We’ve all heard the sneer: “Ringtones are dead! They're so 2007!”
Meanwhile, sports franchises, consumer brands and labels spend inordinate amounts of money to increase engagement while ignoring a product fans will happily buy.
I run Ringtones.com. Our a platform is one of the only sources of legally licensed ringtones in existence today. We sell a wide variety of ringtones, from modern hits like Drake's NOKIA to avant-garde dance music, comedic jingles and much more.
If you have a sound that fans recognize in under three seconds, you have the potential to make revenue. And if you aren’t selling ringtones, you’re leaving money on the table.
Personalization never dies
Music formats come and go but the desire to sound different doesn’t. Today, that personalization shows up as:
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Ringtones (calls still happen), notifications and alarms.
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Identity signals in offices, gyms, classrooms, stadiums, and shopping centers. These are tiny billboards for your brand, played hundreds of times a week.
Your superfan is the person who wants to syndicate your brand. Ringtones are portable fandom.
Streaming for scraps vs. $1 bills
Streaming turned music into background CPMs that pay fractions of a cent per play. It can take 200–500 streams to equal what one ringtone sale pays. If you factor in distributor/label splits, you're looking at 300–1,000 streams for $1 in take home revenue.
We sell ringtones for $1.99.
Artists can potentially clear $1+ per purchase in take-home revenue selling ringtones on our platform. That’s a superfan choosing to pay you now, not trickle pennies later. This is exactly the kind of high-margin microtransaction that artists need in the streaming squeeze.
Microtransactions look small until you scale them. Unlike ad impressions that vanish, ringtones keep earning as new fans discover you.
Ringtones are the best “ad” you can sell
Brands methodically burn cash chasing engagement. A ringtone is engagement that pays you. Every time a phone rings or a notification goes off, that’s:
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Distribution — your sound in public, repeatedly.
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Attribution — a clean, paid conversion that ties directly to your content.
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Retention — a daily audible reminder to check for your next release, episode or product drop.
“But nobody uses ringtones anymore…”
Not true. The volume moved from one mega-hit to many micro-hits. If you only look for the former, you’ll miss the latter.
Usage has evolved:
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Texts and notifications fire constantly. Short sonic signatures thrive here.
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Alarms are daily. People upgrade from default ringtones to match their vibe.
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Live events and communities love call-and-response audio (anthems, chants and viral memes).
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Global audiences customize aggressively. Plenty of markets never abandoned loud ringtones.
Pricing & packaging that works
Back in the day, ringtones sold for up to $3.99. In an age where anyone can make their own ringtones, the objective should be to make it as easy and affordable as possible for superfans to support your work.
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Baseline: $1.99
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Bundles: 3-5 ringtones at a slight discount (e.g., $3.49–$5.99)
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Mixed Format Bundles: Entice fans with Ringtone / Notification Sound / Wallpaper bundles while maintaining affordable baseline pricing
Legal & Quality: Do it right
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Own the sound. If it’s music, you need both master and composition rights.
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No sampling without clearance. Mitigate legal risks while maximizing profit.
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The ideal 30-second music ringtone. Use the most memorable, instantly recognizable portion of the song. Create both explicit and clean/radio-safe versions to maximize your potential customer base. Don't use a long intro or slow fade in. Fade out quickly and cleanly at the end. If the ringtone is slightly shorter than 30 seconds, that's better than cutting off abruptly mid lyric or beat. Include an instrumental alternate.
The objection behind the objection
When people say “ringtones are dead,” it means that they don’t know how to make micro-products that resonate with their audience. Micro-products are the backbone of modern creator revenue. You don’t need a billion streams to make a ringtone drop worthwhile. Instead, you need a community that wants to support you by amplifying your sound.
If you make sounds people love, you’re sitting on inventory that costs almost nothing to produce, delights your biggest fans, travels organically and compounds over time.
Piracy: Stop the siphon without punishing fans
I see the damage when gray-market platforms rip creators’ audio, repackage it, and monetize via ads or shady storefronts. That’s not “fan activity” but rather industrialized piracy. Instead of targeting fans who downloaded ringtones for personal use, artists and industry players should focus on shutting down platforms that exploit their rights and siphon away precious revenue.
Here’s how to insulate yourself from ringtone piracy:
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Plant your flag. Give fans a clear, canonical link so legitimacy wins the SEO race.
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State a fan policy. “Personal, non-commercial clips are fine; resale and uploads to ringtone piracy sites are not.” Keep the community onside while drawing a bright line.
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Monitor proactively. Track brand/artist keywords, set up audio-fingerprint or hash matching, and screenshot evidence.
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Aim enforcement upstream. Use standardized takedowns—not just to hosts, but also to app stores, ad networks and payment processors that keep piracy platforms alive.
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Choke off discovery (search & AI). File DMCA/delist requests with search engines like Google and report AI answers surfacing infringing links for removal.
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Coordinate with partners. Work with labels, distributors and publishers to whitelist your official channels and accelerate removals.
- Escalate legally for systemic exploitation. Preserve evidence and retain IP counsel. Pursue injunctions, damages and platform bans on your own or with peers via class action.
Many web platforms and applications willfully exploit IP, making piracy the biggest threat to ringtone revenue. If you don’t occupy the shelf, pirates will. Put your official ringtones where fans can buy them in two taps while making it costly for platforms that try to steal your sales.
Sell your ringtones. Stop leaving money on the table. And when you’re ready to treat your sound like the product it is, you know where to find us.
- Jon Buch, owner of Ringtones.com