Navigating Metalabel

To sell on Metalabel, you need to connect a Stripe account. That means your country must be supported by Stripe for payouts.

Below is the current list of countries where creators can connect Stripe and sell on Metalabel:

United States
Canada
Mexico
United Kingdom
Germany
France
Italy
Spain
Netherlands
Sweden
Portugal
Ireland
Australia
New Zealand
Denmark
Switzerland
Singapore
Japan
South Korea
Hong Kong
Slovenia
Latvia
Lithuania
Greece
Argentina
Chile
Colombia
Peru
Uruguay
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Guatemala
Panama
Paraguay
Philippines
India
Thailand

If your country isn’t listed, Stripe (and Metalabel by extension) doesn’t yet support payouts there. We’re keeping an eye on Stripe’s expansion and look forward to welcoming more creators from around the world as access grows.

Storing your shipping address allows for faster check out when logged in. To change your shipping address, find your user profile icon on the left side menu and go to the Settings tab.

From here you can update your user profile information, your Stripe account, managing the labels you follow, and update your stored shipping addresses. If you have already placed an order and need to update your shipping address, alert the creator by using the contact the label link in your order confirmation email.

Regardless of whether you are a creator or a collector, you have the ability to manage certain aspects of your account. You can do this by finding your user icon on the left side menu and heading to the Settings tab.

Here you can update your profile information, connect your Stripe account, manage who you follow, and edit stored shipping addresses. Note that you cannot change the email address associated with your account.

To stop receiving release list emails from a particular label, unfollow them from the Settings page, or from the label’s home page.

To delete your account, write to us and we will delete your account from the database.

Metalabel is building a new creative era alongside artists, creators, and collectors to release and support the world we want to see. We provide a platform where creative people can come together to release work, collaborate, and support one another, and where we can all be part of something bigger than just us on our own.

To maintain this space, we have community guidelines that set expectations for what it means to be part of Metalabel.

Core Values

We built Metalabel with a few key ideals in mind:

A creative space: We exist to celebrate and support creative expression across many mediums and forms. We’re not here to be another Amazon or shopping mall. We exist to support creative work.

Mutual support: We believe creative people are stronger together than alone. This support can come from peer creators, or from the collectors and wider scene that supports you. We don’t exclusively support people who are releasing together, but we strongly believe its positive effects.

Context is queen: Context is what creates value for a creative work. Who made it, why, and how are all reasons to care more deeply about somerthing. We provide space to celebrate the context just as much as the work itself if the artist desires.

Transparent economics: Too many artists are taken advantage of with opaque economics. We provide tools that allow artists and creative people to transparently budget, split, and create royalties from their work without the need of external structures.

The power of creativity: We never underestimate the power of creativity. Creativity changes minds, changes lives, changes the world. We operate from a place of deep respect for the creative forces that shape us.

Community guidelines

1. Respect & support
   • Treat all community members with respect
   • Be responsive to collector communications
   • Celebrate others' successes
   • No harassment, hate speech, or discriminatory behavior
2. Fair collaboration
   • Be transparent about collaboration terms upfront
   • Honor commitments to collaborators in a timely manner
   • Credit contributors appropriately
   • Use split agreements to ensure fair compensation
3. Quality standards
   • Take care in presenting your work
   • Provide meaningful context and documentation
   • Ensure quality in all deliverables to collectors
   • Follow through on promised rewards
4. Platform usage
   • No spam or misleading promotions
   • Don't manipulate platform metrics
   • Keep private communications private
   • Follow release guidelines

Release guidelines

Eligibility requirements

To release work on Metalabel, creators must:

1. Complete their profile with accurate information
2. Create a Stripe creator account
3. Agree to community guidelines
4. Promise to fulfill deliverables and rewards
5. Have rights to the work they plan to release 

Release requirements

Metalabel is a space dedicated to releasing and collecting creative work. We review the first release from any new creator to ensure their work amplifies and contributes to the spirit and purpose of our space.

Our release criteria:

1. Creative releases that fit at least one of our creative categories.
2. Creative releases that meet Metalabel’s standards, defined as:
   1. Clear and accurate descriptions
   2. Clear terms for collectors
   3. Releasing and supporting a creative piece of work
   4. Creative work you have the right release and sell
   5. Respectful of our creative ecosystem

Common reasons for decline:

1. General business offerings or services rather than creative work (more below)
2. Offers a prohibited or illegal item
3. Contains hate speech or seeks to invoke violence against others 
4. Anything we feel may detract from the overall value of the platform and community (joke/parody content, unrealistic or excessively poor uses of our tool etc)

General business offerings or services

Metalabel exists to release creative work, not to become another Amazon or startup launchpad. While we celebrate creative entrepreneurs, we're not the right home for:

• Standard consumer products without a distinct creative vision or artistic purpose
• Generic services that could be found on Fiverr or Upwork
• Fundraising for conventional business operations
• B2B offerings or professional services disconnected from creative output
• Marketing campaigns masquerading as creative projects

Instead, we focus on releases that manifest a creative worldview, whether through art, music, writing, film, design, or other forms of cultural expression. The line can sometimes blur — we understand many creators run businesses —  but the primary purpose of a Metalabel release should be creative expression.

Review process

The last step before a creator publishes their first release on Metalabel is to share it with us for review. During this time our team looks at each release with the criteria above in mind.

We get back to most applicants quickly, and all within 24 hours except weekends.

We notify people via email if their project has been accepted or rejected. We retain the right to remove releases published after the initial review process that do not meet the criteria above.

Reporting

The spirit of these guidelines is to foster a thriving creative community while maintaining high standards. They should be interpreted in service of that goal.

If you encounter a release that you believe violates these guidelines, please report it to hello@metalabel.com.

Metalabel reviews reports on a case-by-case basis. Releases that do not meet our guidelines may be hidden from discovery, or—if illicit, harmful, illegal, or fraudulent—removed from the platform and made unavailable for purchase.

Your user profile is your personal space. Everyone on Metalabel who creates an account, whether to create a release or when collecting one, has a user profile. You cannot change the email associated with your user profile.

Here is a quick way to understand how user profiles, labels, and releases are organized.

