25 creative music merch and physical music ideas for Artists & Bands

Sometimes, this digital era of streaming platforms and seemingly everything being about social media can make us forget about that wonderful, physical thing we can place into the hands of our fans — merchandise. The day of music merch is far from done: the global music merchandise market was worth $13.4 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $16.3 billion by 2030, according to research.

If you haven’t started selling your band merch yet or need some creative ideas to jazz up your music store and go beyond the same old tees and hoodies, this Headliner guide is here to give you 25 creative music merch ideas. We’ll be looking at exciting innovations in the physical music world, offering alternatives to CDs and vinyl, apparel, and quirky merch ideas. Last but not least, we will explore the burgeoning world of digital music merch. That’s right — non-physical merch that can be much cheaper to produce, and no boxes of t-shirts to store in your loft.

Physical music

1. Smart Formats

An exciting music merch innovation from recent years that you need on your radar is the development of smart formats. If you’re wondering what on Earth that means, let us explain. Smart formats are physical merch, but come equipped with an NFC tag. In other words, your fan will receive a fun bit of merch from you, like a sticker set, a patch, or a pin badge, and the attached NFC tag lets your beloved fan unlock the digital content you equip it with.

For example, when you release your EP or album, you could do a smart format release with one of these music merch ideas. The key to selling these is to include your new music, but also exclusive, bonus digital content that can only be found on the smart format. That could be unreleased demos, bonus tracks, a voice note thanking your fans, and more. The leading companies spearheading this music merch innovation are Serenade, KiTbetter, ETRNL, and Key Production. Several of these companies also offer fun things like mini vinyl records and mini CDs as smart formats.

2. Limited-edition USB drives

This is a fun, creative band merchandise idea that several artists have used over the years. If you’ve got a load of demos, song ideas in voice memos, unreleased songs, and music from projects that didn’t take off, here’s a more financially astute idea than just clumping those songs straight on Spotify as a B-sides album. Curate an EP or album’s worth of unreleased material, and stick it on a series of limited edition USB sticks that you can sell on your website. You could personalise the package nicely by signing the stick, maybe include a few stickers, or even a handwritten note or card.

3. The classics: CDs, vinyl, tapes

It would be remiss not to mention the original music merchandise, the music itself. While it’s great to get creative and sell quirky music merch, it’s still important to honour physical music. The good news, and you’d need to be living in a cave with no devices to not know this, is that physical music is still enjoying a wonderful renaissance. There are legions of passionate vinyl and record collectors out there. The big, beautiful, physical LPs continue to be en vogue, and long may it continue. And with many music fans tiring of just consuming music through Spotify, Apple Music, and the rest, CDs and cassette tapes have also made a big comeback. Help keep record stores alive and sell your music physically!

Beyond the music: quirky music merch ideas

4. Album companion books and journals

You needn’t be a novelist to sell books as a creative music merch idea. Hayley Williams just launched her new album (which is a brilliant case study in releasing an album in a creative way, perhaps the topic of another article), and one of the accompanying bits of merchandise is a book of photographs of Hayley Williams herself, taken around the making of the record. Other ideas besides photography are a place to have your lyrics, maybe your own writing about the album process, and you could even share journal entries from the time. If you worked with an artist or illustrator for the music’s cover art, you could showcase more of their work in the book, too. A good few music artists have also had success selling their own journals, for reflective fans who love to do their morning pages and get their thoughts out onto paper.

5. Sheet music and guitar tab books

Keeping it for the bookworms, another unique music product idea is selling your guitar tabs if you’re a strummer, or sheet music if your music involves piano or another instrument, in a book. Far more exciting than just offering the tabs and sheets as digital downloads. Get them designed beautifully, and they will fly off the shelves. Encourage fans to share videos of themselves playing along.

6. Magazines

Ever wanted your own magazine? Now you can, with the vehicle of your music. Canadian band Softcult are a fantastic example, offering fans their SCripture Zine, which can be bought as individual issues or via a SubSCription (fantastic branding by the duo!). The zine features their poetry, lyrics, artwork, and fans can submit their own writing to be featured.

7. Bundle it up

There’s a very good reason you’ll see the most established artists offering merch bundles when it’s album release time. Simply put, it helps maximise profits from an EP or album release. When you drop physical music, t-shirts, and other merch specifically for the release, don’t just offer the items to be sold individually. Offer price tiers of bundles, for example, the new CD with the t-shirt, socks, and what-have-you. Then the more expensive tier above that could be, say, the vinyl, CD, t-shirt, and more.

