Is this $1 premium plan SoundCloud’s last hurrah?
Exactly two months ago today, Spotify reported that it had reached 50 million paying subscribers. A month earlier, Apple Music reported that it’s “well past 20 million subscribers.”
So, how is SoundCloud doing? Not too well, to be honest.
In February, two key executives suddenly resigned following failed acquisition talks with Spotify. Days earlier, the Financial Times reported that the Berlin-based streamer was “begging for money.” The company downplayed the departures, stating that the executives simply wanted to “move on to new adventures.”
They also accused the Financial Times of writing a fake news article.
Two weeks after the Financial Times’ “fake news” (read: most likely true) report, SoundCloud slashed the price of its Go service. They rebranded their $10 per month premium service Go+, and instead offered Go for just $5 a month.
Less than one month later, sources close to the company said that the streamer would sell itself to any company willing to pay above $250 million. This comes as a sudden change over last year. Last July, Bloomberg reportedly that the company had mulled a $1 billion offer.
Speaking about the company’s weak position, Re/Code veteran journalist Peter Kafka wrote,
“SoundCloud is now at a point where it may sell for less than the $700 million investors thought it was worth a few years ago. One source thinks it will consider bids, as long as they’re above the total investment it has raised to date — about $250 million.”
Now, in a move that cries out desperation, SoundCloud is offering new users access to its premium Go+ service for three full months at just $1. Available for a “limited time only” (read: until they get enough subscriptions), users will get:
- Access the world’s largest music streaming catalog, a constantly expanding mix from established and emerging artists
- Full access to all 150M+ tracks
- Offline listening
- No ads
- Millions of premium SoundCloud Go+ tracks
- No previews.
The move marks the second time in less than a year that SoundCloud has slashed the price of its premium service. The streamer quietly launched its service. Users can sign-up here. SoundCloud has yet to issue a statement on the offer.
However, the threat of going bankrupt still hangs over Alexander Ljung and SoundCloud executives. Should GO fail to take off this year, and also fail to find any buyers, co-founder and CEO Alexander Ljung told investors,
soundcloud is a troll site that doesn’t pay the artists, worse than youtube, should have paid 0.50$ per stream at least.
Per stream lmao ur so retarded. Ur saying they should’ve payed lil yachty and drama almost 70 million for making the song broccoli. Gtfo
They are parasite on musicians, abusing their difficult situation created by UMG music suicide MASTERS. Rio Careaff (VEVO) and Francis Keeling (SPOTTILY) are long time gone but Sir Lucian continues the fertilization of proven suicide path in hope of semi fraudulent IPOs.
There is no room for any more cheap $1 a month business models. Why does Soundcloud think that people want a middle ground or
alternative options. It’s glaring and obvious. Its free or its $10 for everything. Soundcloud couldn’t work as a going concern business indie artist site and it can’t work as streaming service. Soundcloud VC investors will lose there money and it will be bought in a fire sale before the end of 2017.
That would be very sad
Soundcloud failed because a music site for indies and bedroom artists couldn’t ever give a ROI because of a lack of monetization options so they had no choice to go big or go home and cut the deal with the labels. People who think they failed because they didn’t stay loyal to the indie bedroom artists need to realize that they were going to fail by doing that or be sued out of existence. The amount of money it takes to grow a music platform means one thing; go big or die trying. Its why all these little guys like Orfium or music start ups end up failing in the long run.
Soundcloud is going down in flames and taking investors money because their business model never worked. This is the worst platform that steals music from creators and sells it without giving them a cut! Burn baby burn!!!
Try music glue Web site offering everything to artist free you will be amazed. Log on to music glue. Co. Uk.
All these companies wanting to pitch themselves as the next
soundcloud take note… don’t go down the indie any one upload what they want road.
Works fine for youtube, but whatever, continue knowing nothing about how the internet works.
Agreed!
I believe SC should have focused on keeping the user experience topknotch. I used them religiously for a few years but when they added a pop up on embeds for mobile devices which is an obvious attempt to garner new users to SC rather than being a smooth functioning embedded player, I removed them off my site altogether after getting 25k subs. Also would have loved a dark theme player for HTML5 which they said they’d do but never did; another let down. I now use another player and paid $500 for the year and am satisfied with it as it’s dark theme capable HTML5, has no pop ups or branding and loads of design options. Honestly would prefer SoundCloud but it is what it is. For any company, the focus should be user experience first; can charge more if capital is needed but give users what they want (ask us how you’re performing and what can be done to improve). They don’t need to be, beat, or get acquired by Spotify. They shouldn’t even try to sell themselves off in the first place. Based on what I’m reading, it appears oblivious investors are ruining a perfectly good company in an attempt to get a big pay day.
Soundcloud could blow me. Unlimited account for $120, if unpaid you get left with about 15mins of tracks.. while youtube/mixcloud you dont have to pay shit. They fucked up Big Time plenty of times, hopefully they get Pennies for it cuz thats what I see its worth.
SoundCloud screwed themselves royaly when they decided to discontinue the groups, that way smaller artist could reach more listeners. I was in multiple techno groups that gave me a bigger exposure and listeners but since the cancellation of groups this has come to a staggering halt. Also the constant copyright claims or for lack of wordds bogus copyright claims have made many leave SoundCloud and look for better alternatives like Mixcloud, Mixcrate etc.
It all comes down to the point that SoundCloud is the only one at fault for it’s own demise, but they blame others. Meh what else is new!