If you’ve been looking for a way to get your original music out on all the music streaming services and digital music stores, it’s likely you’ve come across Distrokid. It is one of the more known distribution services out there with lots of music industry YoutTubers talking them up and hundreds of thousands of searches for them on Google each month. But are they any good? Are they worth the cost? And how do they compare to their competition? In my DistroKid review, I will break down my entire experience as a customer. I’ll cover the good, the bad, and why I ultimately had to cut ties with this company and just promote my music with my own website and post on platforms that don’t require a distributor or middle-man (like Spotify Artists, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud).
Why I Chose Distrokid
When I first decided to go with Distrokid I did so not only looking for a distributor but one that also handles YouTube content ID too. That way, when I promote my bands’ singles I can simply tell people or write in our ads: Go check out “Feral Humans” (the band name) and people would look us up on whatever platform they prefer, be it Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and many others including YouTube. Plus, if any fan out there decides to upload a video to YouTube with our music in the background, we would be the ones receiving any royalties from the ads (instead of the uploader). And on top of that, we could upload our own music videos to YouTube and the content ID system would automatically place ads on our music videos (even before our channel gained enough subscribers to enable monetization). Just let the distributor handle all that! So YouTube content ID was important to me.
But before arriving at Distrokid, I had learned of another distributor called Ditto Music that also apparently did YouTube and one even better, Vevo on YouTube. So I would have gotten YouTube content ID management and the little Vevo logo in the corner (which would look professional and legit) and also would have come with extra views and free promotion from Vevo’s website. But Ditto ended up being a huge disappointment. I set up my first track, uploaded the artwork, paid them, etc. and when I hit the button to release my track, nothing ever happened. I don’t know if Ditto shut their operation down but left their website up and running or if they were a total scam all along. So don’t use Ditto Music. I’ll save you the trouble right now.
That was when I decided to quickly pivot and go with the other YouTube-friendly distributor I had heard about through multiple music industry YouTube channels: Distrokid. Plus, I liked their pricing structure of paying a small fee rather than giving up a percentage of my royalties.
The Cons of My DistroKid Review
My experience with Distrokid was good overall but with a couple hangups.
Releasing on a Release Date:
The first disappointment I experienced had to do with my single’s release date. Distrokid allows you to release your track (or album) on a specific date that you choose. For example, on the next Friday (as it’s common for releases to drop on a Friday, hence the hashtag: #newmusicfriday). However, what Distrokid actually does is send your release out to the streaming platforms on that date which takes another week to actually roll out and go live on the platforms. So you can’t really advertise ahead of time and say something like “Out July 21” (for example) in your ads. Not unless you pay an extra fee anyway, which I wasn’t interested in doing. So what I’ve been doing since that first experience is just upload my track and have them release it right away. Then after about a week of the release rolling out to stores, start my advertising and promotion then.
Temporary Cancellations:
The next hangup had to do with temporarily canceling. With my situation, I need to be able to temporarily cancel my subscription because I don’t release a ton of music. There are whole years that go by where I don’t release anything at all. So why would I pay for membership during those years?
For my first two releases (that came out in 2019 and 2020) I paid only during those years and then I canceled until I was ready to release another single. But I guess they changed their policy on that because in 2024, I released another single. My plan was to pay for one year and release that one single. It sounded fair to me. However, after the single rolled out to the stores and the end of the year was nearing, I canceled my subscription to avoid a second year’s renewal on my card (because I didn’t know when I’d ever get around to releasing music again). And I of course would just start up again when I’m ready. BUT! You know what they did? Canceling caused them to charge my card again! So now I’ve paid twice in one year! AND they fucking deleted my latest single from all the stores!! I reached out to them (which took about a week for them to reply) and they began to process my refund. So that’s cool. But my latest release was still removed from the stores.
Thinking about it now, I guess it all could have been avoided. It could be that I paid their “Legacy” fee back when I released the first two singles but possibly missed that checkmark when I set up the third single. Paying their Legacy fee, by the way, means your music stays in the stores for as long as DistroKid exists (even if you cancel). So if I just missed that part when I set up my latest release, of course that’s my fault. But still, charging me again when I went to cancel, and making me contact them about a refund, is kinda scummy. And because the stores don’t allow re-submission of deleted music, I’m screwed on that release. So I just have it on my band’s website instead.
So it’s only worth using DistroKid if you plan on releasing music every year of your life from that point forward and paying the yearly subscription fee forever! (or make double sure you pay the Legacy fee for each release). Otherwise, don’t bother. Just upload to Spotify on your own. Spotify is what most people use to stream music anyway.
The Pros of My DistroKid Review
In this part of my DistroKid review, I want to talk about a couple pros that I was pleasantly surprised by when I was a customer. So if you haven’t been turned off by the cons, and you plan on releasing a lot of music. It might be worth it to continue on…
The first pro being the rollout! I was actually really happy with that! As my single went live on each streaming platform, DistroKid sent me a link to the track on that platform. The other thing is the webpage they provided. They provide you with this webpage (sort of like a Linktree page) that you customize with those links…
This way, I can use this page as a landing page for all my online ads and social media posts that promote the release. Users can choose the platform they prefer, click it, and go listen to the track. And I, of course, get paid royalties for all those plays. Distrokid provides this webpage (called a “hyperfollow page”) for free as part of the service.