8. Mystery merch box

Speaking of bundles! A very fun music merch idea many artists and bands have used successfully is creating a mystery merch box. You can fill it with lots of the merch ideas listed here — cards, socks, stickers, patches, and more. This idea also has scope to be a subscription, if you think you can stick to it. If a monthly subscription sounds too intense, you can always make it a quarterly thing.

9. Food, glorious food (and drink)

Have you noticed that quite a lot of music artists these days have their own hot sauce? Ed Sheeran’s is even available in UK supermarkets. Snow Patrol, whose music is not overly spicy, also have a hot sauce. Brands sometimes collaborate with artists on this front; for example, Manchester-based Lou’s Brews have made sauces for metal bands Bring Me The Horizon and Rolo Tomassi.

Love the idea of foodie merch, but don’t want it to burn your mouth? Norwegian pop singer Aurora had her own chocolate bar at one point, and singer-songwriter Lucy Rose also has her own chocolate currently. She even used to sell her own tea blend and jam preserves at gigs. If you’re a beer lover, lots of bands and artists have also collaborated with breweries like Signature Brew.

10. Candles

These are great examples of creative band merchandise ideas where you can justifiably charge more. Use artisan wax (soy-based if you want to be kind to bees) and stunning scents, and your fans will love you for it. And encourage them to share photos and videos of themselves listening to your record by candlelight.

11. Framed artwork and music video stills

Aurora, who is a bit of a music merch queen, gets another shout-out here. On her official store, you can buy framed stills from some of her incredible music videos. And that’s only one way to approach framed art — you can also sell photography of yourself (or your own if you enjoy a bit of that), album covers, tour posters, and much more. Again, you can comfortably justify high pricing here.

12. Keyrings

So simple yet effective. While not a big ticket item like some of the above, price-wise, it’s a brilliant business idea to sell a range of low and high-priced items. And even though keyrings won’t pay off your mortgage, they are lovely little marketing tools. Your fans will constantly see it whenever they grab their keys to remember to listen to your music, and it might get their friends talking and boarding your music train also.

13. Patches

A wonderful example of wearable merch, your fans can promote you and your music just by attaching a patch to a jacket or backpack and wearing it out and about. You can use your logo, a recognisable symbol, or a small version of your album artwork or something related.

14. Stickers

Creative band merchandise ideas needn’t be a sticky business! Stickers are such a fun and simple way to make affordable merch for your fans, who, in turn, give you free promo when they place your stickers on their laptops and around the house. If you’re not at a point where you’re already making income from music merch, there is an argument to give your music stickers away for free at gigs and elsewhere, as the promotional benefits may outweigh giving them out for free. It helps word of mouth, and the receiver of the sticker will remember to stick your music on. Go with your gut on this one.

15. Fridge magnets

Imagine if every time your fans went to the fridge to grab a snack, they were reminded of you and your music? Fridge magnets are cheap to produce, and you can get a nice markup on price on these, and you can come up with loads of varieties.

Wearable music merch

16. The original merch: t-shirts and apparel

While it’s wonderful to get your thinking cap on for creative band merchandise ideas, don’t sleep on what many consider the definitive piece of music merch: the band tee. There’s a good reason many artists sell an abundance of varieties of t-shirts on their websites. And having them on a merch table at your shows is super important. I’m sure you’ll have been to a gig and seen people flocking around the merch area throughout the night; just imagine what kind of profit the artists are driving at those big shows where merch sales steadily continue throughout the night.

Hoodies and jumpers are another go-to when it comes to music merch apparel, and demand a higher price tag. And besides the money, t-shirts and hoodies turn your fans into walking billboards for your music, and are great word-of-mouth conversation starters. But, profit margins aside, music fans absolutely love them, and that is a lovely, wholesome thing. BBC’s music station 6 Music does an annual music t-shirt day where listeners text in to say which artists’ t-shirts they’re sporting — this could be you one day!

17. Beyond the tee: creative apparel ideas

While t-shirts, followed by hoodies, are the go-to in terms of wearable music merch ideas, they are certainly not the be-all and end-all. Socks are a great one (and cheaper to create than the tees), hats and beanies are also a great shout. But the world is your oyster here. How about ties? Pyjamas and robes? Comfy slacks? Underwear?! A great way to approach this is to think about what clothing you’d love to see your favourite artists offer, and then do it yourself!

