Producers sell custom beats through a link in bio by listing a made-to-order beat commission: the artist submits a brief covering genre, BPM, reference track, and license type, pays a set price upfront, and the producer delivers the finished file within a stated turnaround. No beat-store subscription or third-party marketplace listing is required. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.
No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. pricing
A common DM is: "Yo, can I get a beat like this?" Rather than trading files over Instagram and payment screenshots over a cash app, a producer can point that artist to one link where the request, the payment, and the delivery all happen in the same place. U.S. streaming revenue reached $9.47 billion in 2025, up 3.1% year over year, according to the RIAA Year-End 2025 Revenue Report. Global recorded music revenues reached an all-time high of US$31.7 billion in 2025, up 6.4% year over year, according to the IFPI Global Music Report 2026. Neither the RIAA nor the IFPI report breaks out what producers earn from the instrumentals underneath finished recordings, which is why many producers treat a directly commissioned beat, rather than an eventual stream share, as the line item they can actually plan around. One bio link that carries every offer: followers pay you as guests by card, at prices you set, whatever format the request takes.
Selling a beat only works cleanly if the license terms are stated before money moves. The U.S. Copyright Office puts the underlying right directly:
"As the owner of your music, copyright gives you the right to make and sell copies, distribute those copies, [and] make new works based on your work." — U.S. Copyright Office, Musicians and Copyright
The reproduction and derivative-work rights described by the U.S. Copyright Office are the legal backdrop for why a beat commission needs a clear license term — lease or exclusive — written into the listing rather than negotiated after delivery.
What counts as a "custom beat" commission?
A custom beat commission is an instrumental built to one artist's brief — genre, tempo, mood, reference track, instrumentation — instead of a pre-made file pulled from a catalog. The producer sets a fixed price and delivery time, the artist pays upfront and submits the brief, and the producer delivers the finished audio file later through the same page.
On Brillay, a custom beat commission is listed through Custom Work, with a defined deliverable, price, and delivery time (how it works). You set a delivery time you can reliably meet, up to 5 days.
A made-to-order commission is also a different bet from uploading speculative instrumentals into a crowded catalog: 253 million tracks were available on audio streaming platforms at the end of 2025, growing by an average of 106,000 newly delivered tracks per day, according to the Luminate 2025 Year-End Music Report. A beat commission is not a beat store selling instant downloads of already-finished instrumentals. Brillay is built for made-to-order deliverables with a delivery time window rather than automated storefront downloads. Funding a beat tape ahead of time is a separate ask through Goals, not a custom request sale. An automated beat store needs a finished instrumental in its catalog before it can sell it; a made-to-order listing can take the artist’s order before that beat exists.
Lease or exclusive: what should the license actually say?
A beat commission listing should state whether the artist is buying a non-exclusive lease, which lets the producer keep selling the same beat, or an exclusive sale, which ends further licensing of that beat. The producer writes the lease or exclusive license into the listing before the follower pays.
U.S. copyright law is explicit that an exclusive grant has to be documented in writing, which is why "exclusive" agreed over a DM is the weakest version of the deal:
"A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent." — 17 U.S.C. § 204(a), U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright duration and registration cost are both worth knowing before a producer sells exclusivity. For works created on or after January 1, 1978, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, per the U.S. Copyright Office duration FAQ — so an exclusive grant is a long-lived commitment, not a season-long one. Registration is inexpensive next to a typical exclusive fee: the U.S. Copyright Office fee schedule lists $45 for a Single Application covering one work by one author, not made for hire, and $65 for the Standard Application (U.S. Copyright Office fees). The Copyright Office has proposed higher fees and states it seeks to implement the new schedule in the fall of 2026, so producers should re-check the fee page before filing. Registration is also not instant: the average processing time for all claims was 2.5 months in the period from April 1, 2025 through September 30, 2025, according to the U.S. Copyright Office registration processing times report.
| License type | What the buyer gets | Typical restriction |
|---|---|---|
| Non-exclusive lease | Right to use the beat under stated terms (e.g., streaming cap, non-commercial use) | Producer can still lease or sell the same beat to others |
| Exclusive sale | Sole right to use the beat going forward | Producer removes the beat from further sale once delivered |
Both a non-exclusive lease and an exclusive sale are workable structures for a beat commission. The deciding factor is stating the license terms clearly in writing before payment, because ambiguity about exclusivity is what turns into a dispute after delivery.
How should you price a custom beat commission?
Price a custom beat commission by scope — deliverable format, license type, and any off-platform revision policy — rather than quoting one flat number for every request. A tagged MP3 lease and a full trackout with exclusive rights are different amounts of work, and one price cannot cover both without underpricing the larger job.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median hourly wage of $47.80 for musicians and singers as of May 2025, and a median annual wage of $73,710 for music directors and composers over the same period (BLS, Musicians and Singers; BLS, Music Directors and Composers). Both BLS medians are wage anchors for music work generally, not beat-market prices, but they give a producer a time-cost floor: a beat that takes three focused hours to build represents roughly $143 of time at the $47.80 BLS median hourly wage for musicians and singers. Setting your own price is the norm for this work — musicians and singers held about 170,400 jobs in 2025 and self-employed workers accounted for 48% of them, according to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.
