18 ways to make money as a musician

Musicians have more control over their careers than ever before. You can record, distribute, sell, and promote your music using many affordable tools and platforms. But one of the biggest challenges remains how to make money as a musician. 

If you’re wondering “how do musicians make money in 2025?” the short answer is: stack multiple income streams and keep fans on channels you own.

Whether it’s through live performances, selling merch, or making money from your music online, it’s important to diversify your revenue streams to build a sustainable career. Diversifying revenue still wins—mix live shows, merch, memberships, and rights revenue so you’re not relying on a single income stream.

Some of the revenue streams outlined below might be obvious to you, while others might be new. We hope that this list of eighteen revenue streams for musicians will spark some ideas for generating more income for your music career. Use this as a checklist and pick 2–3 items to focus on first.

18 ways to make money as a musician

1. Music streaming
2. Sell digital downloads
3. Physical recordings
4. Live performances
5. Live streaming
6. Merchandise
7. Crowdfunding 
8. Fan subscriptions
9. Public performance royalties
10. Digital royalties
11. Mechanical royalties
12. Licensing
13. Social media monetization
14. YouTube 
15. Sponsorships
16. Music grants
17. Session work
18. Teaching

1. Music streaming

Even though streaming music payouts are measured in fractions of pennies per stream, they can add up over time to become a significant revenue source. Music streaming platforms can also help other fans discover your music. Treat streaming as top-of-funnel: use your artist profiles, link-in-bio, and pinned comments to drive listeners to your email list, merch store, and fan subscriptions.

Pro tip: We recommend using DistroKid to distribute your music onto all the platforms. They let you upload unlimited tracks, and you keep 100% of your earnings (plus you get 50% off your first year using this link).

2. Sell digital downloads

Digital downloads remain a strong source of revenue for many independent artists that sell music online. In 2024, Bandzoogle members sold around $2M worth of digital albums and singles directly to fans through their websites.

Pro tip: Offer hi-res formats (WAV/FLAC), bundle tracks with stems, tabs, or liner notes, and set pay-what-you-want pricing for limited windows like release week.

3. Physical recordings

According to the RIAA, sales of CDs and vinyl grew by 5% in 2024, with vinyl posting an 18th consecutive year of growth.

Selling CDs is a great, low-cost way to make extra money at live shows and through your online store. And although vinyl requires more investment to produce, records are a great merch item for your superfans.

Pro tip: Use limited, numbered runs and preorders to avoid over-pressing.

If you're looking to press CDs or vinyl, our good friends at Disc Makers offer great deals on a full range of vinyl and CD products.

4. Live performances

Performing live is one of the best ways to make money as a musician, and also one of the best ways to sell merch.

There are many avenues available to play live shows. These include traditional music venues, bars, restaurants, house concerts, colleges and universities, and music festivals. You can also perform at private events like weddings, corporate events, and other parties.

Pro tip: Use house concerts on off-nights or as tour bookends, and layer VIP add-ons (early entry, meet-and-greet, signed vinyl) to boost performance revenue.

5. Live streaming

While the popularity of live streaming has fallen in the last few years, online shows are still a great way to reach fans from around the world and in areas outside of your touring scope.

They’re also a great way to generate extra income by selling tickets to the live streams, as well as taking donations through online tip jars.

Pro tip: Mention your tip jar during live streams to encourage donations, and repurpose highlights into Shorts/Reels for social media, with links to your store.

6. Merchandise

Selling merch can generate significant revenue for musicians. Bandzoogle members made over $8.8M in sales from selling merch online in 2023, representing more than half of the total revenues generated that year.

T-shirts, CDs, and smaller items like mugs, buttons, and stickers are good merch items to have for sale. If you’re not sure what to sell, or would rather not have inventory to store, you can also sell merchandise through your website using a print-on-demand service like Printful.

Selling merch also doesn’t have to mean selling only physical items. You can also sell digital merch items like sheet music, video lessons, and stem files.

Pro tip: Test demand with preorders, and bundle items (shirt + download, vinyl + ticket) to raise average order value.

7. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding can be a great way to raise money to help cover the costs of your next musical project. Whether that’s producing an album, releasing a series of singles, producing videos,  promoting your album, or even raising funds to press vinyl for your project.

Pro tip: Use crowdfunding for one-off projects, then graduate backers into your ongoing subscription tier.

8. Fan subscriptions

With subscriptions, fans subscribe to your website and pay a monthly fee for access to exclusive rewards and content. You can also provide early access to new music, offer exclusive merch variants and discounts, share subscriber-only live streams and Q&As, and more.

Subscriptions can be incredibly rewarding for you and your biggest fans, and can help you create a reliable, recurring income stream for your career.

