Music distribution
TuneCore pricing starts at $24.99 a year for unlimited releases, with none of your streaming royalties kept. It’s good value for a solo artist who wants YouTube Content ID included, and less so for bands, for anyone who might stop paying, or for anyone releasing once in a blue moon. The music distribution calculator shows how it stacks up for your own releases.
We haven’t used TuneCore and it doesn’t pay us. This page is based on TuneCore’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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rising Artist | $24.99 | None | None | Keeps 20% | 1 artist name |
| Breakout Artist | $44.99 | None | None | Keeps 20% | 1 artist name |
| Professional | $54.99 | None | None | Keeps 20% | 1 artist name (extra artists $14.99 a year each) |
| Pay Per Release | None | Single $24.99, EP $44.99, album $44.99; then single $24.99, EP $56.49, album $56.49 a year | None | Not confirmed | No limits |
Usually not. A single on Pay Per Release costs $24.99 a year to keep live. An album costs $44.99 the first year, then $56.49 a year. There’s no EP price, so an EP is billed as an album, and royalty splits need a yearly plan. Once you have more than one release out, Rising Artist works out cheaper.
In February 2024 TuneCore removed Benn Jordan’s music (he records as The Flashbulb) from Spotify and iTunes. After several emails, TuneCore told him it had detected “abnormal streaming activity”. Jordan said he saw nothing suspicious on his account. Fans piled pressure on TuneCore online, and it restored the music within a few days, saying an internal error had removed it before he was told.
It’s the same pattern seen at DistroKid: automated fraud checks hitting real artists first and asking questions later. Keep copies of everything, and be ready to push back in public if you have to.
Solo artists who release a few times a year and want Content ID without paying per release. If you have a second artist name on a tight budget, DistroKid’s Musician Plus usually costs less, and we run the numbers in DistroKid against TuneCore. More distributors are covered in our music distribution guides.
Yes. It’s an established distributor that delivers to Spotify, Apple Music and the other big services. The Benn Jordan case was an error TuneCore admitted and fixed.
Not of streaming and download royalties. It keeps 20% of social platform and YouTube earnings.
Not for the main streaming services. The cheapest option is Rising Artist at $24.99 a year.