Punk Panda creates an account. They have one user profile. 

They can then create a label controlled by the user profile to release solo creative work.

They can also create as many other labels as they wish—including one that is collaboratively controlled with their collaborators' user profiles—and produce releases under those labels. This system enables creators to have flexibility in various collaboration modalities.

Metalabel is an open access platform, meaning all users can create a release or a label at any time. That means even if you created an account to collect something, you will automatically see tools for releasing.

Here's what else you can do with your user page:

• Have a public page where all created and collected releases are visible to the public
• Customize this page by setting a custom URL, adding a bio, linking personal websites, and uploading a profile picture
• Access your entire collection, download files, and check shipping dates via the Collected tab
• Save up to 5 shipping addresses for quicker checkout when collecting physical releases
• Link your Stripe account for smoother checkout. All transactions on Metalabel are processed via Stripe

Want to start releasing? it's easy. Head to our article on the Release Builder for a step-by-step guide.

Customizing Your Name

There are lots of ways you can customize your names on Metalabel. Let's use our Punk Panda example.

For your user profile, you can set your name and user handle, which will become your user profile URL where the releases you are a part of and releases you have collected will be visible to the public (metalabel.com/userhandle). You can change this at any time by clicking on your user page icon on the left side menu and heading to the Settings tab.

With a label, you can set a label name and a label subdomain. Remember, a subdomain is the label’s URL (subdomain.metalabel.com). If you don't customize this, it will automatically be a string of letters and numbers, which isn't ideal. You can customize your label name and subdomain any time by clicking on your label icon on the left side menu and heading to the Settings tab.

Your user handle and label subdomain must be unique. If punkpanda is our user handle, we cannot also use punkpanda as our label subdomain.

If you are a solo creator, we recommend setting your user profile handle to a name you're comfortable collecting releases under, and creating a label with your artist name for publishing releases. 

To have our releases published under the name Punk Panda, we would change our user handle to something like pandapanda. This frees up Punk Panda to be used as our label name and subdomain.

Your Collection

The act of collecting anything on Metalabel is a personal act. Meaning, your collection belongs to you personally, not the label(s) you may be a part of.

Collecting creative work is simple. Once you collect, an order confirmation email is sent to you. If you created an account during checkout, your release will also appear in the Collected tab when you click your user profile icon on the left.

If you used guest check out, you can use the same email to create a user profile later at any time and all releases collected under that email will appear in the Collected tab. You cannot migrate your collection from one user page to another. 

Collected item(s) appear in the Collected tab in your user profile menu. This is a public page that anyone can view.

Creators are responsible for fulfilling all orders. If the item is digital, it is usually available for download immediately following purchase confirmation. You can access all your digital downloads in this Collected tab any time. If the item is physical, the creators will process and relay shipping details when order processing is in motion. 

Collection number and editions

Collecting creative work on Metalabel means more than commercial transaction. It’s an act of appreciation sent to the folks behind the creative work you support. We celebrate the uniqueness of your ownership by sharing with you your collector number and edition number.

A collector number tells you how many people have collected the same work for the same edition prior to you. If you are collector #1 it means you are the first supporter of that limited availability creative work. Yay. In the example here, Thaniya is collector #40 for the first edition of The Creative Independent’s publication On dealing with creative anxiety print edition.

Working across labels and releases

To toggle between your user profile and any labels you are a part of, use the sidebar on the left. The user profile and label tabs include a lot of similar information but group them differently. Let’s dive in.

• The Releases tab from your User Profile will include every release where you are an Admin or a Contributor, regardless of the label. The label will be noted at the top of the release card. From the Label Profile, this will only reflect releases that are released via that specific label.
• Collected on the User Profile will reflect any releases you have collected for free or via purchase on the Metalabel platform. Here you can keep track of your collection of physical and/or digital items. From the Label Profile, this is replaced with a Collectors tab, where based on your user access you can view all Collectors who have supported the label.
• The Earnings tab on the User Profile reflects income you have earned from the releases you are a part of, while on the Label Profile it reflects income the release itself has received. If you are a part of the Split for this release, the percentage of funds you earn from this release will appear on your User Profile.

While user profiles, labels, and releases are all distinct parts of Metalabel, they are deeply intertwined. There are two distinct ways that you can customize how you want these areas to be related.

Releasing Under Labels

When building a release you have the ability to publish them under any label where they are an Admin or Contributor by toggling the Release Details options in the Release Builder. In this example, the user is a part of only one label called Rude Movements, so it is the only option that appears in this dropdown menu.

Release Contributors

When creating a release, you can add contributors to give credit and recognition to the people who contributed to the release. These contributors have unique access permissions, and can also be a part of the profit Split and receive earnings. Learn more about user roles and access.

The act of collecting anything on Metalabel is a personal act. Meaning, your collection belongs to you personally, not the label(s) you may be a part of.

Collecting creative work is simple. Once you collect, an order confirmation email is sent to you. If you created an account during checkout, your release will also appear in the Collected tab when you click your user profile icon on the left.

If you used guest check out, you can use the same email to create a user profile later at any time and all releases collected under that email will appear in the Collected tab. You cannot migrate your collection from one user page to another. 

Collected item(s) appear in the Collected tab in your user profile menu. This is a public page that anyone can view.

Creators are responsible for fulfilling all orders. If the item is digital, it is usually available for download immediately following purchase confirmation. You can access all your digital downloads in this Collected tab any time. If the item is physical, the creators will process and relay shipping details when order processing is in motion. 

Collection number and editions

Collecting creative work on Metalabel means more than commercial transaction. It’s an act of appreciation sent to the folks behind the creative work you support. We celebrate the uniqueness of your ownership by sharing with you your collector number and edition number.

A collector number tells you how many people have collected the same work for the same edition prior to you. If you are collector #1 it means you are the first supporter of that limited availability creative work. Yay. In the example here, Thaniya is collector #40 for the first edition of The Creative Independent’s publication On dealing with creative anxiety print edition.

After checkout you will receive a downloadable collector card that you can share with friends or to social media.

If you have any questions about the status of physical collected releases, contact the label through the link in your order confirmation email.

