For years, Beatport has staked a claim as one of the top music stores for DJs – but just like any other product, there are competitors on the market. A clever Reddit user has taken the top 2200 songs from each Beatport category and written a Java program to compare them to Amazon’s pricing. Keep reading to see his Amazon vs Beatport findings and why many DJs might want to consider shopping around for their music.
Beatport vs. Amazon
Oftentimes, when multiple companies are competing for customers, they will play the price game – each company trying to offer a better deal than the next. One Reddit user, Sinisa Radovcic, decided to use Amazon’s Product Search API to cross reference every top-selling track from Beatport to find out what (if any) price different existed between the two. Sinisa writes:
“The purpose is to measure Amazon in comparison to electronic music download market leader Beatport. Also, I pay for my downloads and I want to get more tracks for the same amount of my weekly music budget.”
The difference is substantial – of the tracks that were available on Amazon, there were savings across the board. If you bought every single track on Beatport it would be about $3,070, whereas on Amazon it would run just $1,785.
Take one example, the top Tech House track on Beatport, Emanuel Satie’s rework of I Get Deep. The track is $1.99 on Beatport’s store, but if you cruise over to Amazon, it’s just 89¢.
Quality Caveats To Amazon
So why is Amazon so much cheaper? The biggest difference is that Beatport carries MP3s that are 320kbps, where as Amazon is encoding at a 256kbps VBR. The quality is still pretty solid, but for DJs playing large club systems many will want to stick with 320 MP3s (read our DJ’s Guide To Audio Files and Bit Rates).
If you’re just planning on rocking out at small house parties and in your bedroom, this could be a big win.
A few other things to note about this analysis:
- Not Every Song Is On Amazon: Based on Sinisa’s analysis, only 1672 out of the 2200 top tracks on Beatport were available or soon-to-be released on Amazon. Amazon isn’t comprehensive.
- No International Data: Something that wasn’t explored was if DJs who use a more local version of Amazon.com have the same level of discount on Amazon.
Would you consider buying some tracks on Amazon if there’s a substantial price difference? Or does 256VBR on your Don’t Buy list? Let us know in the comments below.
I only shop on beatport if I can’t find it on Amazon or Juno. Another reason I like Amazon is because I can download my tracks an infinite number of times, but have a time limit to do so on Beatport. It’s a no-brainer, and I often feel frustrated with Beatport because of their policies, offended, even…
[…] few weeks ago we covered an enterprising data scientist (and DJ) who did an analysis of Beatport’s music library versus Amazon’s – the […]
[…] few weeks ago we covered an enterprising data scientist (and DJ) who did an analysis of Beatport’s music library versus Amazon’s – the […]
Google Play does 320k mp3’s. A lot of tracks are $1.29, and some are even $.99
I cant believe nobody have mentioned Soundeo yet.
I always search for the best price but it has to be WAV or 320kbps . Beatport is too expensive I prefer to buy used CDs for classics and vinyl for selected new releases, as the WAV is most of the time not much cheaper. I dont like Beatport that much. I use Junodownload, Amazon, Bandcamp and local sites first.
I don’t buy from Beatport anymore. $2.49 for an MP3 is kind of absurd (especially with the USD to CDN conversion right now). I buy from 7digital – prices displayed in your country’s currency and almost always lower prices (even for lossless).
Here in the UK. If i’m buying commercial / chart stuff i run it through this mp3 price comaparison site first. It doesn’t include Beatport, but it tells you the cheapest site to buy from Google / Amazon / iTunes etc.
http://www.mp3puzzled.co.uk/
There was an app called Trackhunter which did a similar thing. Not sure if it still going ?
Easier to discount for Amazon as they avoid paying almost all of their taxes. Immoral company…
Would you rather they moved abroad?
I would appreciate any tips regarding which online music store has the best deal on lossless audio files. Beatport’s additional 0.75€/track fee is quite salty.
On a related note…is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that some Beatport’s MP3s sound terrible? Despite being 320kbps, I’ve come across files that are practically unusable – more than once. No idea if this is due to poor quality master file, or if Beatport is applying some really dodgy compression routine.
In the recent two years I had to ask Beatport for refund of three tracks that were heavily clipping and cracking. But I think that it just was bad mastering on the producers’ side.
Juno download charge 33p for wvas over 320 mp3 which isn’t too bad. They also include tax in the price of the track (rather than adding it on to your total at the end). I tend to buy everything I can from there and then just the exclusives from Beatport. I generally get more tunes from Juno for the same or less than from Beatport.
Also Juno will convert the wavs to flacs which saves me a step once downloaded which is useful for me.
Also Juno and also appreciate how it converts direct to FLAC. To be honest I’m not sure what offers much more in general releases for the price.
I bought 2 tracks on tracksource at one time and i checked the quality with “Spek” as it sounded bad, it was not 320kbps, more like 192… i sent an email to the sales dept. They replied that they simply use what was given to them. Also gave me 20% off my next purchase.
Same here.. I dont trust Beatport or others on some releases, as they all sound like 192kbps. I use to buy WAV and sometimes 320kbps. I think especially classics or older compilations are not delivered in real WAV … I have always a strange feeling on that. I prefer to buy used CDs for classics and vinyl for selected new releases, as the WAV is most of the time not much cheaper. I dont like Beatport that much. I use Junodownload, Amazon, Bandcamp and local sites first.
7digital
Isn’t amazon technically doing “V0” VBR? I guess that’s fairly close to 256k VBR.
Also, one has to wonder why said app only compares Amazonmp3, when there are other .99 shops out there (Google Play Music comes to mind), and absolutely no mention of format preference.
If the app developer wants recognition for a app for searching out what I often find myself doing during a bulk of my music purchases anyways, they should consider adding not only many, many other label shops, but also consider that some people actually purchase lossless files as well, so I’d be including shops like 7Digital, TrackItDown, and Juno Download into the equation as well.
From what I can recall a direct label purchase (from a website) is 100%-CC Fees/VAT/TAX, BandCamp is 88 or 90%,iTunes is ~70%, and a majority of the .99 label shops are 50%.
I’m not sure if it still holds true, but iirc BeatPort offers ~30%, which is more than enough to consider shopping elsewhere
Be smart about how and where you get your music. You have options if you have patience.
I wish more labels had their own digital storefronts. I would gladly buy lossless masters directly from the source.
which one provides a higher royalty back to the artist, or are the they same?