Artist Guide
Everything you need to upload, sell, and build your presence on metal.club.
Getting Started
After signing up as an artist, you'll be taken through a 4-step onboarding flow that collects your artist name, handle, genre, country, bio, and social links. You can edit all of these later from your artist settings. Your profile is public immediately — fans can find and follow you before you've published any releases.
8% on sales. Stripe's card processing fee is passed through at cost and shown separately (details on the fees page). A 0% free listing tier is extended to some accounts by invitation, at the platform's discretion — see “What is the Free listing tier?” below.
Stripe pays out to your bank on its own schedule for your account, and the Payouts tab shows that schedule along with your available and pending balance, read live from Stripe. Stripe holds the record of individual payouts — the dashboard link on that page opens it. More in Getting paid.
Digital downloads, vinyl, cassette, CD, and bundles. Each format has its own stock count, price, and low-stock threshold. You can add multiple formats to a single release — for example, a digital download at £9 and a black vinyl at £22.
Uploading Releases
Go to your artist dashboard and click “Add Release”. This opens a 7-step upload wizard: Release Basics, Audio Upload, Artwork, Formats & Inventory, Pricing, Metadata & Discovery, and Review & Publish. Each step saves your progress automatically so you can return if needed.
Strong metadata directly affects how fans discover your music. The most important fields are: primary genre, subgenre, country, and tags. These power the filters on the Discover page and ensure your releases appear in the right browsing contexts. Genre and subgenre come from a controlled list — you select from the platform's taxonomy rather than entering free text. This keeps discovery consistent and reliable.
Before publishing, you must confirm that the music was performed and recorded by you or your band. This is a platform-wide policy — AI-generated or AI-assisted audio is not permitted on metal.club. The declaration is a checkbox on the final review step and is required before the Publish button activates.
Yes. On digital formats you can enable pay-what-you-want with a minimum price floor. The fan sees your minimum price and can choose to pay more.
Drop Rooms
A Drop Room turns your release into a scheduled live event. Instead of uploading a record and hoping people notice, a Drop Room gives fans a place to gather before, during, and after your release goes live.
The room persists permanently — it becomes the canonical discussion and archive page for that release, continuing to drive purchases long after launch day.
Important
A Drop Room is a dedicated event page tied to a new release. It has a lifecycle — from scheduled, through a warmup phase, to live at the moment of release, and then into an archive that persists indefinitely. Fans can join the room before launch, set reminders, and discuss the release in real time as it drops. Your buy buttons are prominent throughout, and the room continues to function as a sales page after the event.
From your artist dashboard, go to the release you want to create a room for and click “Create Drop Room”. You'll set:
- — The exact release date and time
- — An optional artist note (shown pinned at the top of the room — this is your welcome message to fans)
- — A room schedule if you want to add structure (e.g. “Discussion opens T-60, Q&A opens T+15”)
The room is created in “scheduled” state and becomes publicly visible immediately so fans can join and set reminders before launch.
At the scheduled release time, the room transitions automatically from warmup to live. A system post appears in the feed announcing the release. The buy buttons in the action rail become the primary CTAs. Your formats, stock levels, and pricing are all live and accurate.
Fans who joined the room receive a notification if they opted in. The countdown is replaced with “Live Now”.
As the artist, your posts appear with a special visual treatment — a red left border and your verified artist badge. This distinguishes your posts from fan discussion.
You can post:
- — A welcome note (shown pinned above the feed)
- — Track notes about specific songs
- — Merch and format highlights
- — Responses to fan questions
Your posts feel rare and significant because they look different from fan posts. Don't over-post — one or two well-timed messages from you carry more weight than constant updates.
No. The room stays live permanently and transitions to “archived” state after the event. The archive retains all artist posts, key fan moments, and the attendance count. Your release buy buttons remain active in the archived room — it continues to function as a sales and discovery page indefinitely.
Drop Rooms appear in:
- — The /rooms discovery page
- — Your artist page (Rooms tab)
- — The homepage when a room is live or starting soon
- — The main navigation (with a live indicator dot when a room is active)
- — Notifications sent to fans who follow you
The Vault
A Vault is a milestone event page for an existing release. Where a Drop Room marks an arrival, a Vault marks a record being enshrined — a 1-year, 5-year, or 10-year anniversary, or any milestone worth celebrating.
