Selling your beats - How much to charge?

A question I hear beat makers often ask is "What do I charge for my beats??". This isn't rocket science and the simple answer is "Charge whatever you want".

Let's rephrase the question to "how do I maximize my earnings when selling my beats?"

Obviously the lower the cost, the more people can afford it so we have to consider this simple theory:

• Lower prices = more potential customers. 
• Higher prices = less potential customers.

Let's take a simple scenario. You're a beat maker trying to make a dollar and have a beat to sell. For the sake of argument well assume it's a beat you can resell to more than one person (a non-exclusive license) and a pool of 100 potential customers.

Priced at $10 you might sell to 15 people. Profit  = $150

Priced at $50 you might sell to 4 people. Profit = $200

Priced at $100 you might sell to 1 person. Profit  = $100

In the scenario above, at $10 a beat you're doing almost triple the work compared to the $50 price tag. Thats 11 more contracts and digital deliveries to worry about. So $50 is your sweet spot. Remember this is all hypothetical!

The best way to find your sweet spot is to start low and build up. Selling more beats at a lower price will help you understand the process better and refine your prices. If you find a lot of non-serious buyers, up the price a little bit. This will help weed out the non-serious ones.

Hopefully this is some food for thought for you aspiring beat makers out there.