The promise · iHYPE.org

Built for the scene. Owned by no one.

A not-for-profit music platform. Free for every user, forever. Every dollar of every ticket is accounted for. Every cost is shown. Every system change is gated by a board, not an admin.

01 · The promise

Free, forever, for everyone.

No paywalls. No "premium." No tier above another. The platform behaves the same for a 14-year-old discovering their first show and a touring artist on their fifth album.

$0
To listen, hype, attend.
Fans get unlimited streaming, unlimited HYPE, full charts. No ads after upgrade — there is no upgrade.
$0
To create, host, promote.
Artists, venues, promoters publish and sell with the same toolkit. No listing fees, no analytics paywall, no "verified" pricing.
$0
To us, on every ticket.
We don't take a cut of ticket sales. Splits go to the people who made the show. We are funded by music ads — not by you.
02 · Where every dollar goes

Read the receipt. It's all there.

A real $45 ticket sale, itemized. The artist made the music. The venue holds the room. The promoter brought the crowd. They split 45/45/10. We take nothing.

iHYPE.org
Receipt · not-for-profit
Wreckage Tour · Phantom Ridge
State Theatre · Portland, ME · 22 Jun · 8pm
Ticket price$45.00
Where this goes
Phantom Ridge · artist+ $20.25
State Theatre · venue+ $20.25
Disco Mortis · promoter†+ $4.50
iHYPE platform fee$0.00
Pass-through (not ours)
Card processing · Stripe+ $1.61
Sales tax · ME 5.5%+ $2.48
Total charged$49.09
† Promoter share applies when a referral drove the sale.
Of every dollar, $45 went to the people who made this show.

The 45 / 45 / 10 split

Artist (45%): they made the music. Venue (45%): they hold the room and run the door. Promoter (10%): they brought the audience via their recommendation. When no promoter is attached, the split rebalances 50/50 to artist and venue.

Why card and tax are shown

Card processing is paid to Stripe. Sales tax is paid to your state. Neither dollar comes to iHYPE. Most platforms blur these into a "service fee" that hides their own cut. We itemize them so you can verify.

Refunds keep the math intact

If a show is cancelled, every recipient is debited proportionally — including the platform-fee zero. No one keeps a cut they shouldn't.

Promoter affiliation is conditional

The 10% only applies when the buyer arrived via a promoter's page or recommendation. The system tracks which surface drove the click. The 10% never goes to iHYPE — it goes to whoever made the show.

03 · The difference

What you'd pay elsewhere.

Live music ticketing is a $35-billion industry built on stacked fees. Side-by-side, on a $45 ticket.

Criterion
iHYPE.org
Typical ticketing platform
Service / convenience feePer ticket
$0.00
$8 – $25
Order processing feePer checkout
$0.00
$3 – $7
Delivery / e-ticket feeFor a digital download
$0.00
$2 – $5
Artist getsAfter all fees, on a $45 ticket
$20.25
$3 – $14
Data resaleSelling listening data to brokers
Never
Industry standard
Chart manipulationPaying for chart positions
Forbidden
Routine
Hype the scene. Not the next rich guy.
— iHYPE charter · founding principle
04 · How we keep the lights on

Music-only ads. Played in music.

Audio ads play during music playback — never around your reading, never on your profile, never on a ticketing page. Every ad comes from the music economy: artists promoting releases, venues promoting shows, promoters promoting events, and music-adjacent businesses.

Artists
Promoting their own work.
Songs, albums, tours, merch drops. e.g. "Phantom Ridge — Wreckage tour, tickets open"
Venues
Filling shows on their stages.
Especially under-attended ones. e.g. "State Theatre · this Saturday · doors 8pm"
Promoters
Pushing nights, mixes, residencies.
Plus DJs and producers. e.g. "Disco Mortis presents After Hours Vol. 4"
Music-adjacent businesses
Instrument shops, gear makers, music stores, festival organizers — any business whose work is the making and playing of music.
e.g. "Reverb · find your next pedal" · "Fender · new American Performer"
When ads trigger
After3 finished songs
— or —
Every10 minutes of show
05 · The pact

What we'll never do.

Easier to commit to a list than to a vague principle. If iHYPE ever does any of these, you should leave.

Never charge a service fee on tickets

The platform fee line is $0 forever. Not "introductory." Not "during high demand." Zero.

Never gate features behind a subscription

No iHYPE Pro. No Premium. No paywalled charts, analytics, or HYPE multiplier.

Never sell or resell user data

Your listening, location, friends, purchases — never packaged, never sold, never shared with brokers.

