I switched from distrokid for my main band. Heres what i utilize now. CD Baby for all originals. Then I use the cd baby sister company Soundrop for cover songs. Same kind of format as cd baby but the cost is different. 99 cents per song and 15% commission to keep your song up like cd baby and to manage your cover song license. So utilize covers which you're not meant to make much off of and then use then to promote your songs through cd baby essentially.
Soundrop dropped me and all my music without any reason last year. I would avoid them at all costs. If its the same company, I would say avoid CD baby too.
@@mitsostzatziki8727 Look up Soundrop issues online via google or the like. Their support basically ENTIRELY stopped working a few months ago and there's 0 support at all. So no, they don't tell you jack all. Stick to CD Baby and Distrokid and the like. Soundrop seems to be a scam.
Distrokid gives RU-vid influencers money to promote their platform. That’s why so many people are being misguided. CD Baby is the clear choice for small independent artists. That could change in the future, but not as of today. Good luck out there y’all 🎶
yes. they also have a priority program for them. one of the youtubers showed his dash and it said priority artist🙃i asked DK how to enter that program and they lied and said it didnt exist when i saw it with my own eyes. they are shady AF
CD Baby don't take down your songs, one off fee + 9 percent from sales. Diskokid take your songs down if you cannot afford the yearly subscription. That is so bad. CD Baby has no other hidden fees, cheaper than Diskokid. Thank you for making this video. I think Nick D and Conner Price need to switch Distributers. Having lived through recessions I would not want my family to have all their songs taken down because we could not afford that yearly subscription fees etc. Bravo. Excellent content. 🦋👍😊
As someone as myself who is about to venture into one of these outlets, im leaning towards CDBaby and let me tell you why.. Someone mentioned in the comments that if they were streaming 100 million streams, cd baby would be taking tons of their money and they dont like that. But realistically, if youre streaming 100 million, chances are youve "Made it" and in regards to music and distribution, ANY of these platforms will probably be useless. Hell, chances are, youll probably be big in the industry to manage your own music or have a label or management to manage it. Realistically, most of us are just trying to make it to a fair level with our music. So throwing tons of money up front may not be the smartest move. Id rather start paying AFTER my music is making the money for me than using my OWN money (that can actually be going towards my actual music) and having to pay all these crazy charges up front which can hurt you at first if your music doesnt grow at first. Then if my music "Makes it" then figure money making/money saving tactics in the future. Because lets be real, if youre streaming 100 million, chances are you are touring, selling merch, and probably making money off social media.
Excellent, as always. I'm signing up with CD Baby today . . . and will use a great deal of your advice in this video and others to help me make the most of my first-ever release. Thanks so much.
I highly recommend utilizing CD Baby for your music distribution needs! It's crucial to ensure that all your information is thoroughly finalized before proceeding. Additionally, when uploading an album, be cautious if you include samples from platforms like Splice or other stock sound banks. If someone has already used a sample you include, there's a risk of your entire album being flagged and taken down from social media platforms due to just one song.
I hire ghostwriters I have quite a few albums out and yeah I had one album it was one song that was flagged so I never used that producer again. I am glad they actually scan the entire album or song ahead of release at least it lets me know! versus what I heard from distrokid which is a nightmare they can take your album down after release with a quickness.
Somebody need a blast United masters they stole all of our money promoted it as free then steal all our royalties w millions of users they stole over 20 million shaddddy game they said it was freee bruhhh 😢
This happend all the time specialy on royality free vocals !! They get content ID over Royality free Vocals of course you have buy this vocals like ohters to use them but here comes the mistake !!The Distributer ask you what you have done on the tune and if the lyrics is written by you and then this frauders say yes i have written the lyrics !! I have find a solution every distributer use the content ID of RU-vid !! I have make a channel on youtube and and everytime i get ot upload a song i upload it on this channel privatly so i can see if someone have put copyrights on the vocals if yes immediately i make a dispute on RU-vid put all the evidence bying number where to buy and so on and put the song now on public until RU-vid remove the copyrights !! Only once a Distributer have don't remove the copyrithgs and this is Believe Music so you have find the artist and say to him to remove the copyrights !! This hapend to me once but if Beleive music do this another timeI ι will take legal action against them !! And keep in mind that Believe Music belongs to Sony Music !!
