Side-Line has been online since 1999. Everything on it is free to read, and there’s no paywall. Keeping it online costs money every month, and that’s what this page is about.
Where the money goes
A donation pays for running the website: the server, the database, security and backups, and the licences for the software that keeps the site fast and online. That’s the whole list.
If you work at a label or in PR
You already know how this works. Sending us a release costs nothing, and it always has. There are more than 16,500 articles on the site, over 2,300 of them from the past twelve months, and not one of them was paid for.
Coverage isn’t for sale here. A donation doesn’t buy a review, a feature, priority in the inbox or a better slot on the homepage. You’ll get exactly what you got before. We’d rather say that plainly than take money from anyone who expects something in return.
So the ask is a simple one. If Side-Line is useful to you professionally, this is where you can put something back.
Donate
Monthly or one-off, whichever suits you. The amounts are deliberately small, so anyone can take part.
Payments are handled by PayPal.
Need an invoice?
Most companies can’t book a PayPal donation without paperwork. Mail info@side-line.com and we’ll send you an invoice or the bank details for a transfer.
Supporting the charity releases instead
Side-Line has funded charity projects since the site started, mostly through free download compilations that have also introduced a lot of bands to a wider audience. Those run separately from this page: you name your price on Bandcamp, and the proceeds go to the cause rather than to us.
Thanks for reading this far, and thanks to everyone who has already chipped in.
