Music distribution
Free music distribution gets your music onto Spotify, Apple Music and the other big services without a fee upfront. The distributor keeps part of your royalties instead: RouteNote’s free plan keeps 15% of what your music earns. That makes it the cheapest option while you earn little and one of the dearest once you earn more, so put your own releases into the music distribution calculator before you pick.
A yearly plan costs the same however much you earn, while a free plan’s cut grows with every stream. This is the point where each cheap yearly plan starts costing less than the cut:
Once your music earns more than about $127 a year (roughly 3,100 streams a month), Ditto Music’s Starter plan costs less than giving away 15%.
| Paid plan | Yearly fee | Cheaper than a 15% cut once you earn more than | That’s roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ditto Music Starter | $19.00 | $127 a year | 3,100 streams a month |
| Too Lost Artist | $19.99 | $133 a year | 3,300 streams a month |
| UnitedMasters DEBUT+ | $19.99 | $133 a year | 3,300 streams a month |
| Amuse Artist | $23.99 | $160 a year | 3,900 streams a month |
| LANDR Distribution Basic | $24.00 | $160 a year | 3,900 streams a month |
| DistroKid Musician | $24.99 | $167 a year | 4,100 streams a month |
| TuneCore Rising Artist | $24.99 | $167 a year | 4,100 streams a month |
The cheapest music distribution depends on how often you release and how much you earn. For an artist putting out six singles and an EP a year, it’s currently Ditto Music’s Starter plan, at $57 over three years. For someone just starting out, it’s RouteNote’s Free plan, at $23 over three years. For a band with royalty splits and YouTube Content ID, it’s Too Lost’s Label plan, at $108 over three years.
| Example artist | Cheapest | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting out 2 singles a year, earning about $50 a year |
RouteNote
Free plan, $23
|
Soundrop
Pay per track plan, $52
|
Ditto Music
Starter plan, $57
|
| Releasing regularly 6 singles and an EP a year, earning about $600 a year |
Ditto Music
Starter plan, $57
|
Too Lost
Artist plan, $60
|
UnitedMasters
DEBUT+ plan, $60
|
| Band or small label 8 singles and 2 albums a year across 3 artist names, earning about $4,000 a year, with royalty splits and YouTube Content ID |
Too Lost
Label plan, $108
|
Amuse
Artist Pro plan, $180
|
SoundCloud
Artist Pro plan, $297
|
Those totals are fees and cuts. They don’t show everything that can cost you later:
Pick from the top few, then check those five things. Our list of other distributors worth weighing up goes through the main options, and the rest of our music distribution guides cover each one in turn.
Of the distributors we track that anyone can join, RouteNote is the only one with a free plan that reaches Spotify and Apple Music, and it keeps 15%. TuneCore, Amuse and UnitedMasters no longer offer free plans that deliver to the main streaming services. Nobody charges no fee and takes no cut: every one does one or the other, or both.
CD Baby, Soundrop and iMusician’s Starter and Rockstar plans charge once per release. RouteNote Premium charges per release too, plus a yearly renewal if you want to keep all your royalties.
Yes. RouteNote lets you move each release between its free and Premium plans. Moving to a different distributor means uploading again with the same ISRC codes, and our guide on moving a catalogue without losing streams walks through it.