yeah but overall you earned 238,000$ (100%), so that $21,420 (9%) is not big deal. you sound like we have to take pay it from our own wallet / bank account. But it is different- you wake up one day and see that you will GET 216,580$ from cdbaby (238,000-21,420). You don't have to pay anything. And this is from Spotify ALONE 🙂
@@SinisterJr If CD Baby did something to spike your streams that Distrokid doesnt than you would be right, but they dont. your streams come from you and CD baby gets a 9% sweat equity stake as a reward for distributing your music. Just like a major distributor. In contrast Distrokid charges you a few hundred extra up front in exchange for not taking a cut. So the question is, would you give up 9% of your music revenue for life to avoid paying $400? I wouldnt.
@@mallhits I’m good. Distrokid is preying on people who don’t understand long term numbers. I’d rather not have services remove my music cuz I didn’t pay a yearly subscription fee that ends up costing more in the long run compared to 9% and having your music up without worrying about it getting taken down.
Thank you SO much for this video, and your service! Essential viewing to the community. Regardless of choices and reasons, this is an awesome layout of hard facts and real world scenarios. REALLY good to know and really well presented!
I realize you don't have the best relation with Distrokid, but this is painting a very wrong picture depending on your scenario. "Leave a Legacy" is worthless, as long as you are able to earn the subscription fee every year so it gets paid internally. I use musician +, which is 40 usd per year Future DSP's is worthless too - you can manually add them yourself for zero dollars. You want the discovery part though, and potentially ContentID I had 5M yearly streams 2 years ago, and I'd release up to 5 singles in a year. For me that makes the costs: Distrokid: $ 70 CD Baby: $ 1764 The real costs of CD Baby would be even higher though, as this only takes into account the spotify streams, and not the 9% cut from all other services
Hey man! 🤘🏻 Yeah, it's like talking to a brick wall, honestly. We've commented about the 9% cut (that very few artists are actually even aware of) many times, and no one cares about that. Most people prefer to give up 9%, cause 9% of $0 is, well... $0. In your case it would be $1800 a year in royalties alone, which is crazy to give away for literally nothing. In my opinion that's exactly the definition of a rip off. Ryan is super-biased, and for whatever reason leaves out TuneCore out of comparison?
@@scoop964 there’s no magic pill, just years of grind, a lot of time and money invested. many sacrifices, 80-hour work weeks, missed friends’ parties and many many hours of watching and learning from other people.
Distrokid is the best and I have a lot of friends who uses distrokid and cd baby be ripping off artist cause I heard many creators how they got screwed over and although distro might’ve happen partially when starting but now that they are pretty much big and succeeding. I hear it’s fair now and it depends more on the effor you put in into distro and personally few friends of mines are happy
Did this video address publishing royalties? The CD Baby Pro option where they become your publisher and submit everything to ASCAP or BMI for you. CDB takes 50% of your publishing, Distrokid takes nothing and you set up your own music pro account for a one time fee and you are your own 100% owned publisher of your own music.
They ARE the one Publishing the music on the DSP. You are giving up Publishing, Distribution and Sound Master Royalties by using these services. Just like a record label.
@bigdogmurphy during the setup process with CDB there is a section asking if you have a publisher. If you don't then they will automatically list themselves as the pub. If you signed up for the pub plan then they will act on your behalf and collection your quarterly royalties from the PRO (BMI/ASCAP/SESAC). You can avoid that happening if you go and setup your own publishing company, pay the fee and operate on collecting the royalties yourself. At the time I did my Pub company it was $300 with BMI. Lastly, get your own ISRC codes too because if you don't, they will give you theirs which will register sales to them when streams/plays happen digitally. Peace.