The Streaming Services
After the single or album is released and fully rolled out to the stores, you can see in your dashboard how it’s available on all the platforms…
They are not all shown in your dashboard there but the full list includes:
- Spotify
- Apple Music
- iTunes
- Instagram & Facebook
- TikTok, Resso & Luna
- YouTube Music
- Amazon
- Soundtrack by Twitch
- Pandora
- Deezer
- Tidal
- iHeartRadio
- ClaroMusica
- Saavn
- Boomplay
- Anghami
- KKBox
- NetEase
- Tencent
- Qobuz
- Joox
- Kuack Media
- Yandex Music
- Adaptr
- Flo
- Medianet & their network
- Snapchat
Paying You Out
I’m also quite happy with the payouts. After I let some time go by and some cash accumulates from people listening to my tracks, I make withdrawals. I have it set up to transfer directly to my bank account. They use a company called Tipalti to do the processing. If you have a band or your track is a collaboration between you and any other artists, you can have the payments be split among you all (something Distrokid calls conveniently: “Splits”). Everyone would have to create their own Distrokid account. In my case though, my collaborating musicians are already paid so I just take 100%…
Distrokid’s Pricing
Next up in my DistroKid review, I want to cover the pricing. Distrokid charges $22.99 a year. It was only $19 when I uploaded my Feral Humans tracks but with such crazy inflation these days, you can’t really fault them for the increase.
What You Get for the Price
Anyway, what you get for that measly $23 is unlimited uploads (be it singles, whole albums, whatever) and you keep 100% of the royalties your music generates. They take no percentage of the royalties (at least not for the basic service). Now, I have friends who don’t like that. They’d rather use a distributor who lets them upload and distributes for free but takes 20% of the royalties. I disagree with that model, One of the main reasons why I chose Distrokid was because I want to keep 100% of the royalties. I mean, what if one of my singles blows up and is making me hundreds or thousands a month? Or what if I get to the point where I’ve uploaded so much music that it’s all adding up to substantial amounts of money? That would mean I have to pay that other distributor hundreds or maybe thousands a month too when I could pay Distrokid only $23 for the year and pocket those hundreds to thousands every month.
YouTube Add-On
Now, that was only their basic service. If you want to add YouTube content ID, it’s extra. This is the other minor disappointment in Distrokid that I have (earlier in the review I mentioned there were a couple small hangups, this is the other one). When I uploaded my Feral Humans tracks (with the YouTube add-on) it cost me an additional $20 per release! But that was then. What they do now is charge an additional $4.95 a year and take 20% of the YouTube content ID royalties…
So it’s just a different way of doing it I guess. Except, nowadays the basic $22.99 also includes YouTube Music. I think the way it was before, you had to pay the extra $20 for YouTube period (content ID and YouTube Music). So this new way is better.
If you’re thinking about signing up for Distrokid, I can get you 7% off the $22.99! Just go through my link >HERE<
Reporting
To see how your royalties are coming along you can view reports broken down by artist (if you have multiple artists projects going), by song, or by streaming service. You can also dial all the way down to individual plays (a view Distrokid humorously calls: “Excruciating Detail”) haha!..
The only complaint I have about the reporting is that it takes three months for reports to come in and for your account to update monetarily. That really bums me out because I’m budgeting on a monthly basis. Especially if I’m using credit cards to run any kind of advertising or promotion, I need to know how the results are doing in thirty days, not three months! I don’t know if that’s an industry wide thing or if that’s just Distrokid playing a trick to keep your money longer.
Extra Perks
I was pleasantly surprised by some additional perks that made me feel like I was getting extra value for the yearly membership. Some of these things are promotional tools (like the Hyperfollow pages that I covered earlier) but there is more than that!
There is a “Mini Video” section with fifteen templates that allows you to choose your already uploaded album or track (with album art) and it generates a short vertical video that’s perfect for sharing on social media and announce your new release, like these…
- There is a “Meme Video Generator” that puts your music into a pre-made meme video.
- There is a music video generator as a separate product called “Vizy”.
- There are 29 templates for “Promo Cards” which are still-image versions of the “Mini Videos”.
- There is social platform called “Slaps” where Distrokid artists share their music with each other.
- There is an instant mastering engine called “Mixea”.
- There is a text-message marketing system called “SocialPhone”.
- And there are more things added all the time.
A.I. Mastering (DistroKid Mixea)
During my latest release (for the Feral Humans single, Take my Life) this thing popped up at the end of the process that asked me if I wanted to have my uploaded track mastered with the click of a button (but also for an extra $10). It showed a before-and-after sample of a few seconds of my song so I could compare. I have to say, I did like how the sample made my song sound deeper and bigger. The guitars sounded more heavy and less crunchy. The drum toms also sounded beefier. So I gave it a shot and had it do the whole song the extra $10.
In hindsight, there was also a downside to the A.I. mastering job. It seemed like there were some odd vocal things that came out (like how it turned up the reverb in the vocals instead of keeping that quiet). It also increased some of the highs too much (like all the cymbals) throughout.
I would embed a before-and-after sample here, but like I said in the Cons section, DistroKid deleted that single from all the platforms. So I would only have the “before” track to show.
Music Video Distribution
In this part of my DistroKid review, I want to talk about this new, additional service that DistroKid started offering where they get your music video onto Vevo, Apple Music, and Tidal. Like I talked about earlier (how I first tried another company that distributes to Vevo) I would be stoked that Distrokid now offers this. But these days I feel like music videos are unnecessary. They were invented during the time of MTV and they were a promotional tool to get large masses of people to find out about your music. Nowadays, social media and YouTube are the replacement to that. And those both use video as a medium. Videos themselves are not the product. The music is. So I don’t see much value in the extra $8.25 a month (or $99 a year) that Distrokid wants for the service. But that’s just my opinion. You may be interested in it! And I, of course, think the basic plan is well worth it (provided you plan on keeping your subscription forever). Otherwise.. no.