What does BeatStars cost?
·Founder, Stakk
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20 October 2026
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7 min read
BeatStars costs $4.99, $8.99 or $19.99 a month for its Starter, Growth and Professional plans. Paid yearly, the same plans are $19.99, $79.99 or $179.88 a year. You need one of them to sell, because a free account can only listen. BeatStars takes 0% of your beat sales, but buyers on its Marketplace pay a 12% service fee on top, unless you choose to cover it. Checked 18 October 2026.
This post is about what it costs to sell on BeatStars. If you are still working out leases, exclusives and which files to send, start with how to sell beats online.
How much is each BeatStars plan?
Starter is $4.99 a month, Growth is $8.99 and Professional is $19.99. Each one costs less if you pay for a year up front.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Yearly, per month | 12 months paid monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $4.99 | $19.99 a year | $1.67 | $59.88 |
| Growth | $8.99 | $79.99 a year | $6.67 | $107.88 |
| Professional | $19.99 | $179.88 a year | $14.99 | $239.88 |
Those are the prices on BeatStars' pricing page. It says you can save up to 67% by paying yearly. That top saving is on Starter, where a year costs $19.99 instead of $59.88. On Growth, paying yearly saves $27.89, about 26%. On Professional it saves $60, which is 25%.
One more line can change the total. BeatStars' help center says that since 1 April 2025 it adds VAT or sales tax to plans bought from the UK or the EU. That is a tax added at checkout, not a higher plan price.
Can you sell on BeatStars for free?
No. You can try a paid plan for free, but you cannot sell on a free account. BeatStars' subscription FAQs say a free account can explore and listen, and that uploading, publishing and selling tracks needs Starter, Growth or Professional. Every paid plan lets you post as many beats as you like.
Each plan on the pricing page has a Start trial button. The page does not say how long the trial lasts. When you start one, BeatStars puts a hold on your card to check that it works. It says you are not charged during the trial, and the hold is released, which can take up to 21 business days depending on your bank. The monthly credits and Promote credits are not part of the trial.
There is no long-term contract. You can cancel at any time, but BeatStars asks you to do it at least 3 business days before your renewal date, and it does not refund plan payments, even for unused time. If you drop back to a free account, it keeps 10 tracks. Subscribe again within 30 days and everything comes back. After that the rest is archived, not deleted, until you subscribe again.
What do you get on Starter, Growth and Professional?
All three let you sell tracks at 0% commission, upload MP3 and WAV files, collect publishing royalties, make coupons and see your sales stats. The differences are stems, sound kits, how many licenses you can set up, and your own website.
| What you get | Starter | Growth | Professional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commission on track sales | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| MP3 and WAV uploads | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Stem uploads | No | Yes | Yes |
| Custom license agreements | 4 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sound kits and services | No | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Embeddable beat stores (Blaze Player) | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Private messages a month | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Lemonaide AI melody credits a month | 25 | 150 | 250 |
| Free PROkits downloads a month | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| Promote ad credits a year | None | $25 | $50 |
| Pro Page website and your own domain | No | No | Yes |
| Memberships, merch and blog posts | No | No | Yes |
| Email and SMS marketing integrations | No | No | Yes |
Promote is BeatStars' own ads tool, and the credits are money to spend on it. Professional also gets 5% off Promote campaigns and access to BeatStars' Creator Rights Agency. None of the extras in the bottom half change what a buyer sees when they pay you.
Which BeatStars plan do you need to sell beats?
It depends on the files you sell. If you only sell MP3 and WAV leases, Starter covers it. If any license comes with stems, the separate tracks of the beat, you need Growth.
- Starter, $4.99 a month. MP3 and WAV leases, with up to four custom license agreements. A basic lease, a premium lease and an exclusive fit inside that.
- Growth, $8.99 a month. Adds stem uploads, sound kits, services such as mixing, unlimited license agreements and unlimited messages. It is the cheapest plan that lets you upload stems.
- Professional, $19.99 a month. Adds the Pro Page, a website that shows only your music, with your own domain, plus memberships, merch, blog posts and email and SMS marketing tools.
Starter changed on 19 September 2024, when Growth was added. New Starter plans lost stem uploads, sound kits and services. BeatStars says anyone on Starter from before that date keeps the old plan for as long as they stay on it. Switch away and come back, and you get the new Starter. If drum kits and loops are your product rather than beats, selling sample packs covers what goes in one.
Does BeatStars take a cut of your sales?
No. BeatStars' help center says it takes 0% from beat sales and that producers keep 100% of beat sales revenue. Three costs sit around that 0%, though.
The Marketplace service fee. When an artist buys on the BeatStars Marketplace, BeatStars adds a service fee of 12% of the subtotal to their price. It covers beats, sound kits, collections and services. It is not charged on sales through a Pro Page or a Blaze Player. You can choose to cover some or all of it for your buyers, and the part you cover comes out of your side of the sale.
Our arithmetic on BeatStars' published 12% rate. The fee is not charged on Pro Page or Blaze Player sales.
Payment processing. BeatStars says it does not process payments itself. Beat sales go to the PayPal account you connect, so PayPal's own fees apply there.
Wallet sales. Some sales land in your BeatStars Wallet instead, such as purchases paid with wallet funds. BeatStars' page on the BeatStars Pay holding period says those carry a 10% transaction fee plus any withdrawal fees, and can be held for up to 180 days. If a hold like that worries you, here is which platforms hold your money and which pay you directly.
Is a BeatStars plan cheaper than a per-sale fee?
Yes, once you sell more than one lease a month. A BeatStars plan costs the same whether you sell or not. A per-sale fee like ours costs nothing until a sale comes in, then grows with every sale.
| Sales of a $30 lease in a month | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BeatStars Growth, monthly | $8.99 | $8.99 | $8.99 | $8.99 |
| BeatStars Starter, monthly | $4.99 | $4.99 | $4.99 | $4.99 |
| BeatStars Starter, billed yearly | $1.67 | $1.67 | $1.67 | $1.67 |
| Stakk, card processing included | $0 | $3.50 | $7.00 | $35.00 |
This is our arithmetic on published rates. The BeatStars rows leave out PayPal's fees, and the Stakk row already includes card processing. Even so, the gap is plain. Starter at $4.99 costs less than our fee from the second $30 lease in a month. Billed yearly it is $1.67 a month, which is less than our fee on a single sale. If you sell beats every month, a BeatStars plan will usually cost you less in fees than our 10% + $0.50.
When is Stakk the wrong choice instead of BeatStars?
If you want artists to find your beats by browsing, Stakk is the wrong choice. BeatStars has a Marketplace full of buyers, license agreements, stem uploads, publishing royalty collection and Beat ID, and Stakk has none of those. Stakk does not host files either: you paste a link to where your beats live, and we email it to the buyer once they pay. And if cost per sale is the whole decision, use Systeme.io or Whop instead. Systeme.io has a free plan with 0% transaction fees, and Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 on a domestic card with no monthly cost. Both take less per sale than our 10% + $0.50.
What Stakk does is the checkout for your own audience. The money goes straight into your own Stripe account, so there is no wallet and no hold on our side. An artist buying an MP3 lease can tick a box to add the WAV and stems before paying. That order bump rides the same charge, so it carries one fee rather than two. After payment, you can offer the exclusive as a one-tap upsell on the card they just used. It is a second charge, so our fee applies to it again. Both are on every account with nothing held back for a higher plan, and the layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.
Want to sell beats with no monthly plan?
Stakk is free to start, with no monthly fee. We take 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included, so a month with no sales costs you nothing. You connect your own Stripe account, list a lease, and put the WAV and stems on it as an order bump.