What is BeatStars and how does it work?

This post explains how BeatStars works for both sides of a sale. It describes it. It does not rate it.

Who uses BeatStars?

Producers who sell, and artists who buy. Anyone can make a free account to explore and listen. To upload and sell, a producer needs a paid plan: Starter, Growth or Professional, from $4.99 a month. Our breakdown of BeatStars' pricing covers what each plan costs and includes.

On the Marketplace, producers sell four kinds of things: beats, sound kits, collections and services such as mixing and mastering. Sound kits are packs of sounds for other producers, and selling sample packs covers what goes in one. On the Professional plan, producers can also sell merch and memberships to their fans.

Artists come to find a beat for a song. They search, play previews, pick a license and pay. BeatStars' help center is clear that each producer runs their own business on it. Producers manage their own licenses, content, sales and messages with buyers, and BeatStars does not manage these for them.

How does selling a beat on BeatStars work?

A producer uploads the beat, attaches licenses, sets a price for each license and publishes it. Every plan takes MP3 and WAV files. Stems, the separate tracks of a beat, need Growth or Professional.

The license is the product. Each producer writes their own terms. BeatStars' page on the differences between licenses says non-exclusive licenses are generally leases with limited terms of use. Exclusive contracts are generally a change of ownership, where the buyer becomes the new copyright owner. The artist can read each license on the cart page before paying.

A beat can be leased again and again, with no limit on non-exclusive sales. When an exclusive sells on BeatStars, the beat comes off the Marketplace and the producer's Pro Page by itself. If the exclusive sells somewhere else, the producer has to take the beat down by hand, along with any other version of it, such as one with a hook.

Once PayPal confirms a payment, BeatStars puts the files on the buyer's receipt page and emails them. Questions and refund requests go to the producer, not to BeatStars. For how to set up license tiers in the first place, see how to sell beats online.

What is the difference between the Marketplace, a Pro Page and a Blaze Player?

They are three places the same beat can be sold. The Marketplace is BeatStars' shared store, where artists browse every producer. A Pro Page is a website that shows only one producer's music, on the Professional plan, with its own domain if you want one. A Blaze Player is a beat store you embed on your own website: one on Starter, as many as you like on Growth and Professional.

The price an artist pays depends on where they buy. On the Marketplace, BeatStars adds a service fee of 12% of the subtotal, and the producer can choose to cover some or all of it. On a Pro Page or a Blaze Player there is no service fee.

The ways to pay differ too. Buyers can use a card or PayPal. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo and PayPal Pay Later work on Marketplace sales only, and only for producers who connect a PayPal Business account.

How does a producer get paid on BeatStars?

Through PayPal. A producer connects a PayPal account under Payout Accounts in BeatStars Studio, and PayPal is the only method BeatStars lists for receiving beat sales. When an artist buys, the money goes to that PayPal account once the payment is processed.

BeatStars says it is not a payment processor. It cannot create, change, refund or cancel a payment, so a refund goes back through the producer's own PayPal account. Each sale shows in the producer's Sales Transactions tab.

Two things change the path. If a cart holds beats from more than one producer, or a beat made with a collaborator, the buyer can only pay by PayPal. And some sales land in the producer's 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. To withdraw from the wallet, a producer adds a bank or PayPal account, fills in a tax form and verifies their identity with Veriff.

What is BeatStars Publishing?

It is BeatStars' publishing administration service, open on all three plans. BeatStars says it registers your songs with collection societies, collects royalties, pays them to you, and tracks where your compositions earn. Under the deal, you keep 100% ownership of your compositions.

The publishing deal FAQ calls it an exclusive administration agreement. It runs for one year and renews each year, unless either side gives written notice at least 30 days before the end. It lists how each kind of royalty is split between writer and publisher:

• Mechanicals: 80% writer, 20% publisher.
• Syncs: 80% writer, 20% publisher, or 65% and 35% when BeatStars Publishing finds the sync.
• Publisher's share of performance royalties: 60% writer, 40% publisher. Your own PRO collects the writer's share.

Royalties are paid into the BeatStars Wallet after each of two collection periods a year. After the deal ends, BeatStars keeps its rights for one more year. If the difference between a song's two copyrights is new to you, how to sell music online explains it.

What other tools come with BeatStars?

Several, and most of them change with the plan you pay for.

• Beat ID. It scans YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok for uploads of your tracks and links you to each one it finds. It is paid per track for each 30 days, on top of the plan.
• Promote. BeatStars' own ads tool. Growth includes $25 a year in Promote credits, and Professional includes $50 plus 5% off campaigns.
• Lemonaide. An AI melody generator, with 25, 150 or 250 credits a month by plan.
• PROkits. 3, 5 or 10 free downloads a month by plan.
• Opportunities. Submissions to contests and playlist opportunities, on every plan.
• Coupons and stats. Discounts, coupon codes and sales statistics, on every plan.

One tool has gone. BeatStars ran a service called Content ID & More, which made claims on uses of enrolled tracks on YouTube, Meta and TikTok. It stopped taking new tracks on 8 December 2025, and enrolled tracks were removed by 14 January 2026. BeatStars says past earnings from it can still be paid for up to a year after removal.

Is Stakk a replacement for BeatStars?

Not for what this post describes. If you need a marketplace where artists browse, license contracts, stems, publishing or Beat ID, Stakk is the wrong choice, because it has none of them. 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 all you want is a cheap checkout on your own link, 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. Our list of BeatStars alternatives compares what each one takes.

What Stakk is: a checkout for beats you sell from your own link. The charge lands in your own Stripe account, and we never hold it. You can put the WAV and stems on a lease as an order bump, which joins the same charge, and offer the exclusive after payment as a one-tap upsell. That upsell is a second charge, so our fee applies again. Both are on every account, and the layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.

Want a beat checkout that pays into your own Stripe?

Stakk is free to start, with no monthly fee. We take 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included. Connect your Stripe account, list a lease with a link to the files, and share it where artists already find you.

Start selling on Stakk, free