The Best Apps for Professional Musicians in 2021

October 11, 2021

We asked our professional musician readers to sound off about their favorite apps. These apps help you manage your business in many ways, from organizing rehearsals to promoting your band to managing touring costs.

Being a successful professional musician takes a lot more than musical talent. Just like any other business, there are countless things you have to stay on top of if you want to be competitive, grow your fanbase and land higher-paying gigs.

Thankfully, the app store is full of useful apps that can help you manage your band. There are apps to help grow your fanbase and sell tickets, manage expenses on road trips, coordinate with bandmates, tune your instruments and even find freelance gigs related to music.

We polled our readers to ask what their favorite apps for musicians were. In this article, we’ll cover the apps that made the top 5 in our poll.

And if you lean strongly toward one of these apps, be sure to vote for your favorite at the end!

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Bandsintown

Bandsintown is a platform that allows music fans to keep tabs on their favorite artists’ touring and live streaming schedules. With over 550,000 registered artists and tens of millions of fans, it’s clear that Bandsintown can be a gateway for potentially huge audiences. As an artist, Bandsintown provides a plethora of free services to market yourself, connect with fans and grow your fanbase. And with the rise of live streaming events, the opportunities to expand your reach are even greater.

Pros:

Free platform with access to over 65 million users
Analytics to tack your audience, ticket sales and events
Robust direct messaging system to keep in touch with fans
Recommendation algorithm allows fans of similar artists to discover your music
Users can purchase concert tickets in-app

Cons:

The initial artist setup process can be tedious
Some users complain about customer support response time
Updates are often buggy and lead to crashes

Price: Free

App Store Rating: 4.7

Gigworks

If you have a knack for composing and producing different styles of music, you might want to dip your toes into the freelance market. Gigworks is a Singapore-based freelance platform that lets professionals sell their services online. As a musician, you can create music files for YouTube videos, advertisements, video games and more. When you sign up for Gigworks freelancer account, you’ll be able to create your own personalized listing, schedule meetings with potential clients and receive payments through PayPal or Stripe.

Pros:

A great opportunity for musicians to diversify their income
100% remote work
Perfect for musicians based in Asia

Cons:

Platform is mostly geared toward IT and marketing fields
Probably not a sustainable long-term solution

GuitarTuna

Yousician’s beautifully simple, yet incredibly useful app is indispensable for any musician who uses a string instrument. Just by using your phone’s microphone, GuitarTuna can tune any guitar or bass in less than a minute. The free app gives you basic tuning functions, and the monthly subscription premium service gives you access to over 100 different tunings for 15 instruments. Add chord charts, ear training exercises and even games and you’ve got an app that should be equally handy for beginners and experts alike.

Pros:

Simple, easy-to-use tuning function
Beautiful user interface
Plenty of extra features beyond guitar tuning
Includes a free metronome

Cons:

Any tunings beyond standard are locked behind the premium monthly subscription
Free version can go overboard with advertisements
Limited storage for custom tunings

Price: Free, or $5 per month for premium features

App Store rating: 4.8

Band Mule

Solo musicians have it easy. If you’re in a band, you know how hard it can be to juggle each member’s personal commitments and find the time to rehearse and perform gigs. Luckily, Band Mule exists to help bandmates harmonize their schedules. Band Mule features a shared band calendar, private chat room and shared set lists. Each member can edit the calendar and add rehearsal times or block out dates they’re unavailable. Members can all edit and share their setlists, which are saved in PDF format for easy printing.

Pros:

Easy to learn tool for band organization
Allows MP3 uploads for setlists
Great for collaboration

Cons:

Infrequently updated
Some obvious basic functions, like “copy and paste” are missing

Price: Free

App Store rating: 4.5

Road Trip MPG

When it’s time to hit the road and go on tour, you have a completely new set of expenses to worry about. Fuel costs, vehicle maintenance and lodging all enter the equation once the show goes on the road. Road Trip by Darren Stone in the best app on the market to help you take the guesswork out of road trip costs. It will track your fuel economy, fuel costs, maintenance history and total trip costs. The app has detailed reporting for every trip you take so you and your bandmates can easily split costs accordingly.

Pros:

Precise mileage and fuel economy tracking
Expense tracking, trip tracking and reporting
Supports Metric, US, and Imperial distance units
Siri voice compatible
Advanced features include monthly and yearly cost estimates, currency conversion, distance-to-empty calculator and
import/export to CSV

Cons:

Missing photo option for paper receipts
Doesn’t sync to iPad

Price: 6.99

App Store rating: 4.9

When your music goes beyond passion and becomes an actual business, you have to start thinking about profits, expenses and even risk. While going on tour and playing in various venues might not seem like risky activities, there’s always the chance of an accident.

A misstep on stage can lead to property damage at a venue or even a member of the audience sustaining an injury. In such an event, you could be held liable for property costs or medical bills.

With Musician Insurance, you can get up to $1 million in coverage for bodily injury and third-party property damage. If you’re not a full-time musician, you can even get coverage on-demand. Only need insurance for a weekend? You can get policies that last for a week, a day or even a few hours.

Our readers have chosen Bandsintown as their number one app for musicians, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t open to second opinions. Which app is your personal favorite?

What’s your favorite app?
- Bandsintown
- Gigworks
- GuitarTuna
- Band Mule
- Road Trip MPG
- Other
- Vote
Show me the results

October 8, 2021

Our editorial content is intended for informational purposes only and is not written by a licensed insurance agent. Terms and conditions for rate and coverage may vary by class of business and state.

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The Best Apps for Professional Musicians in 2021

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Best overall: Bandsintown