How Do Indie Artists Make Money?
From songwriting to merchandising, unlocking revenue streams for indie artists.

Being an independent artist is no easy feat. Sure, there are many advantages to being an indie artist. You own all your masters, you own all your music, and you answer to no one, among others. But there are also disadvantages to being an indie artist, the major one being money. As an indie artist, you have to raise whatever money you need by yourself.

So, when many young indie artists ask how exactly they can make a living, it’s a valid question and concern. Music is not just a hobby but a business you can build. Unknown to many, there’s a plethora of ways you can make money as an indie artist to this end, I have curated a list of ten ways you can make music as an indie artist, of course, depending on your skills.

Let’s have a look…

The Money Channels

Songwriting

If you write your own songs, you have an awesome skill many would pay for. Many artists I know started out as songwriters. Justin Timberlake, Sia, and Jon Bellion are some artists who first established themselves as songwriters. Contrary to popular belief that everyone writes their music, a huge chunk of established artists doesn’t, and that can be a great opportunity for you.

Write songs and offer them to others. You’ll get good money for their songs, and you can continue earning royalties on the song depending on your original agreement with the artist.

Live shows

Live shows are an amazing way to both earn money and build your audience. Whether it’s your show or you were invited, live performances are great for you. Without the record label, you don’t even have to turn over a percentage of your earnings. Ticket sales can be an awesome source of income, especially when you have grown a decent following.

Streams

When people stream your music, you earn money. Similarly, to ticket sales, a signed artist would have to share a percentage of that with the record label. So, while they may get more streams, you’re making more money per stream. It’s a nice passive source of income to have that never runs out. You’re not selling anything new, but whenever someone plays a song, old as it may be, you earn money.

Social media

When you’ve built your audience on a given social media platform to a certain level, you start getting paid to put out content. YouTube is the best example of this and Twitter, now X, has also adopted a similar system. So all you have to do is create an account where you can post content related to your music. This achieves three things.

First, you get tons of exposure. You can reach people from all over the world with your content on social media. Secondly, you will get paid for the amount of traffic you’re generating. The third way of making money is a little less popular. It’s called sync licensing.

Sync licensing

Remember the Toosie Slide challenge on TikTok? Or the Love Nwantit dance challenge? Many people think those trends only helped boost the visibility of the artists, but that’s not all it did. For every video made using those songs, the artists got paid by the social media platforms.

So, if your music is used by many Instagram users in their reels, you’ll make some good money from it. It doesn’t even have to be the full song. A short clip will suffice.

Brand partnerships

Another great way to make money as an indie artist is to collaborate with brands. These brands don’t care about how big your name is. Instead, they pay attention to how much traffic you’re generating. You don’t have to be a huge celebrity to attract a healthy amount of traffic. So, you can become an ambassador for a brand.

Whether it’s a massive brand like Nike or a smaller brand trying to break into the market, you can earn a decent amount of money doing that.

Voiceovers

If you’re great at brand partnerships, voiceovers are another awesome way to make a living. Whether it’s for a commercial, a cartoon, or whatever, getting voiceover gigs is an excellent way to make money. It can also open up a path into more things such as acting.

If you have a great voice, which you do, you’ll make a great voiceover artist. People won’t even see your face, but you’ll be making decent money.

Mixing and producing

If you started from the bottom as an indie artist, there’s a good chance you know a thing or two about music production. If that’s something you feel confident about, you can offer your services to other artists for a fee. Production will make you a few hundred dollars at least if you’re any good, even more, if you get an hourly deal.

If you have a studio, that’s a full-blown production business you have there. In indie music, no skill is a waste. Whichever way you turn, there’s money to be made.

Fan subscriptions

Another nice way to make money is fan subscriptions. You can either start a newsletter or build a website and offer some features for a fee. You’ll be surprised how many people won’t mind getting some extra access to you.

Merch

This is another great way to raise awareness and make money at the same time. You can make shirts, caps, hoodies, and all sorts of fun things for sale with either your picture, an album cover, or anything you want. People will buy stuff like that. Picture this.

You make merch for a concert you’re organizing. Fans will buy the merch and the tickets, so you get a decent payday and some good publicity as well.

Final Thoughts

The best thing about this list is not that there are so many great ideas on how to make money. My favorite part of all this is that none of them are mutually exclusive. In fact, many of them are connected and can work hand-in-hand. So, you can end up with several streams of income without any extra work.

When you create content online, that gives you three sources of income. Making merch fits perfectly with fan subscriptions. These are just examples. There are many more ways to make money as an indie artist. The beginning is hard, but once you crack the audience barrier, you’re in for an amazing ride.