A Stagelink Company · Confidential Strategy Brief
Working title — Stagelink Charts

The world's first all-access chart & click-track library for working entertainers.

A subscription platform that turns a 600-strong professional chart catalogue — seven-piece, in any key, with matched click tracks — into a recurring-revenue product, wired directly into the Stagelink ecosystem.

600
Charts at launch
7-pc
Full arrangements
Any key
On demand
3 tiers
Free · $29 · $49
01

The market, as it stands today

I scanned the field across the three things this product touches — chart catalogues, backing/click-track platforms, and performance apps. It splits cleanly into three camps, and not one of them does all three jobs for our audience.

Camp 1 — The Catalogues

Chart sellers

Go-Charts · PepperHorn · Horn Band Charts · Liam Hardwick · Major Score
  • Genuine pro arrangements for cover, function, cabaret, cruise & horn bands
  • Serve our exact audience — including ship guest-entertainers & tribute acts
  • Sold à la carte: pay per chart, pay again per key, pay again for a click track
  • No app, no playback, no unlimited access, no recurring relationship
£15–£40+ per single chart
Camp 2 — The Platforms

Track & sub services

MultiTracks.com · Loop Community · SongSelect
  • The subscription + app model already proven and scaled
  • Unlimited transposable charts & click tracks under one fee
  • Locked almost entirely to the worship / church vertical
  • Per-track economics get expensive fast (≈$1,200/yr for 30 songs a month)
$15–$100+/mo · tracks $8–$39 each
Camp 3 — The Containers

Performance apps

iReal Pro · OnSong · BandHelper · forScore
  • Excellent for organising setlists, transposing, running tracks live
  • iReal Pro: huge reach, any-key — but chord charts + synth band, not real parts
  • They hold your content — they don't supply a pro catalogue
  • Empty vessels waiting for someone to fill them with quality material
$14 once · or low monthly sub
The white space

The subscription model is proven — but only the church market has it. The secular working-entertainer world still buys charts one at a time, by hand, with no app and no library. Nobody has built the MultiTracks of the function-band, showband, cabaret and cruise world.

02

How we take the top of the market

We don't enter as "another chart shop." We enter as the category-defining platform — owning the model the catalogues never built and the content the apps never had. Four pillars.

I.Catalogue + model, fused

We pair a curated professional library with all-you-can-play subscription access. A single Go-Charts arrangement can cost more than a month of our service. For a working musician, that comparison ends the conversation.

II.The any-key engine

"Available in any key" is our headline weapon. Singers change keys constantly; competitors sell each key as a separate purchase. We make it a button. One chart, every key, instantly — plus the matched click track.

III.Built for our world, not the church

Pop, soul, swing, Motown, Latin, tribute, lounge, showband — the repertoire of real function and cruise work. The incumbents' content libraries simply don't speak this language.

IV.Distribution we already own

Stagelink's global talent network plus the TAD roster across Land and Cruise is a launch audience no competitor can match. We don't have to find the musicians — they're already in the building.

CapabilityCataloguesMultiTracksiReal ProStagelink Charts
Pro 7-piece arrangementsYesWorshipChords onlyYes
Any-key, one tapPaid re-buy3 keysYesYes
Matched click tracksAdd-onYesMIDIYes
Unlimited subscriptionNoYesOne-offYes
Secular / function repertoireYesNoYesYes
Integrated booking ecosystemNoNoNoYes
Built-in talent networkNoNoNoStagelink
A note on the name

I've used Stagelink Charts throughout to lean on Stagelink's brand equity and cross-sell. If you'd rather it stand alone as a subsidiary with its own identity, strong candidates:

ANYKEY · ENCORE · THE CHART ROOM · BANDSTAND · SETLIST

03

The product & pricing

Your structure — Free, $29, $49, with 20% off annual — is well-judged against the market. Here's how I'd package each tier so every step up sells itself.

