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Your first release

This is the whole path from nothing to a record fans can buy — seven steps, most of them a few minutes each. You can do it in one sitting, and you can save a draft and come back at any point.

metal.club is a place where buying music is a public, taste-defining act — your release lands in collections, feeds, and lists, not just a download folder. Getting it up well is worth the half hour.

1. Create your account

Sign up and choose the Artist account type (Band). You’ll pick a username — this becomes your handle across the platform — and confirm your email. If you’re a label managing several acts, choose Label instead and see Managing your roster.

2. Set up your profile

Your artist page is a full storefront, not a bio box. From your dashboard, add:

  • — A banner and profile image
  • — Your location, formation year, and a short bio
  • — Genres and social links

You can flesh this out later — bands you recommend, videos, press — but a banner and a genre or two is enough to look intentional at launch. Full detail in Your storefront & profile.

3. Upload your release

Hit Upload release from your dashboard. The wizard walks you through it: release basics (title, type, date), your audio and tracklist, artwork, formats, pricing, and metadata. At the end there’s a short AI declaration — you confirm the music was performed and recorded by you.

Tip

Want to line a release up for the future — or run a pre-order campaign — instead of dropping it now? Set a future release date in the first step. That’s the doorway to pre-orders and staggered singles.

The full breakdown of formats, artwork specs, and per-track options lives in Uploading a release.

4. Set your price

Set a digital price, and add physical formats (vinyl, CD, cassette) with their own prices and stock if you have them. You can turn on name-your-price to let fans pay more than the floor — many do.

8% on sales. Card processing fees are passed through at cost — see the fees page and Getting paid.

5. Connect payouts

Before a release can go live and sell, connect your payout account through Stripe (from the Payouts tab). This is what lets money reach your bank — so it’s required to publish, not just to withdraw.

Important

You can build and save a release as a draft without Stripe. But publishing is gated on a completed payout connection — the platform won’t put a record on sale it can’t pay you for. Connect once and you’re set for everything after.

6. Publish

Publish from the last step of the wizard, or from the release’s editor later. With a release date of today (or in the past), it goes live immediately — streamable and buyable. With a future date, it publishes as scheduled and you decide when to open pre-orders.

You can unpublish back to a draft at any time before it has sales.

7. Share it

Your release and artist pages are public URLs — send them anywhere. Every purchase is visible: it lands in the buyer’s collection and activity, shows up to the people who follow them, and can be picked for their Album of the Month or Year. That’s the engine — a sale isn’t the end of a transaction, it’s the start of discovery.

Next: turn a launch into an event with Drop Rooms, seed press with promo & press codes, or read the pitch at metal.club for artists.