Download gates 101: trade a download for a fan
A free download is the oldest deal in electronic music. A gate makes the deal fair: the fan gets the file, you get a follow or an email you keep.
Giving a track away for free still works — remixes, edits, VIPs and bootlegs have built more DJ careers than ads ever will. The mistake is giving it away for nothing. A download gate is the difference.
How a gate works
- You upload the reward — the file lives in secure storage, never sitting in the page source.
- You pick the steps: an email, a follow, a visit to a platform of yours.
- The fan completes the steps and the download unlocks. Both sides got something.
The controls that matter
A gate can open on a date, close on a date, or stop after a set number of copies — useful for "first 100 downloads" drops that reward the fans who show up early.
The part nobody else gives you
Emails collected by your gates are handed to your own machine and deleted from the cloud, with consent stored word for word. That list is yours — export it, email it, or erase it whenever you want. On most gate platforms, the list is really theirs; here it is really yours.
One honest tip: gate your second-best track. Your best one belongs on streaming, working the algorithm. The gate is for turning casual listeners into people you can reach again.