SupaPass: The “Fair Trade” Music Streaming Startup?
New streaming startup SupaPass has branded itself as a “Fair Trade” music subscription service.
Ah, music streaming. We all know that musicians have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s the dark addiction that opens a battle between good and evil in our very hearts.
Like so many listeners, I want to hear all the music, and explore all the new bands, but I also want to be paid for these streams—and see everyone else get paid for their streams as well. (And I mean more than a fraction of a penny.)
But how do you walk away from the all-you-can eat music buffet when you know it’s hurting you as much as it’s satisfying you?
Fortunately, it just might be that someone has finally cracked this tough nut and given us a streaming service that we can really feel at ease about using, both as content creators and as fans.
UK-based startup SupaPass has put together a new model, and created a “fair-trade” streaming app. Seems impossible? Or too good to be true? Here’s how it works:
SupaPass gives any artist or label their own, custom subscription-based streaming service, where they can choose to either keep 85% of net revenues with no up-front costs, or to keep 100% of net revenues after paying a small monthly fee.
I had the opportunity to talk with CEO and founder Juliana Meyer about the service, and it was plain to see that she is intently focused on not only the needs of fans, but on the needs of artists as well. In conversation, Meyer calls SupaPass “a new deal for music.”
“We are already excited about being able to offer up to 100% net revenue share for streaming,” she says, “especially when there is so much debate on how to give artists and labels better revenue from streaming.
“We’re fair trade and different [than] other streaming platforms because on SupaPass, fans can subscribe directly to an artist. [This way] they know that their money goes to that artist they want to support, instead of being split between thousands of artists.”
This approach has already been winning some high-profile fans, including GRAMMY-Award winning artist Imogen Heap, who has already put her music up on the service. “I like the way SupaPass is trying to look at interesting [new ways] to make a more sustainable ecosystem for musicians,” she says.
GRAMMY-winner Imogen Heap is one of many early adopters of the new service.
“For a long time I’ve felt fragmented as an artist online, unable to fully engage with my core fanbase,” says Heap.
“I really miss the community you’d find on…artists’ websites pre-Myspace era. I didn’t feel, as an artist, [that I had] a cosy home on the internet.
“With SupaPass, I can still draw in all the social media comments I share…alongside a simple [and] effective payment model. If people take to it, sign up and continue to support me on SupaPass, it really would open up so many possibilities!
“Also, for the first time ever on a service I’ve used, I’ll be able to tell exactly how much I’m due [for the songs record labels are collecting on] at the end of each month…That is a real breath of fresh air.”
The Basics
For artists who choose the 85% net revenue share option, SupaPass derives its cut from the remaining 15% of revenues. This is half the cut taken by services like Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and many other established streaming and download services.
If you prefer the 100% net revenue share option, then you simply pay a monthly fee of £20 (roughly $26 USD) for using the service to host your music and manage the billing of your fans.
Listeners can subscribe for £1 (about $1.30) per month for unlimited access to each artist’s or label’s channel. The app offers fans an “everything in one place” hub-like experience, with streaming, social and VIP community features built into the artist’s channel.
Features & Benefits for Fans
For fans, SupaPass acts as an ad-free streaming platform, available on iOS and Android, and it can be even less expensive than the current market-leading streaming platforms, depending on how you use it.
Sign up is free and easy, and from there you can start selecting artists to subscribe and listen to, whether via the app or a web browser. If you don’t see an artist you want, there’s even a button to let SupaPass know that what you’re looking for isn’t there.
A look at the SupaPass mobile interface.
Fans encounter three key areas on each of the artist or label channels they visit: “Stream”, “Buzz”, and “VIP”.
The “Stream” section plays on-demand audio tracks and videos as selected by the fan.
“Buzz” presents the artist’s or label’s social media feeds (automatically pulled in), while “VIP” provides extra features and content for fans who are really seeking to get the full experience from their favorite artist.
This section is customizable by the artist, so it could include everything from lyrics, photos, blogs and special video or audio content, to quizzes, limited edition merchandise, concert tickets, special gifts and more.
As a fan, the user experience on the app is streamlined, simple and interactive. There is also a discovery area for fans looking to find more artists to love, where they can check out free tracks from artists, as well as a featured artist area.
All the familiar features are laid out similarly between the app and browser versions of SupaPass, so there’s no learning curve to finding your way about between the two platforms.
With the web browser version, you can customize your fan profile and account settings a bit more than you can in the app version. The web version allows you to choose which of your artists subscriptions are active, when the next payment is set for, which artists you will receive notifications from, and any recent artist activity. The app allows for all the standard listening and streaming settings you would anticipate, such a managing offline tracks, and whether or not to download using cellular data.
