How to Sell Music and Audio Subscriptions on Shopify

Most guides to selling music on Shopify stop at the one-time sale. A fan or a producer pays once for a beat, an album or a sample pack, gets a file, and you start again with the next buyer. A subscription works differently. Subscribers pay every month or every year for a set number of downloads, new packs on a schedule, or a library of audio they can come back to.

This guide shows how to sell music and audio subscriptions on Shopify with Content Vault: beats, sample packs, loops, stems and presets, and members-only audio such as lessons, meditations or premium episodes. It covers which subscription type fits, a full setup with a price, how subscribers download or stream their files, and how to protect them. Each step says which Content Vault plan it needs.

Can You Sell Music Subscriptions on Shopify?

Yes. Shopify runs the checkout and takes each renewal payment. What it doesn't do on its own is decide which files a subscriber can download, release new tracks or packs on a schedule, and end access when someone cancels. That's the job of a digital subscription app.

Without one, a common workaround is to join apps together: a subscription app for the billing and a download app for the audio files, and often a third app to lock content when someone cancels. Someone then has to keep the subscriber list and the files in step. And there are now several apps to keep in sync.

Content Vault does the billing, the file delivery and the access rules in one app. Subscribers check out through your normal Shopify checkout and manage their subscription from their customer account page. On Content Drip and Library Access, you can also let them pause or skip.

Three Ways to Sell Music and Audio as a Subscription

Content Vault has three subscription types. Each one suits a different kind of music business.

Your idea	Content Vault type	What subscribers get
A sound pass for your catalogue	Content Pass	A set number of downloads that refills on a schedule
A monthly pack or beat club	Content Drip	New releases on a schedule you set
A members-only audio library	Library Access	Every file in their plan, right away

A Sound Pass: Content Pass

Content Pass gives subscribers a download allowance, such as 10 files every 30 days, across the files you link to it. The allowance refills on its own schedule. Subscribers pick what they want, so it fits a big catalogue:

• A library of sample packs, loops or one-shots
• Drum kits and MIDI packs
• Synth presets or mixing templates
• A beat catalogue where artists choose the beats they need

Content Pass has fewer settings than the other two. It has no per-file or IP download limits, and subscribers can't pause or skip. If you want those, choose Content Drip or Library Access.

A Monthly Pack or Beat Club: Content Drip

Content Drip releases new content on a schedule: every month on a day you choose, or every set number of days, such as every 7 days for a weekly beat. Each release can hold one file or several, like a beat and a ZIP of its stems. It fits:

• A new sample pack or drum kit every month
• A weekly beat, loop or preset bank
• An album or EP released one track at a time
• An audio course with one lesson a week

By default, each subscriber starts at the first release and moves through the series from their own signup date. With monthly releases, you can instead turn on Send content by month of subscription. Then everyone gets the same month's pack, like a magazine, and new subscribers don't get earlier months. That suits a pack of the month that only current subscribers get.

A Members-Only Audio Library: Library Access

Library Access gives subscribers every file in their plan as soon as they subscribe. It fits:

• Your back catalogue of packs, stems or presets
• Guided meditations or sleep audio
• Premium podcast episodes, demos and bonus tracks for fans
• Recorded lessons, like a library of guitar or production tutorials

Files you connect to the plan later reach existing subscribers too.

Not Sure? Run Two

You can run more than one subscription. For example, a sound pass for your back catalogue plus a club that releases a new pack each month. Pay As You Go, which has no monthly fee, allows two subscriptions, so you can test both. The help center's Which subscription type should I choose? compares the three in more detail.

Selling sample packs? Our guide to sample pack subscriptions goes deeper on pricing, subscription models and licensing.

How to Set Up a Sound Pass: A Worked Example

Say you make drum kits and loop packs for hip-hop producers. You have 40 packs, each one a ZIP file, and you finish two new ones every month. You want to charge $12 a month for any 3 packs every 30 days.

In Content Vault, a pass works through your product pages. Each pack gets its own product page in your store, with its ZIP file connected. Pass holders get a download button on those pages, and each pack they download uses one download from their allowance.

Step 1: Create the Pass Product

In Shopify, create one product for the pass itself, such as "Drum Kit Pass", and give it a price of $12. This is the product subscribers buy to start their pass. Your packs keep their own product pages.

Step 2: Create a Content Pass Subscription

Go to Apps → Content Vault → Subscriptions and click Create new Subscription. (In your Shopify admin, Content Vault is listed as Digital Subscriptions.) Choose Content Pass. Give the subscription a name, which only you see, then choose your pass product as the Subscription product.

Step 3: Set Up the Plan

Each plan is a tier with its own name, price, billing frequency and download allowance. Plan names are what subscribers see, so keep them clear, like "Monthly". Set the Monthly plan to bill every 1 month. It uses the product's $12 price.

Billing and the allowance are set separately. The allowance refills on its own schedule, which you set next.

