Card Included Launches Out of Beta for Direct-to-Fan Download Cards

by Dave Mainella

Card Included is officially out of beta and on its feet, the self-serve download card service announced yesterday.  Card Included first appeared in beta earlier this year but with the official launch now offers several updated and enticing additional features.

Co-founders Nick and Tom Mango, who introduced us to direct-to-fan platform Limited Run, have designed a straightforward and unique download-card service that offers cheap and easily customized downloads.  Card Included provides a card template and guides a user through the process of uploading material, designing the cards, and creating a custom landing page.  The user receives a PDF of the cards that they can then print, and for those who prefer the paperless route, a text file containing download codes for email purposes.

Card Included now offers the option of lossless audio, which Tom Mango believes to be an important commodity in the digital music world. “Lossless audio is the future of digital music,” he explains. “If you’re not making the FLAC or ALAC available to fans, you’re doing it wrong.”

The official launch also includes better integration with a customer’s existing web presence.  While Card Included still provides a custom landing page, they also have developed the option of showing an overlay on top of a user’s webpage.  When a fan enters the URL code from the download card, they are directed to the artist’s webpage that displays an overlay offering the download; when the overlay closes, fans are left with the artist’s webpage.  And Card Included makes it easy for the artist.  All they have to provide is the URL to their website.

Card Included also announced their partnership with a PayPal alternative, Stripe, a credit card payment solution with competitive pricing.

Card Included continues to offer their own economically appealing rate of $0.01 per 20MB.  For example, ordering 250 cards of a 20MB download will cost only $2.50.  In hopes of enticing new users, and to again emphasize the importance of lossless audio, Card Included is giving a 20% discount to customers who upload in a lossless format.