It’s easy to see why the SupaPass app is already generating international recognition. It was selected as a top UK Startup by Midemlab at the international music industry event Midem, and also received the Top European Startup award at SXSW’s Hatch Pitch.
Features and Benefits for Artists
Another view of the SupaPass mobile App.
SupaPass is highly customizable for artists as well as for fans.
Each artist’s or label’s hub can be as simple or as integrated as desired. For example, as an artist, you can start off with the simple streaming area, offering that to your fans at £1 per month. You can always add the VIP area later as you grow your audience and decided to add more content for them.
SupaPass artist support is extremely artist-centric, in part because the CEO is an artist on the platform herself. They have a small and involved team, and are even offering to help artists with upload of their materials in bulk via Dropbox, in addition to the ability to upload content one-by-one directly through the online artist dashboard.
The platform makes it simple to integrate social media, merchandise sales, and as of this writing, a soon-to-be-unveiled ticket sales platform has been announced.
Room for Growth
Given that SupaPass is a startup, they are offering a tremendous amount in the way of features for a small team of just 10 people.
Potentially, SupaPass could help turn the tide of the current streaming model. First, they have to make their case to not just artists, but fans as well. And one big question is how many fans will be willing to give up the old buffet style model of having access to nearly every artist under the sun for $10-$25 a month, in favor of having 10-25 favorite artists entire catalogues to stream?
One benefit of SupaPass being so artist-friendly, is that artists might be friendly back: If an artist or label determines they are getting a better deal from SupaPass than they are elsewhere, they may be inclined to steer their most devoted fans toward the service. And if they find that SupaPass is a good enough deal, they might just drop those others services in favor of using it exclusively.
As for fans, depending on how they use the service, SupaPass could be a better deal as well—especially for those who are active in managing their subscriptions. Fans can even choose to swap out catalogues from month-to-month in their user panel so that they can continue to have as much choice and variety as they desire without paying more in total.
As SupaPass grows, I hope to also see their artists discovery and curation features become even more robust. Presently, there are a few features to help artists get discovered by new fans: The free songs area, the “Discover” tab, and the “Spotlight” area where featured artists’ tracks, videos, blogs, competitions, and other features are highlighted for free to fans on SupaPass. The better these services become, the more that artists and fans are likely to keep coming back.
From a fan’s perspective, two features I would like to see added are the ability to shuffle my artists’ tracks, and to make my own playlists from the artists I’ve subscribed to. (A “favorite tracks” playlist feature is already available). Fan-made playlist features could even become part of the discovery process going forward, as they are on some of the more established services.
From the artist’s perspective, I would look forward to seeing a separate artist’s app, so that artists can easily drop in on their VIP areas and manage content on the go if needed. I would also like to see the ability for artists to change their royalty settings. As of this writing, once you choose a royalty setting, there is no going back. In general, that’s not a huge deal, but it would be nice for artists to have that flexibility down the line.
Lastly—and this is of small note for both artist and fan facing accounts alike—all transactions on SupaPass are currently denominated in British Pound Sterling. although they do have plans to add US dollar denomination soon.
With the advent of PayPal and Bitcoin, this hardly matters these days, but in some parts of the world, it may seem like a hurdle when some potential users to encounter prices presented in a currency other than their own.
It really is a small detail, and in practice, it is no obstacle to actually using the service from anywhere in the world. With the online payment systems advancing so rapidly these days, I have no doubt that the team at SupaPass are already innovating to make sure that this part of the service is seamless for everyone.
Summing it Up
The present market for streaming services is often leaving artists without the royalties they truly deserve while overwhelming fans with more to listen to than they can possibly fathom. SupaPass offers a new model that is fair to artists and better for fans, as it brings them closer to the music they really love and allows them to truly show support for artists they value.
I was so impressed with SupaPass that I have gone ahead and joined the streaming service as an artist myself. Check out both my artist page, https://supapass.com/kalliemarie and my band’s page, https://supapass.com/explosivesforhermajesty for some direct examples of the site in action.
CEO Juliana Meyer told me, “I started SupaPass because I wanted to give fans an easy way to support the artists they love, while giving them the opportunity to be part of the artist’s inner circle and enjoy everything in one place. And I wanted artists to have an easy way to receive regular subscriptions from their most loyal fans.”
SupaPass has already put together a top notch team of industry experts including Non-Executive Chairman Jeremey Silver, previously of MusicMetric, Sibelius, EMI, Virgin, and now CEO of Digital Catapult, and Michelle Emmerson as Senior VP, who previously worked for EMI, BBC Worldwide, ASOS and Walpole.
Now the challenge will be to finding out if music fans are willing to push their chairs away from the endless buffet of streaming music that is currently on offer, and choose instead to select the content that they truly crave.
Kallie Marie is a producer, composer and educator who lives in New York.
Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.