I have found lots of digital distributors and am in panic now. Too many options! What do you guys use?

 

http://aristake.com/?post=92

 

i have used tunecore , onerpm and believedigital so far. im pleased with all of them. anyway, i had never heard of many you put on your list. but i believe the major ones are very solid.

 

Thanks, it helps!

 

I always used Catapult Distribution. One single payment (no yearly fee), payout via Paypal every month even if it's a few cents.
http://www.catapultdistribution.com/

Latest album I used Distrokid who were super easy and fast. Used them after reading many good reviews - time will tell on that one.

 

Distrokid.

 

little old already,
I'm currently using routenote and all his finding are wrong inaccurate at this moment

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2018

Care to elaborate?

 

RouteNote Review:

BEST:

• Strong in Asian markets - namely China
  
• Internal playlist pluggers
  
• No fees whatsoever (depends on the "plan" you choose, see spoiler below taken from their website )
• No payment splitting

WORST:

• Revenue and analytics reports. No clear interface to see your reports - you have to download a CSV file and work Excel magic.
  
• Distribution speed - require 3-4 weeks lead time typically
• (moderation by routenotecan did only take up to a week for me so far, the rest is up the shops. If you select a date earlier then 4 weeks your release wont drop simultaniusly in all shops, however Playstore/itunes/deezer/spotify quite match up.)
  
• No admin publishing partner to help collect songwriter royalties.
  
• 15% commission (again depends on the plan)
  
• 
  
• No daily trending reports

Spoiler: premium

RouteNote Premium
Perfect for an artist with an established fan base
With our Premium Distribution plan you get everything that makes our free service great and a whole deal more! For a small upfront cost you keep 100% of the royalties. Our distribution plans are designed to ensure you have total control and flexibility, ensuring the cheapest per product distribution available.
What will Premium Cost ?
Artists keep 100% of royalties
Singles $10
EP $20
Album $30
Extended Album $45

Noting bad too say? well yes,
the free plan only supports high quality mp3's, in 44000. I didn't even know that was a thing but it is
nowadays I ussually downsample a high quality wav while I make it mp3.

And if the song you uploaded gets picked out by the system,because it has copyright infrigement or inregularities. (like silences at the biginning/end or low overall volume)

you'll have too wait on human moderation instead of a a automatic system reports back to you.
which can take another day or 2, re-sending then again has some moderation time. Which add up in the end.


Edit:

One big plus he also doesn't touch on is this Artist Lock-in
I refuse to sign up for money to get my royalties, so paymen splitting is actually a bad thing.
It is getting abused for marketing

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2018

Not sure how much of a help this is, I was using RouteNote (as a free user) till last December then shifted to Distrokid (for a minimum annual subscription fee), found the latter to be much better for my needs (in terms of faster uploads to various digital platforms or taking care of any copyright claims when it comes to use of images for cover arts).

Cheers!

 

Thanks @Kwissbeats !

I don't think that that's a bad thing, I would never go under six weeks to get everything on order in advance. You want preoders, don't you

That drives me nuts as well. Soundcloud monetization for 5% share? My ass! But ok, there's no other way to get your money so you'll have to bite the bullet...

 

Bandcamp is where I'm moving my labels now.

 

Stem:

• Spotify
• Apple Muisc/ iTunes
• Deezer
• Saavn
• Tidal
• Pandora
• Shazam
• YouTube Content ID
• YouTube Art Tracks
• Amazon
• Google Play

 

Not really a distributor but very interesting, you can earn Steam when people like your music:

https://dsound.audio/

 

Those are not digital distributors.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 29, 2018

I use Tunecore because my old release were on Zimbalam and they sign some partnership, but they are expensive.
I try cdbaby for a friend's release recently and it seems to be good, it was on itune in just a week (even maybe less), not very expensive but I'm not sure if you pay only once or if it's an annual fee like Tunecore

Also I use Awal when I want to put free track on Spotify and other streaming plateform, it's free (but they take some % on your sells and stream) so it's the best option for track that I don't sell (maybe if I hit more than 100 000 play for each track it will not be that great anymore). This one is harder to get on, as they do some kind of selection.

 

I just posted the supported platforms of Stem which is a distributor

 

If you are into EDM or other electronic music I am sure you want to be listed on Beatport as well, only a few support Beatport thats one of my main decision arguments.

For example Distrokid does not support Beatport