DistroKid vs. CD Baby vs. EmuBands and more — My Experience with Music Distributors
In this article, I will share my hands-on experience with three digital distributors, CD Baby, EmuBands and DistroKid, so anyone interested can know more about the experiences that are not possible to know solely from browsing their websites. In the second half of this article, I will also list a few other distributors that I don’t have experience with but hopefully some others may find useful.
After my last post about digital distribution, I received a few messages asking about the distributors that distribute cover songs. Both Landr and Soundrop (listed in the middle part of the article) offer cover song licensing for a one-off fee. Please refer to the section for details. I will go straight into these distributors. For more background about digital distribution, please read my another post: How to Release Your Music on Spotify and Apple Music?
The distributors mentioned in this article:
- CD Baby
- EmuBands
- DistroKid
- Landr
- Soundrop
- Ditto
- Amuse
- RouteNote
CD Baby
The largest and oldest distributor on the market. They charge one-off fees for each release. No more fees after that, except they take 9% of the royalties, artists take 91%.
Releasing a single costs $9.95 and an album costs $29.95. Every release requires a unique UPC. The UPC costs $5 from them for a single and $20 for an album. So altogether the cost for each release is $14.95 for a single and $49.95 for an album. [What is UPC/ISRC?]
However, the cost of the UPC can be reduced by buying off one’s own UPC online then use these UPC for releases. That will make the cost of a UPC as cheap as less than $1.
For example, buying off 5 UPC from BarCodesTalk costs only $10 and 25 UPC for only $25.
In this way, each release may cost just $11 for a single or $31 for an album.
Just need to keep in mind that there are a lot of UPC sellers on the internet, some of them may not work as others so do your research before buying them. BarCodesTalk seems to be legit among the rest and I haven’t encountered any issue with them.
The “Pro” releases offered by CD Baby cover everything in Standard (mentioned above) plus publishing, cost $29.95 for a single and $69 for an album.
For streaming, going with Standard would be just fine. Also it may be more flexible to register with PRO (Performance Right Organisation) yourself instead of leaving that with CD Baby. These include BMI, SOUNDEXCHANGE, SongTrust and ASCAP. YMMV
During the pandemic, almost all distributors were complained by their users about processing time is taking too long, including CD Baby, but it seemed to be better now. My releases with them took 13 days in May and around 8 days in mid-June. [2 July update: took 6 days in early July]
My only complaint about CD Baby is the processing speed has room to improve and they take 9% of the royalties. Other than that, all good!
Pros
- A Spotify and Apple Music preferred distributor
- Long established
- All-around distributing features
- Online chat is easily accessible to find someone to talk to
Cons
- Pretty slow during the pandemic, though recently it’s been improved to some extent
- Takes 9% of the royalties
- Tickets take forever to get a response, better off getting in touch with their online chat
Verdict
An all-rounder for digital distribution, transparent and clear billing model, no need to worry about the songs may be taken down one day. The only drawback is the processing time has room to improve.
EmuBands
EmuBands is based in Glasgow, Scotland, UK and was founded in 2005. There doesn’t seem much to be found on the internet but they are on Spotify Preferred Distributor List.
They charge releases similar to CD Baby’s model: one-off and that’s it!
- a single (1–2 songs) for £24.95 / $42.5,
- an EP (3–5 songs) for £34.95 / $59.95, and
- an album for £49.95 / $84.95
Artists keep 100% of the royalties.
It’s obvious that the charge is far higher than other distributors, in exchange for fast-responding customer services and excellent processing time. They processed my releases mostly within one working day, even during the pandemic. This is incredible!
Pros
- A Spotify preferred distributor
- Lightning-fast processing speed, mostly within one business day
- Prompt customer services
- Takes 0% of the royalties
- Transparent and clear billing model
Cons
- YouTube Content ID is in development, not rolling out yet
- Expensive release fees, though in some cases it may be cheaper than royalty commissions (often 9–15%)
Verdict
If you have the budget, EmuBands is very good in terms of service and processing speed. YouTube Content ID is the only lack of features comparing to other distributors. Use AdRev to cover YouTube Content ID if you decide to go with EmuBands.
DistroKid
In recent years DistroKid has been somehow popular in the independent musician community. They charge annual fees for unlimited uploads and releases.
The cheapest annual plan, Musician $19.99 per year, doesn’t offer custom release dates. This limitation often causes problems with pitching playlist considerations. The feature, which is often available for free with other distributors, is offered by DistroKid’s annual plan one level up, Musician Plus $35.99 per year.
Annual payments are necessary to keep the songs online. Otherwise, the songs will be deleted no matter what.
DistroKid advertises “Leave a Legacy” as their one-off option for the songs to stay online forever.
“Leave your legacy for future generations”, they said.
However, Leave a Legacy only protects songs from annual payment failures. Freely stopping paying annual fees or cancelling membership will result in all songs deleted, no matter whether “Leave a Legacy” has been paid! (6 July 2020 Update: DistroKid seemed quietly changed the page and no longer saying cancelling membership will delete the songs)
For elaboration, please read my post 6 Pitfalls to Know About Distrokid.
It’s absolutely cost-effective to release songs using DistroKid. If in any case you wish to discontinue the annual payments, it’s better off uploading the songs through other one-time fee distributors, for example, CD Baby, EmuBands, or Landr, or free alternatives such as Amuse or RouteNote. That way may be cheaper and occur less hassle than staying with DistroKid and paying for Leave a Legacy. [Know more about how to switch distributors]
DistroKid was my first distributor. After a few months on digital distribution, I started getting know more about the market then I decided to switch out of them. The main reasons are hidden fees here and there and a lot of features require add-ons to be paid. Sometimes their description is unclear and causes confusions.
