Buyers pay for songs in multiples of what they earn in a year: several times for steady songs, fewer for young ones whose money is still falling fast. Put in yours and see the range, how ten years of falling earnings change it, and the four things that raise it. An estimate, not an offer: nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
What you own, what it earns and how old the songs are. The range is what a buyer might pay today, from the multiples under it, and you can change those too.
What reaches you from what you own, after your distributor and anybody you split with.
Every song, every service, together.
How long ago most of the songs that earn came out.
| When | Earns that year | Might sell for |
|---|
A buyer pays less for money they cannot check, or that somebody could argue over. Tick what is already true of your songs: each one that is not shows what putting it in order could add, on your numbers.
Every song registered with your PRO (as writer and as publisher) and with The MLC, and every recording claimed at SoundExchange (as the artist and as the owner).
Money nobody is collecting is money a buyer will not pay you for, and they price in the work of claiming it.
Every registration, and what it costsA split sheet for every song, signed by every writer, and a signed agreement with everybody who has a share of the recordings.
A share somebody could argue over is a share a buyer takes off the price, or leaves out of the deal.
What a split sheet holdsAn ISRC on every recording, an ISWC and every writer's IPI on every song, and the same titles everywhere.
Plays that cannot be matched to a song are paid late or never, and a buyer has to check every one by hand.
Check a code, freeStatements for every month since the songs came out, three years of them if the songs are that old, with no sudden jumps up or down.
A buyer with a record to check pays for it. Without one, they price off the bottom of the range.
Why every honest figure is a rangeEvery figure the tool uses, so you can check it or put in your own. These are rules of thumb, not market data: real buyers differ, and so do catalogues.
A buyer pays today for money the songs will earn over the years ahead, and counts each later year for less: money later is worth less than money now, and it might not come. We count fifty years ahead at 8% a year for a keen buyer and 15% for a careful one, with the earnings falling as the next table says. For songs ten years old or more that comes to about 5 to 8 times a year's earnings; for songs just out, about 2 to 3, because most of their money is still to fall away.
| The songs are | Earn less each year | A buyer pays, in good order |
|---|---|---|
| Just out | 40% | 2.1 to 3.2 times |
| 1 year old | 26% | 3.1 to 4.7 times |
| 2 years old | 17% | 3.8 to 5.9 times |
| 3 years old | 12% | 4.2 to 6.6 times |
| 5 years old | 7% | 4.7 to 7.5 times |
| 10 years or more | 4% | 5.1 to 8 times |
Multiples are said to one decimal and used as said. Put in your own and the years ahead move with yours.
A starting guess, from the shape most catalogues follow: songs earn most just after release and fall fast once the release is over, and old songs barely move. Each year after, the songs are a year older and fall a little slower. If your statements say something else, put in theirs: the years after ease from your figure the same way. It never goes below zero here, because a buyer does not pay for growth that has not happened yet.
For each of the four things that is not in order, a share comes off the price. They come off one after another, so with all four missing a buyer pays about half (52%) of the price in good order.
Your streams a month, times twelve, times what one stream pays you. The starting figure is the bottom of a typical mix of services, the same one What do streams pay? uses: 0.35 cents a stream for the recordings, 0.12 for the songs, 0.47 for both. Plan around the bottom: a buyer will.
Tax, the fee of anybody who sells the catalogue for you, a buyer's own costs, money still owed back to a label or a distributor, a sync or a hit that has not happened yet, and anything that is not in the statements.
Nothing on this page is an offer to buy your songs, and it is not an appraisal: it is arithmetic on the numbers you put in and the figures above. Selling is for good, so before you sell anything, get more than one offer and have a music lawyer read the deal.
This page works from one number and four ticks. The Catalogue tool goes through every song: every way it can pay you and whether it does, the splits and codes a buyer checks first, what to fix first, and the money not reaching you, in dollars.
A free account shows it working on made-up songs. On your own songs it is part of the toolkit, free for the collective's members.
What streams pay, a check for any ISRC, ISWC, barcode or IPI, who pays you for each play, and contract red flags.
Open LearnThe short list of what to register, where, and what each one costs: mostly nothing, and about an evening.
Read the chapterYour role first, then where you stand and what to fix first.
Take the scorecard