admin
11 Nov 2022
The Most Popular Music Distribution Sites
Today’s top five music distribution sites are CD Baby, ReverbNation, Distrokid, LANDR, and Tunecore.
CD Baby boosts a large suite of features along with great promotion partners and over 150 stores all of which are focused on the promotion of the artists’ music. CD Baby’s partners include Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, YouTube, Shazam, Deezer, Resso, Peloton, Tencent (China’s number one online music distributor), Qobuz (a Hi-Fi Partner of Sony, Chromecast, Yamaha, Sonos, and DTS-Play), Boomplay (soon to be Affrica’s largest digital music distributor), plus Napster and at least 15 others.
CD Baby’s prices start at $9.95 per single and go up to $49 per album. It offers the artists 100% of the royalties paid out weekly for the distribution of music in digital, streaming, CD’s, and vinyl formats.
CD Baby was founded in 1988 and to date serves more than 700,000 artists. Currently, it is the largest distributor of independent music.
Reverbnation (2006) gives artists opportunities to expand their fanbase. Its most common moves are to orchestrate introductions to sync and label deals and to facilitate festival slots for artists with over 100 industry introductions available to make with their music. It does this through its free and paid membership plans.
Naturally, if you’re on a very tight budget, the free Reverbnation membership would appeal to you. This membership, while free still has many benefits. The paid memberships also receive these benefits plus more. The free membership includes your ability to post your artist’s profile, upload unlimited songs, sell your music, used Gig Finder to locate performance opportunities, embed players, and use Facebook app. Basic is the first paid level and its cost is $12.95 plus tax. It offers everything in the free level plus industry introductions, an electronic press kit, large song uploads, additional email contacts, and an ad free profile. The Premium level is the next and final level with a cost of $19.95 with tax. Again, the artist has access to all the features of the other levels plus, the ability to digitally distribute their music, a free domain, a website and web hosting, unbranded embeds, along with industry level administration help with music publishing.
Currently, 3.5 million artists use Reverbnation. Reverbnation is a social network that helps you promote your music, license your music to films, TV, and advertising, create playlists, collaborate with other artists, and pitch your music to publishers and labels.
Distrokid (2013) has a faster turnaround than CD Baby as much as 10 to 20 times faster pushing music out to digital and streaming platforms. Artists can also distribute unlimited songs for one annual fee. One musician pays $19.99 per year, 2 bands or artists pay $35.99 per year, and a label with up to 100 bands or artists pay $79.99 per year. Artists get paid 100% of their royalties monthly.
LANDR’s (2014) main focus is in audio mastering software via a desktop app, but it also offers digital music distribution. Using AI powered audio mastering for software and video gives the artist a professional product. Unlike Reverbnation that uses crowdsourcing feedback from its listeners, LANDR has direct contact with its listeners, so producers hear directly from the listeners and get feedback firsthand.
LANDR’s pricing is based on audio mastering plus the release and the digital distribution of music. The total comes to $4.00 per month or $48 annually plus digital distribution costing $1 monthly or $12 annually. Currently, LANDR has 1.8 million creators on its rolls.
Tunecore is one of the first distribution sites to be developed. It was founded in 2006. With over 250,000 subscribed users, it has a very low negative rating. Tunecore has essentially mastered the process of digital distribution with over 150 digital stores, great marketing and administrative services that closely watch sales data, social media promotion, and music publishing.
Artists that work with Tunecore, keep 100% of their royalties and pay $9.99 to distribute single for one year, $29.99 to distribute their first album and $49.99 for subsequent years. Tunecore even distributes artist’s music in the form of ringtones for $19.99 a year.
When choosing a distribution service, make sure its affordable and offers the basic services you’re seeking. Make sure the distribution service offers you the artist 100% of your royalties. And, make sure you know how often the payout occurs. Overall, with the technical capacity being competitive and much of the pricing quite affordable, the real question is, are their partners the type of companies that market to your listeners, if they are pick one and start watching your popularity grow as more and more listeners are exposed to your great music.