Bandcamp fees come in two layers: a 15 percent revenue share on digital sales, 10 percent after $5,000 a year, plus about 4 to 6 percent for payment processing.
That stack decides what a sale is worth, whether it counts toward a chart, and when the money lands. Fans have paid artists and labels $1.82 billion through Bandcamp, $225 million of it in the past year.
What Bandcamp takes from each sale
Bandcamp’s fee page, last updated in June 2026, sets the revenue share at:
- Digital items: 15 percent.
- Digital, after $5,000 in sales over the past 12 months: 10 percent.
- Physical items: 10 percent.
Processing comes on top. For its new Stripe-based payment system, Bandcamp publishes 5 percent plus $0.06 on sales of $8.06 or less, and 2.9 percent plus $0.30 on sales of $8.07 or more. International purchases can add a 2 percent foreign exchange fee.
What that leaves you
- $1 single: $0.74 at the 15 percent rate.
- $7.99 album: $6.33 at 15 percent, $6.73 at 10 percent.
- $10 album: $7.91 at 15 percent, $8.41 at 10 percent.
Bandcamp says the average cost per sale is unchanged from PayPal.
For scale, Apple told artists in 2021 its average play was worth $0.01, label and publisher shares combined (Hypebot, Bruce Houghton). One $7.99 album sale nets what 633 such plays paid all rightsholders together. And unlike Spotify, which stopped paying recording royalties on tracks under 1,000 plays a year, Bandcamp pays on the first sale.
Bandcamp Friday waives the revenue share
On Bandcamp Fridays the revenue share is waived from midnight to midnight Pacific time. Processing fees are not.
- A $7.99 album rises from $6.33 to $7.53.
- Eight were scheduled for 2026. The last two fall on 6 November and 4 December.
- Payments Summary logs sales in UTC, so late-night purchases can look as if they missed the window.
Schedule pre-orders, vinyl restocks and bundles for those days.
Chart reporting needs codes and a price floor
Bandcamp sends sales daily to Luminate for Billboard, the Official Charts in the UK and Ireland, ARIA in Australia and the Official New Zealand Music Charts. A sale only counts if the release meets the eligibility rules:
- A valid UPC on every album and an ISRC on every track. UPC means Universal Product Code; ISRC means International Standard Recording Code.
- US and Canada minimums: $0.69 per track, $7.99 for a digital album, CD or cassette, and $15.99 for vinyl.
- UK and Ireland minimums: £3.75 per album and £0.40 per track, and the buyer has to download or stream the purchase.
- North American physical orders count only once marked as shipped.
Pricing an album at $7 to look cheaper costs you the US chart entirely.
Bandcamp does not issue codes. Reuse the UPC and ISRCs your distributor already assigned, as you would when switching distributors, so Bandcamp sales and streams sit on the same identifiers.
Payouts and the AI rule
Bandcamp says an average of 82 percent of each purchase reaches the artist or label, typically within 24 to 48 hours. The Stripe system adds free bank payouts on a monthly, weekly or daily schedule. PayPal stays available through the end of 2026, and money received through Stripe cannot be paid out to PayPal.
Bandcamp’s content rule is also stricter than Spotify’s. Since 13 January 2026, “music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted,” and Bandcamp reserves the right to remove music on suspicion alone. Spotify handles AI involvement through credits your distributor delivers. Bandcamp removes the track.
What to do with this
- Price albums at $7.99 or more if US chart eligibility matters.
- Sell bundles rather than $1 singles. Processing takes 11 cents of every dollar single.
- Watch your trailing 12-month total. Crossing $5,000 cuts the digital share by a third.
- Load your distributor’s UPC and ISRCs onto every Bandcamp release.
- Connect a bank account for Stripe payouts. Bandcamp only commits to PayPal through 2026.
Bandcamp sits outside any distributor’s delivery chain. The codes that make its sales count do not: the UPC and ISRCs on your InterSpace Distribution release are the ones Bandcamp asks for.
