Best Stores to Buy Digital Music You Can Keep Forever
While a digital music streaming platform like Spotify and Apple Music will provide you with a lot of convenience, these platforms come with their own limitations. A streaming platform will charge you a monthly subscription fee to access their platform and listen to the music available in their library, but your favorite songs can disappear at any time depending on the license. There is also no guarantee that all the songs you like will be available on that platform when you sign up. That’s just one of the reasons why it makes more sense to buy and own your music, either physically or through a digital music store.
There are some major benefits to buying digital music files, such as MP3 or FLAC. For hardcore music lovers, it’s important to keep the music you buy forever, and that’s what you get with digital music stores. Sure, you could buy CDs and rip the music the old-fashioned way, but where do you keep the physical discs? Online music stores offer instant downloads after your purchase — no physical disc to worry about — and there are often a variety of formats to choose from. If you’re looking to save space and (maybe) money, lossy MP3s or AAC might be the way to go. If space constraints aren’t an issue, most sites also offer lossless FLAC or ALAC versions for a noticeable improvement in quality. (They usually cost the same as MP3s.)
Whether you’re looking to buy a single or an entire album, and across a variety of genres, I’ve put together a list of the best digital music store options on the market. I’ve included the big names — iTunes and Amazon — as well as some of my personal favorites, including Bandcamp and Qobuz. If you want to play the music you buy, most stores offer both Android and iOS apps, or you can just use the native music apps on your phone.
Average cost per album: $10
Maximum bit rate: 256 Kbps (AAC)
iTunes may no longer be the star of Apple’s lineup, as Apple Music is now the company’s focus, but it’s still one of the largest digital marketplaces. iTunes still sets the standard for lossy music downloads, and its catalog should cover all but the most obscure of your needs. Technically, iTunes doesn’t sell MP3s. Instead, it sells songs in its own proprietary AAC format, which can be read by nearly any modern player.
If you are using macOS Catalina or later, you can access the marketplace via Music > iTunes Store. If you want to download lossless files, please note that you need a Music subscription. However, you will not be able to keep the music once your subscription expires.
Average cost per album: $10
Maximum bit rate: 320 Kbps, lossless (up to 24 kHz)
Backed by many indie music labels, Bandcamp (now part of Epic Games) is perhaps the best alternative to iTunes or Amazon, especially if you’re into more esoteric tastes. The site allows you to download in any format you want (MP3, FLAC, Apple Lossless) and seemingly as many times as you want, without paying extra. What’s more, the site regularly rotates Bandcamp Friday events, where 100% of the proceeds go to the artist.
Average cost per album: $10
Maximum bit rate: 256Kbps
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, Amazon Music makes a lot of sense. You get a (limited) streaming service and a music store where you can buy MP3s, in addition to streaming and automatic rips from physical discs you buy. The digital music homepage is pretty bland (just a bunch of blocky buttons instead of album art) and prominently features links to Amazon Music Unlimited streaming services.
Please note that while Amazon has discontinued its “Digital Locker” service where you can store MP3s, the MP3s you purchase from Amazon are still available to stream and download.
Average cost per album: $10 (CD quality), $15 (24-bit)
Maximum bit rate: Lossless (up to 24/192)
If you’re only interested in high-quality downloads — and I mean 24-bit hi-res specifically — the Qobuz download store is the cheapest option. Like the Qobuz music streaming service, it caters to a wide variety of music genres, from pop to jazz to death metal to just about anything you can think of. The site also offers deals on new releases, including a recent Metallica promotion . If you’re an ultra-avid audiophile, you can sign up for the $180-a-year Sublime streaming package, which also gets you up to 60% off hi-res downloads.
Average cost per album: $10
Maximum bit rate: 320 Kbps, lossless (up to 24 kHz)
If you like dance music with a touch of indie, you will find a lot to like here BeepThe site also has a good selection of 16-bit and 24-bit FLACs that aren’t subject to the price increases of some competing vendors.
MP3 FAQs
Previously I recommended 7Digital for its wide selection of MP3s (and FLAC files too), but the site hasn’t been updated in a while. Although the company was acquired by music licensing company SongtradrThe store’s front page hasn’t changed in three years, and a search for new releases (Bad Bunny, Lizzo, Gorillaz, etc.) yields nothing. It remains to be seen what the acquisition will bring, as 7Digital was once a great resource for both music discovery and cheaper downloads. Representatives from 7Digital did not respond to my request for more information.
Despite the rise of streaming, there are still millions of MP3s available for purchase, and the number of songs is steadily growing. All of the stores listed here allow you to legally download songs to a computer or directly to your phone — and most offer dedicated apps for Android. Note that iOS users may not be able to purchase music from sources other than iTunes on their phones due to Apple restrictions.
Google Play Music stopped selling MP3s in late 2020 when the company switched to the streaming-only YouTube Music. All of the above services offer excellent alternatives to Google Play Music, and some, like Bandcamp, offer higher-quality lossless for the same price. One feature that YouTube Music did adopt from Google Play Music is the Music Locker, which lets you upload your own music library.
MP3 is known as a “lossy” format because it strips away audio information to reduce file size, even at its maximum bitrate of 320 kbps. In comparison, FLAC is a “lossless” format because it doesn’t strip any information and instead compresses music in a similar way to a ZIP file. As a result, a FLAC sounds better than an MP3, especially one ripped at a low 128 kbps bitrate.
