MEDIA*OR: Bandzoogle Adds Commission-Free Fan Subscriptions

Bandzoogle has added a commission-free fan subscription feature to its popular music web site and marketing platform. Artists can now offer online fan clubs within their websites, create stronger fan communities, add income streams and keep 100% of the revenue.

100% commission-free and available to on all three tiers of Bandzoogle accounts, musicians can set the monthly cost, invite fans, and create subscriber-only pages that they can customize with blog feeds, music players, videos, photos, a store, or any of Bandzoogle’s extensive library of components.

An Alternative To Patreon

Bandzoogle's fan subscriptions offer a viable alternative to Patreon. The dominant player in fan patronage and subscriptions, Patreon charges between 5 and 12% and requires that the artist build a separate profile on their platform.

And while, like Bandzoogle's recently launched crowdfunding feature, fan subscriptions could be configured to use as an adjunct to the artists own non-Bandzoogle website, the primary target is the 35,000 artist who use Bandzoogle as their web site platform.

Since fan subscriptions are tied to an artist’s Bandzoogle website, there is no need to create another profile on a separate platform. Musicians also own and control all data generated from their Bandzoogle website and gated membership pages, which automatically match the website’s design and are fully customizable by the artist. To send subscribers an update, musicians can simply create a newsletter using the built-in mailing list application.

Bandzoogles 100% commission-free options extend to crowdfunding to finance upcoming projects; online merch, digital and physical music (with daily SoundScan reporting), ticket sales, and now subscriptions. Fans pay artists directly via Stripe, so the money goes straight into the artist’s account.

“Our goal at Bandzoogle is to develop relevant tools for our members that build direct-to-fan relationships, and ultimately help them make money. The Subscriptions feature gives artists a new recurring source of revenue that is a more predictable income stream, while it also rewards superfans and more deeply engages their fanbase,” said Bandzoogle CEO Stacey Bedford. “The majority of the team at Bandzoogle are musicians as well, so we’re tightly focused on the needs of our users and the realities of their lives. We deliver the instruments for them to connect with their fans online. And just like with our direct-to-fan store and crowdfunding features, we're not interested in taking a percentage of the revenue our members earn from subscriptions."

“Bandzoogle’s new subscription service is easy to set up - we had new subscribers within hours of launching,” said JONT, a Bandzoogle artist who tested the Subscriptions feature. “It offers the best of all worlds: it enables us to create an online community within our existing website, along with a sustainable way to fund and share musical projects.”