By now, almost folks have said their goodbyes to concrete media. Although vinyl has made a flake of a comeback. This is because the early 2000s ushered in a new era of music distribution in the form of digital download stores and streaming platforms.

Apple tree introduced the iTunes Store in 2003, and since then, we've seen YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, and many others grow in popularity. And if you're a music lover, SoundCloud is likely a name y'all've heard of as well.

In this commodity, we'll hash out what SoundCloud is, exactly what the platform provides, and whether or not you'll demand to pull your wallet out of your pocket to savor it.

What Is SoundCloud?

SoundCloud is an online sound distribution platform that was founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss. They met while studying at the KTH Majestic Institute of Technology, a university known for being one of the best schools in the world for informatics. Having bonded over a common dear for music, they decided they wanted to create something like Flickr or WordPress but for audio.

What started as a small-scale community for artists to promote their audio offerings has go a strong choice for indie musicians to really get themselves out there. Mail service Malone, Chance the Rapper, and Kehlani are merely a few mainstream music artists that originally started their careers on SoundCloud.

SoundCloud is now a streaming service, a distribution platform for new and upcoming artists, and an online community for fans. Merely at its core, SoundCloud is all about letting you find and listen to new music.

At the fourth dimension of writing, there are over 175 million registered SoundCloud users and over 200 million uploaded tracks. Y'all can access SoundCloud on both the desktop website and mobile app.

Is SoundCloud Costless?

The Soundcloud app on the home screen of an iPhone

Listening to music on SoundCloud online is completely free and you don't even need to create an account to do so. In order to upload and comment on tracks, even so, you volition demand to register. Costless users take an upload limit of three hours of audio, and file sizes cannot exceed 4GB. Additionally, a track created by a free user can only be downloaded a maximum of 100 times.

If your account exceeds three hours of uploaded audio, uploading will be temporarily disabled. To continue uploading, you volition need to make infinite for new uploads by either deleting older tracks to go under the free limit, or by upgrading to the Pro Unlimited paid program.

What Is Repost by SoundCloud?

Repost is a minor upgrade to the free basic SoundCloud account. For $thirty/twelvemonth, you can unlock the post-obit features:

  • Upload track artwork
  • Monetize rails plays
  • Become unlimited distribution beyond all major streaming services
  • Select which regions tin can play your tracks
  • Pitch your tracks to top playlists
  • Promote on the SoundCloud Detect page
  • Dissever revenue with collaborators (e.g. fellow band or collective members)
  • Gain admission to SoundCloud's hub of resources from music industry professionals
  • Get guaranteed one-day support responses
A screenshot of the Soundcloud Discover page

What Is SoundCloud Pro Unlimited?

Users that pay $144/year for SoundCloud Pro Unlimited have access to all of the basic business relationship functions, everything Repost has to offering, and a multitude of other features that yous might be interested in if yous take music seriously:

  • Upload tracks that are up to six hours and 45 minutes long in length
  • No limit on number of uploaded tracks or how many times your tracks tin can be downloaded
  • Replace an already-uploaded track with a new file (keeping the plays, stats, and comments untouched)
  • Exist more in-touch with your audience with advanced look at listener insights
  • Turn off commenting and viewing public stats
  • Get offered discounts from SoundCloud'southward hardware and software partners
  • Access to exclusive Gobbler-SoundCloud suite of audio plugins
  • 24/7 alive conversation back up

What Are SoundCloud Become and SoundCloud Go+?

You don't need to exist a producer to improve your experience with SoundCloud. With SoundCloud Go for $4.99/month, you can save SoundCloud tracks for offline listening, and heed online without advertisements. SoundCloud Get+, which is priced at $nine.99/month, gives you loftier quality audio, and access to an exclusive library of A-list tracks that but Become+ subscribers have.

If you lot are a pupil enrolled at a Championship IV caste-granting higher or university, you can get SoundCloud Go+ for 50 percent off for up to four years.

Two adults listening to music and grooving to it together

SoundCloud Is a Great Identify to Discover New Music

SoundCloud is a streaming service, distribution platform, and online customs that still delivers on its initial hope of assuasive users to discover and share all kinds of music. Even with the rise of competing platforms, it has managed to stay on the pulse of trends and proceed to provide a space for artists to promote themselves.

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About The Author

Jessibelle Garcia (268 Articles Published)

Virtually days, you tin find Jessibelle curled upwardly underneath a weighted coating in a cozy apartment in Canada. She is a freelance writer that loves digital art, video games, and gothic fashion.

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