SoundCloud Simplifies Subscription Model

The World’s leading social sound platform, SoundCloud, has announced some changes to its membership plans this week. The music sharing site, previously offered Lite, Solo, Pro and Plus plans, but is now dropping its user accounts down to just 3; free, Pro, and Pro Unlimited.

Paying customers will not only be allowed more uploads and more comprehensive analytics but will also receive these perks at  lower monthly and yearly rates. The Pro package will get an artist 4 hours of sound time to show off their stuff, for only $3.90 a month. Sound junkies and professionals who need more audio space can go for the Pro Unlimited, which as the name suggests, allows the user to post and endless flow of sound, and is available for $11.70 a month.

Pro Partner Beta

Along with the new plans, SoundCloud announced another plan that has begun beta testing. Pro Partner’s will benefit from the ability to use banner images to create more visual profiles, which also includes new image functions called “Moving Sounds.” This feature lets the partner post a gallery of still images behind the playing track. This will open up doors to potentially use the image space for brand advertisements and also to show off more creativity and help capture the audience’s interest, without the high cost and time consuming efforts of a full blown music video.

Although it’s still in beta, SoundCloud already has a wide variety of ProPartners that speaks of the sites diverse range creative sound. Probably the most famous early beta tester of SoundCloud’s ProPartner plan is Snoop Lion. Snoop is using the site to find fellow talented artists for collaboration on his tracks.

SoundCloud’s hope for its first big brand push is that its ProPartners will broaden the professional side of its business and in turn generate more fans and profits.

[Image via storify]