To sell on Metalabel, you need to connect a Stripe account. That means your country must be supported by Stripe for payouts.

Below is the current list of countries where creators can connect Stripe and sell on Metalabel:

United States
Canada
Mexico
United Kingdom
Germany
France
Italy
Spain
Netherlands
Sweden
Portugal
Ireland
Australia
New Zealand
Denmark
Switzerland
Singapore
Japan
South Korea
Hong Kong
Slovenia
Latvia
Lithuania
Greece
Argentina
Chile
Colombia
Peru
Uruguay
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Guatemala
Panama
Paraguay
Philippines
India
Thailand

If your country isn’t listed, Stripe (and Metalabel by extension) doesn’t yet support payouts there. We’re keeping an eye on Stripe’s expansion and look forward to welcoming more creators from around the world as access grows.

The draft link is visible via the Preview button while you're building your release. You can share it with anyone — they don’t need a Metalabel account to view it. This is helpful if you want feedback before publishing.

The release URL is the public link (like yourlabel.metalabel.com/release). This is where your release will live once it's published.

Both links are visible inside the Release Builder. Once your release is published, the public URL becomes active and your release will also show up on your label page.

To offer collectors access to something like a private video, secret webpage, or bonus files — the best way is to embed the link inside a PDF or include it in a ZIP file — and upload that as your digital release item.

Here are two easy options:

Option 1: Link inside a PDF

1. Create a doc in Google Docs, Word, or similar with your link and any extra context.

2. Make the link clickable using the insert link tool or add a QR code.

3. Export the file as a PDF.

4. Upload the PDF as your digital item in the release editor.

Collectors will receive the PDF and can click through to your link.

Option 2: Bundle files in a ZIP folder
(Best for multiple files like audio, images, or a text doc with links)

1. Create a new folder on your computer.

2. Add all the files you want to share, including any notes or link documents.

3. Compress the folder into a ZIP file:

       On Mac:

• Right-click (or two-finger click) the folder

• Choose “Compress [Folder Name]”

• A .zip file will appear in the same location

       On Windows:

• Right-click the folder

• Select “Send to” and then “Compressed (zipped) folder”

• A .zip file will appear in the same location

4. Upload the ZIP file as your digital item in the release editor.

Collectors will receive the full ZIP file when they collect your release.

There’s no dedicated “pause” button on Metalabel. But if you want to stop sales for now, here’s how:

Go to your release and update the edition quantity to match the number already sold.

That will mark the edition as Sold Out, and collectors won’t be able to purchase it until you change it again.

You can always return later and increase the quantity if you want to reopen sales.

This keeps things flexible while giving you full control over how your work circulates.

You don’t need to apply or get accepted to use Metalabel. If you’re a creative person making something meaningful, you’re welcome here.

When you publish your first release, we’ll give it a quick review before it goes live—just to make sure it follows our community guidelines and fits the spirit of the platform.

After your first release is approved, you can publish freely going forward.

We built Metalabel to make releasing easier, not harder—this first step just helps us keep the space intentional for everyone.

If you’re working on a project with a confirmed release date, there are few ways you can use Metalabel to build momentum ahead of your release.

Release lists

Anytime an someone collects your work or follows your label, the are automatically added to your release list.

Think of release lists as a self-sustaining mailing list. Whenever you release something new, anyone on your release list will automatically receive an announcement in their inbox.

It’s a built-in way to keep close supporters up-to-date on your work and to send messages to your audience. The automated email pull all details and images directly from your release page, and offers an opportunity to add a short note to your audience too.

When planning towards a larger release, we’ve seen creators have success by re-releasing existing work to build up their release list ahead of time. Head to Metalabel Studio to explore more release strategies.

Setting up pre-orders

You can also use the release tools to create a pre-order. Let’s say you have a book that comes out in 1 month. It’s already printed and you chose the date to align with your birthday. You can create a release now to start collecting pre-orders ahead of your birthday, then update the release description once the book is release.

To do this, follow the steps in our release builder article. Be sure to include clear information about the launch date in your descriptions and set your estimated shipping date to a time that corresponds with the actual launch date.

We recommend playing with physical and digital variants of your release. For example, if the physical book wont be ready until your birthday, but the digital version is ready now, you can use the same release page to offer both options at different prices.

To customize different options a part of your release, head to the What's Included tab in the release builder. Read on for a step-by-step guide.

A label treasury establishes a dedicated bucket of funds that the label can use at its discretion. This is an optional, built-in feature to make it easy for anyone to use.

By allocating a portion of earnings from a release towards the Label Treasury, you can build up funds to use for future projects. Think of this like a savings account for your label, without having to make one officially. Here’s a helpful visual.

When you have funds set aside for label use, you can use these funds later to commission work by other creators or reimburse costs collaborators are paying for out-of-pocket. Or, if you made something collectively and you’re unsure how to split earnings right this minute, you can always allocate 100% sales proceeds to the Treasury and pay out to your collaborators later.

Label treasuries can only be managed by Label admin users. Learn more about user roles and access.

Label admins can payout treasury funds to any label member or release collaborator, who can then transfer to their personal bank accounts via Stripe. Right now you can only add funds to a label treasury from a split on a release. This means you cannot add money to a treasury directly from a personal or business bank account (yet).

Let’s look closer at how it works.

Setting up your Label Treasury

To view your label treasury, click on your label icon and head to the Earnings tab from the main navigation on the left. If you are a Label Admin, you will see a Treasury balance section.

From here Label Admins will see the treasury balance, payout funds from the treasury, and treasury payment history, in addition to other earnings data from releases by the label.

The treasury balance will start at $0, and can grow by adding the label treasury to the split on releases moving forward.

Label treasury payouts

Let’s say your label FKMM is working with a new collaborator, Molly. We agree to support Molly with $1,000 to print a new limited edition zine that she will release with the label next month. Molly is ready to print the zine and has already started building her release with FKMM on Metalabel, she just needs the funds in her personal bank account to pay the printer she chose. We can payout treasury funds on the Earnings tab to give them to Molly.

Molly has already started working on the release, which means she has been invited to Metalabel as a Release Admin and has linked her Stripe account in order to receive funds.