Powerful ….”A shot heard around the world “… I’m getting ready to release my first single, and have been deliberating, and praying, for guidance… Thank you
Thank you for explaining that i used CD Baby first for my stuff right off the hope but this was also my first release so experimental but from this chart, you see who is the lead winner
Something you didn't mention and is the reason I stopped using Distro kid THE SECOND I REALISED THIS is that even if you pay the leave a legacy fee , IF you stop paying the annual fee they WONT PAY YOU ROYALTIES , DISTRO KID is a massive scam for anyone really trying to build their music career and some point or later you will move your music to another Distro so why even start there ? complete scam
@noiszif I've signed up for Distrokid but haven't released any music through them yet, because of the recent controversy with them and Spotify removing artists music with essentially no recourse. Have you found a more appealing option?
Side note if you are a artist that doesn’t release a lot I say cdbaby, if your like me I released 74 singles so distrokid is best for me. Only you know how much your going to release
@@ralphhughes_nah I’m good where I’m at I don’t use them for any extras and I mean none. 40 a yr 2 artist it’s a win they don’t even have my package available anymore
hey i have a question? so i uploaded 2 of my songs to distro kid but it gave me 2 different youtube pages for each song . how can i make it to where all my music is on one page ? if you can help i just wanted to ask.
Agree, I am not fussy, its an endeavor to distribute to potential listeners. All the distributer does is put music and noise into another large popular storage space, which people glom onto and sometimes buy or save. I have no issue with distributors taking a small cut for the work if it makes any money As some commenters note, yeh its an issue including samples. Over 50 percent of my cues are not worthy of RU-vid contentID and blocked. I have no idea why I get flagged, I generally do my own sound design. Its a mystery
Thanks for doing this vid. I've been with CDbaby since the Derick Severs days (2003). Recently some marketing gurus have made Distrokid seem appealing, so I've comparing, just about to release a new song, considering checking out Distrokid. NOT NOW!!! My current numbers would never justify it. Plus, long term, I'd rather pay as I go rather than all that money up front. If I was to multiply that over all my assets that haven't performed that well yet (lack of promotion) I would have been out a TON of money. Man, I'm really glad you did this. Thank you!!!
I like this channel but guys be careful with trusting opinions on anything. He has a gripe with Distrokid which should be considered when watching this channel as his view on them in every video is slanted. I’m not with either of these distributors, but just be mindful of the advice you take and the persons motivation
Amazing video...Excellent production and so informative...Saved me a ton of analysis and research! I had chosen CD Baby because of another one of your videos, and now I'm really glad that I did given Distrokid's economic model. Thank you!
Man, I feel like I have literally no idea what I am doing in this space! Great video, opened my eyes to the true costs, and that "low cost" of entry lure with DK is really deceptive.
A great video, thank you! As far as RU-vid monetization comparisons, I believe Distrokid takes 20% (in addition to the $7.75 you pay yearly for the service) while CDBaby takes 30% (no extra service cost, but you have to opt-in to add the service to your digital distribution release).
I love the video! The only thing I would say is that this doesn’t take into account other revenue platforms for streams and just Spotify which doesn’t really pay out much. I would imagine if those 2 million were distributed across other platforms instead especially RU-vid that 9% would show its fangs more and end up being drastically worse financially. Though I suppose for the majority of people that’s a price they would be willing to pay to not have to worry about annual payments and just do everything one time.
Thanks for posting. It’s all much more complex than I anticipated, but I’m going to put out an album soon - my first one so I can’t count on huge sales and so keeping cost low is important.