18. Dropshipping

This music merch idea is more about stocking and distributing — in fact, it’s a method that means you don’t have to do either. Dropshipping is a service offered by many companies, and long story short, these companies will take a design for a piece of merchandise like a t-shirt, then print and send each tee on demand to the purchaser for you via their warehouse. The huge benefit here is you don’t have to worry about keeping a load of t-shirts of different sizes somewhere at home, as this is all done for you per order. This is typically offered for clothing like t-shirts, hoodies, and more, but some companies do offer other items. The only downside is that this service is less handy if you want to have merch to sell at your gigs.

Companies such as Printify offer print on demand services, which means you don't have to hold stock. These can work in tandem with e-commerce platforms such as Shopify.

19. Tote bags

Another fairly classic piece of music merch at this point, but still a great one. Tote bags are very hip and trendy, and sticking your name, logo, and other art connected to your music is a brilliant opportunity to have your fans wear your name around town.

A few more cute physical music merch ideas

20. Paper trail

Music fans love paper-based items like cards, postcards, bookmarks, and more. And these are another lovely example of super cheap items that you can justify a nice price markup on once your music artwork, logo, lyrics, and whatever else you deem fit to go onto them. One more note on postcards — you can even have your fans sign up for your postcard list and send them physical mail. Much cuter than a digital mailing list! Alternative country artist Rae Isla does this to great effect. Whether you charge for this or use it for marketing purposes is down to you.

21. Mugs

If you’re still struggling to find the right music merch idea for you, don’t be a mug! As approximately 99% of your fans likely drink tea, coffee, or herbal infusions, take the opportunity to get mugs into your music merch store.

22. Reusable water and hot drinks bottles

On that subject, lots of the lovely music fans out there with an eye on enjoying life and music with sustainability in mind will opt for buying reusable water bottles and keep cups for hot drinks to reduce the amount of plastic they buy. You certainly wouldn’t be the first music artist to turn this into a creative band merchandise idea — and Mother Earth will thank you for it. For general sustainability for all the items in this list, be sure to look out for merch providers who use recycled and/or organic materials. Thankfully, they’re very easy to find these days, and there’s no need for your music merch to have a negative impact.

Exploring digital merch ideas

23. One-off ticketed music experiences

Who says music merch has to be physical? When the 2020 pandemic cancelled all the scheduled music tours, music artists had to figure out ways to replace that income online. Some elements of that digital merch have remained. There are platforms such as Moment, which allow you to premiere video content — this could be a gated experience for a new video, or a live performance; this could either be a previous show you had filmed, or a brand new live video.

A brilliant example gives another shout-out to Aurora, who used Moment to accompany her album The Gods We Can Touch with an online ticketed event, A Touch of the Divine. It was something of a short music film, or perhaps a high-art, extended music video with ambitious dance choreography starring the singer herself. Tickets were also sold as an upsell for the Q&A with Aurora, which followed the premiere.

24. Patreon

Some of you may be raising your eyebrows at the notion of Patreon being music merch. But the platform has become such a key player in this digital age of streaming platforms not paying artists that it has to be mentioned. Patreon was founded by musician Jack Conte when the idea came to create a subscription model to fill the huge income gap musicians and other creatives were facing.

Once your Patreon page is set up, the idea is essentially that fans sign up to pay a monthly or annual subscription in return for exclusive content from you. As a musician, that could be unheard demos, new song premieres, behind-the-scenes videos, live streams, Q&As, and lots more. Many Patreon creators offer different pricing tiers, with more exclusive perks for the higher tiers. Patreon may not be a band t-shirt, but it has caused a huge, fundamental shift in the world of creatives getting fair compensation for their work.

25. Song stems, guitar tabs, sheet music

We’re barely scratching the surface of all the things you could cross over from the physical music merch world into digital music merch ideas. But another solid idea is that you can offer the stems of your songs from your DAW sessions to be bought and downloaded online for those budding fans who’d love to have a go at remixing your tracks. We mentioned guitar tabs and sheet music earlier, but if turning those into paper and hardback books sounds like too much hassle, you can simply offer them as paid downloads online, and of course, it saves you quite a bit of money on production costs.