Step 4: Set the Allowance

Open the plan's Content pass settings:

• Download limit across all files: enter 3. Left empty, downloads are unlimited.
• How often to reset (days): 30, the default. The allowance refills to 3 every 30 days.
• Allow same file to be downloaded repeatedly without affecting limit: on by default. A subscriber who downloads a pack again doesn't use up another download.
• Roll over unused downloads to the next period: optional. Unused downloads are added to the next period's allowance, but they don't pile up beyond one period.
• Customers retain access to files after they cancel / pause: off by default. Turn it on and subscribers who cancel or pause can still re-download the packs they already downloaded, from their customer account page.

Step 5: Save, Then Connect Your Packs

Click Save subscription, then Configure products in the dialog that opens. (Later, the plan's Digital products panel takes you to the same page.) The Products page lists every product in your store. Open a pack's product and, under Connected Files, click Select files to pick its ZIP from your file library, or Upload files to add it. Do this for each pack.

Files are connected per plan, so each plan can unlock a different set of packs. If you add a second plan later, connect the packs you want it to include.

Step 6: Turn On the Widget and Go Live

Check that the Subscription widget app embed is on, under Online Store → Themes → Customize → App embeds. That's what lets subscribers choose a plan on the product page. Also make sure Shopify's customer accounts are on and Content Vault's checkout and customer account blocks are added, so subscribers can manage their subscription from their account. See Steps 4 and 5 in the install guide: turn on customer accounts and add the checkout and customer account blocks. Then click Set active on the plan and confirm.

When you finish a new pack, give it a product page and connect its ZIP file to the plan in the same way.

The full walkthrough, with a screenshot of every panel, is in Setting up a Content Pass subscription. For a monthly pack club instead, see Setting up a Content Drip subscription, or Setting up a Library Access subscription for a members-only library.

What the $12 Pass Costs to Run

Content Vault charges a fee on every successful subscription payment, including the first order. It's never charged on a failed payment. Here's what the fee comes to on one $12 payment, with each plan's storage:

Plan	Plan price	Fee per payment	Fee on a $12 payment	Storage
Pay As You Go	Free to install	4.95% + $0.25	About $0.84	1 GB
Starter	$29/month	1.95% + $0.15	About $0.38	10 GB
Scale	$49/month	0.95% + $0.10	About $0.21	150 GB
Plus	$99/month	0.50%	About $0.06	500 GB

Shopify's own payment processing fee applies on top, as it does on any order. On fees alone, Starter works out cheaper than Pay As You Go once you take about 64 payments of $12 a month. Starter, Scale and Plus each come with a 10-day free trial.

For a music business, two other things often decide the plan:

• Storage. WAV files and sample packs are big. Add up your catalogue, leave room for new releases, and pick a plan that fits. There's no limit on the size of a single file, only on your plan's total storage. Every plan has unlimited bandwidth.
• Streaming. If subscribers should play the audio files you upload in their browser instead of downloading them, you need Plus.

See How does Content Vault pricing work? for the full plan details.

How Subscribers Get Their Music

With Content Pass, subscribers download from the product pages of the packs in their pass, and each new file they download counts against their allowance.

With Content Drip and Library Access, a new subscriber gets their download links in three places, all on by default:

• A download email when they subscribe
• The Thank You / Order Status page
• Their customer account

Each new Content Drip release also sends a New drip released email.

Stream or download (Plus). On Plus, any MP3 or WAV file can be set to Stream, and subscribers play it in their browser instead of downloading it. MP4 and MOV video get the same choice. Open the file on the Files page and pick Stream or Download. New uploads start on Download, and your choice applies everywhere the file is used. On the other plans, and for any file left on Download, subscribers download the file. Other files, like ZIP packs, MIDI files and presets, always download. See Setting up video / audio streaming.

Any file type works. Upload WAV or MP3 files, ZIP sample packs, stems, MIDI files, synth presets or PDF extras.

A link works too. A plan can also deliver a link instead of a file, such as a lesson video you host on YouTube or Vimeo.

Updating a file is easy. On the Files page, open the file and click Replace. The new version replaces the old one everywhere it's used, which helps when you remaster a track or fix a loop. You can also tick a box to email a new download link to customers who downloaded the old file and still have access. See How to manage files.

Emails can match your brand. You can edit every email template and add translations. On Starter and up, emails can also come from your own email address.

How to Protect Your Music

Once a file is on a subscriber's device, nothing can stop them from copying it, and someone determined can save even a streamed track. What you can do is make sharing harder. Content Vault gives you four layers.

1. Streaming (Plus). An MP3 or WAV file set to Stream plays in the subscriber's browser instead of downloading, which reduces casual sharing. It isn't DRM, though: advanced users can still try to save a stream with browser tools. It suits audio people listen to, like meditations, lessons or premium episodes. Producers need the files themselves, so packs, stems and presets go out as downloads.

