I have used a few different
distributors (Symphonic Distribution, CDBaby and Tunecore) for my own original
music over the last few years, trying to figure out the best one for
me, the pros and cons. I recently came across DistroKid and decided
to open up an account and explore some of their features.
The front page of DistroKid
is
fresh, simple, gives you some info and demands email sign-up to start
your distribution. Straight to the point, no messing around.
First of all, DistroKid lists ten big
name retail outlets, which is comparable to what Loudr.fm offers,
minus Pandora submissions and direct-to-fan sales. DistroKid mentions
that they will assist you with cover song licensing and distribution
as well, but there aren't a lot of details on the front page.
Loudr.fm boasts a very detailed cover song licensing and distribution
plan, but more on that in my upcoming Loudr.fm review.
On the surface, it seems like cdbaby
(30+), Tunecore (40+), Mondo Tunes (100+), Reverb Nation (30+) and
Symphonic Distribution (300+) offer a lot more retail stores. It
seems that DistroKid is more focused on dealing with the main
distributors and not as many of the smaller companies. I don't mind
that philosophy, but not having “Shazam” on the list is a
shocker. Shazam is a useful tool that has helped me out. Sometimes
people hear a song and just want to identify it quickly with the
Shazam app, but if you're dealing with DistroKid or Loudr.fm, you are
out of luck. (This blog post is from January 2016, so if this
changes, I will update this post.)
The following chart is a brief
comparison between DistroKid and Loudr.fm
DistroKid |
Loudr.fm |
|
| Amazon | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Music | Yes | No |
| Beats Music | Yes | No |
| Deezer | Yes | Yes |
| Direct to Fans | No | Yes |
| Google Play | Yes | Yes |
| itunes | Yes | Yes |
| Pandora | No | Yes |
| Rdio | Yes | Yes |
| Spotify | Yes | Yes |
| Tidal | Yes | No |
| YouTube Music | Yes | No |
| MediaNet (150+ stores) | Yes | No |
| Annual Fee? | $19.99 | $0.00 |
| Distributor Commission | 0.00% | 15.00% |
DistroKid claims to get your music onto
the popular sites 10-20 times faster than others, I guess that's a
good selling point, but every company I have dealt with so far is
pretty fast.
In order to find out more details about
DistroKid's offerings, I went ahead and registered my email address
with their site and created a login.
Once I signed in, I was introduced to
the three different flavors of DistroKid services. The single artist
option ($19.99 per year for one artist.) The Musician Plus option
($35.99 per year for two artists) and the Record Label Option ($79.99
per year for 5+ artists). All of these options are great, depending
on what your business model is.
Here is my first impression as of
January 2016:
Positives:
- DistroKid covers most of the major places you want your music to be found. (with the exception of Shazam and Pandora)
- DistroKid is affordable. $19.99 for unlimited distribution per year of unlimited tracks is an awesome price for the active musician with a large catalog.
- DistroKid offers package deals if you would like to distribute more than one artist, then there are discounts. Very cool.
Negatives:
- When and if DistroKid ever adds Shazam, then they will be a better value in my eyes.
- Not all tracks make it onto Pandora that are submitted, but there are many other distributors that offer this submission service in 2016 (Symphonic Distribution, Mondo Tunes, Loudr.fm).
- DistroKid covers all of the popular, general distributors, but if you produce Electronic Dance Music you are missing out on some big time sites like Beatport, Djdownload.com and others. This may not be a negative if you do not produce EDM.
- Although it's an inexpensive subscription, some artists may just want to pay a one-time fee and upload their album. For the light hobbyist, producing and marketing more than an album a year is ambitious. Eventually subscriptions could eat up all of your royalties if you produce very little music. Symphonic, Loudr, Cdbaby and others may be better alternatives.
- As far as I can tell, DistroKid does not offer Publishing Administration services and are not partnering with any companies that offer this service. You can lose a lot of royalties for streaming and downloads without a Publishing Administrator. I will blog about that topic soon.
