DistroKid, CD Baby & TuneCore - Distributing Your Music in 2020

Gone are the days when the only way to distribute your music was by signing your soul (and artistic vision) over to a record label. With streaming services such as Spotify becoming the default means of consuming music, distributing your tracks has never been easier - and cheaper!

Here we compare some of the most popular services available to bands and solo artists in 2020

DistroKid

DistroKid was the first company to offer unlimited distribution of your music to sites like Spotify and Apple Music, for a small annual fee. The company was created by Philip Kaplan and started life as just a complementary product to the social network Fandalism.

Pros

• DistroKid does not take commission on your sales
• You can upload umlimited tracks
• Low annual price

Cons

• Lacking many of the features offered by the alternatives
• Addional fees for Shazam and Store Maximizer
• They remove all your music if you stop paying the annual fee

CD Baby

CD Baby is the largest digital distributor of music worldwide and was recently acquired for $200 million so you can certainly trust them to distribute your music to Spotify, Apple Music and others. The pricing structure CD Baby use is slightly different to DistroKid, with a one-off fee to distribute your album, and then CD Baby will take a cut of your comission as a service charge.

Pros

• If you do not release music very often, the one off pricing makes CD Baby very appealing
• Also offer physical distribution of vinyl and CDs

Cons

• You might begrudge paying out 9% commission for your music, especially if you have a larger fanbase
• 30% commission for YouTube distribution is a high price, but can be worth it
• Terms and Conditions are quite confusing and it can be difficult to know exactly what you will be paying for

TuneCore

TuneCore has been around since 2005 and is another industry standard platform for distributing your music to Spotify, Apply Music, Deezer, Amazon Music and Google Play.

Pros

• Excellent reporting and analytics of your plays
• Also offer publishing services to help you collect royalties

Cons

• Slightly more expensive than the competitors