How Much are Musicians Paying for Digital Music Distribution?
Editor’s note: This chart is a work in progress and we have made numerous corrections since publishing. If you have a correction, email and we will make it ASAP. A new version of this chart will be published in the coming weeks with more distributors, more information and greater accuracy. We appreciate your patience.
Editor’s Note: We have made a few corrections and apologize for the errors: (1) Ditto Music does mention they have an annual fee on their website, however we did not find the figure $20/year subscription fee mentioned by number, we had to contact their support team; (2) we listed ReverbNation’s monthly $19.95 subscription when we should have listed their $34.95/year distro only package; (3) we got ONERpm’s rates backwards, they have no annual fees but have a setup fee. If you find errors in this document email . It is a work in progress and we are always working to improve its accuracy. Current figures are based on research done on the marketing websites of each company.
TuneCore vs. CDBaby vs. OneRPM vs. Ditto Music vs. Indigo Boom vs. SongFlow vs. DistroKid vs. RouteNoute vs. Loudr vs. Mondotunes vs. ReverbNation
No wonder musicians are confused. No two digital distributors were created equal… not even close!
We compared pricing for the top 11 services distributing recordings to online retailers on behalf of independent musicians. The variety was striking. If you plan on making any significant revenue off your distribution, you’d better choose carefully, as fees can skyrocket over time.
Many of these platforms offer many other services besides digital distribution, adding significant value. Here, we focus only on the price of distributing one’s album.
(CC-BY-NC-SA) 2014
This information is completely false, as we do not charge annual fees for albums and never have.
We apologize for the error and have fixed our chart to reflect that you charge no annual fees, and a $39.99 setup fee for the ‘Essential’ distribution package.
Thank you for bringing this and any other issues you might have to our attention.
Looks like RouteNote is by far the best! Covers all major stores and cheapest.
But they also have a FREE model, which is by far the most popular in the world.
Zac
If you get in touch we can correct quite a lot of the information that is wrong or missing here.
Cheers
David
Thanks David, we are going to be sending a form around to each distributor because we have learned that when you collect data from marketing websites, you get lots of information that is wrong or missing. For example, Beats is listed in your ‘short list’ of distributors, but was never added to the “our digital stores” footer that appears throughout your site. That said, we take full responsibility for making this infographic 100% accurate and will quickly correct every error that is brought to our attention, in addition to being proactive and contacting each distributor to verify the information when the resources become available.
Hi Zac
You forgot an important one : Zimbalam !
We can provide you the information if you want.
Cheers
Zimbalam team
Thanks, we’ll be in touch in the coming weeks to get info for the next version of the infographic.
I think it’s a shame that you are missing Record Union! They are one of the cheapest, they have access to Beatport, and lots of artists rely on them.
Thanks Montoya, we will include the Record Union in the next version of this infographic, coming soon!
Zac-
finetunes Distribution has a musician digital distribution platform called Creative Talents. I will send you logo and all pertinent info. sen me your email address.
Would like to add Finetunes to the next version of the graphic. Thanks Ray, we’ll be in touch with you, or you can email us at
Hi Zac,
This is a great infograph and I’ve done a similar sheet some years ago, when I looked for a good partner for our now former download store. We ended up working with Record Union. I think you should also add some more European distributors along with Record Union, that is the new Finnish Music Kickup (http://www.musickickup.com), iMusician Digital (http://imusiciandigital.com/) and Phonofile (http://phonofile.com/).
Patriq,
Thanks so much for putting these services on your radar. Production on the new version of the infographic is underway, and I thank you for helping us expand and improve it!
Love this and love that is a work in progress. It’s a great resource for artists looking for distribution and is obviously getting the attention of the competing indie distributors too. That can only be a good thing! Keep it up!
You should also add on Symphonic Distribution!
You got it!