Music distribution
Our RouteNote review in one line: it’s the best place to start if your music earns very little, and it gets expensive once it doesn’t. Its Free plan gets you onto Spotify and Apple Music with nothing to pay upfront and keeps 15% of your royalties instead. The music distribution calculator shows the point where paying becomes cheaper.
We haven’t used RouteNote and it doesn’t pay us. This review is based on RouteNote’s published prices and terms (checked 27th October 2026) and on independent news reports.
| Plan | Yearly fee | Per release | Royalty cut | YouTube Content ID | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | None | None | 15% | Keeps 15% | No limits |
| Premium | None | Single $10, EP $20, album $30; then single $9.99, EP $9.99, album $9.99 a year | None | Included | No limits |
You can move each release between the two. If you stop renewing a Premium release, it drops back to Free and stays live. That’s the best thing about RouteNote: nothing gets taken down because you missed a payment.
Premium is worth it once the Free cut on a release would be bigger than its yearly renewal. In practice, keep your quiet tracks on Free and move the ones that keep earning.
We found no independent news reports of artists’ problems with RouteNote as of 29 October 2026. There are complaints on review sites, as there are for every distributor, but we couldn’t verify them. Like the others, RouteNote removes releases its moderation team rejects, so make sure your rights and artwork are clean.
New artists, side projects and anyone releasing occasionally without much income yet. Start on Free, then switch your best earners to Premium. If you release a lot, a yearly plan will cost less. More options are in our music distribution guides.
RouteNote vs DistroKid is really free-with-a-cut against a flat fee. RouteNote Free costs nothing upfront and keeps 15% of your royalties; DistroKid charges $24.99 a year and keeps none. So RouteNote is cheaper while you earn little and DistroKid once you earn more. Premium sits in between: with a few releases it’s cheap, with lots, DistroKid’s single fee for unlimited releases wins.
Pick RouteNote if you’re starting out, release now and then, or want your back catalogue safe even if you stop paying. Pick DistroKid if you release often, or your music already earns enough that the cut costs more than the fee. Its fees are on our DistroKid pricing page.
Yes, there’s nothing to pay upfront. You pay through the 15% it keeps. Our free music distribution page shows when that beats a paid plan.
Yes. It delivers to the same stores on both plans, including Spotify and Apple Music, and we found no news reports of artists going unpaid.
Yes. Upload to DistroKid with the same ISRC codes, then remove the RouteNote versions. Our guide on how to switch distributors has the order of steps.