Hey Charles-thanks a lot for this video. I'm currently working through your 'Professional' course. Fingers crossed that everything will go well so I can come back to this video to share my stats. 😁
One of the most important aspect everyone forgets to mention is what happens to your music if you die and annual payment to distributor does not happen, your work of entire life will be taken down immediately, that's why legacy feature is very important in my opinion. Distrokid has it but tunecore doesn't. I have written to tunecore about this, they said they are thinking about it. If more people write to them about it, maybe they will add it.
@@silverninja3570 If you're dead your work as an artist should be available to the public. That the most rational and logical thing to do, it's also always been that way.
Thanks for the video! FYI on DK, they will charge more depending on how many artists you select when signing up for the plan. I found this out as I was searching. For 5 artists it starts at $89.99/year. If you select 10 artists it goes up to $157.99/year, and so on. 20 artists - $269.99/year 50 artists - $674.99/year 100 artists - $1,349.99/year
Tunecore professional is $49.99+14.99 per additional artist, so to get 5 artists would be $110 a year, you get 5 for the $79.99 with distrokid, but over 5 you pay additional cost per but you can only pay per 5 artist.
Very important to independent labels (and not covered here) is the cost per artist that they manage. The top plan on distrokid is $75 , vs. tunecore's $50 - yes. But you don't just get endless artists. Distrokid's 5 artists at $75 makes for about $15/artist. Push it to 50 artists, and it'll be $675/yr - $13.50/artist. Tunecore charges $15 per artist (tunecore users, correct me if I'm wrong). That'd make distrokid cheaper by $1.50 / artist in bulk. It may not seem like much; but at 50 artists, that is $75 / year additional cost for tunecore's service.
Yes I was going to bring this up BUT my catch on that is Distrokid is in tiers. So you are paying for say 100 artists even if you only have 51 artists. Where as Tunecore, I'm paying flat fee plus my cost per artist...so if you are maximizing on DistroKid then it is worth more....if you are only 2 artists over the tier...Tunecore makes more sense.
I've uploaded one song via Tunecore. 1) They did not provide a link to access my Spotify artist account. 2) THERE IS NO CUSTOMER SERVICE - there is a chat- bot that sends you into an endless loop of frustration. NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT EMAIL EXISTS. (Or, at the very least, it is not published. For this reason alone, I am cancelling my service and going elsewhere.
All the above has since been rectified. Tunecore updated their website and dashboard- much more intuitive and user friendly now. Links are available. There is a customer service email and they have been fairly responsive. I feel like they were in a transition period of some kind when I first joined. I’m happy now.
I have both but I’m sticking to distrokid …less stressful plus I could download my songs with tune core they charge you $10 each song and it’s a pain to get a hold of them…I don’t mine paying the extra $5 dollars the year👊🏽 distrokid 👊🏽👊🏽👊🏽
Theres so many reviews and videos from people talking about being scammed and robbed by all of the big distributors, is there any others that dont suck and carry a major risk of getting screwed over?
There’s a clearly winner, the one that is cheaper, more services, gives you scheduled release dates and something you didn’t specify is content id free with no charge, while distrokid charges $5 a year
I bought the rising artist plan, and the publishing in tune core (98 euro in total), I released one song and they blocked it, i asked explanation and they sent this: ' 'Hello, Thank you for writing. We apologize for any frustration; however, we have made an internal decision not to distribute this content. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any specific practices for our manual review process. In the meantime, please let us know if you need anything else. Thank you. Best, Mel Content Review and Rights Administration Specialist'' So basically i spent money and time to nothing. I feel shity and totaly robbed. On youtube is full of similar cases. If you have any explanation please tell me.