To transfer $1,000 to Molly, click payout in the treasury section of the FKMM Earnings tab. You will first be prompted to verify your account again for security purposes, and then will see a module where you can select Molly as the recipient.

Treasury payouts can only be to label members or the labels release admin and contributors.

After you confirm, Molly and all label members will receive an automated email confirming the payout. A record of the payout will also appear in the treasury payout history which is visible to all Label admins.

While with regular splits there is a $5 minimum on funds paid out or withdrawn, there is no minimum amount for treasury payments. This means a label admin could payout $1 to John, and John would be able to withdraw this $1 to his personal bank account.

Using Treasury Funds

Now, Molly will see the $1,000 in her personal Earnings tab on Metalabel, and can withdraw payout those funds to her personal bank account through Stripe once they have been processed. It will take up to 4 business days for money to appear in your bank account.

Read on to learn about how to withdraw funds from Metalabel.

There are four roles on Metalabel: Label admin and Label contributor, and Release admin and Release contributor. In this guide, we’ll walk through the access specific to each role and how you might encounter each role type across the Metalabel universe.

To align with our ethos of creativity in multiplayer mode, we employ the “generous locking” philosophy to the platform. This means areas that may not be actionable to a specific user role appear grayed-out or locked. This helps everyone become aware of the view-only information and communicate with other members of the label to adjust their role and access when necessary.

* once they create a release, they will also gain Release Admin status and have all the same permissions for that specific release 
† only for their designated release 
** labels, and all their subsequent releases, can only can only be deleted if they have no completed orders

You can view your access type in the top left corner of the screen when selecting a label or release from the side panel. You can also see all creators a part of a label or release from the Label dashboard. 

Roles

Label admin

A label admin has all-access control over the label, as well as all releases within it. They can:

• Create, edit, and publish releases
• Delete the label, and all subsequent releases, only if the releases have not received any orders
• Set prices for releases and splits for the collective
• Issue payouts to members of the label
• View and manage orders and fulfillment
• Invite other Label admins and contributors
• See top level statistics for the label and the full catalog of releases
• See financial and collector information as an automatic Release admin for every label release

By default they are automatically added as a Release admin within the label. A label can have more than one admin, but not zero admins. If you created the label within Metalabel, you are automatically assigned an admin role.

Label admin is a good role for people who: are a co-creator of the label and are sharing administrative work; need to see the finances of the label; are working on or supporting various releases by the label.

Label contributor

A label contributor is a user who can view all label activities but cannot make edits or execute financial operations on the platform. They can:

• See top level statistics for the label and the full catalog of releases
• Create releases as part of the label, which will automatically give them release admin status for that specific release (see more details below)

Label contributor is a good role for people who: are a part of or support the label but do not manage any administrative work; are a part of the label and want to be able to manage specific releases.

Release admin

A Release admin has all-access control over a specific release. In order to create a release under an existing label, you need to:

• be a label admin
• be a label contributor
• be invited by a label admin or contributor to be a release admin

Release admins can do the following for the specified release:

• Edit and publish the release
• View price and split details
• View and manage orders and fulfillment
• Invite other Release admins and contributors, and toggle which appear under “created by” on the release page
• Receive payouts as part of the split

Financials for the release are managed by label admins, so Release admins cannot execute payouts and can only view, not edit, financial information.

Release admin is a good role for people who: are creating a release via a label and may not be a part of the label management more broadly; will support fulfilling orders and other logistics even if they did not contribute to the release; receive payouts as part of the split.

Release contributor

A release contributor has read-only access to a specific release. This is handy to use for someone who is a contributor to your creative work and will be a part of your earning split, but does not need to participate in administrative tasks like fulfillment. Release contributors can:

• Read-only details of a release before it is publicly released
• Receive payouts as part of the split

Release contributor is a good role for people who: are a part of the release and should receive payouts as part of the split.

Changing someone’s access

If you are a Label admin, you can toggle the access of others. If you are a Release admin, you can change access to a release itself (but remember label admin will always be able to see and edit release details even when they are not added as a contributor).

First, select Members from the side navigation from your label page. Then select the person whose access you want to edit, and click Edit Member from the 3-dot-menu on the right. To remove them completely, select Remove Member. If you remove a member who is a part of the payout split, you will need to manually adjust the splits accordingly.

It’s good to set a few base-level agreements about how you’re going to work together from the beginning. 

What kind of work are you going to put out?

How will money work?

How do you make decisions?

We made a simple tool that can help you walk through this experience in the style of 8-bit tarot cards, because why not? Explore your values as a label.

There are three main ways to access your downloaded release after collecting.

The collect page

After checkout or free collects, you will automatically be taken to your collector page. Here you can download your unique collector card and download any digital files a part of the release.

Depending on your browser, it may take a moment for this page to load and for your downloaded items to be ready. Look for a green toast notification confirming your download has begun. If you don’t see a green notification or a red error message, your download has not started and you should wait a few more moments.

If after some time your download still has not begun, write to us.

The order confirmation email

The other main way to access digital release files is from your order confirmation email. Click on the “view order details” button. This will take you to the same collect page mentioned above, even if you do not have a Metalabel account.

Your collection

The third way to access your collection is directly on metalabel.com. Login to your account or create one with the email you used for your collect. Look for your user profile icon on the left side menu and head to the Collection tab. Here you will find all collected releases. Click through a release to go back to the collect page.

If you have questions about the status of an order, use the “contact the label” link in your order confirmation page. Read more about collecting on Metalabel.

For most releases, a creator’s initial set of collectors will come from the audience they’ve built up over time. Collectors are the people who like to deeply understand the context of things they enjoy. They like details, the connections between things, who played with who on what. They are looking to support creators they love, creative work they care about, and releases that give them the opportunity to feel special or seen.

