One of the biggest mistakes I made when I got started as a music producer was setting the wrong price for my beats. I know that this is a common issue we asproducers struggle with. Each instrumental track that you create is a work of art, so you must be careful not to just give it away.
At the same time, it does you no good to set your price so high that no one is willing to pay your asking price. It comes down to finding a balance that will allow you to make a steady income selling your production to your target audience.
Asa veteran music producer with over 25 years experience, I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars ayear selling mywork. In this article I share with you some what I’ve learn over the yearshow to price your beats the right way.
Pricing Your Beats Emotionally
When making music comes natural foryou, it’s easy to let your emotions get in the way. Someone who prices his beats emotionally might say, “Well, it only took me 30 minutes to do this track, so I won’t charge a lot for it” or “I know the people I’m selling the beat to won’t have a lot of money, so I’ll keep my price to where I know they can afford it.” Does this sound familiar? If so,it’s time to change you’re thinking, because you’re not getting the maximum amount possible for your music production.
Pricing Your Beats Logically
So, if pricing your beats emotionally is a bad method, how then should you price your beats? From my experience I’ve gotten more money when I price my beats logically. This means being aware of what the market value is for each beat that you create.
To get this information, you have to study your competition. What are they charging for their beats with a similar sound. Now, I can already hear that“producer ego” coming into the picture, so I’m going totell you right now to DROP IT!
Stop thinking that you’re music is the hottest, and that no one can compare with your sound. It’s okay to be confident in your abilities, but over confidence or co*ckiness is border line arrogance. The truth is, that there will always be someone not as good as you are and someone else that’s way better than you. You have to let go of your ego to determine where along the lineyou trulyfall.
A good place to do your market research is SoundClick.com. There are 100’s of music producers from all genres selling their beats and making profits. Find the top 10 best selling producers from your genre and look at how they price their beats.What is the average sellingprice and what exactly are they offering for that price? This is how you can come up with your “magic number”.
Here are some more guidelines for how you might structure your beat prices.
Exclusive or Not
Among the first things you need to do for each beat that you create is to determine whether you want to license itexclusive or non-exclusive. Exclusive means you will sell the beat to only one buyer. Non-exclusive means you will sell the beat to many. On the surface you might think that the non-exclusive is always better since you can sell it more times, but generally you don’t get to charge as much.
A typical non-exclusive instrumental beat might go for $25-100, while an exclusive beat may go for $300 or more.Now,these are just examples. Yourprices will also depend upon your levelof experience. My exampleisforan average non-famous and non-established beat maker/music producer.
Pricing Your Non-exclusive Beats
To make beats for non-exclusive sale is the same as any other type of beat making. In other words you don’t necessarily hold back any of your talent just because you will be charging less. You do need to consider the pricing formula. Price your instrumental too high and you won’t get a lot of sales, price it too low and you won’t make top dollar.
Remember the lower prices will give you more potential customers. This is the tricky part, consider the following three scenarios:
All scenarios yield the same profit, but consider your customer base and competition. If you are the only one in your area making beats for rappers, then $500.00 is probably your price point. If you’re selling beats online as a unknown then $100 to $300 might be more reasonable. On mostbeat sites your average offer from an artist will range from $10 to $50 maximum.
In addition, when you are starting out, you need to test the waters so price your beat where you feel its fair. If you don’t get any buyers try lowering the price a bit but remember that once you sell your beat under a non-exclusive license you can never sell it exclusively.
Pricing YourExclusive Beats
To make beats for exclusive sale, you have to be sure that you are willing to let only one person/company use the beat. Most major label artists will never buy a beat that is not exclusive. Generally you might want to start your best beats out as exclusive licenses.
Because the price is higher, your potential amount of customers are lower in number. If it doesn’t sell, you can bump it down to a lower price and/or non-exclusive.
Everyone would love to make a beat and sell it for a lot of money, but the reality is there are a lot of beat makers with the same idea. Eventually all professional beat makers will be selling exclusive licenses only.
Conclusion
When you’re just starting out, be humble and start small. You might even give beats away to rappers or groups you think have big potential to sell a lot of records and downloads. That’s exactly what I had to do in the beginning before I made my first sell.However, having a portfolio of artistsperforming over my beats gave me instant credibility, because the next customerdidn’t know whether I sold them the beat or not. Pretty smart huh?
You might also consider shopping for a dealby sending outthe artist’s demo featuring yourbeats. That could prove to be a win win situation if the record company hears a singlethat they are willing to put money behind.
The great part is, once you sell your first beat, even if its for $1, you are technically a professional beat maker!
I sincerely hope that this article gave you a solid understanding of how to price your beats the right. Just remember, don’t quit before you make your first sell. It takes time and perseverance, but the great thing is the once you sell your first beat, even if its for $1, you are technically a professional beat maker!
To learn more about how I was able to grew my home studio business into a 6-figure multimedia company, download my FREE ebook “Cracking The Freedom Code”.