I was with Tunecore. had 4 albums on Spotify platforms, had 30,,000 monthly listeners. I was making money. Happy. Then my numbers started to decline. Then some of my American friends told me I was no longer on Spotify. Tunecore pulled my albums out of US Spotify because of some lawsuit. I was never notified. I watched my listeners drop to under 2000. After a year of waiting for my albums to be put back on US Spotify, as I was paying for it,I decided to upload my albums onto Distrokid. I’ve deleted my albums off Tuncore. My numbers are once again on the rise as I’m back in the largest market, US Spotify. If you’re a comedian Distrokid is better. Tunecore sucks.
I just got Tunecore a week ago and already having a terrible experience. My song has been rejected twice due to “an issue with how the songwriter names were entered on your release.” I’m confused as to what the issue is because i entered the legal names in the songwriter spots and saved them. Tunecore is not responding back to me so i have no idea what they want me to do. For it to take this long for them to get back to me is kinda crazy, it’s not even passed the front end review so right now i’m in limbo
Dude just use distrokid because I have a lot of friends that has distro and I might get salt but never from my friends complain of anything. They never use tunecore but I always hear a lot about tunecore especially when it comes to money stealing cause artist don’t get their full amount of income as they should I mean sure some people say distro as well but they gotta understand it’s your responsibility because that’s why their is songtrust that helps with the messing money for distrokid. I’ll admit I sign up distro last year I havnt release any music but will soon but friends of mine I have a lot that uses distro and I’m happy to release music seriously soon on this page and so yea.seeing tunecore new thing looks cool but I still wouldn’t trust them due to the fact that it seems tunecore is messy with customer support and incomes at times….yea no no no especially Spotify is a big thing these days and distrokid is so smart with their Spotify features
Great review Charles, thanks for this. I mostly use CDBaby as I have a deal that allows me to distribute for free but their interface could use some updating. I recently signed up with Distrokid, solely for their "Splits" feature. I work with a lot of artists and producers and I HATE doing the accounting every month, the splits feature takes care of that for me. I am not doing backflips over the extra $5 a year per release for the RU-vid monetization but it is what it is.. once TuneCore introduces their Splits feature, maybe I'll check them out too.
Hi! The tunecore says on their site: You can create a single account to upload music for multiple artists, and track each release/sale separately. You said on Your video that in tunecore you can have only one artist name.
I mean with Soundcloud it also works without extra costs. With Distrokid you have to pay quite a lot if you want the songs to stay in the stores permanently. You just have to be careful and people often forget to mention that.
I paid and still pay for tunecore. The communication is terrible. Spotify artist didn't work, they never answer when I need help and I couldn't even get help trying cancelling to stop pay. Really regret it and I cant even get rid of it 😅
What hapoens when subcription ends after a year with Tunecore and Distrokid? Are your songs be renived from the stores and can you reupload it again? What happens to your earnings? Thanks.
Amazing comparative review thanks - as a remix artist as well as artist - which is recomended? Is it correct that with Distrokid, I'd need the Musician Plus package, in order to add the original artist as well as myself, the remix artist? How does Tunecore compare there?
I have a question. Does tunecore have the feature of letting you verify if the artist page their gonna send the track to is your actual artist page on that streaming platform?
