Mixcloud unveils a PRO plan for uploaders and a Premium account for consumers

Mixcloud, the London-based internet radio startup that has grown organically since 2009 and now sports 10 million monthly listeners, just announced the launch of two premium tiers: one aimed at content uploaders and one aimed at listeners.

The two features are very much separate but are part of the same strategy which is to diversify the revenue streams of the company. Mixcloud currently relies almost entirely on advertising but the company’s co-founder and CTO Mat Clayton stated he aims to see these direct to consumer offerings represent 25% of total revenues by the end of this quarter.

On the content uploader front, the company now offers a $15 per month, or £9 per month subscription that offers access to full statistics, enabling content providers to find out more information about their listeners and giving them access to an “engagement graph” which tells them if and when listeners start tuning out - this is especially important as Mixcloud deals primarily with long-form content.

On the consumer front, the company has introduced a $6.99 or £4.99 monthly subscription that enables listeners to forego advertising and thus have a smoother listening experience. The pricing choice is an interesting one, many VC-funded companies would have chosen to price this at probably $4.99 or £2.99 in the UK to drive a higher number of subscribers even if they ended up losing money in the short term. Mixcloud though never took on institutional funding and so the company likely priced the service at a level that makes it sustainable for them from the get-go without having to incur a loss.

The pricing of the consumer proposition is not low, in the USA it’s only $3 away from a Spotify premium subscription and $2 more expensive than a Pandora subscription, but Mixcloud’s content is very strong from a curation point of view and fans of the platform may well be willing to pay for an uninterrupted experience.

Mixcloud is a very unique story in that it’s probably the first internet radio service to come this far without taking on significant investment.

The company only expanded its team when it could afford to and only just got some boots on the ground in the USA which is a very important market especially given the company's strength in the EDM space. This slow growth may have prevented Mixcloud from having the user numbers that SoundCloud has today but its focus on monetising the service from the very beginning puts it in a very strong position.

The company may not be able to take on the likes of Pandora yet but it may well carve itself a significant place in the UK and US streaming markets.

Obviously a company of this kind, with no significant debts and no significant issues from an ownership perspective could easily be an acquisition target for example from the likes of SFX Entertainment, who also owns Beatport, but hopefully Mixcloud will be able to resist the inevitable offers for a while longer as the service has got legs and it’d be good how far it can go on its own.


(Andrea Leonelli)