Metalabel offers various tools that echo techniques we’ve seen work well:

• Limited edition releases, time-bound releases, and other forms of intentionally scarce output is one way to develop loyalty among your collectors.
• Ability to bundle physical and digital media. A release that offers a unique combination of both physical and digital media may also create a unique collector experience
• An option to share free collectable releases. This can introduce collectors to your work and help develop a list of people who are interested to read, listen, or otherwise engage and might purchase something in the future
• Pay what you want options. This gives creators the ability to release something for free or a set price, but also allow collectors to input their own price as long as it’s higher than the minimum designated by the creator.
• Co-releasing. Collaborations between creators with different audiences is a great way for people to mutually benefit and share in promotion tasks.

Learn more about these features in the Release Builder, or read tips for setting price and quantity.

For more recommendations we collaborated with our community of artists and creators to build this open “Promotional Principles for Creative People” that you can explore to go even deeper.

Stayed tuned for scheduled releases and other features in the future.

Managing Communication

Collectors will always receive an order confirmation email from Metalabel. We also provide them with contact information for each label’s Help Contact for any questions. Beyond this, its up to you as the creator to determine how you want to communicate with your Collectors.

To view all collectors, visit the Collectors tab under your release or label. While the Orders tab groups collectors by release, the Collectors tab provides a profile specific view. Here, you can see your total number of Collectors across releases, your most collected release, and Collectors who have spent the most on your releases.

To export your Collector list to a newsletter or another database, select the Download CSV button on the right. You can filter who appears in the CSV file by toggling the dropdown options.

To get a sense of what a Collector has ordered, select the numerical button in the Collected column. Clicking on any of these releases will take you to the Orders tab for shipping and other details.

Collaborations between creators with different audiences is a great way for two people to mutually benefit one another.

Releasing work on a very consistent cadence builds understanding and awareness.

Experiment with release windows and limited edition strategies to make your release pop.

Getting paid on Metalabel is both very straightforward and something new in the world of creative platforms. Here’s how it works.

Earnings Splits

Earnings splits let creators seamlessly distribute the earnings from a release to contributors according to set percentages. Once a Split is set, earnings will flow to all contributors’ accounts when a payout agreement is confirmed and executed.

As an example, imagine a group of four people make a zine together and agree to split the proceeds equally. With Splits, each of their accounts would be designated that percentage of each transaction. Splits are also how labels can transparently receive their portion of earnings from each release according to the terms they and their artists agreed to.

Creating a Split

To set the split of a release, visit the Earnings tab of the Release Builder. You must be a Label Admin or the original creator of the Release to set the split. Use the drop-down menu to select the contributor and set the percentage of the proceeds that should be allocated to them.

Contributors who have accepted the invitation to join the release will be listed in this drop-down form. Contributors who are not invited or do not accept their invitation cannot be added to a split.

When setting a split, the percentage amount across your contributors must add up to 100%. If you are the only creator, you will still need to set the split so 100% of the proceeds go to yourself.

Split value can be edited anytime, even after a release is launched. This is a helpful feature for setting up treasuries or navigating more complicated splits.

For example, you may have one contributor who handled a production cost for the release and your group has agreed to split earnings evenly after these costs have been recouped. We recommend using a label treasury.

Label Treasuries

A label treasury is an optional, built-in feature that establishes a dedicated bucket of funds for the label to use at its discretion. By allocating a portion of earnings from a release towards the Label Treasury, you can build up funds to use for a future project. Here’s a helpful visual.

Setting funds aside can be a helpful practice if your label plans to commission work by other creators, if you want to accrue funds to reimburse costs label members are paying for out-of-pocket, or if you're not sure yet how you want to set up your splits. Read our step-by-step guide on how treasury works.

Understanding Earnings

Revenue received from each sale will first go towards any costs and fees, such as Metalabel’s fee and any shipping costs that were set for the release. The remaining earnings are split thereafter. Here is a simple way to think about how money flows within a release.

Who can see what

Traditionally transactions and earnings with artists and labels have been opaque. We’ve tried to strike a balance between being transparent and secure with the most sensitive information by setting permissions based on our four user roles: Label Admin, Label Contributor, Release Admin, and Release Contributor.

Each user role has distinct permissions for four key areas: splits, treasuries, aggregated earnings data (Gross volume, Balance, Available to withdraw, Lifetime earning), top line earnings (lifetime earning only), and payouts. This information is organized into two sections: rollup stats and an Earnings by Release table. Let’s consider a traditional record label as we assess the differences.

• Label admins have the most permissions and visibility. They can set and edit splits, allocate and payout funds from a Label Treasury, initiate payouts when the minimum threshold of $5 is met, and see total financials of the entire label and all releases on the Earnings page.
  
  If we’re operating a traditional record label, our label executive would be a label admin. They need to see everything that’s coming in and out of the label to help manage its overall success.
  
  
• Label contributors will also see an Earnings page with total financials of the entire label, all releases, and treasury data, but they cannot see release-specific details in the Earnings by Release table, nor can they initiate payouts.
  
  In our record label example, a label contributor might be an investor or a producer the label works will for every release: someone who is supporting the entire label project, but doesn’t need to see details about every release all of the time.
  
  
• Release admins can see financial data for releases they have admin status for, so their rollup stats and Earnings by release table will only reflect data for the releases where they are a Release admin. They can set splits (including allocating earnings to a label treasury) but cannot initiate payouts.
  
  In our fictional record label, the release admin could be an artist the label represents, let's call them Rayna. Rayna needs visibility on all their earnings, but their focus is specific to their own albums (ie releases), not the label at large.
  
  
• Release contributors can only see funds they have earned. They will see the rollup stats and the Earnings by release sections, but they will be populated with data on their own earnings only. They cannot initiate payouts.
  
  In a traditional record label, this might be a feature artist or a producer specifically working on Rayna’s latest release. Rayna wants them to be credited on the release and wants to offer them a split of the earnings, but not show all the details around the release itself.

* once they create a release, they will also gain Release Admin status and have all the same permissions for that specific release 
† only for their designated release 
** labels, and all their subsequent releases, can only can only be deleted if they have no completed orders

Viewing Your Earnings

You can view earnings for all releases you're a part of the Earnings tab in the left-side menu by clicking on your user profile icon. Again, the level of detail you see here depends on your user role and access. To see earnings for a label, head to the Earnings tab by clicking on your label icon.

