Made by musicians, for musicians

Table-Turn Streaming was started by a working musician who wanted a place where listeners pay for music and the money reaches the people who made it.

Where your subscription goes

Half of every subscription, Listener or Artist, goes into the artist pool. The other half pays for running the service: streaming, support and the people who build it. Payment processing fees are paid out of Table-Turn's half, so they never reduce what goes to artists and nothing extra is added at checkout.

How artists earn

Right now the whole artist pool is paid out on streams. The two bonuses are switched off until Table-Turn has at least 6,000 Listener subscribers and at least 6,000 Artist subscribers. Once both are reached, the bonuses are paid from the artist pool along with the stream share.

Artists set their own prices for downloads and merch. Downloads start at for a Single and for an EP or Album, and merch at . Table-Turn keeps of download sales and of merch sales, and pays the card processing fee out of that cut, so the buyer pays the price the artist set. Merch also has shipping. It is worked out from USPS rates for the item's weight and where it is going, and it goes to the artist.

Artists ship their own merch. Table-Turn does not ship, store or handle merch. The artist who sells an item is responsible for shipping it to the buyer.

On many large platforms, artists receive a fraction of a cent per stream, often shared with labels and distributors. Here the pool is a fixed share of subscriptions, bonuses are added once the platform is big enough, and payouts go to artists through Stripe.

Supporting artists directly

Cancellations and refunds

Payment fees and local laws

Table-Turn pays the card processing fee out of its own half of each subscription. Nothing is added at checkout, so the price you see is the price you pay. Some places limit or ban extra card fees, so here is what we know:

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ by place and change over time.

How and when artists are paid

Our rules

Fair discovery

Sometimes the best music is the music few people have heard. Discovery here is built so that an artist's follower count never decides the order of any list you browse. The only paid spots are promotions, which are always marked "Promoted" and explained below.

A new random order every refresh

In "Find your next favorite" on Discover, the artists in every genre, sub-genre, style era and follower-size choice are shuffled fresh each time you reload the page, and each choice gets its own order. The order holds while you browse, so flipping through the pages shows every artist once. You can still choose to look at smaller artists by picking a follower size, but inside that choice nobody is placed ahead of anyone else.

The same fairness elsewhere

The genre lists in the Table-Turn Streaming menu, the All music grid, and the Friends are playing and New releases shelves use the same fresh shuffle. Music you upload yourself stays at the front of the shelves for you, because it really is the newest.

Where it is not random, and why

Picked for you uses your taste for its first five songs (the artists you follow, what your friends play and your top 5), then up to two promoted songs that fit your taste, and fills the rest with random discoveries. Find your next favorite can pin up to two promoted artists to the top of the first page. Featured artist of the month goes to whoever gained the most new followers that month. That is a result, not a list order.

Promoted spots

Artists can pay to promote one song at a time, for up to 7 days. Promoted spots are the only paid placements on Table-Turn, and they are always marked "Promoted".

What listeners should know

When you see "Promoted", the artist paid for that spot. The money goes to Table-Turn, not into the artist pool. If you play a promoted song and it counts as a stream, the artist is paid for it like any other stream. A promoted song can appear in Find your next favorite, in Picked for you, or as the song that plays right after one you started from either of those. You can skip any song, and you can block an artist from their page.

What artists should know

Promotion payments are not refundable, except where the law gives you a right to a refund. They are not shared with the artist pool and do not count toward your earnings. A campaign runs 1 to 7 days, covers one song and cannot be extended. If a promoted song is removed for breaking our rules, the campaign stops and is not refunded. Nothing is guaranteed: we cannot promise any number of streams or listens.

How spots are given

Spots are handed out by a weighted random draw. A campaign's weight is what the artist paid, adjusted for how long it has been running: it is strongest on day one and halves about every two days. So higher-paying promotions are shown more often than lower-paying ones, and newer promotions are favored over ones that have been running for days. Promoted artists in Find your next favorite must still match the genre, style era and follower size the listener chose, and Picked for you only shows promoted songs in genres the listener already listens to.

You choose what you hear

Table-Turn is built on open sharing. We don't judge music by taste or by whether someone finds it offensive, and we don't pick which artists you hear. You decide what you listen to.

Artists are responsible for the music they upload. Listeners are responsible for choosing what they listen to.

A note from the founder