Guides
Music Distribution: DistroKid vs TuneCore vs CD Baby
Your distributor is the bridge between your recordings and every streaming platform. It delivers your music to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Deezer, collects the royalties, and pays you. The three names most independent artists start with are DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby, and the differences between them have shrunk a lot since the days when one charged per release and one charged per year. Two of them are now near-identical flat fees, and the third is the last major distributor still taking a permanent cut.
Prices here are current as of September 2026 and match the distributor calculator, which runs the multi-year cost for your own release pace and earnings.
What each one charges
| DistroKid | TuneCore | CD Baby | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $24.99 a year | $24.99 a year | $9.99 a single, $14.99 an album, once |
| Royalty cut | 0% | 0% | 9%, for as long as the music is up |
| Releases | Unlimited | Unlimited | Paid per release |
| Content ID | Add-on | Included | Included |
| Automatic splits | Yes, collaborators pay | Yes, free | No |
| If you stop paying | Music comes down | Music comes down | Music stays up |
DistroKid
DistroKid is a flat annual subscription with unlimited uploads and 0% of your royalties. Musician is $24.99 a year for one artist name. Musician Plus, at $44.99, covers two artist names and adds custom release dates and daily stats. Ultimate, at $89.99, covers a roster. Through our link, Musician drops to $23.24.
The extras are where the price grows. Content ID and monetization of TikTok, Instagram and Facebook videos come as the Social Media Pack, at $4.95 a single or $14.95 an album per year, and DistroKid keeps 20% of what it collects. Splits are built in, but a collaborator needs their own DistroKid subscription to withdraw, or you pay $10 a year per person so they can collect without one.
TuneCore
TuneCore used to charge per release, which is why older comparisons call it the expensive one. It doesn't any more. Rising Artist is $24.99 a year for one artist with unlimited releases, Breakout Artist is $44.99, and Professional is $54.99. Every tier includes YouTube Content ID, royalty splits and scheduled release dates, and TuneCore takes 0% of streaming royalties.
Two commissions sit outside that 0%. TuneCore keeps 20% of what it collects from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Its publishing administration service is separate, with a one-off $75 set-up fee per songwriter and a 20% commission, up from 15% at the start of 2026.
CD Baby
CD Baby has no subscription. You pay $9.99 for a single or $14.99 for an album, once, and the release stays in stores whether or not you ever pay again. In return CD Baby keeps 9% of your streaming and download revenue for as long as the music is up. Content ID is included. Songwriter splits can be registered on a release, but CD Baby doesn't pay collaborators their share automatically; that's on you.
Two things older reviews still credit CD Baby with are gone. It stopped distributing physical CDs and vinyl to stores in June 2023, though it still manufactures them for you to sell yourself, and its Pro publishing administration closed to new releases in August 2023. CD Baby is now part of Universal Music Group's Virgin Music Group, after UMG's purchase of its parent, Downtown, was cleared in 2026.
Which pricing model wins
With DistroKid and TuneCore at the same price, the real choice is flat fee against percentage. The 9% is cheap while you earn little and expensive the moment you don't:
| Your monthly royalties | Flat $24.99 plan | CD Baby's 9% |
|---|---|---|
| $10 | $24.99 a year | $10.80 a year |
| $25 | $24.99 a year | $27 a year |
| $100 | $24.99 a year | $108 a year |
| $500 | $24.99 a year | $540 a year |
The crossover is about $23 a month in royalties, before CD Baby's per-release fees are counted. Below it, the percentage is cheaper and your music stays up for free. Above it, the flat fee wins by a margin that widens every year, and a catalogue earning $500 a month hands CD Baby the price of more than twenty years of DistroKid every year. At Spotify's average rate, $23 a month is about 5,750 streams, so most artists releasing regularly cross it sooner than they expect. The Spotify calculator will tell you where you are.
- You release often. A flat fee, and DistroKid or TuneCore are the same price. Every extra release is free.
- You release one or two things and stop. CD Baby. Two singles cost $20 once, and they never come down. Below the crossover the 9% is smaller than any subscription.
- You earn real money from streaming. A flat fee, whatever your release pace. The 9% has no ceiling.
Between DistroKid and TuneCore
Same price, same 0%, same unlimited releases, so the difference is what's in the box and what happens on social platforms.
TuneCore includes Content ID and free splits in the $24.99. On DistroKid those are the Social Media Pack and the $10 collaborator fee, so an artist with ten singles under Content ID and two collaborators pays DistroKid about $95 a year against TuneCore's $24.99. If those two features matter to you today, TuneCore is the cheaper plan by a distance.
DistroKid's case is scale and ecosystem. It is the largest independent distributor, its delivery to stores is the fastest of the three in our experience, its integrations with tools like Spotify for Artists are the tightest, and features like HyperFollow pre-save pages are included on every plan. For an artist who doesn't yet need Content ID or splits, that's what the same $24.99 buys, and it's why DistroKid sits first in our distributor rankings and TuneCore fifth.
On social monetization they're closer than the table suggests. Both keep 20% of what they collect from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook; TuneCore just doesn't charge a per-release fee to switch it on.
What both subscriptions have in common
If you stop paying DistroKid or TuneCore, your catalogue comes down. That's the trade for unlimited uploads, and for an active artist it's a non-issue, because you're paying anyway. It matters if you're releasing a one-off project and may not renew, or if you have a back catalogue earning passive income that you'd rather not pay to keep online. CD Baby's one-time fee is the answer to that, at the cost of the 9%. Whichever you pick, it's worth knowing what happens to your music if the distributor itself goes under.
All three deliver to stores in days rather than weeks, and all three tell you to schedule releases two to four weeks out. That's the window Spotify needs for editorial playlist pitching, and it's the one part of this that doesn't depend on which distributor you chose.
Our recommendation
For most independent artists who release regularly, DistroKid is still the default: the flat fee matches the consistent release strategy that drives streaming growth, and the ecosystem around it is the biggest. If you need Content ID or pay collaborators from day one, TuneCore gives you both for the same $24.99 and saves you the add-ons. If you're releasing a single or two and want them online forever without a subscription, CD Baby's one-time fee is the right tool, as long as you understand the 9% never stops.
Whichever you choose, run your own numbers first. The distributor calculator prices all three, plus Symphonic, Amuse, Ditto and UnitedMasters, over five years for your release pace and earnings, and our platform calculators estimate what your streams will pay on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Tidal.