The best way to not get ripped off is have your music on RU-vid only. It is not only a leading model of consumption, but it is free. Once you get big the labels find you, I guarantee it.
i have distrokid ...43,99€ per year...so 4400€for 100yeaers...my lifetime xD 43€/year thats it...and if u have 5 songs at cd baby...u pay 9%times5 right? like in this video 600*5=3000 fee!...=more than me on distrokid: 43€*5years=215€ soo... if u upload more songs that go viral u pay more money at cd baby!!!!!????right??
i feel like this is all pretty anecdotal evidence tbh. there's plenty of people who get far more than 2M streaming in 5 years of doing music, especially if they're playing their cards right. 2M seems like hella lowball of a number for 5 whole years, there are plenty of artists who get those numbers in 2 years, and even 10M streams would cost over $3400 in royalties alone if we're going off of your math here. the costs of royalty fees with CD Baby for someone who gets larger in their music career would be far larger than the fees of someone who went with Distrokid in that example. there's too many factors to consider for this to really be a solid argument imo.
the spotify calculator you are using is inaccurate. i have have 100k stream on a couple of track as a indie artist but have never been close to the number you are using. its more like 30 dollar for 100k stream. on top of that spotify can do whatever they want, if they want to scam you, they just do it and you cant do anything about it. the Music industri is dead, spotify killed it. you make more money being a tiktoker or a streamar. it sucks.
The CD Baby other options (formerly Pro, now the new CD Boost, which works somewhat differently), there is a bit more up-front cost again, but those are extremely valuable services.
So Good to see this. I've been with CD Baby since 1996... this is the main reason I got out of Tune Core in 2000. Dereck Sivers set something up for his friends.. and it continues to be friendly. :)
Hey we have distributed our music video on distrokid on June 12 but still don't recieve any earning and reports can you please tell me when does distrokid provide us earnings and reports
I live in Australia. Distrokid won't accept my tax details (I don't have a social security number, for example) So, I can't get paid. I'm looking to move to another distribution Co. Check out Space Engineer, To Be Loved, Coming Down, Belong, Lost in Time.
I just asked Chat GPT what is best for small Artists and after a few questons it was CD Baby which is the clear choice. So yes, for today 2024, you should go for CD Baby
You just completely contradicted yourself , you said CD Baby reached out to you and gave you a discount code which means you are getting paid to say this !
it's some afiliate code probably. no matter, ma men did the math, showed his sources, even if cd baby told him to do it, it's math that can be verified. on another note seems to me like these distributors overstep quite a bit. is it really that difficult to just distribute our own?
Hi, can you review LANDR Distribution? They’re similar to CD Baby but they allow you to do split pay and if you don’t renew your subscription, your music will still stay live but the artist will only keep 85% of the royalties instead of 100%.
Am I missing something? Wouldn’t the column that says “5 singles 3 albums over 5 years” actually be $399.6 ($79.2 x 5)?? You wouldn’t only pay $79.92 over 5 years. Unless you mean someone who only released 5 singles and 3 albums over the course of 5 years and not each of those 5 years. Not sure which one you meant
CD Baby outside of the USA charges a fairly large commission just for being outside of the USA, and I find that quite problematic. What still makes me doubt is the annual payment and the fact that they download the music if you stop paying, but it is still better than a 30% commission just for not being from the USA. Even so, it does not mean that you can upload it from another place with the same ISCR the day you no longer want to pay Distrokid.
if you don't choose Leave a Legacy, but you have your ISRC codes, can't you theoretically upload them to different distributors down the road if you wanna ditch distrokid?
I use Distrokid because they have the superior cover song license program. This is very important for an a cappella artist like me that does lots of covers.
Not a fan of Distrokid’s licensing. My cover song release was delayed for an undetermined amount of time only to pop up over a week later than my set release date. Hard to promote a release when it doesn’t show up when it’s supposed to.
Cover licensing via DistroKid is very expensive. LandR offer a better service with a one time fee. Soundrop is even cheaper if you don't mind them taking a 15% commission.
