Music plays before you know who made it. Discover artists on pure merit — then follow them, engage, and support them directly. The music earns your attention first. Everything else follows.
75%
Revenue to Artists
1,000
Wave 1 Artist Cap
3–5×
Major Streamer Rates
$5
Subscription · No Ads
The Listening Experience
Three features. No more.
Every feature is designed around one principle: the music earns your attention before anything else does.
◉
01
Blind Listen
Every track plays before you know who made it. No artist name, no follower count, no play history. Just the music. After 60 seconds — the reveal. Your behavioral response before the reveal is the only signal the platform uses to surface what you'll love next.
◈
02
Listening Parties
Twice monthly curated events included in every subscription. Scheduled. Communal. Chat opens after each track's reveal. This is the retention mechanism — not streaks, not notifications.
◎
03
Golden Ear
A quiet recognition emerging from genuine behavior — completion rate, consistency, engagement depth. Not a badge. Not a leaderboard. Just the platform noticing that you actually listen.
Clara Voss writes sparse, honest songs rooted in place and loss. Her third album Worn Maps was recorded over three weeks in a barn in eastern Oregon. She plays guitar, dobro, and Rhodes. She has played to 40 people and 4,000 people and prefers the 40. Currently based in Portland. Touring the Pacific Northwest in March.
Up next · Blind queue
Genres
Song
Rock
Latin
Soul
Jazz
Electronic
Underground X
This session
Tracks completed0
Avg completion—
Golden Ear progress▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░
Band Support
Where your money goes.
Up to 50% of your monthly subscription can be directed to specific artists. The rest flows through the HEARD artist pools automatically. You can change allocations anytime — they take effect next billing cycle.
$5.00
Monthly sub
$2.50
Directed by you
$2.50
Artist pools
Your allocation50%
Your picks (50%)
Direct pool (10.5%)
Base pool + ops (39.5%)
May 2026
Next billing: Jun 1 · 28 days
Direct pool · 80% of artist share
$1.26
Goes to artists based on your actual listening time this month. The more you play someone, the more they earn from your subscription. Meritocratic.
Base pool · 20% of artist share
$0.31
Distributed equally to all 1,000 artists on the platform regardless of streams — the Pittsburgh model. Everyone earns a floor.
The HEARD promise
75% of your $5 — $3.75 — goes to artists. Every month. Always. Constitutionally protected. The remaining $1.25 covers infrastructure, payment processing, and curation costs. No executives. No advertising. No middlemen.
Discovery
Hear what's next.
Three features built for listeners who actually listen — and for artists who deserve an audience.
Listening party · Live now
Live · 47 listeners
Late Night Americana #12
Curated by HEARD · Song category · 2nd Thursday monthly
+ 43 others
Now playing (blind)
Track 4 of 8 · Reveal in 1:42
MR
Maria R.
that chord change at 1:30 — absolutely haunting
TK
Tom K.
whoever this is reminds me of early Iron & Wine
SV
Sam V.
the guitar tone is incredible. handmade? sounds old
JL
Jamie L.
did she just switch to open tuning mid-song?
Your golden ear · May 2026
Listening consistency
Based on full-track completions this month
◎Golden Ear · Active
May — daily activity
89%
Avg completion
23
Full listens
7
New artists found
3
Days streak
Golden Ear status is visible to artists whose music you've listened to. It means you actually finished their songs. That's more valuable to an independent artist than 50,000 algorithm streams.
Platform features
📮
Artist mailbox
After completing a full track and the reveal, listeners can leave a brief private message for the artist. Not a public comment — a personal note. Artists read them. Some respond. No social media logic applies here.
New
🗺
Artist map
See where HEARD artists are geographically — not their home city, but where they're currently touring or recording. Find artists near you. Know when someone passes through your city. Discover regional scenes.
Launching June
◑
Blind A/B
HEARD plays two versions of the same song — demo vs final recording, acoustic vs electric, two mixes — without telling you which is which. You vote. Artist sees the aggregate. Honest feedback from real listeners with no label politics attached.
Beta
📅
Upcoming listening parties
Schedule of all curated events across every genre category for the next 60 days. Add to your calendar. Set a reminder. The party is in your subscription — you just have to show up.
See schedule
Blind discovery feed · Song category
Artist Economics
Real money. For real artists.
The streaming economy was built for volume. HEARD was built for craft. Here is what that difference looks like in actual dollars.