The total earnings for your label and any subsequent releases are organized together. The Earnings page balance is updated in real time, and all money is stored via Stripe in USD currency. In order to withdraw funds to a personal bank account with the currency of your choice, you will need to set up a StripeConnect account.

When someone collects your release, the funds go into the release balance on the Earnings tab. Your release’s corresponding Earnings Split then determines how much each contributor gets paid. Again, the level of detail you see will depend on your user role.

Understanding Earnings by Release

The Earnings by Release table allows you to see itemized financial and inventory details for each release, depending on your user role.

To see this, click View Details. This takes you to a secondary page with three categories.

• Earnings details: An itemized ledger of all earnings and associated fees and costs (such as shipping), alongside a summary of total orders, and an itemized ledger for each edition a part of a release.
• Collections: A quick overview of collector-related activity around the release. Key stats are first collect, most recent collect, number of free collects, and number of unique and guest collectors.
• Payout history: A log of all the times funds have been paid out based on the payout agreement

See our Financial Terms Glossary for a deeper look.

So, how do I get paid?

In order for any collaborator to get paid, the Label admin must execute a payout agreement for the specific release. This triggers funds earmarked for everyone on the Split to be transferred to their personal balance.

To initiate a payout, click on the Preview Payout button next to the release in the Earnings tab. A payout agreement is generated for review. Metalabel will respect the latest version of your split setting and calculate the payout amount of your balance for the time period based on it. Once confirmed, the balance is immediately distributed to respective parties according to the agreement.

When a payout is initiated, all respective parties receive a payout notification email indicating who executed the payout so everyone is clear who did what. If this visibility does not work for you, write to us.

Once the payout is executed, you will be able to withdraw funds from your personal balance. To learn more, read Withdrawing Funds.

Need more help or troubleshooting support? Email us and we'll walk you through it.

Once a payout is executed, the distributed funds go to each creator’s personal balance. You can visit your user profile Earnings tab to view your earnings.

In order to withdraw funds from Metalabel to your bank, you must successfully connect a StripeConnect account. A basic StripeConnect account is free to create. For more details, see Setting up your Stripe account.

We support a limited number of countries for now. It is important that your bank operates within these countries’ jurisdiction. If your country is not listed, write to us.

Current countries and regions supported:

United States, Canada, Mexico, Sweden, United Kingdom, Portugal, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Denmark, Japan, Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, India*, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Slovenia, Switzerland, Latvia, and Thailand.

*Stripe is currently available in India on an invite-only basis, with option to request an invite.

Once StripeConnect setup is complete, you will be able to withdraw funds from your Metalabel balance to your bank. To do this, click on your user icon on the left-side menu, go to the Earnings tab, and then click the Withdraw button.

You can only withdraw the amount indicated as “Available to withdraw.” There is a minimum amount of $5 USD that must be met to initiate a withdrawal.

Once a withdrawal is initiated, the money leaves your Metalabel account and is transferred to your bank through Stripe. For those whose bank is set up in currencies other than USD, you can use Stripe’s Foreign Exchange Rate Estimator to see what you’ll receive in your native currency.

There is typically a lag time of 1-7 business days for this transaction depending on your financial institution. You can track the progress of this transfer on your bank’s ledger or in the Stripe Dashboard.

There is no cost to releasing work or building a catalogue with Metalabel. If you choose to sell work on Metalabel, we charge a 10% commission. Stripe charges an additional 3-5% in credit card processing fees. Both fees are automatically deducted at checkout for each transaction.

Metalabel is the merchant of record, so all pricing on the platform is in USD. A Stripe account is required for all creators looking to transfer earnings to their personal bank account.

Please note that Stripe fees vary based on country, bank, and currency, and sometimes minimum fee applies for transactions of $5 or below. Metalabel does not have control over Stripe processing fees.

Every project is different and setting prices and quantities are part art and part science. We recommend considering the following:

• What were your production costs in producing your release? This could be things like printing, supplies, or materials.
  
  
• Were there any other costs, such as fees you paid to a designer or collaborator? Are these costs that could be mitigated using Splits on Metalabel, or are they costs that have already been paid? See our guide on customizing Splits.
  
  
• Accounting for Metalabel’s 10% platform fee and Stripe’s processing fees, how many do you need to sell to recoup your costs? How many do you need to sell to meet your goals?
  
  
• Do you want all of your earnings to go to your contributors, or do you want to put some aside for the next project? If the latter, you might want to consider setting up a Treasury.
  
  
• Are you interesting in circulating some of your releases for free as part of your promotional efforts? If so, how many do you feel comfortable setting aside?

To help with this process, head to Metalabel Studio for more release strategies, including a worksheet you can use as a template to scope out basic costs and calculate what you can net out from your release.

The following are definitions for all the terms used on the Earnings page. See Getting paid on Metalabel for tips on how to structure your earnings independently or as a collective.

Aggregated Financial Information

• Lifetime net earnings Sum total of funds received to the label across all releases across all time. This includes funds collected for shipping costs, and is before Metalabel and Stripe fees are accounted for.
  
  
• Balance Income across all releases that has not yet been distributed to collaborators. Like a bank account, the balance amount decreases following a payout execution.
  
  
• Available to pay out Amount of the balance that can be paid out to contributors right now. We hold money received from transactions for a “grace period” of approximately 4-5 business days before making it available to withdraw, so sometimes this number will be lower than the Balance. This is required to safeguard against malicious activities, accidental purchases, and chargebacks.

Release Specific Financial Information

In addition to aggregated details, each release also has an itemized ledger. Depending on your user role, you will see a View Details button. Click this and head to the Release Summary tab to see the ledger breakdown.

• Gross volume Revenue generated from the release over time. This number is the sum of all sales and shipping amounts from all orders that purchased this release. It is pre-fee, pre-commission, and post-sales tax.
  
  
• Sales: The sum of money earned through the release price only. This plus Shipping equals your Gross Volume.
• Shipping This is the sum of all shipping fees earned for each release purchase. The shipping fee is set by the Release Admin in the Release Builder. The person assigned in the Release Builder to receive the shipping balance will receive these funds to their account in addition to any designated split. This plus Sales equals your Gross Volume.
  
