How do you sell beats online?
·Founder, Stakk
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11 October 2026
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7 min read
You sell beats online by licensing them, not by handing over the song. An artist pays for the right to record over your instrumental, on terms you write, and gets the audio files to do it. So the steps are: decide what each license allows, export the files that go with it, put the terms in writing, then list the beat on a beat marketplace like BeatStars or on your own checkout and send artists there. The same beat can be licensed many times until someone buys it exclusively. Checked 5 October 2026.
This post is about licensed instrumentals: a finished beat an artist writes and records to. Loops, one-shots and drum kits are a different product with different terms, and selling sample packs covers those.
What are you actually selling when you sell a beat?
Permission, plus files. The artist is buying the right to use your music in their own release.
It helps to know there are two separate things in any finished song. The US Copyright Office's page for musicians describes a musical work as "a song's underlying composition along with any accompanying lyrics", and a sound recording as the sounds fixed in a recording medium, such as a digital file. It says the two "are separate copyright-protected works" and are "commonly owned and licensed separately."
Your beat sits in the middle of that. You made the music, the artist adds the words and the vocal, and the license is the document that says who can do what with the result. That is why the license matters more than the audio. Two producers can sell the same quality of beat, and the one with clear terms gets fewer disputes.
Should you lease a beat or sell it exclusively?
Most producers do both, at different prices. A lease lets many artists use the same beat. An exclusive sells it once and takes it off the shelf.
| License | Who else can buy it | Usual files | What the terms cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic lease | Anyone, the beat stays for sale | MP3 | A capped number of streams or sales, credit to you |
| Premium lease | Anyone, the beat stays for sale | WAV, sometimes the separate tracks | Higher caps, sometimes music videos and shows |
| Exclusive | Nobody after this sale | WAV and the separate tracks | Whatever you agree, in a signed contract |
Those tiers are a convention, not a rule. The caps, the credit line and what happens to earlier leases when a beat sells exclusively are all things you decide and write down. If a term matters to you, put it in the license. If you are signing away a beat for good, a contract reviewed by someone qualified is worth its cost. This post describes common practice, not legal advice.
Which files do you deliver with each license?
The files should match the license, because better files are part of what a higher tier pays for.
- MP3. Small and fine for writing and demos. The usual file for the entry license.
- WAV. Full quality, and what an engineer will ask for at mixing.
- Separate tracks. Each instrument as its own file, lined up from the first bar, so the engineer can mix the beat around the vocal. Often called trackouts or stems.
Name files with the beat title, the tempo and the key. An artist with forty beats in a folder will thank you. Put a copy of the license in the same folder as a PDF, so the terms travel with the audio.
Previews are separate from deliverables. The version people can play before paying usually carries a voice tag every few bars. The files a buyer downloads are clean.
Where can you sell beats online?
On a beat marketplace, on your own checkout, or both. They do different jobs.
A beat marketplace such as BeatStars or Airbit is built for this one product. Artists browse by genre and mood, play previews, pick a license and pay. You are listed next to every other producer, on the marketplace's terms and fee schedule, so read its pricing page before you upload a catalog.
Your own checkout is a single page for a single beat or pack, which you send people to. It suits producers who already get messages asking "how much for this one?" under a video. You answer with a link. If nobody is asking yet, the work is getting heard first, and selling with no audience covers where to start.
Wherever you sell, artists find beats by listening. Short videos of the beat playing, type-beat titles that name the sound, and consistent uploads do more than any store setting.
How do you price a beat?
Build a ladder and let the artist choose the rung. The lease is the low price, the premium lease sits above it, and the exclusive is a different conversation.
To set the numbers, look at five producers in your lane with a similar following, and note what each charges per tier and what each tier includes. Place yours against them by what you deliver. Do not copy the biggest name's prices. Their buyers are paying for the name.
The ladder also works at checkout. An artist buying the MP3 lease can be offered the WAV and separate tracks before they pay.
An example checkout with made-up prices, not a real listing. The better files are offered before payment and join the same charge, so the order carries one transaction fee rather than two.
What should you settle before you sell a beat?
Three things, and all of them are cheaper to settle now than after a song takes off.
- Samples. You can only license what is yours to license. If the beat is built on someone else's recording, that needs clearing before you sell it, or it needs replacing.
- Co-producers. If someone else made the melody or the drums, agree the split and get it in writing before the first sale.
- Your records. Keep a list of who leased what, on which date, under which terms. When an exclusive buyer asks who else has the beat, you need the answer.
You do not need to register anything to own a beat you made. The Copyright Office's general FAQ says a work is protected from the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form. Registration is a separate, voluntary step.
When is Stakk the wrong choice for selling beats?
When you want artists to discover you inside a store. Stakk is a checkout, not a beat marketplace, so nobody browses it by genre, and a catalog of two hundred beats belongs on a platform built for that. It is also the wrong choice if cost per sale is the whole decision: Systeme.io charges no transaction fees on any plan, including its free one, and Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 on a domestic card with no monthly cost. Both are less than our 10% + $0.50. And Stakk has limits that bite here: prices stop at $999, so a bigger exclusive deal will not fit, it sells in US dollars only, there is no subscription billing for a beat club, and it does not host files. The product is a link you paste in, to a folder you keep in your own Drive or Dropbox.
What Stakk offers instead is the shape of the checkout. The WAV and separate tracks ride the same charge as the lease, so the order carries one fee rather than two, and the post-purchase upsell is one tap against the card already used. Both are on every account with nothing behind a tier, which fewer platforms do than you would expect, and the charge goes to your own Stripe account, a setup explained in which platforms hold your money and which pay you directly.
Ready to put a beat behind a checkout?
If the files are exported, the folder is named and the license PDF is inside it, the rest is short. Paste the folder link as the delivery link, set the lease price, add the WAV and separate tracks as an optional extra on the payment screen, and reply to the next "how much?" with the link. Stakk is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included and no monthly fee, and the charge lands in your own Stripe account rather than a balance we hold.