The problem no one says out loud
An independent artist with 10,000 monthly listeners on the dominant streaming platforms earns roughly $30–50 per month. Not because streaming is small — it's a $30 billion market. But because the economics were designed around catalog volume and algorithmic promotion. The platforms serve the already-famous. Everyone else is decimal dust.
The average independent artist earns less than $50 per year from the platform they spend the most time promoting. That is not a rounding error. That is a structural failure.
Major Streaming Platforms
To earn $150/month
250,000+ streams
Per engaged listener/month
$0.003–0.005
Guaranteed floor payment
$0
Revenue share to artists
~30%
Artist owns their masters?
Not required
Free tier cannibalizing streams?
Yes
HEARD (Year 2 base model)
To earn $150/month
~500 engaged listeners
Per engaged listener/month
$0.30–0.50 (3–5× more)
Guaranteed floor payment
~$10/month
Revenue share to artists
75% — always
Artist owns their masters?
Required. Non-negotiable.
Free tier cannibalizing streams?
No free tier. Ever.
The math behind 3–5×
HEARD charges $5/month. 75% of that — $3.75 — goes directly to artists. No ad-supported tier diluting the pool. No free listeners taking streams without paying. Every listener is a paying listener, which means every stream is backed by real subscription revenue.
With 500 paying listeners genuinely engaged with your music, a HEARD artist earns meaningfully more per month than the same 500 people streaming you 10,000 times on a free tier elsewhere. The platform is smaller by design — and more valuable because of it.
The Pittsburgh Model
20% of all artist revenue flows into a Base Pool distributed equally across every accepted artist — regardless of stream count. Nobody gets zero. An artist with 10 listeners still earns a guaranteed floor just by being on the platform. This inverts the DistroKid model, which charges artists $22/year to distribute music to platforms that pay them fractions of a penny. On HEARD, the platform pays you just to be here.
Artist Dashboard
Your earnings. Transparent.
A demo of what every HEARD artist sees — real numbers, real listener behavior, real income.
CV
Clara Voss
Song · Rock · Portland, Oregon · Joined Jan 2026
◎ Active · Slot 247 of 1,000
$124.80
May earnings
312
Engaged listeners
87%
Avg completion rate
14
Listener messages
Earnings breakdown · May 2026
Direct pool (your listeners)$89.40
Base pool (Pittsburgh model)$25.40
Listener donations$10.00
Total May payout
$124.80
Paid on June 1 · Direct to your account
Track performance · Completion rates
Meridian
92%
$41.20
Worn Maps
88%
$29.60
River Glass
81%
$18.60
Slow Burn County
75%
$0.00
Completion rate drives direct pool allocation. Higher completion = more of your listeners' subscriptions flow to you.
Listener messages · Recent
KP
Kira P. · Golden Ear ◎
I guessed you were from the Pacific Northwest before the reveal. Something in the guitar tone. Meridian has been on repeat for a week.
May 18
DM
Dev M.
The silence between notes in River Glass is doing more work than most songs do in 3 minutes. Thank you for this.
May 14
AN
Ana N. · Golden Ear ◎
Found you through the Americana Listening Party. Finished the whole album in one sitting. Rare.
May 9
Pool details · How your $124.80 breaks down
Your subscription share (75% of listeners' $5)
$3.75/listener
Direct pool (80% of your share)
$3.00 × completion rate
Base pool (20% — equal split, 1,000 artists)
$25.40 guaranteed
Listener donations (you keep 90%)
$10.00
Unused streams from inactive listeners are redistributed to all artists at month end. No subscription dollar goes unclaimed.
The HEARD promise
75% of every subscription — always. No board vote changes it. No round of funding adjusts it. This is constitutionally protected. The remaining 25% covers infrastructure, payment processing, and curation costs. Nothing else.
Listener Pricing
Simple. No ads. No free.
A real financial commitment signals a real listener. That's good for artists and good for the platform.
Monthly
$5
/ month
Full blind listen access
2 Listening Parties/month
Golden Ear eligibility
Direct artist donation
~100 streams/month
3-Month Upfront
$15
every 3 months
Everything in Monthly
Priority Listening Party access
Early artist submissions
Invite link allotment
First in line for new artists
Regional pricing available · Latin America ~$3.50 USD equivalent
H
HEARD
Season 01 · Artist Applications Open
Your music plays first.
An invite-only platform for independent artists. 1,000 seats. $5/month listener subscriptions. No algorithm. Just listeners who paid to be there.
01Blind Listen — your track plays before your name appears
0275%+ revenue to artists — written into the founding constitution