So if i produce a cover, I can distribute it through DK's licensing system? Hows the review process look like and is there any documents to be sent over to them for the review?
Imani, Soundrop takes 15% of all sales, including cover songs but only charges a one time fee of 99 cents per song! Distrokid is charging you about $13 per year per song ($130 per year per every 10 songs etc..).
hi, i just read this today,is it true? As you know by now - all well-known distros like (Tunecore, DistroKid, CD Baby, Audiam, RouteNote etc.) will ban you as soon as you hit ~$1k
You didn’t mention the $39.99 CD BABY BOOST fee for total distribution, which brings their fees up to $50 a release. That’s unfair and inaccurate BUDDY! Not kool
I'm not sure what you mean.. I haven't paid for the Boost and my songs are on all streaming platforms. I'm getting royalties from platforms I didn't even know existed.
Distrokid is in my mind for a while now but after seen this video 😮, CDbaby is a better choice for me 9.99 usd is 828 rs its really good that this video pop up, and thanks for sharing your knowledge
I've been using CD Baby for a couple of years now and have no issues with them. I've seen to many videos explaining why DistroKid sucks and have decided to never do business with them. Not only the exorbitant fees but DK also has a habit of pulling music arbitrarily for alleged "false plays" and refusing to republish even after evidence proving the plays were legit. CD Baby's 9% really isn't that bad when you consider how the labels do their signed artists.
Thanks so much for breaking this down! My band The Electric Splash is about to release an EP and we're deciding which way to go. Our recording engineer said he uses CD Baby and told us a horror story that one of his clients used Distrokid and had their music taken down from all the platforms because their debit card was compromised, thus canceled, and when the automatic payment didn't go through. Thanks for helping us decide!
I understand the benefit in showing all expenses included from DK to make it even with what you'd get from CDB, but most of them are just so worthless. DK was costing me under $100/yr when I was dropping songs every week. All I used was the Shazam add on. I feel most people won't need the rest.
Hi Ryan. Great video! CDBaby is definitely my option as a distributor! I’m just starting out as an artist and I have a question that might sound weird, but I don’t have the experience to know if this is anything to worry about: If I sign up for a Spotify For Artists account before signing up to a distributor and then Sign up to a distributor and decide to put my music on Spotify through through the distributor, will Spotify For Artists stop the distribution of my music from the distributor’s end? Or will they let the distributor through? Be Thanking all answers in advance.
They will let the distributor through… Especially when your Artist name etc is the exact same Everywhere. Also you get the option to choose your Spotify Account or input your Spotify URL. when uploading your songs.
Enjoyed the video, but CD Baby doesn't allow you to edit your release info anytime like Distrokid. I uploaded some placeholder art on my CD Baby release because I saw a "edit" button, but that goes away after a couple days and my placeholder art got locked in permanently even though my song isn't being released for another 5 days. Now that my artist has finished my art, I can't use it. The animation for Spotify Canvas won't match the image art either. I prefer to setup the release so I can get things moving and upload the art when the artist finishes instead of waiting a long time (I have a backlog of old tunes I'm trying to release and ad campaigns I want to get setup).
So are you switching to Discokid or will you be staying with CD baby ? I suppose they both have their pros and cons, i'm a very small new content creator so i think i'm leaning more toward CD baby.
@@Waybackwhennn I'm not sure yet. I may use distrokid for releases I'm trying to rush release, part way I can edit the release later if I need to. And then I'll use CD baby for releases that I already have everything ready for. It also takes CD baby longer to process the release so if you submit it a week before the release date, it might not go through until the day before and by then you only have one day to prepare everything on Spotify for artists, ads, etc.
ThunderFoxMusic, for future reference, you can skip the cover art part in Cdbaby until final art is ready. In the View/Edit button to right of the album title in dashboard, it brings you to a page where section by section including cover art you can complete steps until ready to pay for distribution.