The most important feature of a Vault is the Demand Counter: a live, public counter showing how many fans want a repress or reissue. When the counter reaches your threshold, you are notified and can greenlight a new pressing directly through the platform.
Important
The Vault is an event page for an existing release, used to mark an anniversary or milestone. Fans gather to discuss the record, share memories, and signal demand for a repress. Unlike a Drop Room, there is no release countdown — the focus is on celebrating a record that already exists and determining whether to repress it.
When you create a Vault, you set a repress threshold — for example, 500 fans. The counter is public and visible to all visitors:
“412 / 500 fans want a repress”
Fans click “I want a repress” to add themselves to the count. Each fan can only signal once per Vault. When the threshold is reached, you receive a notification immediately. You can then decide whether to greenlight a repress, and pre-orders can open directly from the Vault page.
A Vault is a celebration, not a sales campaign. When you create or edit one you can optionally let fans signal they’d like the record repressed (off by default). It’s a light interest signal — never a guarantee or a pre-order — and you always see the count. If you decide to bring the record back, a repress is often a new variant (colour, edition or pressing may differ, to protect existing owners’ editions), and it launches as its own Drop Room. You decide if and when — metal.club can’t know a record’s real availability, so it’s always your call.
Fans see the release artwork, your anniversary milestone (“5 Year Vault”), your artist reflection post, the Demand Counter, a “Then vs Now” stats block (original owners vs current owners, list appearances), and a persistent discussion thread.
Fans who bought the original pressing get a “Day One” badge visible on their posts in the Vault discussion.
From your artist dashboard, find the release and click “Create Vault”. You'll set:
- — The anniversary or milestone type
- — The scheduled date (the anniversary date itself, or a date you choose to mark it)
- — Your repress threshold
- — An artist reflection post (optional but strongly recommended — this is your note on what the record means five or ten years later)
The Vault opens in “scheduled” state and fans can begin signalling repress demand immediately.
Repress Indicators
Repress indicators show fans the status of physical formats — whether stock is limited, sold out, or whether a repress is in progress. These signals appear on your release page, in the release grid, and in Vault pages. They update automatically based on your stock numbers.
Each physical format on your release page shows one of these states based on your stock numbers:
- Available — stock is normal, no indicator shown
- Low Stock — stock is at or below your threshold (e.g. “15 left” in red text)
- Sold Out — stock is zero, format is dimmed
- Pre-order — release date is in the future
You set the low-stock threshold per format in the upload flow under Formats & Inventory.
Releases published within the last 30 days automatically show a “New” badge in the release grid and on the release page. This is calculated from your release date — no manual action required.
If your release date is set in the future, the release shows a “Pre-order” badge and your buy buttons say “Pre-order” instead of “Buy”. The release is live and purchasable — fans pay now and receive the download or shipping when the release date arrives.
When a release is within 24 hours of its scheduled release time, it shows a “Dropping Soon” badge. This appears in the release grid, on the release page, and in any associated Drop Room. It creates urgency in the hours before launch.
In the upload wizard Step 4 (Formats & Inventory), each physical format has a “Low stock warning threshold” field. Enter the stock count at which you want the “X left” warning to appear. For example, if you press 300 copies and want a warning at 30 remaining, enter 30. The indicator appears automatically when stock reaches that number.
Payouts & Finance
Your artist dashboard has a dedicated Revenue tab showing gross revenue, platform fees, processing fees, and net revenue by period. The Payouts tab shows your full payout ledger. Everything is exportable as CSV for accounting purposes.
The free listing tier is a 0% platform-fee arrangement extended to selected accounts by invitation, at the platform's discretion. It is not a tier you can choose, apply for, or expect — the standard rate is 8% on sales. If it has been extended to you, your dashboard shows “Free listing — 0% platform fee”. Some invitations are open-ended; others run for a fixed term. When a fixed-term period ends, the account moves to the standard rate (8% on sales) going forward — past sales are never recalculated, because the fee is fixed at the time of each sale. Stripe's processing fees always apply.
From your dashboard, open Codes → Free download codes and generate codes for any release — including unpublished ones, so press and reviewers get advance copies before launch. Create a batch of up to 100 distinct codes (one per outlet) with optional use limits and expiry, then export the list as CSV. Codes bypass payment and give the recipient an immediate download, and you can track exactly who redeemed each one — member or guest email — and when.
Still need help? contact@metal.club