is SoundCloud free and why you might want to use it in this video I'm going
to explain is SoundCloud free and I'm gonna jump the gun here and say yes it
is free but there are limitations that are put on the free plan and in this
video I'm going to explain what those limitations are why you might want to
use SoundCloud the different tiers of plans that they have for listeners and
overall how it compares to Spotify and Apple music and why you might want to
use SoundCloud over those platforms let's get into it
if you're new here punched the subscribe button my name is Charles Cleyn I post
weekly videos on the music industry reviews marketing my own vlogs my own
music so please punch the subscribe button and stick around a lot of you
have been asking me is SoundCloud free and in short yes
it is free you can sign up for SoundCloud for free and listen to
millions of songs for free with the option to download some of those songs
for free if you're looking how to download free music on SoundCloud click
the link in the right-hand corner there I made a video on how to download music
on SoundCloud for free the sound of a business model offers a freemium version
they're going to collect a lot of people who want to just listen to free music
and then hopefully convert some of those users into paid users and that's how
SoundCloud makes money SoundCloud doesn't want everyone to stay on the
free version because then they won't make any money so they put limitations
on the free version that people eventually get fed up with and then they
start paying each month for the service if you just want to use SoundCloud for
free you will receive limitations some of those limitations are lower quality
audio the kilobytes per second that streams on a SoundCloud free account is
lower than what you might get when you pay for an account and you might not
notice that if you if you don't listen to a lot of music if you do listen to a
lot of music you will notice the quality of audio if you put a good pair of
headphones on another limitation is ads you'll get ads every 2 or 3 songs you'll
get an ad and you'll have to listen to that ad without skipping it until you
can listen to your another annex song the third limitation is there's no
offline listening so you can't take any songs in your live
and then go for a walk without a network connection and listen to those songs and
the fourth limitation is you can't access the full catalog of songs on
soundcloud they're gonna limit you to a batch of songs which is still quite
large and in the millions but you're not going to reach the full catalog of songs
that you might get when you pay for an account so those are the four
limitations that you will get on the free account for a SoundCloud and that's
okay for a lot of people and they'll just continue using SoundCloud for free
so in short for them it is free and it works really well for them but there is
a segment of people that don't like those limitations and they want to pay
something extra so they can remove all those limitations and there are
different tiers for that segment of people if you want to remove those free
limitations you have two options and two tiers you can pay for you have sound
club go and SoundCloud go plus SoundCloud go is about $5.99 a month and
SoundCloud Go plus is $9.99 a month SoundCloud Go is $5.99 a month and they
remove two of the limitations that you get on the free plan you can save music
for offline listening and you remove all the ads but you're still going to get
low lower quality audio and you won't be able to access the full catalogue but
that's what you get for $5.99 a month you can pay no ads and you can take your
phone on a walk or in the gym if you don't have a network connection that's
what you're gonna get with SoundCloud Go the next tiered approach is Spotify go
plus and this removes all the limitations that you would get on the
free plan its $9.99 a month and it's very similar to what you might get on
Spotify and Apple music and a question you might be asking here is what is the
difference between SoundCloud Go plus and Spotify Premium and Apple music they're
all in and around $9.99 besides the fact that SoundCloud Go Plus will remove all
those free limitations that I was talking about. SoundCloud Go Plus is
basically the platform for indie musicians so if you love music from
independent artists SoundCloud Go Plus is likely the place
farm for you because you're going to access to a whole catalogue that you
won't have on Spotify or Apple music and here's why there is a different side of
SoundCloud for the creators and the musicians and they upload music to
SoundCloud and SoundCloud offers the creator's a free platform as well to
upload their music and distribute it on soundcloud something that Apple music
and spotify don't do as a musician myself I have to pay to get my music on
Spotify and Apple music I do not have to pay to put my music on soundcloud so I
have a free distribution network through SoundCloud but I have a paid
distribution network your Spotify and Apple music so there are going to be
many more musicians uploading music to SoundCloud because it's free as a
listener you're going to get many more creators artists and musicians that are
uploading their music to SoundCloud they'll have more access to different
types of indie music than you would on Spotify and Apple music if all that said
SoundCloud and SoundCloud Go Plus specifically is more for the music
enthusiasts looking for that unknown artists that might have only a hundred
plays on their song but they really like music that they've never heard before
that aren't on the billboards in their city and that's what you're gonna get on
Spotify and Apple music is the mainstream music high quality high
production value music when on soundcloud it's more indie a lot of the
music won't be recorded in a professional studio it's it's more
bedroom style bedroom recording studio music it's not at the highest quality
but it's still quite good and unique SoundCloud Go Plus
is the platform for you if you are a huge music enthusiast and you love
independent music let's do a mini tutorial on soundcloud and take a look
at what I was talking about here we had the SoundCloud Go page where you can
remove the limitations from the free account and upgrade their soundcloud go
at $5.99 and SoundCloud go plus at $9.99 both offer a free trial so you can you
know no hassle start it and see if you like it or not for free but here's what
I was talking about you have two of the two of the limitations removed on
Soundcloud go here and then you have for the limitations from the free countin
all removed on Soundcloud Go plus but no problem it's free if you want to just
start it to see if you like it but you can also use SoundCloud for free and
that's what I view I use sin club for free because I'm more interested in the
mainstream music and I use Spotify as my main source for music listening but I
use SoundCloud for free and you can also use it for free if you don't mind the
limitations by ads every so often and well I already explained the
limitations so I just like I just searched I found this person uppermost
by just searching independent music and you you would get a list of artists that
you have never heard before this is where I found he was right here this is
where I found this guy but you can go anywhere you can let's list let's do
this person Tory power quite a small following but it has a lot of stream
counts 359,000 we have four point six three million on this song so that is a
significant stream count we can listen to these songs here let's do this
so that's carry on my wayward son by Kansas was likely a remix that she did
and a lot of people enjoy that remix so if I really like Tory power I could spy
I could follow her I could share her account with my friends I can go to the
people she's following this is a big band the fray class of 2016 I can just
look around and get a sense of the different types of independent music
that is on soundcloud that I would have never come across likely on Spotify or
Apple music because those people aren't going to release those remixes and pay
for the distribution on Spotify and Apple music likely because it's just
free on soundcloud so you're going to get more of that indepen
but like kind of like bedroom studio vibe
anyways that's a mini tutorial on how you might find independent music what
the free account looks like and what the limitations are and how you might remove
those limitations if you are a huge music enthusiast and you love the
independent music scene then SoundCloud Go Plus is likely the platform for you and
not Spotify or Apple music let me know what you think in a comment I'm a
musician myself so at least some of my own music it's on SoundCloud too but
I'll leave that in the link in the description and I will see you in the
next video.