So you want to make money from your content. Great! Now comes the hard part; deciding where and how you want to sell your work. Below are several tools where creatives can monetize their videos and sell their music.

Monetizing Videos

SkillShare is a website where users can create courses relating to topics they want to share and get paid when people watch the courses they've created.

• Pros
• Every time somebody watches a course you've made, you earn money
• SkillShare offers a teacher center where you can go through the process of creating your class
• It is free to post classes on SkillShare
• Videos are automatically monetized 
• Cons
• It may take a while to start earning money from the videos because you need to build up a following
• You do not get paid a flat rate for the videos you post


There are two ways to make money on skillshare:

1. Receive $10 commission for each premium subscription referral via personal referral link
2. Receive a portion of Skillshare’s monthly profits based on how many  premium minutes people watched with regards to your skillshare classes

2. Twitch

Twitch is a relatively new, popular video service mostly used for live streaming (mainly) and posting other video content



• Pros
• Popular
• Very simple interface 
• Twitch is free to use
• Cons 
• You can't directly monetize videos
• It can take a significant amount of time to build the audience necessary to monetize content on Twitch
• Twitch has become a very saturated platform


You can monetize videos on Twitch through Tips/Donations, bits, GameWisp, Streamloots, Amazon affiliates, and sponsorships.

3. Patreon

Patreon is a crowdfunding site aimed at a particular audience: artists and online personalities in the business of content creation.



• Pros
• While it might take a few days to process the payments, everything runs smoothly and they’ve even added a direct deposit option
• Good customer support
• Patreon is free to use
• Cons
• Discoverability is difficult, because while Patreon has fixed searching and added tags, category tags are very broad

4. YouTube

YouTube is an extremely popular video sharing/streaming service



• Pros
• Relatively easy to use
• No time limit for uploads
• Very popular platform
• Cons
• You have to gain a certain amount of subscribers before you can start monetizing videos
• You have to create a separate AdSense account in order to put ads on your videos
• Extremely saturated platform 
• Monetization rates are comparatively low; a large number of views is necessary for any significant monetary gain


You have to gain a following, partner with YouTube, and create a separate AdSense account before you can start making money.

Selling Music

1. Bandzoogle

Bandzoogle is a web hosting platform which is exclusively dedicated to musicians. It provides tools for musicians to build a professional website, promote music as well as selling direct to fans.



• Pros
• Since Bandzoogle is dedicated to musicians, extra care is taken to provide sufficient bandwidth with no choking. It restricts users only based on pages, tracks, and photos.
• The basic plan (and all others) supports most of the rudimentary features required for a music website. You can sell music downloads easily using these features.
• Includes advanced features such as video headers, inventory tracking, sound scan recording, album pre orders, and more.
• Cons
• There are certain features that cost extra, such as email hosting.
• Not free to use, however you can get a 30 day free trial.

2. Deezer

Deezer provides on-demand streaming access to your music through an application.



• Pros
• Available outside the US
• Truly free version on mobile
• Not as saturated as other platforms like Spotify and Apple Music
• Cons 
• Mobile apps lack MP3-upload compatibility
• Can't rewind live radio streams
• Lacks Hi-Res Audio



For songs streamed via streaming or tethered downloads, you receive a proportionate share of Deezer's monthly advertising revenue. The actual amount varies and depends on the ratio of advertising revenue to your total number of streams in Deezer in a given month.

3. Spotify

Easily, the most popular music streaming app of the bunch is Spotify. Boasting an impressive 180 million users, it’s even credited with launching the career of Grammy Award-winning artist, Lorde.

• Pros
• Spotify has partnerships with many other digital services
• Free for artists
• 180 million users and almost a million streams per minute
• Cons
• Direct uploading for Indie artists is by invitation only
• Spotify only pays out $0.006 to $0.0084 per every stream (Worse, revenue is paid directly to the music holder, meaning the revenue is often split between artists, writers, music producers, and their record labels)



You must create an artist page before uploading music to Spotify.

4. Music Glue

Music Glue lets you create a website with no advertising, as well as your own custom domain name, completely free of charge.

• Pros
• Music Glue is free to use
• All tracks sold/streamed on Music Glue count towards the digital and physical charts
• Specifically designed for selling music
• Cons
• Music Glue takes 10% commission on all sales

5. Apple Music

Apple Music is a “premium” subscription streaming service. It does not include a "free" ad- supported tier



• Pros
• Apple Music pays $0.00783 per stream, more than Spotify
• When a subscriber streams your music, you get paid a proportionate share of Apple Music's subscription revenue per month calculated on terms set out in TuneCore's blanket agreement with the store
• Cons
• Apple Music requires a third-party distributor as a middleman.

6. SoundCloud

SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website based in Berlin, Germany, that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio.



• Pros
• SoundCloud Premier is the direct monetization program for independent creators of original music. SoundCloud Premier monetization is rolling out to all eligible SoundCloud Pro and Pro Unlimited subscribers
• Uploading music to the platform is relatively easy
• SoundCloud is rising in popularity
• Cons
• Under the free membership, you do not have access to the direct monetization program
• An expected payout can range from $0.0025 to $0.004 per stream (So for every 1000 plays, you'd receive between $2.50–$4.00)

Soundcloud premier participants receive a share of net revenue generated from advertising and listener subscriptions