Bro on tunecore professional subscription, how many artists can you accommodate. Because Distrokit now changed from yearly to monthly subscription. So we planning on quitting Distrokit to tunecore. We can't manage to make monthly payments
There is, but it's ungodly time consuming, tedious, costly, and annoying as hell. You have to upload the music yourself to each individual platform you want your music on, some of which are specific other countries that don't allow you top upload outside your own, but that wouldn't be much of an issue for most people. Then, if you want to take a track or album down, you have to do that all over again. Apple charges something like $80 per song, charge another $35/ song annually, and then they take a 52% cut of the revenue as well. Plus, you have to upload and contact apple again to have it on iTunes so you can get some revenue for sales, costing you more fees for setup distribution and maintenance. Plus they take 55% of your revenue. Another problem with doing it all yourself is following your statistics, which a lot of websites like the ones in this video do for you for free. And you have to set up payment methods with all of the platforms you have your music on so they can pay you. And most streaming platforms not only have a processing fee, which can be spendy, as well as a minimum threshold much higher than what distributors do for you. Like Repost... you get paid at the end of the month if you earned $5 or more. I'm not sure what these other guys offer, but that might be something to consider. I know some distributors have a higher minimum threshold, and some don't have a minimum at all. And then there comes the issue of getting paid. distributors often (somehow) pay you sooner than the platforms. Some pay weekly, monthly, bi-weekly, or whatever. Some even let you request when to be paid, how often in a certain time, or whenever you want. Some of those who pay you whenever you want, however, do still have a time and/or minimum revenue threshold. A distributor collects all of your revenue from streaming platforms and forwards it to you, most of the time for free. When distributing independently, you have to manually request to be paid with some streaming platforms. Not all, but a few. And then there comes proving your identity when doing it independently. Sometimes you have to go through hoops, like an application, which can have a non-refundable fee as well as a filing fee. So yea... when doing it yourself, it's gonna cost you more money (and a LOT of it, I might add), you're gonna lose a grip of your revenue in most cases, and you're gonna lost a ton of features that distributors offer. So yea, it's really quite dumb to do it yourself unless you're just worried that your distributor gets hacked, which would give someone access to your music on all platforms all at once rather than just the one platform that they hack in order to take your music down, are worried about your distributor folding, or whatever if you did it yourself, it just makes sooooo much more sense to use a distributor. Hell, even some of the giant musicians use them. Some, of course, do it themselves or have their own team or agent do it for them, but under their name, and a lot of them use distributors that cost a fortune to use and/ or are only distributing for those big dogs and won't deal with us small fellows and fellowettes or aren't even available to the public, only reaching out to distribute for the famous people. I've released music both ways, and have found that using a distributor is the better option, hands down. Cheaper, more features, less time consuming, and they get your music pushed to the platforms faster. I could go on and on about it, but I think you have a general idea of it. If you wanna know more, let me know. I have a lot of experience in releasing music both independently and with a distributor. So ask away and I'll do my best to answer. Just keep in mind that I can only inform you on the difference between the 2, and not information about how different distributors differ from each other, as I have only used Repost for distribution. However, I have been using Repost for about 3 years now, so if you have any questions about that itself, I can lend you a hand there. But as far as things like TuneCore, DistroKid, and all those other distributors, I don't know much. This is where Mr. @CharlesCleyn comes in. It sounds like he knows his ins and outs about the different distributors. So checking out his other videos will provide you with more information on those, as well as a lot of other information about music and stuff. Anyway, I know this is a long reply, went off topic a bit, and rambled on. Just trying to provide the most information possible! So Ask away if you need more. I'll do my best to answer to the best of my ability. I do have a lot going on, so give me some time to reply, but it shouldn't be long! Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@alexconnor8961 all you gotta do for repost is upload your music to soundcloud, then you can distribute it via repost after you pay the fee. I have, however, just switched to distrokid. i havent actually uploaded anything to it yet, but will be shortly. probably later this week or this weekend. simply because its a LOT cheaper. distrokid charges 35 bucks a year, whereas repost charges like 16 bucks a month. so its about the same price to use distrokid for a year than repost for 2 months.
