Remember MySpace? For years it was the go-to platform for independent musicians. Thousands of artists invested time, built communities, grew followings. When MySpace collapsed, all that effort disappeared with it.

Bandcamp is a much better platform than MySpace was. But it’s still someone else’s platform. And platforms, sooner or later, shut down, change their terms, reduce organic reach, or get acquired by companies with very different priorities from yours.

So the first piece of advice is clear: your headquarters is your own website, on your own domain. Everything you build elsewhere is a complement to that.

That said, Bandcamp is a complement worth having.

What Bandcamp actually does

Bandcamp isn’t Spotify. Spotify is a mass listening service built around algorithmic discovery. Bandcamp is a direct sales and fan communication tool for people who already know you.

Three concrete cases where Bandcamp makes sense:

1. Selling music directly
You can put an album, EP or single on Bandcamp with a minimum price and let fans pay whatever they want above it. Bandcamp keeps 10% (dropping to 5% after €5,000/year in sales). The rest is yours — no distributor, no rights management fees, straight to you.

For an artist with a small but dedicated following, Bandcamp can generate more real income than hundreds of thousands of Spotify plays.

2. Merch without upfront investment
For bands or artists just starting out, Bandcamp lets you design and sell t-shirts, bags, posters and other physical products without buying stock. The platform handles production and shipping. You set the price, they take the production cost difference. You earn less per unit than a custom print run, but you risk nothing.

It’s a good option for testing whether your audience buys merch before committing to a production investment that might not pay off.

3. Visibility in an independent music ecosystem
Bandcamp has its own audience: journalists who cover independent music, small labels, alternative festival programmers and fans who actively seek out artists outside the mainstream. Having a presence there isn’t mandatory, but it’s a discovery channel that works differently from Spotify or YouTube algorithms.

Bandcamp Friday

Once a month — typically the first Friday — Bandcamp waives its 10% commission. 100% of that day’s sales go directly to the artist.

If you have a release planned, it’s the best day to launch it. Dates are published in advance on the Bandcamp official blog.

How to run a profile that actually works

If you’re going to be on Bandcamp, do it properly. A half-built or abandoned profile communicates neglect.

The minimum for a professional profile:

Cover artwork and release images in high quality (minimum 1400×1400 pixels, square). The cover is the first impression — if it looks cheap, the project looks cheap.
An updated bio that answers who you are, how you sound, and who it’s for. Three well-written paragraphs beat a page of credentials every time.
Full credits on every release: musicians, producer, mastering engineer, cover designer. Not a formality — a professional document.
Prices configured on all releases. A release with no price set is a release that can’t be bought.

The important question: who controls your data?

When a fan follows you on Bandcamp, their email belongs to Bandcamp, not you. When a fan buys a record, Bandcamp passes you the sale and gives you the buyer’s email. That’s a meaningful difference: a direct sale on Bandcamp gives you the buyer’s email; a follow doesn’t.

Compare this to your own website: a contact form, a mailing list, your own shop — everything you route through third-party platforms enriches their database, not yours.

An artist’s digital sovereignty is measured by their ability to communicate with their audience without depending on any single platform. A musician with 500 people on their mailing list is far more free than one with 10,000 followers on Instagram or Bandcamp.

What platforms do you actually need

What you genuinely need:

Your own website, on your own domain (as simple as it needs to be, done well)
A mailing list where you accumulate your audience’s emails

What’s useful as a complement:

Bandcamp (direct sales, merch, indie discovery)
Spotify and Apple Music (mass distribution via a distributor)
Instagram or similar (visual communication and discovery)

What you don’t need:

To be on every platform at once
A perfect Bandcamp before you have your own website

The order matters. Website first. Everything else, when it makes sense.

At Ressona we help artists build digital identities with their own foundation: website, domain, image and communication tools that don’t depend on third-party platforms. If you want to build it right from the start, get in touch.