  
• Net Earnings Gross volume minus funds for shipping, Metalabel's 10% fee, and Stripe fees.
  
  
• Fees We charge a 10% commission on each purchase, and Stripe has a credit card processing fee for all transactions (2-5% depending on destination bank). This fee is paid per order for transparency, as opposed to a lump sum at specific intervals. Stay tuned for some updates to this table that will make fees and commission more visible.
  
  
• Recoup (or fixed costs) Select releases who received an advance from Metalabel will have fixed costs that need to be paid back first. The Earnings tab will show this Recoup amount alongside Gross Volume on the ledge. Money earned from collects will go to the recouped balance first before contributors are paid out.

As we detailed in this article, Splits let creators seamlessly distribute the earnings from a release to collaborators according to set percentages. While Splits must always add up to 100%, you may find that a more complicated structure is better suited for your label or release. For example, sometimes it is helpful to recoup costs before splitting income, or set funds aside in a treasury for a future project.

Using Splits to recoup costs

Let’s say you and a friend decided to release a digital album together. You are both Label and Release Admins, so you have equal permissions. Ultimately you want to split the earnings evenly, but there is a $200 cost to license an artwork from a friend to use as the album cover. You are generous and offer to front this cost before any albums are sold. In this scenario, you can use Splits in two ways.

One option is to recoup the costs before setting your split. Here's how to do this:

• The duo should initially set the Split to go entirely to you until your earnings equal the cost threshold. You can do this via the Earnings tab in the Release Builder.
• Once the duo hits $200 in earnings and these funds are paid out to the friend who fronted the costs via the Label’s Earnings tab, the Split can be updated to 50% per collaborator in the Release Builder.
• From then on, the earnings will be evenly split across both collaborators. Both parties will receive an email documenting that they have been added to the Split.

Note that since this is a manual change, this method requires a watchful eye on your Earnings.

Another option is to determine a different split amount from the outset. This method can be helpful when working with external collaborators like close folks contributing to the production of the release. Let’s use the artwork license example again. You could offer $200, or offer a 5% Split of all sales. If they agree to the latter, head to the Release Builder and add them as a contributor in the Collaborators tab. This will allow you to add them to the Split in the Earnings tab and toggle if their name is visible as a Creator on your release page. In this scenario, both members would each earn 47.5% and the artwork collaborator would earn 5%, totaling 100%.

Using a Label Treasury

Splits can also be used to build resources for future projects. Let’s say our digital album dup knows that they want to release another project together in 6 months. When they first made this digital album they had access to a lot of free resources, but now they want to plan towards trying something different like booking time at a recording studio or making a physical release.

The duo can use the automated label treasury to help them grow towards these goals. A treasury is a pool of funds that are accessible by a group or organization.

With two members using their personal email accounts for their user profiles, picture two "buckets" where money from the release can flow with the current split set up. Adding a treasury means we want a third "bucket" that money can flow to.

To designate funds to your treasury, head to the Earnings tab in the Release Builder. Select split with contributors and look for the dropdown menu of Contributors. Here you will see all the contributors on the release, and a Label Treasury option.

In this example, the label is called wake up call so the label treasury option is “wake up call Treasury”. Once selected, you can designate a portion of earnings to the treasury just as you would for any other split.

All release admins will have the option to add the label treasury to the split. Just like splits, only Label admin can pay out treasury funds. Next, read how to pay out from a treasury or dive into how to get funds to your personal accounts.

If a collector needs to change their shipping address after placing an order, here's what they need to do:

Contact the Metalabel team directly via hello@metalabel.com

The Metalabel team can manually update the address in the system. Once it's updated, label admins are automatically notified and can fulfill to the correct address.

This ensures the update flows cleanly through the fulfillment pipeline and appears correctly in the release’s order when exported.

Metalabel currently does not support per-country shipping rates. The best way to handle international orders is by creating a separate edition specifically for international buyers. Here’s how:

1. Go to your release and click “Edit”.
2. Under the “What’s Included” tab, duplicate your existing edition.
3. Label the new edition something like “International Edition.”
4. Add a flat rate shipping fee that reflects the higher international cost.
5. Save and publish the new edition.

Duplicating or adding a new edition

Yes - you can add up to 8 editions per release. Use this for new versions (like an international edition or second printing). Editions can be added anytime and help you preserve early collector spots while continuing to grow.

The Orders tab allows you to easily pull Collector information when working to fulfill orders. For bulk orders, we recommend utilizing a shipping label integration system to generate your postage en masse.

To do so, click on the desired release and select the Download CSV button in the top right corner. To toggle which collectors appear in this CSV, use the Filter By options. Then, upload your file to your preferred shipping label tool.

Our CSV is formatted for integration with ShipStation. The following glossary defines each of the categories in the CSV download. Every shipping label tool varies, so you may not need every category.

collect ref: The unique id for this collected item. If it is a paid order, this will be the same as order ID. If it is a free collect, this will be the same as collected record ID

edition id: The Collector’s edition number. This will be unique to every Collector.

edition name: Name of your edition and release

collector did: Backend Collector ID in Metalabel’s database

collector handle: the collector’s user handle on Metalabel

collector email: Collector’s preferred contact email

collector name: Collector’s name

collector rank: The ranked order of the collector. Since collectors can collect multiple editions, sometimes the edition number and collector rank will be different. For example, if person A collected the first two copies of a new artist edition book, they would be collector rank #1 and receive editions #1 and #2 in the mail. The next collector would be ranked #2 and would receive edition #3.

collected quantity: How many releases the Collector purchased

collected serial numbers: Backend ID in Metalabel’s database

listing id: Backend ID for the release in Metalabel’s database

listing created at: Date release was originally published

order id: Same as collect ref

order subtotal amount usd: Subtotal costs to the Collector for their release(s)

order shipping cost amount usd: Shipping charge. This is setup for each release in the Release Builder. If a Collector orders multiple items, that may impact the total shipping charge.

order commission amount usd: This is Metalabel’s 10% fee. Learn more.

order total amount usd: Total amount paid by the Collector

order shipping name: TK

order shipping line1: Shipping address line 1

order shipping line2: Shipping address line 2

order shipping city: Shipping address city

order shipping state: Shipping address state

order shipping postal code: Shipping address zip code

order shipping country: Shipping address country

order shipping address corrected at: If an order address was corrected by Metalabel staff, a date will appear here indicating that the address was changed. This is useful if you ar downloading CSVs over time.

fulfillment status: Whether or not the order has been marked as fulfilled on the Orders tab on Metalabel

collector note: If the collector added a note to their order, it will appear here. Otherwise, this will typically be blank.

collector note set at: If the collector added a note to their order, the date will appear here.

collected at: date and time of release collection

Our platform policy indicates that there are no exchanges or refunds for purchase made. The creator is responsible for the promises made in the release and fulfillment of their work. Please refer to our terms and conditions for more details.