@@alexconnor8961 I also just learned (or at least I think I did, provided I'm understanding Repost's policies right) that you don't actually have to pay Repost to upload your music. Or at least not to maintain it. I cancelled my subscription to repost just a few days ago, since I'm moving to Distrokid, and it looks as though my music will stay live on the platforms. However, they will no longer pay me the revenue I generate via the music they distributed for me. I don't know if you have to subscribe to their service for the first month in order for them to distribute it or not, but from the looks of it, they will not take your music down if you cancel your subscription. At least not automatically. I'm sure that if you contact them and ask them to take it down, they will, of course. And if you are wanting to generate as much revenue as possible, you're gonna wanna do this so that if someone searches for you, they will find the copies that your new distributor has uploaded and is managing for you, because your new distributor will forward the revenue your music makes, whereas Repost no longer will. No sense having 2 copies up when only one of them generates revenue. Now, if you don't care about revenue at all, then its worth having it up there twice for the most part. This is due to the fact that your music is more likely to be added to automated playlists, recommended music, and the like. But if you are after as much revenue as you can get, then its clearly better to remove the first copy so that if someone wants to listen to your music, they have no choice but to listen to the one that DOES forward the revenue to you. Know what I mean? One thing to keep in mind is that when switching from one distributor to another and having the first remove the music that they have uploaded to the streaming services to, anyone who has favorited your music, added it to their playlists, and the like, it will disappear from all of said things that was distributed from the first distributor. So those fans will have to add the tracks that were distributed by your new distributor back to their stuff. Make sense? Now, this is all just what I have understood when I cancelled my Repost subscription, and I may not have understood it correctly. However, I will come back to this reply here and relay my findings if you'd like... provided I remember.😃
Very informative and helpful, thank you. I recently began to get into this world to upload my music and suscribed to Amuse which I got recommended but I didn't even inagine there were so many to consider and these ones seem to be on the top 5 when it comes to music distribution. Can anybody compare experiences between DistroKid and TunesCore
Honestly Tunecore is better in my opinion. U get a bang for your buck I can always pick my own release date as long as all of the rules are met such as the cover dimensions and song file sizes. Plus you automatically get Shazam. Of course there’s different add ons u get on both but you gotta weigh out what you care about most.
Hi i have a question about uploading with distributors... what if i go ahead with content id with lets say tunecore.. and then whem i upload my musicvideo to youtube after that, i get a copyright Claim? Do i upload my vid to youtube first and then register to the distributor? What is the best way to go about it? Also my music is serbian, distrokid doesnt have serbian language as an option.. does the language of the music an affect on whie distibutor i use? Does tunecore have serbian as an option for language? Any help is appreciated thanks!
Recently when i tried to distribute via tunecore i ran into a problem. They said that the title should have more details and stuff. I mean why should i do so if i make my own music and don’t i have the right to name the music whatever i like? Any idea what this is all about?
That sounds super odd, the only think I could think of is sometimes the distributor have naming conventions like you can't have all caps or something like that.
Hi, I have 2 songs that got picked up for sync deals on musicxray that may be going onto the usa tv show Pretty Little Liars. I was hoping you could tell me if having a distribution deal will effect that in any way or am I good to still get a distribution deal? I write great songs but the marketing I struggle with. I look forward to your reply. Yours sincerely, Voiceoftheppl
Thanks for a great video!! With both DistroKid and TuneCore comparison I’m still missing out on a lot? I read that joining ASCAP or BMI is important as it ensures I am properly registered to receive royalties. Is that necessary with DK or TC because both distributors already see to it I properly receive royalties, and sign me up to BMI or ASCAP, right? Also, CDBaby does what they call “Sync Licensing” that it seems DK and TC don’t do where such licensing if your music is used with various media projects like TV shows, films, Commercials, and Video games where you get pay for that too. Isn’t that a huge benefit over DK or TC? Also CDBaby has tools to promote your music via social media, email marketing, press release distribution. So neither DK nor TC do that? Isn’t DK and TC leaving out a lot?
@@Illusion-ts9omThanks for taking the time and helping with your lead! Isn't a company in India not connected to ASCAP or BMI and thus does not advise whether or not joining ASCAP or BMI is necessary?
hi charles , i just want say, thanks for this important information. I like to know if I hasto register my music and lirycs with de copyright office before registering with Distrokid or TuneCore or other plataform. againg thanks so much for your valuable information.
Hi, I got a question guys. I’m thinking about signing up to Distrokid with my friend and we would like to form a band. When we select the $20 plan where you got 1 artist, can you have two credit cards registered to the one account or not? Because we would like to get payments on eachothers credit card. - If yes, can you also select how many % of earnings each other gets from every song?
