Hey everyone,

If you're a musician, producer, songwriter, or offer any kind of music service, I’d love to invite you to join Musician Hive—a new platform connecting music pros with clients who need your talent. We’re accepting new submissions right now!

Whether you mix, master, produce, or perform, you’ll find job opportunities and connect with others looking for your skills. Plus, it’s super easy to post your services and get hired!

Come check it out and sign up at https://musicianhive.com/. Let’s grow this community together!

Best,
Milan
https://musicianhive.com/

Hi! I do steady work on soundbetter.com as a keyboardist, saxophonist, and arranger (link for verification). I'm always interested in new avenues for session work, particularly of the high quality variety, and I'd potentially be interested in adding my services to this new platform. Just a few questions for you that might hopefully benefit other professionals here on GS who are interested, too.

1) How do you plan to differentiate yourself from Soundbetter, who (as far as I can tell) seem to be the top online session musician/engineer platform at the moment?

2) What kind of quality vetting process is there for providers... and, to the extent it's possible, clients?

3) What's the price split breakdown for project fees? (What percentage do I keep, what cut do you take?)

I'm always in favor of more options for remote session work, so I wish you success and good luck!

Hey Progger,

Thanks for reaching out, and it’s awesome to hear you are a Multi-instrumentalist. We’d love to have a skilled pro like you on Musician Hive. I’ll answer your questions:

1/ How we differentiate: Musician Hive is a newer platform, so we’re all about fresh opportunities and flexibility. We offer exclusive features like the Debate Room for community interaction and a Sample Demo system where clients upload stems, and musicians submit demos to stand out and get hired. It’s a more hands-on way to connect musicians and clients, ensuring better matches. Plus, we aim to foster a collaborative vibe between talent and clients.
2/ Vetting process: We want to keep the quality high, so we manually review provider profiles before they go live. As for clients, we don’t vet them as strictly, but clients leave reviews and ratings that help guide providers towards reliable projects.

3/ Price split: Our total fee is 14%, split into 7% from the seller and 7% from the buyer. This fee covers payment processing and platform maintenance. Unlike other platforms that charge up to 20-30%, this split ensures you keep 93% of your earnings, making it a fairer option for both sides.

We’re all about offering more ways for talented musicians to get hired, and I’d love for you to join the platform. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!

Best,
Milan
https://musicianhive.com/

Hey, great platform! I just signed up and posted my music services..They are pending review, I guess you are checking quality first. The job opportunity board looks promising and I noticed some great talent posted already on the talent pool.
Is there a limit on how many talents a user can post? What payment processing system clients use to purchase music services?
Thanks.

Hey, thanks for signing up and for your kind words! Yes, we do review services to ensure quality before they go live, so your services will be approved shortly.

Regarding your question, there’s no limit to how many talents you can post on Musician Hive—you can add multiple services to your profile, which increases your chances of getting hired. The more you offer, the more opportunities you create for yourself.

As for payment, clients can use secure payment processing options like PayPal and Stripe when purchasing music services on the platform. Funds are released once the job is completed to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

what do you do in terms of promoting your users/clients on there, I ask because I was not a fan of soundbetter which basically caters to already famous or successful engineers, I am only interested in working with a company that promotes less well known engineers, if somebody is already successful they certainly do not need the extra work or money like I do.

Thanks for those answers, Milan! Sounds good overall. I'll look into setting an account up this week.

FYI, the cut you take is actually larger than Soundbetter, in total. It still seems reasonable to me.

Other platforms are much better than this

If this isn't beyond your capabilities, you could try to explain why you are thinking that other platforms are "much better". That might give people -who are interested in this kind of service- valuable information . . or not

Signed up... currently pending

Hi pencilextremist,

At Musician Hive, we're committed to promoting talent at all levels, not just established names. Our platform is designed to provide opportunities for emerging musicians, producers, and engineers, ensuring they can showcase their skills and grow their careers. One of the key features that helps with this is our Sample Demo feature, which is designed to level the playing field.

Rather than clients selecting based on name recognition or profile appearance, they receive 30-second demos from various candidates. This allows clients to make decisions based purely on the quality of the music, not the identity of the provider. It ensures that less well-known engineers and artists can compete equally with more established professionals. We believe in supporting up-and-coming talent and giving everyone a fair chance to find work and build their reputation.

