamp even opened up a physical record store in Oakland. Diamond said people missed the feeling of going into a store and spending hours looking for a record.

Bandcamp Accounts

On the Bandcamp website, you can sign up for two different types of accounts. You can create an artist or a fan account. Each one will give you access to different options.

Artist Account

An artist account will allow you to post your music to Bandcamp. You also get many other options to help you decide how you want to promote the music.

To get started with an account, you’ll need to follow these steps:

1. Go to the Bandcamp Artist webpage
2. Click Sign Up Now
3. Pick a band name and enter your credentials
4. Select your music genre and add genre tags
5. Choose the URL that people will go to find your music

Once you’ve done these steps, you’re ready to start uploading music. The process may be a little tricky at first, but you can definitely do it on your own.

1. Log in and go to your dashboard
2. Click Add an Album/Track
3. Name your track
4. Set your track price
5. Add track metadata(lyrics, cover art, and credits)
6. Add tags to the track to make finding it easier
7. Select the type of license you want to list your track under
8. Publish the track or set an automatic publishing date

When it comes to pricing your tracks, you have free rein. You can make the track as expensive as you like, but it’s a good idea to check out similar artists and price accordingly.

Bandcamp even gives you the option to price your track at $0. However, you can only give away a set number of free tracks a month.

Another great feature of Bandcamp’s pricing system is the dynamic price. When you upload a track, there’s an option that lets you create a dynamic price.

This means that you get to set a minimum price, and then fans have the option to pay more if they like. This feature is unique to Bandcamp and it can be incredibly lucrative to small artists.

You can do all of that with a free Bandcamp artist account. Still, there’s a paid version of the account.

The paid version does come with a few extra features:

• Uploading multiple tracks at a time
• Private streaming
• Replace URL with your unique domain name
• Change the price for each track on an album individually

These features can come in handy if you’re using Bandcamp all the time. Still, with the free account, you can upload your music and make a profit.

Fan Account

On Bandcamp, a fan account is a little less involved. There are fewer steps, but you still get to be a part of the music community.

1. Go to the Bandcamp Fan webpage
2. Click on Sign Up
3. Enter your email and password
4. Create the account

As a member of the Bandcamp fans, you get access to many amazing features. These features include:

• Unlimited mobile streaming
• Re-download past purchases
• Collect new music
• Create a wishlist
• Get alerts for new music releases
• Share your music taste

These are just some of the features. In addition, a unique feature is being able to interact with artists.

No other streaming service gives you access to the recording artists. You can leave reviews, comments, and even message artists.

If you already have an artist account, you don’t need to sign up for a fan account. Your artist account can give you all the same features, so you don’t have to keep switching between accounts.

How Does Bandcamp Work?

After creating an artist account, you can upload all your music creations, and then Bandcamp will list them on its site for sale.

Since Bandcamp’s main interest is the artist, they get most of the revenue. On average, 82% of any sale goes back to the artist.

Bandcamp will only take about 15% of the revenue and the rest is administrative fees.

In addition, the payments are incredibly prompt. Once you sell a track, you can receive your payment within the next 24 to 48 hours.

The way it’s set up is in the artist’s best interest. This is because Bandcamp doesn’t make any money unless the artist is making money.

So, not only do you get to choose how to price your music, but you also get most of the revenue. This is incredibly rare in the music community.

If you look at other streaming platforms like Spotify, pays its artists a fraction of the revenue. Nowhere near half or even a quarter of the overall revenue.

Bandcamp Features

Now that you know how the site works, let’s take a look at some of the features it can offer you.

Customizable Home Page

One of the hardest things to do as an artist nowadays is to stand out. There’s a huge number of artists trying to get their music to the public, so standing out from the crowd can be a little tricky.

To help with this problem, Bandcamp gives you full creative control over your home page. You can design the page to reflect your own personal style and aesthetic.

Some of the changes you can make include:

• Headers and footers
• Album artwork
• Colors of the page and different tracks
• Alignments of items on the page
• Images

There’s an unlimited combination of edits you can make. This ensures that you can portray your unique vision.

If you want to learn more about how you can customize your homepage, check out Bandcamp’s design tutorial.

Promotions and Showcases

As a new artist, you know that one of the hardest tasks is promoting. Just getting your music published is a huge undertaking, let alone making sure people actually listen to it.

Well, part of the Bandcamp website is responsible for making this task a little easier.

Bandcamp publishes articles promoting new artists on its website. Many people around the world have access to these articles.

So, not only will Bandcamp publish your work, but it’ll also make sure that new audiences from around the globe have access to the music.

In addition, as we mentioned before, Bandcamp has its own record store. This store holds many new and unknown artists’ music.

This means that anyone walking into the store is a potential new fan of yours.

Merchandise

Bandcamp understands the importance of merch in the music community, so it’ll act as a storefront for all your merchandise needs.

On the Bandcamp website, there’s a page dedicated to selling merchandise. The options of what you can sell are limitless. You can sell any type of merch you want, at any price point you like.

If you don’t have a clear idea of what kind of merch you’d like to sell, Bandcamp has you covered. It offers you pre-made merchandise categories.

These categories can include:

• Clothing (T-shirts, tracksuits, caps, etc…)
• CDs
• Tote Bags
• Posters

That’s not all the control you get. You can also decide your shipping details, return policies, and order fulfillment.

Still, the best part of merch sales is that you get 90% of the revenue. Bandcamp only collects about 10% of the revenue on physical products.

Statistical Analysis

As an artist, most of what you care about is the music. Nonetheless, to be successful, you need to understand the business behind the music.

Many of us struggle with math and statistics. So, to make artists’ lives a little easier, Bandcamp does most of the heavy lifting.

The Bandcamp website collects and displays all artist statistics. Stats like how many people visit your page, which track is most popular, and who shares your music.

This information can be critical when you’re trying to grow your fan base. You can use it to figure out which direction you should be heading in, and how best to monetize your work.