Let's talk about an insidious topic...shall we compare main digital distributors?

Ok, some premises just before start:
1) nobody (relatively) use minor stores as deezer, tidal or even unknown names, comparing apple music, spotify and youtube, top 3. So we won't talk about spreading music to any possible and imaginable stores, let's consider all these distributors equal in this aspect.
2) All this distributors offers different types of services depending on how much you're going to spend. If you spend a million bucks each months, they're going to do almost anything for you
3) Now a days, nobody will definitly buy music, unless you are my grandfather or a bieberer. There are people still buy vinyl but we are going to ignore them in our topic.

I'd like to analyze the following aspect:
1) type of contract and costs
2) statistics
3) speeding of uploading music to stores and troubles with them
4) payments of your streams

NOW VOTE! It's your turn bro!

My opinion & experience
Personally I haven't any experience with tunecore and iMusician, so I'm going to tell to you my experience with cd baby and distrokid.
CD BABY
1) I made 1-release contract. I spent 15$ + 5$ of barcode, provided by CdBaby.
2) very accurate, I can see all my streams without any limitation of time.
3) We chose to release our song after 2 weeks so i don't know. We niticed problems in spotify account registration. We had to contact cd baby to configure another artist account.
4) Commissions are high, but the service is affidable. You can't split your incomes to collaborators.
DISTROKID
1) i made an annual contract, I spent 20$ for unlimited releasing with 1 artist (+feats). I'm looking for an upgrade to professional user (2 artist for each release). Songs are registered automatically to "distrokid label". If you want to avoid this just upgrade the account.
2) not so much accurate with my account
3) really fast (2 days to upload a song to stores). No trouble in account linking
4) They offer the possibility of splitting incomes. This was the reason we decide to move to distrokid. (The following is just a rumor!I don't know exactly but it seems like this) The problem is that if you delete your annual plain or delete your account, then your music will be deleted from the stores.

Hoping we can share more infos about this services, so if anyone wants, tell us your experiences!

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2018

i need the info as well, i am going to release two new songs this september

 

Hi!I have used only Distrokid until now and i can say i am happy with it.The details about your tracks maybe aren't so good.You can see the money you gain after 2 months but they pay always in time.You mentioned that if you delete your account they delete your tracks from the stores which sounds bad and didn't know that.
I will add 2 things (but not so important).They have some kind of collaboration with Spotify and you get your tracks there really fast.Also you get verified immediately and recently they added an option to put the lyrics of your song.Now something for the new members.If you create an account but still don't buy any plan,when you go back at their site after 1-2 days they offer you a sale.So my plan was 20$ but finally i paid only 13$ for the whole year and unlimited tracks.

 

Yeah man, it's just a rumor, i don't know exactly!

Thanks for your contribute!

 

Highdom, thanks for starting and interesting thread showing how you can promote discussion and information at the same time.
total opposite to idiot trolls spamming cheap infantile "drama"..

 

Thanks man, II think it's really important now a days to know something more about digital music spreading

Ok guys it seems we are all in distrokid LOL...Anyone has something to say about TuneCore?

 

Yo man, this is incredible!

 

@fraifikmushi, awesome chart! Getting ready to do a release so that'll come in handy!
To save myself hours of googling, can anyone outline the commission aspect? Please forgive, @Highdom, really not intending to hijack this thread!

 

Thank you for this thread. Sorry for my stupid question. Before i take a service like distrokid do i have somewhere to register as artist so i own the rights of my music. Or is that included in the distrokid account !?

 

Read the entire post by Ari. It's an interesting read.
https://aristake.com/post/cd-baby-tunecore-ditto-mondotunes-zimbalam-or

 

yeah, very useful
Highly recommended!

You're welcome. When you upload and register a new track to distrokid it'll ask you to select (or even create) spotify/apple music account.

 

never ever use Ditto worst service and most expensive. I have good experience with Emubands

 

So having an apple music account is enough ? Or do i need a record label first....i am quite confused

 

No label required to create apple music artist account, man!

 

I used a variety of companies before I even got to distrokid. I done CDBaby, Tunecore and a few others and over the years and the yearly cost per single and album was killing me especially when i was doing to much sales for the year. 2 years ago I found out about Distrokid. I can put out as much music I want for $20 a year was steal. Since I'm with BMI I do all my own paperwork. And every few months they been adding things no other are doing like verified Spotify accounts.

 

I have been using this lately, which I think gives your more bang for the bucks:

https://www.fanraizd.com

Unlimited ISRC codes, UPC codes etc, and as many albums or uploads as you want, for 48 euros / year. (and remains om spotify even if you stop paying)

When it comes to physical+digital distribution, I think CD Baby is the king of services though.