Never accept payment for chart positions

Charts rank on active HYPE only. No label can buy a top spot.

Never run non-music ads

No sports betting. No crypto. No mortgage refinance. Music-related businesses only.

Never displace top organic recommendations

Sponsored placements appear at position 4 or later. The top three are always earned.

Never play ads outside music playback

No banner ads. No interstitials. Audio ads only, in the player only.

Never take a cut from artist revenue

Tip jars, merch, supporter funds — 100% goes to the artist after card and tax.

06 · Accountable

Promises only stick when somebody's accountable.

Not-for-profit is just a tax status. What keeps a platform honest is who's on the board and what they publish.

The board · 9 seats

Eight seats elected from the user base — two per role, voted by active members. One executive director seat. Three-year terms, two-term cap. Quarterly meetings. Public minutes.
FanElected
FanElected
ArtistElected
ArtistElected
VenueElected
VenueElected
PromoterElected
PromoterElected
Exec. Dir.Staff
No staff seats beyond the ED. Staff don't vote on staff comp.
Compensation cap. ED salary ≤ 5× the platform's average wage.
Recall by petition. 25% of any role's voters can trigger.
Algorithm changes need board approval with public changelog.

What we publish

Transparency is operational, not rhetorical. Real documents on a regular cadence — not press releases.
990
IRS Form 990 · annual financial filing
Yearly · within 30 days of submission
View →
P&L
Quarterly profit & loss
Every 3 months · revenue + spend breakdown
View →
ADS
Ad inventory & top sponsors
Monthly · who paid, how much
View →
REC
Recommendation algorithm changelog
Per change · vote, dissents recorded
View →
MOD
Moderation actions · anonymized
Monthly · removals, appeals
View →
PAY
Payout report · by role & region
Monthly · aggregate
View →
BRD
Board meeting minutes
Quarterly · 14-day comment window
View →
FND
Backline Fund disbursements
Quarterly · counts & amounts
View →
07 · The glass wall

Live transparency. Anonymized by default.

Everything the platform measures is published — aggregated, anonymized, refreshed continuously. No private dashboards for management. No "internal-only" metrics. If iHYPE knows it, you know it.

Today · live
412k
Songs finished
Today · live
184,294
HYPE given
Today · live
14,028
Tickets sold
Today · live
$632k
Distributed to creators
Right now
28,941
Active sessions

Where today's ticket revenue went

Updated every minute. Anyone with a browser can see this.

$632,401Today · so far
Artists
45.0%
$284,580
Venues
45.0%
$284,580
Promoters
10.0%
$63,240
iHYPE platform
0.0%
$0
Pass-through · card processing (Stripe)$22,847
Pass-through · sales tax (state)$36,128

How this data stays safe

Everything you just saw is aggregated, anonymized, and rate-limited. No individual user's behavior is exposed in any of these readouts. Operations that do require identifiable data are scoped to the task, audited, and logged to the public moderation feed.

Anonymized by default
All counts are aggregates. No row exposes a single user.
k-Anonymity ≥ 10
Geographic readouts roll up at state level. Small-N values suppressed.
TLS 1.3 in transit
All traffic uses modern TLS. Database connections encrypted at rest.
Just-in-time access
Staff cannot browse user data. Specific tasks require scoped grants.
User-controllable
Export your data or delete your account at any time. Both one-click and audit-logged.
No third-party trackers
Zero analytics SDKs, zero ad pixels. No Google, no Meta, no broker.
Public stats API
Dashboards powered by a public read-only API. Build your own monitor.
System changes gated
Algorithm and payout changes need board approval, not an admin code.
08 · How it stays alive

The model is self-reinforcing.

More music played → more ads heard → more discovery → more tickets → more shows → more music. Every dollar stays inside the music economy.

01 → 02
Fans listen and HYPE.
Engagement is the input. The recommendation engine reads what's loved and surfaces it.
03 → 04
Tickets sell. Music plays.
Money flows direct to the artist, venue, and promoter. Music ads run inside playback only.
05 → 06
Ads fund operations.
Servers, staff, security. No investors needing a return. Discovery happens through both organic and ad surfaces.
09 · The numbers

Operating in the open.

501(c)(3). All financials public. These are the operating numbers from our most recent reporting period.

100%
Funded by music ads.
No grants from majors. No platform fees. No subscriptions. No data licensing.
83¢
Per dollar — operations.
Servers, payments, moderation, security, engineering. Line-items in the annual report.
15¢ + 2¢
Reserve + Backline Fund.
15¢ reserve capped at 12 months operating costs. 2¢ to The Backline Fund for touring artists in need.