I tried tunecore two years ago. I didn’t like how when I had to release a single I had to pay 9.99 for each singles and 29.99 for each album. And every year it’s individually charged which means I’ll be paying more to keep these songs than I am just paying for one bundle in one price in distrokid.
that 0.0037 breaks down to getting almost 1 penny for every 250 streams - and people used to say the record labels were robbing the musicians - the internet is MUCH more crooked than the labels ever were
Hello, I have a question I hope you can help. I am about to release my first project, it’s an EP of 6 songs. But the thing is, since it is my first songs I want to release them one at a time, but not have them as singles. Is this something I can do with tunecore ? Like on song a week for 6 weeks, the whole being an EP
@@CS-hn9xk if you release them one at a time they have to be singles, so I’d say drop some singles to grab some traffic to your page then drop EP w some new songs
@@CS-hn9xk trust the process you’ll be good if you release every song one by one as a single you can make it a playlist when you done n name it your Ep & send it out to ppl like tht as well
Hey Charles! Thank you for this video, super helpful. I'm just getting started making my own music and have a (potentially silly) question. I'm making music with two friends and we'd like all of our names to feature on the track as artists. Does that mean we'll have to sign up for the DistroKid Label pack/each of us have our own individual Musician packs?
Hey does Tunecore let you whitelist your chamnel before i upload my music video to youtube? Because i just found out with distrokid... you have to wait until you get a cc claim on your channel and then dispute it.. i find that unfair if that's the case.. then the distributors earn 20% until the cc claim is cleared and that couls take days or weeks.. does anyone have more info on this? Are you able whitelist your chanell on Tunecore and then when you upload on music is should be all clear automatically?
Thank you for your honest review. It's definitely a difficult thing to compare! I wasnt a fan of tunecore at first and still on the fence about renewing or trying to change to a new distro service...I had a problem where so many other people had the name Juliano that my tracks and theirs wld get mixed up on the different platforms so i switched my name to DJOL a few months ago and its kinda been a mess. Im almost thinking aboit taking my music down and starting over with Tunecore smh! I will say that even tho Tunecores suppprt may not be the fastest for the unlimited plan Im on, its consistent and even tho they will sometimes ask u dumb questions and stuff which only takes longer they are helpful amd consistent. I JUST REALLY WISH THEY WLD LIKE ASSIGN U ONE PERSON FOR SUPPORT SO THAT U DONT HAVE TO KEEP EXPLAINING WHATS GOING ON AND WHAT U NEED HELP WITH EVERY EMAIL.
I had the same issue with Distrokid so I stopped using their services and my songs are no longer on spotify now, I am just thinking if I can release the same songs again as a new release through TuneCore.
Hello @CharlesCleyn I released one single by using Tunecore but I want to use Distrokid for my second single, so here is my question ; Can I release my second single by using the same Spotify account on Distrokid ? Beacuse I don't want to carry over my first single from The Tunecore to the Disttrokid.All I have been wondering is whether I am able to use both distributors for DIFFERENT songs in the same Spotify account.
Signed up with Distrokid under the Musician Plan, they put out my music for 2 days on Instagram, then took my music out without notice. Customer Service said I must find a new Distro. Didn't even have the courtesy of working with them for a month after payments had already been made.
