Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Pricing
How do payouts work? Do you use Stripe? PayPal? Wise?
We use Stripe to process payments. Artists will have to create an account with Stripe, linking their bank account or debit card to the service to receive payouts. Then as users purchase their albums or subscribe to them, this money will be sent directly to their Stripe account.
We've looked at other payment platforms like PayPal and Wise, but currently the work associated with maintaining and implementing them is beyond our ability to do so as volunteers.
Product
How much does Mirlo cost?
Artists get to decide how much of their sale goes to Mirlo. They do this by setting a percentage on sales. So if an artist sells an album on for $10, they will decide whether Mirlo gets 70 cents, $1, or nothing. This lets artists decide how much of their money they need for themselves. By default, Mirlo charges 10% on each sale. Then, our payment processor Stripe, will take a cut of 2.9% + 30c (proportionally this is larger on small transactions).
Want to know more about our thought process? Check out our blog post explaining how we got there.
As we develop our project and come to terms with the costs of running it, we will adjust these numbers and explore new ways of financing Mirlo.
For now, please pitch in to help cover our costs.
What are some of Mirlo's features?
For a full list of features, see our features section. Below is a high level overview of how we compare with Bandcamp and Patreon.
| Mirlo | Bandcamp | Patreon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | You decide | %15 of sales | %8 of support |
| Upload music and sell music | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Merch sales | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ but you can link merch sales to your audience |
| Monthly support | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Blog posts to audience segments | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Download codes and press kits | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Tip jar | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Embed music | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Open Source | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Worker owned | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
What are the long term goals of Mirlo?
Our goals, informed by our Observations and Intent, will grow and change along with the community.
That said, we would like to make it easier for other groups (like music labels or other co-ops) to install the software. We’d also like to look into building plug-ins and other tools that are useful for artists (for example, plug-ins that help to make your music available on aggregators like Distrokids or other platforms).
Eventually, we hope to exit to our community, by bringing in musicians and other key stakeholders into the decision making process.
What's on your product roadmap?
We have a "version 1" in mind for Mirlo that we outline on our blog.
Check out our GitHub issues tracker for what we're working on, and what's on our ideas list to vote on what you'd like to see.
Can I sell Merch? CDs? Vinyl? T-shirts?
Yes! You can use Mirlo to sell your merch. Check out our features page for a full list of artist features.
Do I have to set a price on my music?
No you don't. You can make your music available to download for free, or just upload it without letting people download it. It's your choice.
What file formats do you support? What's the audio quality?
For upload we support lossless file formats (flac, wav). Upon request we convert files across formats to be available to purchasers, as well as converting them to HLS and a couple of mp3 bitrates. We store the original file you upload without changing it.
When someone streams an album on our site, they are listening to a 320k stream, using the libmp3lame codec. For streaming, ffmpeg mixes channels down to 2.
When someone downloads a digital album, they can choose what format to download. Downloading WAV and FLAC files will be lossless, and will preserve multichannel audio. MP3 and OPUS files will not support multichannel audio.
When a customer buys a digital album, what can be included in the bundle?
When someone buys a digital album they get to choose what format to download it in (flac, wav, mp3). The download will include basic metadata on the files and an image of the cover. You can optionally include pdfs or other images on an album for downloading.
Can an artist make a listener account? Will that be a problem in the future?
There’s only one account type on Mirlo! Any user can make an artist to upload music to at any point. To do so, click on the top right menu and click on “Manage Artist”, this will let you add new artists.
Whether or not you want to maintain a separation between your artist account and your listening, is your call.
Can I sell individual tracks?
Yes! To do so, simply add a price to each track in your album, or set a price for all tracks.
Will you use my music for AI training purposes?
No!
Does Mirlo support 30-second snippets?
No. We follow Bandcamp's example on this.
You can limit the amount of times a listener can listen to the entire song though. If you want to get creative about it, you could upload a preview of the song as a 30 second snippet, and then attach the full song to the same album, but list it as "only listenable when purchased".
Technical details
Are you open source?
Yes! And we want your help 🙂. Check out our code.
Tell me about your tech stack.
Our front-end is a TypeScript react app and our back-end is a node TypeScript express app. Our API and background jobs are hosted on Render. Our files are hosted on Backblaze. You can see all of our code on GitHub.
Can I help with testing?
Yes please! Reach out via e-mail or on our Discord.
About the organization maintaining Mirlo
What makes you different from other orgs or groups?
We are different from other groups doing this kind of work because:
- we are rooted in mutual aid and is stewared by a worker co-op, which intends to exit-to-community as a multi-stakeholder cooperative;
- It’s open source and is working together with other similar products to build towards a standard-based and sustainable ecosystem.
How are decisions made?
Mirlo is maintained by a worker co-operative heavily rooted in a community of musicians and other interested people. Every feature on the platform is developed with input and insights from the community.
What are the main blockers facing Mirlo?
Our main blocker is paying our worker-owners to make space to work on Mirlo. Since we don't take venture capital money to fund our project we are almost entirely dependent on the support of our community. Want to talk about this? Via e-mail or on our Discord.
Want to support us with a monthly gift? Do so on our team's own Mirlo profile.
How can I get in touch?
Our community is primarily hanging out on the Discord. Come say hi!
Do you have brand / logo guidelines?
Yes! Check out our logo guidelines as of June 30, 2024 .
You can download our available assets for usage here.
Support
Can people see my personal information when they buy things from my artist page on Mirlo?
No! When people buy things from your artist page, all they see during and after the Stripe checkout process is your Mirlo shop and artist name, none of the personal information you provide Stripes when setting up your account are shared with customers. We understand that this is a priority for many people, since a lot of artists tend to have pseudonyms, or don't necessarily operate from a business location and want to avoid their personnal address to be disclosed.
How do I add support tiers?
You can add support tiers by going to your artist's profile, clicking “edit page” (or navigating to it through the top right dropdown menu), and then switching to the “Support tiers” tab. There's an “+ add tier” button that will let you create a support tier.
To enable this you'll need to sign up with our payment processor Stripe first.
Other questions
Have you heard /project x/?
Probably! As individuals we’ve worked with and in Resonate and Ampled, and we’re in touch with or have spoken to a couple of other projects that are doing very similar things like jam.coop, faircamp, ampwall, patrontape, tone.audio, subvert, and some others. We’re hoping to continue talking to these folks and build towards standardization of resources and tech APIs so that our services can talk to each other and musicians can easily switch between them. If there’s a project you want to talk about, bring it up in our Discord!