Subvert opened to the public this morning. The cooperative music marketplace has been organising since 2024, and arrives with over 20,000 co-owners and a 0% platform fee, replaced by an optional tip at checkout.
It's one of several shops worth knowing about. For most of the last fifteen years there was one answer to where you buy independent music, and the answer was Bandcamp. The platform was sold to Epic Games in 2022 and on to the music-licensing company Songtradr in 2023, and around half the staff were let go in the aftermath, including the entire Bandcamp union. The site still works. But several of the people who made it feel like a music institution rather than a store no longer work there. A number of musicians, labels and developers have started building alternatives.
This is a short tour of where they are.
Bandcamp still has the largest catalogue by a wide margin, and the platform returns about 82% of digital sales to the artist after fees. Bandcamp Fridays, when the platform waives its cut entirely, remain the most reliable monthly ritual in independent music. Use it. The editorial arm, Bandcamp Daily, publishes less than it used to, and the Bandcamp Weekly radio show ended in 2023.
Subvert is structured as a cooperative, with members owning and governing it on a one-member-one-vote basis. It was built specifically so that what happened to Bandcamp cannot happen to it. The membership has voted to drop the platform fee to zero, replaced by optional tips at checkout, and the open question is whether tips will cover operating costs. The catalogue at launch is small, but the labels already signed up include Warp, Polyvinyl and Thrill Jockey.
Disclosure: the author is a Founding Member of Subvert.
Mirlo is a worker-cooperative, open-source platform that has been live since early 2024. The catalogue is smaller than the other platforms here, and the artist sets the platform fee themselves. Sell an album for £10 and you decide whether Mirlo gets a pound, fifty pence, or nothing. It's small enough to browse properly, and you find records you wouldn't otherwise.
Faircamp isn't a platform. It's a piece of software that builds a music site you host yourself. There's no company in the middle, so the purchase goes from the buyer to the artist directly. There's no central directory of Faircamp sites either. You'll find them by following links from artists you already follow.
Bandcamp, Subvert, Mirlo and Faircamp are the four I'd start with. There are others worth knowing about too: Ampwall, Resonate, Funkwhale and Jam.coop.
What we'd suggest. When an artist has a Subvert, Mirlo or Faircamp page, or a direct-from-the-label option, that's where to buy. More of the money reaches them and the platforms are owned differently. Bandcamp is still where most of the music actually is, and that's where most purchases will end up, but it's worth checking for the alternatives first. Subvert in particular is worth a look today. It's launch day, the catalogue is small, and using it is the easiest way to find out whether the experiment works. And keep buying records. The shop matters less than the buying.
The Groove Library will keep pointing at music worth your money, wherever it lives.