The three price bands in the table below are original illustrative examples written for this page — they are not survey data, not a Brillay benchmark, and not a guarantee that any artist will pay them. Use them as a starting structure and adjust to your catalog, region, and demand.
| Illustrative tier | What's delivered | Example price band | Rationale | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MP3 lease | One tagged or untagged MP3, non-exclusive, with a defined scope | $20–$60 | Roughly one to two hours of build time at the $47.80 BLS median hourly wage for musicians and singers (May 2025) | Below about $20 extra back-and-forth can cost more time than the sale returns |
| WAV + stems | Full-quality WAV plus trackout stems, non-exclusive, with a defined scope | $75–$200 | Stem exports, naming, and mix-ready delivery add work after the beat is finished | Stems make the beat easier to reuse, so state the lease limits explicitly |
| Exclusive sale | WAV plus stems plus a written exclusive grant, beat retired from the catalog | $250–$800+ | Prices out all future non-exclusive sales of the same beat, and the grant must be in writing under 17 U.S.C. § 204(a) | An exclusive is effectively permanent given a copyright term of life plus 70 years |
Platform and card-processing costs come off the top of every beat sale and belong in the price, whatever the sticker number. Brillay's platform fee is the one stated on pricing, and on top of it, Stripe's published pricing puts typical U.S. online-card processing at 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction (Stripe pricing). A companion piece on this site, how much to charge for beats, breaks down anchor pricing by scope in more depth.
What should a custom-beat listing include?
A custom-beat listing should tell the follower exactly what they are paying for before they submit a brief: the inputs you need, the file format you deliver, the license type, the one-time delivery through Brillay, the delivery time, and what is excluded. Naming all six up front removes the post-payment scope argument that free DM negotiation usually produces.
- Brief inputs: genre, BPM range, mood or reference track, and any specific instrumentation requested.
- Deliverable format: MP3 only, WAV + stems, or full trackout — state which, since each takes a different amount of time.
- License type: non-exclusive lease or exclusive sale, stated in plain terms.
- Revision policy: Custom Work uses one-time delivery.
- Delivery time: a window the producer can reliably meet within Brillay's 5-day maximum for Custom Work delivery.
- Exclusions: anything not included, such as mixing, mastering, or additional stem formats.
Scope stated up front also protects the payment. Stripe's published pricing lists a $15.00 dispute-received fee charged for each dispute a business receives, plus a $15.00 fee for each dispute it responds to, so a chargeback on a $40 beat lease is expensive relative to the sale.
Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request.
Should beat feedback be a paid question or a full commission?
Beat feedback should be sold as a paid question when the answer is judgment delivered in words, and as a full commission when a file has to change hands. An artist asking "does this 808 pattern fit the reference?" is buying an opinion. An artist who needs a beat, stems, or a trackout returned is buying a deliverable.
On Brillay, use Paid Questions for an opinion answered in writing and Custom Work for a deliverable with a set price and delivery time.
Paid Questions are one typed question and one written reply, while Custom Work supports follower file attachments and file delivery; Personalized Videos are text requests delivered as one creator video. A related page, ask a producer gear and workflow questions for money, covers the paid-opinion side in more detail if advice requests outnumber beat requests in your DMs.
| Request type | Right-fit offer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "Is this melody usable over trap drums?" | Paid Questions | Judgment delivered in writing |
| "Make me a custom beat like [reference]" | custom request | A finished file has to be delivered |
| "Can you review my mix before I release it?" | Paid Questions or Custom Work | Use Paid Questions for a written answer; use Custom Work when the work includes attached or delivered files |
How do you redirect DMs to your beat-commission page?
Redirect DMs by putting the commission link in your bio and answering every beat request with that link instead of negotiating price and files inside the DM thread. Beat requests arrive wherever the artist found the work — an Instagram comment, a TikTok reply, a Discord server — so the link should be the standing reply. One link that carries every offer, with nothing to moderate and no community to keep warm.
One link has to work across several apps at once: 50% of U.S. adults say they use Instagram and 37% say they use TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center report Americans' Social Media Use 2025. Redirecting DMs to a commission link is operational advice, not a benchmark: no published figure establishes a conversion rate for sending DM requests to a link in bio. The redirect keeps the artist's brief, upfront payment, and finished file together instead of splitting the job across DMs and payment screenshots.
Brillay is a separate page a producer puts in their bio, where the paid request, payment, and delivery happen after a follower clicks through as a guest. A companion resource, how to monetize your link in bio, covers the general setup if a beat commission is one of several offers on the page.
Link in bio vs beat store vs DM payment: which workflow fits?