Open Mic
the funnel — free forever
$0
 
  • Browse the full 600-chart catalogue
  • 5 starter charts, lead-sheet view, original key
  • In-app viewer + one saved setlist
  • Stagelink profile link
  • Designed to convert: they see everything they're missing
Resident
the solo MD, singer & bandleader
$29/mo
$278/yr — save 20% (≈$23/mo)
  • Unlimited access — all 600 charts
  • Any-key transposition engine
  • Matched click tracks, every song
  • Full 7-piece parts + rhythm/condensed
  • PDF download + multi-device viewer
  • Setlists, tempo & count-in control
Headliner
the band, showband & cruise act
$49/mo
$470/yr — save 20% (≈$39/mo)
  • Everything in Resident, for the whole band
  • Up to 7 shared seats + sub-player access
  • Click-track customisation: stems, cues, click on/off
  • Priority custom-key & new-arrangement requests
  • Offline mode for ships & weak signal
  • Stagelink sync: push setlists & EPKs to gigs

Recurring-revenue model

Illustrative only — move the sliders to pressure-test the model. Assumes a 70/30 split between Resident and Headliner subscribers and a blended annual-plan uptake.

Monthly recurring
Annual run-rate
Blended / user / mo
04

Cross-integration with Stagelink

This is the moat. A standalone chart library is a nice business. A chart library wired into where the work, the bookings and the talent already live is a category. The catalogues and platforms have no answer to this.

01 · IDENTITY

One login

A single Stagelink account opens Charts. Profiles, billing and roster data flow through once.

02 · BOOKING

Gig → setlist

An act booked through Stagelink lands with charts and click tracks already attached to the engagement.

03 · ROSTER

Sub-player ready

Need a dep? Grant a sub instant access to exactly the charts and keys for that show.

04 · EPK

Repertoire as proof

An act's live chart library becomes a credibility signal on their Stagelink EPK — sell the booking.

It also plugs straight into the wider TAD Operating System: the Routing Dashboard, ShoreMatch and the Cruise Avails hub all gain a new data point — what an act can actually play — and Charts becomes a recurring-revenue subscriber engine feeding the whole platform.

05

The build — desktop app & beyond

You asked for a full working desktop app. That's the destination, and it's very buildable — but it's a phased engineering effort, not a one-shot. Honest sequencing below so we ship value early and de-risk as we go.

Phase 0 — Now

Clickable prototype

I build a fully interactive demo of the platform — catalogue, any-key viewer, click-track player, pricing, the Stagelink tie-in — so you can see, click and show it before a line of production code. Deployable to a subdomain like your other tools.

~ this week, on request
Phase 1 — MVP

Web app + the 600

Catalogue, auth, Stripe subscriptions (Free/$29/$49 + annual), chart viewer with transposition, click-track playback, setlists. Web-first so it runs on any desktop or tablet day one. Built on the Airtable-backed infrastructure you already run.

the real launch product
Phase 2 — Native & live

Desktop & iPad performance mode

Packaged desktop app, offline library, foot-switch / hands-free page turns, on-stage click routing — the features ships and gigging bands need that live in BandHelper and Playback today.

post-MVP
Phase 3 — Network effects

Deep Stagelink fusion

Booking-to-setlist automation, sub-player sharing, EPK repertoire, and an arranger marketplace where vetted writers add charts and earn — turning the catalogue into a self-growing flywheel.

scale phase
06

Decisions & what I'd need

To move from proposal to prototype, a few calls from you and a few assets from the catalogue.

Your calls

  • Standalone brand, or "Stagelink Charts"?
  • Confirm tier names & the feature splits above
  • Free-tier generosity — 5 charts? a time-limited full trial?
  • Licensing posture on the catalogue (the one real risk — see note)
  • Build order: prototype first, or straight to MVP scoping?

Assets to point me at

  • A sample of the 600 charts (format: PDF? MusicXML? Sibelius/Finale?)
  • How keys are currently produced — engraved per key, or transposed live?
  • The click-track files & how they're generated
  • Catalogue metadata if it lives in Airtable already
  • Stagelink's current stack / where its data sits

One flag worth raising now: the only real risk in this model is publishing/mechanical licensing for arrangements of copyrighted songs sold by subscription. The à la carte sellers each handle this differently, and it's worth a clear position before scale. Not a blocker — but I'd build the licensing question into Phase 1 rather than discover it at Phase 3.