If you ever consider using DistroKid, please read my another post for details. There has been a lot to be concerned. 6 Pitfalls to Know About Distrokid
On top of that, there is an ongoing controversy about tax withhold practice by DistroKid. For a bit of history, there have been users complaining over the internet about receiving fewer royalties than requested without prior acknowledgement from DistroKid. After getting in touch with DistroKid, the users were often replied that the missing payment was due to tax purposes and diverted them to consult an accountant, without proper explanations.
Until the end of May, a Brazillian YouTuber Dan Vasc published a video “I WAS ROBBED | DistroKid Steals Money From Musicians”, explaining in details how he received his royalties $3,000 short from DistroKid and how DistroKid responded to his enquires. DistroKid seemed to keep asking Dan to “Ask an accountant!” without answering Dan’s question.
This is when the controversy started emerging and getting more widely known. DistroKid hasn’t officially made any statement about this case, other than altering one line on their website, from
“Upload as much as you want, keep 100% of your earnings”
to
“Upload as much as you want, keep 100% of your earnings (after PayPal fees or any taxes or whatnot).”
On the other side, Dan posted a comment on his video saying that DistroKid has returned his money and he will post another video for the details about this. ̶B̶u̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶f̶a̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶f̶u̶r̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶s̶.̶
1 July Update: Updates on DistroKid’s tax withholding controversy
In fact, the DistroKid’s claimed might be true, that they withhold 30% of the royalties is due to the tax regulations in the US. The same practice is also exercised by other US-based distributors and PROs and a W-8BEN form is required to ease the withhold.
What’s not clear at the moment, is that it doesn’t seem all the users of DistroKid are having this issue of 30% tax withholding. Some users reported this issue with a high royalty payment, some reported low ones. It’s not clear about DistroKid’s criteria for exercising tax withholding. It also seemed that the users received no prior acknowledgement from DistroKid about such practice.
Even more mysterious, in Dan’s case, if the $3,000 short royalty is due to the US tax withholding practised by DistroKid, how come after Dan’s video went viral, DistroKid was able to return the money to Dan? Particularly there seemed to be no tax treaty between Brazil and the US.
̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶n̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶.̶
1 July Update: Updates on DistroKid’s tax withholding controversy
Other than that, there have been users complaining about getting banned or refused by DistroKid, without giving a reason or receiving a refund.
So…
Pros
- A Spotify preferred distributor
- The interface is succinct
- Takes 0% of royalties
- Processing time is somewhere between a few hours to a few working days, often relatively faster than others
Cons
- Shazam and YouTube Content ID requires add-on payments
- Leave a Legacy is not for leaving a legacy (6 July 2020 Update: DistroKid seemed quietly changed the page and no longer saying cancelling membership will delete the songs)
- Controversies
Verdict
The annual subscription is cost-effective in some cases, with some other features require add-on payments. It may not be as cheap as it appears to be with all the add-ons paid. Consider Landr or Amuse for alternatives with a similar charge model. Go with other one-off payment distributors if one day you decide not to keep up the annual payments, don’t pay for Leave a Legacy.
Read more about DistroKid: 6 Pitfalls to Know About Distrokid
Below I list a few more distributors that I haven’t interact with but may suit someone’s need. One thing to keep in mind is that during the pandemic almost all the distributor suffer from extended processing time, including everyone below. Check their twitter for the timeline.
Landr
Landr operates on a hybrid billing model.
For $0 annual payments, Landr takes 15% of the royalties and charges $9 for a single and $29 for an EP/album.
For $20 annual payments, Landr takes 9% of the royalties and charges $5 for a single and $19 for an EP/album.
For $89 annual payments, Landr takes 0% of the royalties and offers unlimited releases. This option works the same way as DistroKid and further offers the possibility to keep songs online without paying annual fees in the future.
Users are allowed to switch between different annual plans. Stop paying annual fees will automatically switch the songs to the free plan which Landr takes 15% of the royalties. Songs will never be deleted.
Landr offers cover song licensing, with a one-off fee of $15.
Soundrop
Free! Takes 15% of the royalties. They offer a competitive cover song licensing service for a one-off fee of $9.99.
Ditto
Ditto charges $19 annual payments for unlimited releases and takes 0% of the royalties. Stopping annual payments will delete the songs.
Amuse
Amuse offers free and paid plans, both offer unlimited releases and pay 100% of the royalties.
The free plan doesn’t allow custom release dates and labels. The default release date is set to 28 days ahead of the submission and will be settled at some point upon how busy they are.
Some of the platforms are available only to paid plans, but the major ones, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Shazam are included in both free and paid plans.
The paid plan charges $60 per year (or $8 per month) and offers custom release dates and labels plus delivering to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Content ID. These features are not provided by the free plan.
Stopping paying annual fees will switch the account to the free plan, users still get 100% of the royalties and the songs stay online.
RouteNote
RouteNote offers free and paid plans, both offer the same features. The difference is that the free plan takes 15% of the royalties where the paid plan takes 0%.
The paid plan comes in two stages, for each release, they charge a one-time release fee, $10 for a single, $20 for an EP and $30 for an album.
Starting from the second year of each release, a renewal fee of $9.99 per year is required to keep 100% of the royalties. Stop paying the renewal fee will switch the releases to the free plan, which RouteNote takes 15% of the royalties and the songs stay online.
Also posted here.
