CDBaby
Photo Credit CDBaby.com
Pros
- No Yearly Fees (pay to upload once and you’re done)
- Many services offered, including download cards, selling music on Facebook, embeddable music players
- Time-tested and will be around for a while
- Also offers physical CD and vinyl distribution
- Weekly iTunes reports
- Submits songs to a ton of digital stores
- Will publish your songs to ASCAP, BMI, etc… (for a price)
Cons
- 9% commission (artist keeps 91% of sales revenue)
Tunecore
Photo Credit Tunecore.com
Pros
- No commission (artist keeps 100% sales revenue)
- Submits songs to a ton of stores
- Will publish your songs to ASCAP, BMI, etc… (for a price)
- Super fast sales reports from Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify so that you know how your songs are *cough* performing
Cons
- $49.99 yearly fee (after initial $29.99 setup fee)
- Submits songs to a ton of stores… for $2 a piece after the main options. Tunecore can boast 150+ digital stores because, beyond the initial package (which includes everything you’ll ever need), there’s an upcharge for each store.
Distrokid
Photo Credit DistroKid.com
Pros
- No commission (artist keeps 100% sales revenue)
- UNLIMITED uploads of singles or albums for 1 year
- Super fast upload time to iTunes (they boast within 2-4 HOURS)
- Super clean user interface and website
Cons
- $19.99 yearly fee
- Submits songs to only a few digital stores (not necessarily a bad thing, see summary below)
- Will not publish your songs to ASCAP, BMI, etc… (but super easy, see summary below)
- No frills. You upload tracks, that’s it.
Summary
As you can see, the top 3 digital distribution services offer some pretty incredible options. Again, I can’t tell you which service is best for you, it comes down to your budget, timeline, and future goals. To be fair, I’ve used both CDBaby and Tunecore before and plan to use Distrokid in the future. It all comes down to your needs and the project.
I’ll start with Distrokid, the newest of the bunch, launched in 2013. They have a yearly charge starting at $19.99 for UNLIMITED song or album uploads (and if you don’t pay one year, your music goes bye bye). Seeing as how they also take no commission, this price is insanely good. They submit to a smaller number of stores …iTunes (worldwide), Amazon, Spotify, Google Play, Beats, Rdio, Deezer, Shazaam (for an additional $0.99), and Tidal… but you will probably never need anything more than those stores. They offer no frills so you will be left registering your songs with ASCAP or BMI yourself (a super easy task, and I’ve created a 5 minute walk-thru video for you HERE).
I’ve heard that the inner working of the site is super clean and easy to use, though I haven’t used it so I can’t offer my own assessment. Distrokid is for the collaborator or the songwriter who is constantly rolling out music, either as new singles or as multiple albums per year. Rather than posting on Soundcloud or Facebook, you can publish your music to Distrokid and it will be on iTunes almost immediately. For one easy payment, you can post your entire library of music to the top digital stores for immediate profit.
(Side note: it should be noted that the founder of both Tunecore and CDBaby have offered soaring praises for Distrokid)
Photo Credit DistroKid.com
Tunecore is a slightly pricier option at $49.99 a year but with many more bells and whistles. You’ll get sales reports and have your music submitted to dozens more online stores. You still get to keep 100% sales revenue, just like with Distrokid. And, while CDBaby is leading the game on extra features such as selling on Facebook and offering download cards, Tunecore is doing a good job keeping up and it always expanding perks for their artists.
CDBaby is leading the game on bells and whistles, with the ability to sell your album on Facebook (example here), custom music players for your website (example here), scannable download cards, and reproduction of physical CDs and vinyl records. While they don’t charge a yearly fee past the initial $59 setup, they are the only service out of these 3 that charges a commission: 9%. To put this into context, if you plan to sell over $450/year in revenue, then the $49.99 yearly charge through Tunecore is actually cheaper overall (and if you plan to sell over $220/year in revenue, then the $19.99 Distrokid is cheaper). In my opinion, CDBaby also offers so many more outlets for selling your music that you may increase your revenue streams to a point that the commission charged becomes a moot point because you’re rolling in cash. (wouldn’t that be nice?)
As a final thought, don’t wait until the last minute to upload your music with any of these services. Aim to have your profile all set up and ready to go at least a month before your scheduled release date. This will provide that extra buffer for when the unavoidable happens and you need to spend more time getting one of the pieces of the puzzle to fit.
Artists will find pros and cons for each of the digital distribution services. They’re all fantastic and will do exactly what they’re supposed to: get your music into the eager hands of your audience. Now the million dollar question: which service are you leaning toward… CDBaby, Tunecore, or Distrokid?