On occasion, a buyer may dispute a charge on an order and reverse it with their bank. When this happens, Stripe creates a dispute case and immediately deducts the amount from the balance. Your release account may run negative when this happens.

Metalabel will broker a challenge on the creator’s behalf and absorb the associated fees but not the purchase price. If the challenge is successful, the creator will see the purchase amount restored on their balance. Generally speaking it is strongly advised that creators connect with collectors directly to set expectations around the transaction in order to minimize disputes.

Creators are responsible for fulfillment of orders placed. When setting up a label, all Label Admin are prompted to add a help contact to direct any questions from collectors. After checkout, collectors will receive a confirmation email with a link to contact the label for any questions about their order.

Managing Orders as a Collector

To view all items in your collection, use the Collected tab in the left-side menu. From here, click on any release to see your Collector number, download and share your Collector card, or download any digital media a part of your release.

For physical releases, you will see the estimated shipping date set by the label when the release went live. Most creators are fulfilling orders independently and by hand in their homes and studios. If you have a question about your order status, please use the "Contact the Label" link in the order confirmation email.

Managing Orders as a Creator

Digital goods are delivered immediately upon payment completion via confirmation email and through Metalabel.com. For physical goods that require shipping, you can set the shipping charge in the Release Builder for your items. The amount will be added to the total cost of purchase during checkout. There is currently one set fee for shipping regardless of final destination at the moment. Please be mindful and set the right approximate value that works for the items you plan to ship. 

When Collectors purchase your release, their shipping and contact information will become visible to Release Admins in the Orders tab for the Release. Because this is sensitive information, you must be designated as a Label or Release Admin to view and manage orders.

The Orders tab aggregates all inventory information around your release:

• Units Sold: Number of items sold, compared to the number of items made available

• Free Collects: If you have an edition with your release that is free to collect, the number of free collects will appear here. This is distinct from units sold.

• Launch Date: The date your release was published on Metalabel

Select a release to view the list of Collectors alongside information on which edition they purchased, what quantity, and their shipping address. You can use this page to track whether orders have been fulfilled by using the checkboxes to regularly updating the status of each order.

When building a release in the Release Builder, you have the option to add an Estimated Ship Date. It is up to you to determine the most efficient way to fulfill your orders in accordance with this estimate. Collectors will not receive an automated email from Metalabel if you change the Estimated Ship Date, so we highly recommend contacting your Collectors directly.

The orders tab allows you to easily pull collector information for releases and editions. To do so, click on the desired release and select the Download CSV button in the top right corner. To toggle which collectors appear in this CSV, use the Filter By options.

With your CSV file, you can:

• Add folks to your personal newsletter by copying all the emails in the Collector Email column
• Upload to ShipStation to build shipping labels. To minimize returned mail, be sure to review your data and ensure all Order Shipping Postal Codes are 5 digits.
• Edit to match the template for another fulfillment tool

Stay tuned for more shipping integration options embedded on the Metalabel platform.

Due to sanctions, Metalabel does not support sales that require shipping to the following countries: 

Belarus (BY)
Guatemala (GT)
Libya (LY)
Russia (RU)
Sierra Leone (SL)
Somalia (SO)
Ukraine (UA)
Yemen (YE)

Troubleshooting

Sometimes, collectors will reach out to inform you of a mailing address change. Right now, the only way to adjust this is within your downloaded csv. Stay tuned for more integrated shipping options.

No, at this time Metalabel is entirely built on Stripe. This means you need a Stripe account in order to receive funds through the platform. By using Stripe, we give collectors the opportunity to pay via Apple Pay and various bank cards in a secure manner. If you want to put out a release that is free and doesn't have shipping costs, you do not need to link a Stripe account.

Metalabel is a space to release creative work together. Per our terms and community guidelines, creators must provide clear and accurate offerings to collectors within a reasonable timeframe. Because of this, Metalabel is best used to release work that exists or will exists shortly. If you have more questions, read on or reach out to us.

Metalabel uses a magic code login system. This means that there are no passwords to remember.

Instead, anytime you login you will be emailed a unique code. To complete your login, enter this code on metalabel.comto access your account. If you’re a creator, you may also be prompted to enter a code when paying out earnings from a release as an extra step of security.

If you run into log in, here’s a few things you can try:

• Some browsers take a moment to process once the code is entered. Wait for a red error message (or a green success message) before reloading the page or resending the code
• double check that you’re using the desired email account. If you try logging in with an email address that does not have an account set up, you will be automatically be prompted to create one
• If you are receiving the code via the correct email but receive an error message when you use it, try clearing your browser’s cache
• if none of the other options work, write to us.

While Metalabel is a centralized space to release and collect creative work, each label manages their own order fulfillment.

Keep in mind that creators generally fulfill orders independently and by hand, and fulfillment timelines may vary.

This means that you must contact the label to get updates on any physical order shipments, shipping address changes, etc. To do this, locate your order confirmation email and find the “contact the label” link.

If you’ve reached out multiple times and have not received an answer, write to us.

No! Metalabel is open access, meaning anyone with a user profile account can create releases and labels. Read more for tips on naming your user profile and label.

Once you have successfully created your user profile, select your user icon on the left and click on the New release button from the main navigation. This will take you to the Release Builder. Follow our step-by-step guide on navigating the Release Builder.

They don't have to be. Releasing on Metalabel does not exclude you from releasing or distributing work through other channels.