"Sold $600 on day one": Nigerian producer sells new EP to fans first, Kacto wants to turn it into a business

Kacto is an app built by two young Nigerians. Musicians use it to sell songs and beats that aren't on streaming yet to fans, paid in naira, with the platform taking 10%. It 11-06 showed up at #41 on Nigeria's App Store Music Top Grossing, which looks like traction. In reality it has only 79 ratings in total, and on that chart a handful of subscriptions can move it dozens of places. What's worth watching is its cold-start playbook and the gap for small local-currency presales.

A livestream by Oct 9

On Oct 9, 2026, Lagos producer HitSound (TikTok @hitsoundx, 168k followers) posted several videos in one day. The first: "Support Stray Appeal Collective today and grab our EP's exclusive presale, link in bio. 'NO INTRODUCTION' early on @kacto." A few hours later:

"Thank you all! We made $600 on day one! Let's push for a thousand."

That night, after the livestream, another post: "We hit our goal in the livestream. Nearly 800 boxes (about 800k naira) in total, enough to pay for promotion and the MV. Thanks to @kacto for supporting this direct-to-fan campaign."

Three days later, Oct 12, he posted the round's most-viewed video (15.9k views): "We did it! Thanks for making our presale happen. You gave us an MV and a promo budget." Another post that same day put it more bluntly: "Thank you all for investing in our Music IPO!"

The EP isn't due on streaming until Nov 13 (the release date given in his 10-29 and 11-06 videos). So fans paid more than a month early for "early listening," and the money went toward the MV and promotion. That is what Kacto sells.

What it actually is

The App Store description pitches a set of tools for musicians: a smart link per song, pre-save campaigns, fan list collection, bulk email to fans, click and listen data, and AI for copywriting and cover ideas. Western equivalents already exist (Feature.fm, Linkfire, Hypeddit), and Spotify and DistroKid offer free versions.

The one difference is Pay Drops. Musicians can post unreleased songs, beats, sample packs, and courses and set a price (typically around ₦6,646, about $5 locally). Fans pay in naira through Paystack or Flutterwave. The late-September 1.0.8 release also added bank payments in 14 African local currencies. Bandcamp and BeatStars only take US dollars and are hard to get paid through, so they've never worked well in Nigeria.

Pricing has two parts (kac.to/pricing, 11-06):

Paid Drops also take a 10% cut. Subscriptions in the app go through Apple and Google in-app purchase, the web goes through Stripe or Paystack; money fans pay for songs never touches Apple.

The company behind it, Kacto LTD, was registered in the UK in July 2026. Both directors are Nigerian: one born in 1998, the other in 2002.

How fast it's growing: it hasn't really taken off yet

Don't take a #41 Top Grossing rank seriously. The same day, the release app Boomkit U, with only 9 ratings, sat at #15, and BeatStars Studio, with 12 ratings, ranked #115. On Nigeria's Top Grossing Music chart, two or three subscriptions can move you dozens of spots. It only tells you that someone paid a subscription on iOS, not the scale. Conversely, fans buying songs with local payments never show up on this chart, so the real transaction volume is unknown.

Interest follows HitSound's curve: the early-October presale wave was the peak, and it's been declining since.

Where users come from

A top producer uses his own project as the showcase. The videos above are the entire "ad campaign." HitSound isn't just product placement: on Sep 7 @KactoApp announced its launch on X, and he reposted it the same day with "Let's go!"; on Oct 29 he wrote "My goal has always been simple: give artists a new way to express their art"; on Oct 30 he posted "This week alone I spent $3,000 on @kacto buying artists' songs. Don't stop at direct-selling to fans, this is the future of the music industry." From these, he looks more like a partner or someone deeply tied to the product than an ordinary paid influencer (inference, unverified). Whether the $3,000 was real buying or price support can't be verified.

Notably, the views: a Nov 3 video of him throwing a birthday party for a friend got 460K views, while his posts mentioning Kacto ranged from 1,600K to 16K. Celebrity traffic doesn't automatically become product traffic. What actually works are wins other musicians understand, like "$600 on day one" or "got an MV budget."

Content partner program. kac.to/partners recruits "people who make you stop scrolling" to create content, paid on a referral split. On Instagram there's a batch of Reels saying "Comment KACTO and I'll DM you the link," which are creators using comment-keyword auto-DMs to drive sales.

Every seller recruits for it. Artists selling songs on Kacto post things like "New EP Burn Time, early listen exclusive on Kacto, ₦6,646" and "Mr General is selling his songs on Kacto for $5." For sellers to get paid, they have to bring fans in, which is a natural loop for a two-sided platform, except there are still very few sellers.

Everything else is small. The official TikTok has 275 followers, with each video getting 600 to 1,600 views. A YouTube tutorial on "how to sell songs on Kacto and get paid fast" has 1,220 channel subscribers and 321 views. I found no sign of paid ads (the ad libraries I can access are incomplete, so I can only say I didn't see any).

Who it's competing with

Look at the features one by one and none of them are new. Kacto's only combination is "African local currency + paid exclusive early listens before streaming + fan marketing tools," priced at a tier local musicians can afford. I haven't seen anyone copying it yet.

Why it's managed this much traction

1. The pain point is real. Streaming payouts in Nigeria are very low, and musicians want to take money directly from fans. Until now there hasn't been a place designed for music that collects in naira.
2. Someone has already run it and posted results. One EP earned $600 on day one, and a livestream covered an MV budget. For other musicians, results like that persuade more than any feature list.
3. Framing presales as "Music IPO." Fans aren't buying a song, they're "investing" in the next MV of an artist they like. The story works well in grassroots music circles.

To be honest, it hasn't proven itself yet. How many sellers there are and how much they sell each month is unknown. At a 10% cut, $600 on day one leaves the platform only $60.

If it were you

The short verdict: the approach of "paid presales before streaming + local currency + a producer with a label as the showcase" is worth learning from, but Kacto hasn't yet shown this business can scale. Copying it means betting alongside them.

Who it suits: people already inside a music scene who know producers or labels with releases and fans; developers who know local payment rails in a country (M-Pesa, GCash, Pix, Indonesia's QRIS).

Who it doesn't suit: developers who know no musicians and hope store search will bring users. This kind of product has no organic traffic, and the first sellers come entirely through personal networks. If you're counting on subscription fees, think twice too: what local musicians can pay monthly is a few dollars.

How to do it:

• Don't copy it head-on in Nigeria, Kacto and HitSound's circles are already there. Look somewhere with low streaming payouts, widespread mobile payments and active grassroots music: Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil.
• The first version should do one thing: a paid "early listen" page, paid with local wallets, with downloads or online listening after payment, plus collecting buyer contacts. Smart links and AI copy can wait.
• Revenue comes from the cut first; subscriptions come once there are enough sellers.

How to get users: first find a producer with their own label and a quick EP coming out, and run the presale for him from start to finish, then have him post on TikTok about "how much sold on day one and how close the MV budget is." Then launch a referral program so music creators post short videos of "comment a keyword to get the link." Every seller is an entry point, and the first 20 sellers need hands-on help.

When this window closes: before local streaming platforms like Audiomack and Boomplay add "paid early listens" in your target market. They already have artists and fans, and once they add it, a small tool has no room (inference).

Signs you've misread it: the producer you chose runs one presale and can't sell a second time, or after two or three months, no new musicians come to you on their own beyond the sellers you recruited personally. That would mean fans will pay once to "support someone they know," but that's not a habit that lasts.