@@trevorwilliams2797 I don’t think so because my music wasn’t found in any of the stores. Distrokid told me my account has been banned and that I should use other music distributors
@@trevorwilliams2797 FROM DISTROKID 👇 Hello, Streaming services are investigating potentially suspicious and/or fraudulent earnings related to the music you uploaded to DistroKid. Your DistroKid Bank has been disabled due to the potentially suspicious and/or fraudulent earning activity reported to us by stores, and will remain disabled during their investigation. We do not have any further information from the stores at this time, but will enable your Bank as soon as we are notified that their investigation has concluded without confirmed suspicious and/or fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, stores are no longer accepting releases from you via DistroKid. You’ll need to try another distributor for future releases. Please understand that DistroKid is unable to assist with reversing this and many DistroKid features have also been restricted as a result of this. We have no other information or context, and we are unable to get involved or take sides when this occurs. We’re just the messenger, passing along this info to you in hopes you find it helpful. Thank you for your understanding. Best, Ralph DistroKid Support distrokid.com
Thanks! Question; How about uploading unique remixes. Will it be accepted? If I have a lecture mixed with Dr Dre beats will it be accepted to the big music platforms. Looking to get out good messages for free! Thanks!
Hi beat box, you'll need to own the copyright to release the music, have the permission, or use royalty free samples/beats, if that is correct, then yes you can!
Hi there so I Released 2 songs on Distrokid as I co-wrote the songs . I put the 3 song Splits in but then I Couldn’t find anywhere to put me as 100% owner of the Master. Music. So I decided to put me as 100% song writer and decided to Pay my 2 Co-wrotes if I get any Money. Is there a place to Put the Master Owner ?
I have both of them for years I got the 15 dollar TuneCore unlimited one weeks ago I go to distribute it keep saying need to update to release project I am not using anything special no new artist name no premium features they offer.
The fact they take your songs down and they don’t disclose why and I’ve seen it happen regularly I would say tunecore looks trash. I’m with DK and it’s honestly better yeh you may have to pay for some extras but the support system is good you get help from real people after the bot. Plus you get DistroVid! And guys DistroKid ain’t paying you for them fake streams 😂😂😂🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Hey there Charles and all you beautiful people! I would like to ask you what happens when you change distributor with your already uploaded music, as well as, if you have to pay - whichever ammount of money you chose per year - either you upload new music or not, only to maintain your uploads. Thank you!
I’m currently using distrokid. I would like to move towards tunecore. That would mean I’d have to use the upc and isrc codes that had already been given by distrokid. So would the $14.99 tunecore plan work out for me?
Hey Sheetal, that's right, the ISRC is the most important code but you should carry over the UPC code as well and make sure all the other date (artwork, song name, etc) is the exact same.
Don’t use tunecore bro, they scam artists, they delay ur releases and their customer service is non existent. I haven’t used distrokid but I’m giving it a shot
If you already have a RU-vid artist page, will they still create one for you? which i think would not be necessary, or can they skip that? Like do they ask, or it just goes automatic? Thanks
Perfect distribution don’t exist royalties depends where your musics were streamed , and how long its been collected from stores to you it takes several months to receive it
Tunecore is dishonest company. Take a look at the pricing chart and as they claim youtube official channel is available on all the plans. In Reality, this option is not available at all. Also, there are no video platforms where you can distribute the music video. There is no Vevo or Tidal or anything like that. If you are looking for distributing your wav file, this may work. I signed up today and lamented my choice just in 10 minutes. I asked them to refund my money. I dont think Tunecore is going to refund my money. I just used their services for less than 60 minutes.
Do anyone have experience if Tuncore take down uploads or stop you from Uploading??? Because I have this bad experience with distrokid. I want to know if Tuncore doe's not do that before moving to them?
TuneCore has hidden fees and tries to milk you with additional fees especially for additional artists. Unless you are a solo artist it is better not to even bother with them.
Hey bro is tunecore faster ? I don't want any isuue of contacting them again and again.... because of this issue i switched many distributor...now i am on distrokid.....but i want to go with tunecore for that free youtube content id
Tunecore takes a day to post, distrokid takes a day also. It’s pretty much the same shit. One exception is that distrokid can post on weekends while Tunecore doenst
I read a lot of very negative reviews about Tunecore and Distrokid. People say they are not paying at all. The service is not answering at all. Songs are removed from Spotify etc. without giving any reason etc. People say that they are totally frustrated with both. You don't have this totally negative experiences?