We created Musician Hive because we noticed that super talented musicians on other platforms are missing opportunities, as 90% of the work tends to go to established names. At Musician Hive, we also focus on helping emerging professionals thrive.

Looking forward to seeing your talent shine on the platform!
Best, Milan

Ready! Welcome aboard.

I understand that it can be frustrating when comparing platforms, especially if other options seem more established or polished. However, Musician Hive was built with a focus on offering something different: equal opportunities for emerging talent. Unlike many other platforms where the majority of work tends to go to already established names, we prioritize giving every user a fair chance to be heard and hired through features like our Sample Demo, which focuses on the quality of music rather than name recognition.

We are constantly evolving and improving the platform, and as a newer service, we’re dedicated to listening to feedback and making the experience better for all our users. Our goal is to create a space where both emerging and established professionals can thrive, and we’re always open to suggestions on how we can better serve our community.

If there's anything specific you feel is missing, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

You're welcome! I'm glad the platform sounds like a good fit for you.

Regarding the fee structure, I understand the comparison to SoundBetter. While our fee might seem slightly higher, I read somewhere that SoundBetter keeps a 5% commission for the jobs they facilitate, plus there is an additional 3% processing fee by their payment processor. Our fee structure includes the payment processing costs, so the overall cost might be quite similar for providers.

We’re excited to have you on board! If you have any more suggestions to add extra value or need assistance with your account setup, feel free to reach out. Best,

That's a very good point! The website looks great and is user-friendly. I've just signed up and posted a job offering my mastering services. I'm happy to provide any 30-second demo or anything else that would help potential clients evaluate my work before committing. Thank you, guys, for this opportunity.

Another attempt ... if you can't make it with music - make it in milking the musicians. Nah ...

I get the feeling this project is very well-intended and potentially in the interest of many music professionals.

I ended up not pursuing an account after more carefully considering the premise... it essentially requires music professionals to do some up-front work on spec in order to be considered for a job. I'm very thankfully past the point in my career where I need to do that, so this isn't a good fit for me after all.

For people getting started, though, I think this is probably a much better alternative to the bottom-feeder platforms like Fiverr.

yeah - that's a massive no-no. That's why we have showreels!

I wouldn't consider a platform that required this either.

Just say no to free demos

Yep, exactly... I can understand why something like this could be useful for someone without many (or any) credits trying to develop a portfolio, practice on the job, develop their workflow, etc. But, sadly, I think this format will inherently keep professionals with credits and reels away.

I’ve had some success on Vampr, which is more like tinder for musicians (to be crude about it). I’ve had a few jobs from there which have turned into good gigs.

But yeah - it’s hard enough to get gigs on these platforms as it is, I’m not about to be working for free to prove it!

Hi, the " sample demo feature" which is the "up-front work on spec" is optional and every provider can choose if they want to offer it or not when posting a new service and submitting to job oppotunities/requests. The advantage about this, is that talented providers who has no reputation in the industry yet can compete with those with solid career paths by showcasing -with brief parts of the song provided by client- what they are capable of offering, instead of waiting till someone (hopefully) find their profile in the desert. It is a more proactive way of getting hired. It is as a "talent competition" for a job request. We notice that there is lot of hidden talent out there, who many times quit their passion because they cannot get jobs or the chance to offer their skills to clients. This is in part because of how other platforms work on the hiring process. Also, the concept about this feature is that we believe the main goal of a client is to get the best fit/result for what are looking for, and many times it is difficult to guess which service provider is the right one just by checking reviews or listening to some previews of works they've done, until you stick with one after trial and error which sometimes cost bad spending money. With the sample demo option, clients benefit as they can listen to many options before hiring, selecting the one they feel more suitable for a project and spend their money wisely. For the provider, they benefit in many ways as they can get a great flow of opportunities to actively work, practice and spend productive time in the studio. Of course many times the job will not be theirs, but the active process of working on a real project benefits the evolution and growth of talents and skills and keeps the motivation. So it is not really a negative aspect. Also this system avoid refunds or disputes between providers and clients significantly . Again, this feature is totally optional in the platform and you can still offer services without offering free 30" samples.

I see.

It's still negative in some respects:

- you'll totally turn off professionals who don't do spec work - ie most working pros - which means your platform targets hobbyists and people trying to work their way up. That's fine if that's what you want to do, but there's no point trying to pitch it to more successful people.

- you're driving down the value of the work too. "Try before you buy" isn't really suitable for this industry!