2. Download limits. On Content Drip and Library Access subscriptions, you can cap how many times each file can be downloaded (on every Content Vault plan). You can also cap how many IP addresses can download one subscriber's files (Starter and up). The IP limit is the main defense against a subscriber passing their download links around. Start generous, though: an honest subscriber might use a phone, a laptop and a studio computer. Streams don't count toward either limit. On a Content Pass, the allowance itself sets how many files a subscriber can download in each period. More in How to limit file sharing.

3. Fraud detection (Starter and up). The paid plans add the IP limit, the option to cancel a subscription when its payment retries fail, and holding orders that Shopify flags as fraud.

4. Access that ends with the subscription. Each plan has one setting for what happens when a subscriber cancels or pauses. Either they keep access to the files they already have, or they lose access when their paid period ends. Either way, they get no new files.

There's no stamp for audio, because PDF stamping works on PDFs only. If your releases come with PDFs, such as sheet music or a pack's guide, those can carry each subscriber's name and email (Starter and up). Our PDF watermarking guide explains how.

What Each Plan Includes for a Music Business

Feature	Plan needed
Content Drip, Library Access and Content Pass	Every plan (Pay As You Go: up to 2 subscriptions)
Audio downloads, with unlimited bandwidth	Every plan
Download email, Thank You page and account links	Every plan
Download limit per file	Every plan
Analytics	Every plan
IP address limits and fraud detection	Starter and up
Emails from your own address	Starter and up
PDF stamping, for sheet music and other PDFs	Starter and up
Audio and video streaming	Plus

Tips for Keeping Music Subscribers

• Make the first release one of your best. Subscribers decide early whether a subscription is worth keeping.
• Keep a steady rhythm. New packs on a set day give subscribers something to look forward to. With Content Drip, releases go out on schedule without you, and you can set a delivery time and a timezone for them.
• Spell out the license. Tell subscribers what they can do with your sounds, and whether that changes when they cancel. Put it on the product page and in your emails. Our sample pack guide covers the common license types.
• Offer a yearly plan. Add a second plan that bills every 1 year, with a fixed yearly price under Show advanced pricing options. Give it the same Content pass settings (a download limit of 3, reset every 30 days), and connect the same packs to it. Billing and the allowance are set separately, so a yearly subscriber still gets 3 packs every 30 days.
• Launch with a discount. A plan that uses the product's price can take a percentage off for a set number of billing cycles, like 20% off the first 3 months. Fixed-price plans can't.
• Raising prices later. When you edit a price set on a plan itself, or the Shopify product's price behind a plan, like the pass's $12, existing subscribers keep the price they signed up at. New subscribers pay the new one.
• Try a free trial. You can also give new subscribers a free trial.
• Ask why people leave. On Content Drip and Library Access, subscribers are asked for a cancellation reason by default. You'll find the reasons on the Customers page.
• Watch your numbers. The Analytics page shows MRR, churn rate and your most-downloaded files on every plan, so you can see which packs land.

Related Guides

• Sample pack subscriptions for music producers: subscription models, pricing, licensing and the numbers to watch
• How to sell video subscriptions: a members-only video library, step by step, with streaming on Plus
• How to sell online course subscriptions: a weekly course, for music or audio lessons
• How to sell ebook and PDF subscriptions: a monthly club, step by step

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can subscribers stream tracks instead of downloading them?

Yes, on the Plus plan, for MP3 and WAV audio (and MP4 and MOV video). Set the file to Stream and subscribers play it in their browser. You can also deliver a link instead of a file, such as a lesson you host on YouTube or Vimeo. Otherwise, audio files go out as downloads, like every other file, such as a ZIP pack or a MIDI file. Streaming reduces casual sharing, but it isn't DRM.

Can I include stems with a beat?

Yes. Content Vault supports all file types, and a release or a plan can hold several files, such as a beat as MP3 and WAV plus a ZIP of its stems. On a Content Pass, each new file a subscriber downloads uses one download from their allowance, so put a beat and its stems in one ZIP if they should count as one.

Does downloading the same pack again use up the pass?

Not by default. Allow same file to be downloaded repeatedly without affecting limit is on, so only new files count against the allowance.

What happens to a subscriber's files when they cancel?

You choose for each plan. Either they keep access to the files they already have, or they lose access when their paid period ends. They get no new files either way.

How much storage do sample packs need?

Pay As You Go includes 1 GB of storage, Starter 10 GB, Scale 150 GB and Plus 500 GB. There's no limit on the size of one file, only on the total. Every plan has unlimited bandwidth. Content Vault warns you at 80%. If you reach your limit, new uploads are blocked, but existing files keep working. If you need more than your plan includes, upgrade or contact us about a custom plan.

Can I also sell single beats or packs?

Content Vault sells subscriptions only. For one-time sales, our sister app ABC Digital Downloads handles single downloads.