How to price your music and merch on Bandcamp: fixed, name-your-price and minimums, using Bandcamp's own fee pages

Pricing on Bandcamp is the one marketing decision you control completely. Bandcamp's artist page says you can "charge whatever price for your music you choose, and change it whenever you like", and the fee rules on its own help pages make some prices quietly better than others. This guide covers the three pricing modes, what each price point actually pays, and what we would do. For the wider platform picture, start with our Bandcamp for artists guide; for the full sale-by-sale arithmetic, see what a Bandcamp sale pays.

The three modes

Bandcamp's artist page lists them in one line: "Sell for a fixed price, specify a minimum and let fans pay more if they want (which they do, 50% of the time)." You can also give a track or album away "in exchange for an email address".

• Fixed price. Simple and predictable. Fans can't pay more.
• Name your price with a minimum. You set a floor; anything above it is up to the fan.
• Name your price with no minimum, or free. A fan can enter zero. Every artist and label account gets 200 free downloads a month, and Bandcamp's help centre says that allowance covers "no-minimum name your price items where the fan enters zero". When it runs out, free items stop being free until Bandcamp tops you back up to 200 the next month, or you buy extra download credits.

Our take: a minimum with room above it is the best default for digital releases. Bandcamp's own figure that fans pay more half the time is a reason to leave the ceiling open; a fixed price gives that upside away for nothing.

What the fees do to each price

Bandcamp's fee page sets the revenue share at 15% for digital items, falling to 10% once you've made at least $5,000 in the past 12 months, and 10% for physical items, with shipping and tax left out of the calculation. Payment processor fees are separate. The processor fee page gives two regimes:

Worked examples (our arithmetic, at the 15% digital rate, PayPal for the larger sale):

• A $1 track: $0.15 revenue share plus $0.10 processing leaves about $0.75.
• A $7 album: $1.05 plus $0.40 leaves about $5.55, roughly 79%.
• A $10 album: $1.50 plus $0.49 leaves about $8.01, roughly 80%.

The lesson is that small prices are not punished as much as the flat $0.30 would suggest, because Bandcamp uses the cheaper micro rate below $8.07. Per item, though, the percentage you keep sits around 75-80% at any common price, so pick a price for your fans, not to game the fee table.

The $100 line: deluxe items and generous fans

The fee page also says "the revenue share applies to the first $100 of an item only", and that Bandcamp "still collects revenue share on the first $100 for additional contributions", meaning extra money a fan pays on top. So on a $150 box set, or a fan who pays $200 for a name-your-price album, everything above $100 escapes the revenue share (processor fees still apply). This is the strongest argument for offering a premium tier, such as a signed test pressing or a bundle, at a price well above $100.

Merch and physical

Physical items pay 10%, and shipping is excluded from that figure (fee page). Price shipping at what it really costs you rather than folding it into the item price. Folding it in raises the base that the 10% applies to, and that is avoidable.

What we would do

1. Digital album: name your price with a minimum around what you'd charge as a fixed price, so fans who want to pay more can.
2. Singles and back catalogue: a low minimum, or zero for one track you use to grow your mailing list, keeping an eye on the 200-a-month allowance.
3. One premium physical or bundle item priced above $100, where the revenue share stops.
4. Revisit prices before each Bandcamp Friday, when the revenue share is waived (dates are in our Bandcamp guide).

Fee rates can change; check Bandcamp's help pages before you set prices.