IMHO avoid both of them. I have been with CD Baby since 2007, and their service has gone to shit in the last 5 years. They will not reply quickly or advocate on the artist's behalf if things go wrong. I'm in the process of moving my entire CD Baby catalogue to Gyrostream - a distributor that actually still answers your messages.
I think one thing you are leaving out is the commissions are different on the additional services by cd baby, for instance RU-vid Content ID they take 30%.
Exactly, this information is very relevant. Seemed to me he left it out on purpose to make CDBaby look more attractive. I definitely think 30% on RU-vid is a lot, taking into account that RU-vid already takes a percentage of ad revenue...
SHAZAM is owned by Apple. As long as you deliver a track or album to Apple, Shazam will work to identify those tracks, regardless of whether or not you pay Distrokid for the discovery pack.
My dilemma-I do like CD Baby. But I’m debating Landr because mastering is included. Yeah, it’s subscription. But if you cancel, your music stays up forever… (But then they do take 15% commission.) If I pay $143 for a year w/ Landr, as of this writing, I can “waterfall” release singles, then the whole album, plus mastering- unlimited releases, singles, and mastering. Zero commission. From what I can see, all those add ons are included. If I did the same thing with CD baby (who I do like and I am with currently), the waterfall release would be $10 per single (let’s say $70), then the album would be another $10. Then I would have to pay to master all of those songs. I wish CD baby had a package that included mastering. Then it would be a no-brainer. (Edit: I release children’s music, so albums can have 15 songs or more. Mastering gets pretty pricey.)
I did just sign up. I really like the 36 wav masters with the studio plan (and obviously the unlimited uploads)...and just as I was on the fence, they started a sale for the studio plan, so I went with it. I've put out 2 releases with them so far. No problems, but the few times I had a question about something (nothing relating to my releases), it took over a week to hear back--but that seems to be the case with all of them, tbh. So far, so good.@@SplashSisterscml
New to all this so all advice and comments are good. Do you have to set up an artists profile on all the streaming services separately E.g iTunes, Spotify, Amazon etc before you use a distribution service or can you do them all in one hit through the distribution service?
If you've never released before it will create a new artist as you distribute for the first time. (Unless they accidentally add your track to another artist's but not usual)
So these benefits that you can book extra in DK are automatically provided with CDB? And also, just in theory, if one streams over 2mil, lets say 5 or even 10, would DK not be the more interesting choice here if he focus is to make profit? (Sure, to even get there is a different thing, I am just trying to understand all this.)
I pay $40 a year to Distrokid, for 10 years I'll pay $400. I release 15 singles a year. In CD Baby this will cost me $1500 over 10 ten years. Shazam has it without paying an extra for $0.99. For content ID, I use Identifyy, there are no fees, the commission is 30%. That's how I decided things. Distrokid their support is super bad until you get to a real person for an answer it takes weeks but for the money it is. I was with LANDR 4 years before that, the only thing better with them was the support. Some unreal situations are explained above in the clip.
hmm interesting! indeed I was wondering where it can come to in few years. just releasing my 1st song which we made with a friend, however having doubts :)). also wonder, is it even good to release on so many platforms? and somehow I thought that youtube identifying use of the song IS included without an extra charge.
Been telling all my musician friends as well as clients to choose CDB. Been using CDB for over a decade now, it makes better economic sense really. It's a no brainer.
Wow I don't even care if this video was sponsored by CDbaby, that math does add up as a win. This is the kind of sponsored/affiliated content that is actually useful information. Very nicely done.
If you "plan to stay small", why use these services anyways? just upload on your own. Also the main service was not compared here. how do they compare when it comes to attracting streams to your work?
This was so informative! Im with Distrokid right now and I’ve already released 3 singles with them so far without the ad ons. Do you know if I can cancel with them and take my songs off so I can switch to CD Baby? I’d love to take on this offer!
If distro kid takes your music off because you haven’t paid your prescription plan and then you repay it do you lose your streams or do you get all your streams back?