Pro tip: Offer clear tiers (e.g., Supporter, Backstage, VIP), deliver on a set cadence (weekly drops or monthly Q&As), and welcome new members with a warm message.

9. Public performance royalties

If you’re a songwriter, it’s essential that you sign up with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or Alltrack (or SOCAN for our Canadian friends).

A PRO collects public performance royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers. When a song is played on the radio, on TV, in music venues, restaurants, sports arenas, shopping malls, or any other public place, a royalty must be paid for the use of it. The PRO collects those payments and distributes the money to the proper rights holders.

You can also earn public performance royalties from your live shows. When performing original music at licensed venues, PROs pay royalties to the songwriters for those performances. This includes bars, clubs, theaters, and any other licensed venues.

Pro tip: Check your PRO’s live set submission process to claim these.

10. Digital royalties

When your music gets played on non-interactive streaming music services, those services have to pay royalties. This includes SiriusXM Radio, Pandora, webcasters, and cable TV music channels.

Make sure that you’re collecting your non-interactive digital royalties by signing up with SoundExchange.

Pro tip: Register both as an artist and rights owner if applicable.

11. Mechanical royalties

Mechanical royalties get paid to songwriters or rights holders for purchased music. This includes CDs, vinyl, downloads, as well as music streams. If you’re in the US, you can join The MLC to collect these royalties. Outside of the US, these payments are sent to royalty collection societies, who then distribute the royalties to music publishers.

To collect these royalties outside of the US, you would need to register with each royalty collection society. Alternatively, you can sign up with a publishing administrator—they'll collect the mechanical royalties on your behalf.

Pro tip: Metadata matters: keep ISRCs/ISWCs accurate so money finds you.

12. Licensing

If your song is placed in a film, TV show, or a commercial, those productions need to pay two licensing fees. One is a "Master Use" licensing fee for the use of the recording. The other is a "Synchronization" or "Sync" licensing fee for the songwriter(s) and publisher(s).

These fees can vary greatly. They depend on the budget for the project, and how much the project's music supervisor wants to use your song. But composing music for film and television—or licensing songs that are already recorded—is a significant source of revenue for some musicians.

Pro tip: Create a small, searchable catalog with instrumentals and alt mixes to increase placements.

13. Social media monetization

You can earn money when your music is used in video content on social media platforms. This includes platforms like TikTok, as well as Instagram and Facebook.

The fees vary depending on the platform, but be sure that you’ve opted into social video monetization with your digital distributor to start earning that revenue.

Pro tip: Also add your songs to platform sound libraries and encourage fan usage with prompts.

14. YouTube

If music is used in a YouTube video that runs ads, YouTube pays part of that ad money to the rights holder of the song. This includes videos on your own YouTube channel, as well as videos using your music that are not on your channel. Digital distributors can collect that money from YouTube for you.

Pro tip: Publish Shorts consistently, enable Channel Memberships and Super Thanks, and ensure your distributor handles Content ID so off-channel uses get claimed. Organize your channel with sections (Albums, Live, Shorts) and add store links.

15. Sponsorships

If you’ve built up a fanbase, local businesses, music companies, and even major brands might be willing to sponsor you so they can reach those fans. You can offer those brands visibility on social media, on your YouTube channel, at your live shows, and more.

Sponsorships are sometimes paid in cash, but at first it's possible that it would be in the form of free products or services. 

Pro tip: Build a simple media kit (audience, reach, geography) and offer clear deliverables to unlock cash deals.

16. Music grants

If they’re available to you, music grants are an excellent form of financial assistance. Grants available to musicians are usually given out to help with writing new music, recording, or going on tour. Canada, the USA, the UK, and Australia all have excellent grant programs for musicians; check regional arts councils and foundations.

Pro tip: Create a rolling 'grant assets' folder (bio, budget, timeline, letters) to speed up applications, and calendar deadlines so you don’t miss them.

17. Session work

Another way to make extra money as a singer or instrumentalist is by doing session work for other musical projects. If you have a flexible schedule, you can also look to get hired to go on tour with other bands.

Pro tip: Offer remote sessions and toplines, maintain a demo reel/playlist, and list turnaround times to attract bookings.

18. Teaching

Teaching your instrument to others is a great way to supplement your income, and allows you to hone your craft at the same time. You can offer one-on-one music lessons online or in person.

You can even use fan subscriptions to sell access to your teaching materials like video lessons, and sheet music.

Pro tip: Mix one-on-one lessons with small group workshops, asynchronous course bundles, and a subscriber-only lesson archive.

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Focusing on writing great songs, and having a great live show should always come first. But once you’ve built up a fanbase, it’s important to give your fans as many ways to support you as possible, which will help you make money and sustain your career as a musician.