Booking platforms compared: gigmit, Backstage PRO — or ask the club directly?

Three routes lead to gigs beyond your own circle of friends: gigmit, Backstage PRO and an email straight to a club's booking contact. Backstage PRO and the email cost nothing. You can use gigmit for free as well, but only PRO lets you apply to every listing there, at 228 euros a year plus VAT on the annual plan.

The bigger difference is who is looking. On gigmit, festivals, contests and promoters from many countries post listings. On Backstage PRO it is mostly clubs, associations and bands in Germany looking for an act for one night. The email also reaches venues that never post anywhere. Both platforms are German, and the prices below are the ones on their German pages.

What does gigmit PRO cost?

gigmit PRO comes with two terms. The annual plan costs 228 euros, shown on the pricing page as 19 euros a month, and is billed a year in advance. On the monthly term PRO costs 79 euros a month. VAT comes on top of both: gross that is 271.32 euros a year or 94.01 euros a month. gigmit's terms state that they address businesses only, within the meaning of §§ 14 and 310 (1) of the German Civil Code (BGB).

If your band is based in Germany and uses the small-business rule (Kleinunternehmerregelung), you cannot reclaim input VAT, so the VAT stays with you and the gross amount is the one that counts. What the rule means is explained in Taxes for bands in Germany. The monthly plan is cheaper for up to two months. Three months cost 282.03 euros gross, more than a whole year on the annual plan.

A worked example with round, invented numbers: you pay the annual plan gross and get three gigs a year through gigmit. Each of them then carries 90.44 euros of membership fee. With ten gigs it is 27.13 euros a night. Put that figure next to the fee and next to what the night costs you in fuel, backline hire and food on the road.

Cancelling gigmit PRO: notice period and renewal

Notice is due 14 days before the end of the contract year. Without it, the annual plan renews automatically for another year, and the next 228 euros plus VAT are billed in advance. The monthly plan has the same notice period before the end of each contract month.

Cancellation has to be in text form: an email to cancel@gigmit.com sent from the address you registered with (section 5.4 of the terms), or in your account under “Mitgliedschaft verwalten” (manage membership). All PRO features stay active until the end of the paid term. Put the date in your calendar when you book: book on 1 March, and the contract year ends at the end of February, so your notice belongs in the first half of February.

Is gigmit worth it for small bands?

The free profile (FREE) gets you an artist page, which gigmit calls an electronic press kit, and lets you apply to a limited selection of gigs. How limited, gigmit's pages do not say. In a blog post of 18 January 2024 gigmit wrote that 90 percent of the gigs on the platform went to PRO users. The current pages do not repeat that figure.

Whether PRO pays off depends on how many listings fit you. On 13 September 2026 the homepage showed listings from Bonn, Magdeburg and Saalfeld, alongside Manchester, Zagreb and Mombasa. If you mostly play in your own region, count the listings within your reach and your genre for four weeks. Then run the example above.

What gigmit does well is the applying itself. PRO can apply for you automatically to listings that match your genres and locations. Before every contract offer you see all terms and the total cost in one overview. The database of more than 21,000 festivals and venues supplies contacts for requests you write yourself; it is part of PRO as well.

Is Backstage PRO free?

Yes. According to its FAQ, signing up and using the platform are completely free; ads and promoted content are available on top. In its terms of use the operator, Leitmotiv Online Medien GmbH & Co. KG in Mannheim, reserves the right to introduce paid offers later.

Listings come from clubs, associations and promoters, and also from bands looking for a support act for their own show or offering a gig swap. Applications go through the platform only: the editors remove listings that point to an outside email address. For some posters the overview shows reviews and the number of gigs they have booked.

On 13 September 2026 the first three pages of the booking overview held 30 listings. None offered a fixed fee. Seven named a door deal, seven an expense allowance, four each a negotiable fee or a donation box. Six had the fee still open, and two offered no fee. Seven had the “Kosten/P2P” (costs, pay-to-play) field filled in, three of them with a minimum ticket purchase.

The overview can be filtered for “Keine Kosten, kein P2P” (no costs, no pay-to-play). How to recognise pay-to-play elsewhere is covered in Pay-to-play.

Asking the club directly: when an email beats both platforms

A platform shows what someone has posted there. An email reaches every venue whose booking address you can find, including one that never posts a listing. It costs no fee and ties you to no term.

Email is the better route when you already know where you want to play: a club that books your style, a venue where friends' bands have played, a tour through particular cities. If you first want to find out who is looking for bands right now, listings show you exactly that. The price of the email is time: finding addresses, checking the venue still hosts shows, writing each request on its own and following up once.

What a request that gets answered looks like is in Finding gigs.

What Produser does for the direct route

Produser is our own product; what we say about it comes from us, and what we say about gigmit and Backstage PRO comes from their pages. Produser does not book gigs, and we earn nothing from your fee. For the direct route we keep a directory of venues that is open without an account: places where concerts happen regularly, with a website and a genre profile. On 13 September 2026 it listed 93 in Germany; the list below is recounted on every page load.

Booking addresses and phone numbers, where we have them, are shown in the portal after you sign in. From there a request goes out as a single email from your band's booking address to one venue, and the reply lands with you; each email is sent with its own click. The portal is in early access: we set up each band by hand, the first three months cost nothing, and prices will be announced before they apply.

The short version

gigmit PRO costs 228 euros a year or 79 euros a month, plus VAT in both cases, and renews automatically unless you give notice 14 days ahead. With the free profile you can only apply to a limited selection of gigs. Backstage PRO is free; read the fee and “Kosten/P2P” before every application. An email to the club costs time and also reaches venues that post nowhere. Count the listings that fit you for four weeks before you pay for a platform.