Three workflows dominate beat sales: a made-to-order commission on a link-in-bio page, a beat store selling pre-made instant downloads, and an ad-hoc DM negotiation settled through a peer-to-peer payment app. A commission page, a beat store, and a DM deal optimize for custom work, catalog volume, and zero setup respectively, and many producers run more than one at once.
| Workflow | Best for | Payment and fees | License handling | Main drawback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Link-in-bio commission (e.g. Brillay custom request) | Made-to-order beats built to a brief | Followers pay upfront; the platform fee is the one stated on the pricing page, plus typical U.S. card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe) | You write the license into the listing; the platform does not set or enforce license language | Not built for instant downloads of a pre-made catalog |
| Beat store / marketplace | Selling an existing catalog at volume, with search and discovery | Varies by platform: subscription, commission, or both — check the provider's current published pricing | Usually templated license tiers supplied by the platform | Store subscriptions and marketplace terms are a fixed cost regardless of sales, and templated licenses may not match a custom brief |
| DM + peer-to-peer payment app | One-off deals with someone you already know | Consumer P2P apps are designed for personal transfers; business use and fees follow the app's own current terms | Nothing is documented unless you write it separately | No scope record, no delivery record, and no written license — the weakest position if the buyer disputes the terms later |
Balances left sitting in a peer-to-peer app carry a risk a bank account does not: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau states that FDIC insurance generally does not apply to money that sits in a payment app unless the user has signed up for additional services from that app.
Choosing among a commission link, a beat store, and a DM deal is a fit question, not a ranking: a producer with a large catalog and steady search traffic gets more from a store, while a producer whose demand arrives as "can you make me something like this" gets more from a commission link.
What else can producers sell alongside beat commissions?
Producers can sell four other things alongside beat commissions on the same page: Paid Questions, Tips, Goals, and Personalized Videos. Each of those four offers covers a request type that a commission listing handles badly, and routing each request to its own offer keeps the commission scoped to delivering one finished file. A producer who also writes personalized lyrics on request can run that as a separate priced offer — see how to start a song-a-gram side hustle from your bio link — rather than folding it into the beat-commission listing.
- Paid Questions: quick opinions on gear, workflow, or a reference track, answered in writing.
- Tips: Tips let a supporter who used a free loop kit send the producer a one-time thank-you, with nothing to deliver in return.
- Goals: A Goal lets supporters contribute one time toward a named goal — new studio monitors, or an upcoming beat tape — shown with a progress bar and no all-or-nothing cutoff.
- Personalized Videos: a short recorded video message, separate from any commissioned instrumental.
How do you get a beat-commission offer live?
Get a beat-commission offer live by publishing one clearly bounded tier rather than five license options at once: an MP3-only lease with a defined scope and a 72-hour delivery time. Add stems, exclusive pricing, and faster delivery time options after a few real briefs show what artists actually ask for. No beat-store account and no marketplace application are required.
Brillay has no follower minimum and nothing to apply for. Salaried music work is not expanding to absorb producers either: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects little or no change in employment for musicians and singers from 2025 to 2035, with about 17,400 openings projected each year on average over the decade (BLS). A direct commission link does not depend on those salaried openings at all, because the buyer is an artist paying for one instrumental rather than an employer hiring a musician.
Brillay keeps the payment and delivery together; the producer writes the license terms.
Create your free Brillay page and turn the next "can I get a beat?" DM into a priced commission instead of a free file.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a beat-store subscription to sell custom beats through Brillay?
No. Brillay is built for made-to-order requests and delivery through your own page. A producer lists a made-to-order offer through Custom Work, sets a price and delivery time, and delivers the finished file to the follower through their Brillay page.
Should I sell a beat as a Paid Question or a custom request?
Use Paid Questions for text-based feedback that you answer in writing. Use Custom Work when the follower expects a beat, stems, or a trackout from you. Set the scope, price, and delivery time in advance, with up to 5 days to deliver.
How do I decide between an exclusive sale and a non-exclusive lease?
The producer sets whether the license is exclusive or non-exclusive. Under 17 U.S.C. § 204(a), a transfer of copyright ownership is not valid unless it is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed (U.S. Copyright Office) — so state the license type in the listing before an artist pays, and put any exclusive grant in writing.
What does it cost to register a beat with the U.S. Copyright Office?
The U.S. Copyright Office fee schedule lists $45 for a Single Application covering one work by one author, not made for hire, and $65 for the Standard Application (U.S. Copyright Office fees). The Office has proposed a higher fee schedule and states it seeks to implement the new fees in the fall of 2026, so confirm the current amount before filing.
What if an artist wants more than the listing includes?
Treat the extra as a second order. Added stems, a different license, or a reworked version go back through the listing at the price on the page instead of being tacked onto the first commission for free. A boundary stated up front — "one MP3, defined scope, non-exclusive" — prevents most disputes after delivery.
What does Brillay charge to sell beats this way?
Each sale is one-time, not a membership; artists can pay by card without creating an account, and creators can receive payouts in 41 countries. There is no follower minimum, and payouts run through Stripe. Brillay's platform fee on a beat commission is the rate for paid work shown on pricing, and Stripe's card processing is a second, separate charge, which for typical U.S. online cards runs about 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction (Stripe pricing).
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