Distrokid Review Update 2024

The Truth About DistroKid (Review)

by

Today is a big day. As you guys know, I’ve tested all the music streaming distribution sites and have consistently ranked CDBaby as the best one, specifically for up-and-coming artists.

I finally got around to testing out Distrokid and have been using it for the last three months (on three releases) and in this Distrokid review will share with you the pros and cons of Distrokid.

Will DistroKid knock CD Baby off its music distribution throne? Let’s get into the good, bad and ugly…

(Btw if you want to get 7% off Distrokid use my VIP LINK).

DistroKid Review: Bad and Ugly

There really ain’t another way to put it: It’s definitely the ugliest of the bunch.

The vibe I get from the site is it it’s a one-man operation and that one man is either purposefully making the site look bad (to make us think he’s passing on the savings to us) or just completely ignoring basic design principles.

For example, this is the upload page:

distrokid upload page

Yikes! Now here’s what happens when you click “Team”.

I hope you’re sitting down for this.

Are you still alive? I know, I know, everything is just plain bad.

It’s so bad, I almost didn’t want to sign up but then I saw that Derrik Sivers the founder of CD Baby, is recommending the site.

And since I appreciate Derrik’s way of thinking, I was like “ah what the heck! Let’s give this a shot!”.

I wish DistroKid either doubles down on bad design or just does the web 2.0 style that’s been in vogue for the last 10 years (*cough* just copy Tunecore).

This half-ass job, makes me feel like they’re going to run to the Caymans with my $48 in streaming revenue!

Upselling Me into Oblivion

I know trying to upsell your customers is the snazzy thing to do in eCommerce, but it’s not cool and doesn’t feel human.

Especially when all your customers are musicians: our whole thing is trying to feel more human!

I mean, every song we make is trying to bring some god damn humanity into this cold wired world, and you’re doing this to me:

This doesn’t make me feel more human! Can’t you just include this for free? And what happens when Distrokid dies?

Song Landing Page

It’s nice that they provide this feature and if you don’t know what it is, it’s just a landing page that has links to all the streaming services your song is on (Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Deezer, etc).

But it looks so ugly, there’s no way any artist should be sharing that with their fans. In fact, anytime I find a new artist and see their link in bio is to Distrokid, I brace myself.

There’s also a little button at the top that says “Talk to me”, which fans are supposed to use to message the artist. This is a useless distraction as it takes away from the users’ flow (to listen to the song!).

For independent artists, the song landing page, I like the most is the one from ToneDen.

It’s the one with the link which will usually start with fanlink.to.

It’s free to use and looks much better than the one Distrokid provides.

The Thing About Annual Fees

This isn’t a bad thing but could be a bad thing if you make it a bad thing: why are you making it a bad thing?

For artists who release one song every 10 years, paying an annual fee is not a good idea (obviously) and you’ll want to stick with CDBaby.

But for the rest of us who churn out songs weekly, Distrokid’s interests align not only with our interests but also with Spotify’s.

You see there is reason to believe that Spotify’s algorithm rewards musicians who release music on a consistent and frequent basis.

This is why I recommend every artist, from major to mini, drop a song once a month (at the very least) and you’ll see in the next paragraph how Distrokid makes this economical.

The Good Things About DistroKid!

While the design of the site makes me feel like they don’t give a hoot about me, the actual services Distrokid offers tells me they are legit and 100% for independent musicians.

Let’s start with the biggest benefit: pricing.

And this is something you better be sitting down for.

For only $20 a year, you can upload UNLIMITED songs to Spotify, Apple Music, and the whole streaming services cartel.

$20 a year!

Upload as many songs as you can make!

With CDBaby and Tunecore, they usually charge about $10 per song. I don’t get how they’re going to compete with this, cause pretty websites ain’t going to cut it.

Oh, and did I mention you keep 100% of your royalties.

I know this is sounding like an infomercial right now. But in my CD Baby vs Tunecore review, you can see exactly how much royalties they snip away from you.

And it’s a lot higher than 0%.

We musicians should treat our royalties like old men treat their lawn: get your damn self off my lawn!

Another thing Distrokid doesn’t charge is for the UPC code, they just give it to you for free, which has always felt like a scam the other sites charged for.

(Enjoying this Distroy review? Get 7% off Distrokid use my VIP LINK).

Tik Tok Integration

Another benefit, which I assume CD Baby et all, will do is uploading your songs to TikTok.

If you haven’t heard of TikTok or don’t care, download the app and put 100% of your social media content creation into it (especially if you are a musician) because there’s a good chance you’ll go viral on your third post.

For me, I wanted my songs to go on TikTok so I could do silly videos to them and Distrokid is the only one offering that service (and if others are they’re not credible).

Distribution Speed

With CD Baby, it would take two weeks to get a song on Spotify and with Distrokid, my songs were getting on within 1-3 days. This isn’t necessarily a good thing anymore, as to get on Spotify’s playlists they recommend submitting the song two weeks before release.

I’d recommend submitting it even earlier, which means setting your release date 3 to 4 weeks in advance.

Withdrawing Earnings (Update: 2021)

Since I wrote this article, some people in the comments have mentioned they have had trouble withdrawing their earnings and I found that a little troubling. So what did I do? I withdrew my earnings from Distrokid to get an idea of the process. I had over $2000 USD to withdraw from Distrokid and it transferred without any problems. I also live in Canada so had to fill out the necessary forms (W8) and Distrokid and their payment partner Tipalti made it easy to do so.

The only thing that is a little frustrating and this isn’t a knock against Distrokid but one against the streaming services, is why does it take so long to calculate and send our royalties? In most cases, it’s at least a 2-month wait. Don’t computers do all the accounting? Why are you sitting on our money for months? LOL. But I digress.

Youtube Red Earnings (Update: 2023)

Distrokid is now providing earnings from Youtube Red users and it surprisingly makes up a big chuck of my earnings.

Bonus Tips

Now it should be pretty clear I recommend Distrokid over CD Baby, so here are some bonus tips to help you make the transition.

1) Get the $19.99 plan, instead of the cheaper $9.99 plan, because you can’t choose your release date.

This is important for three reasons (and yes I made all these mistakes, so you don’t have to):

(A) You have no idea when your music will be released on all streaming sites as each streaming service has different processing times. So if you tell your fans your song will be out Friday, it might not be out on Apple Music until the following Monday.

(B) You won’t be able to submit to Spotify’s playlist as Spotify’s editors won’t have time to review it. And you at least want to try to get on a Spotify playlist, even though the chances are 0.02%.

(C) You can’t set your record label name, so on your release it’ll say something ugly like “Distrokid 1872047202”.

2) If you’ve found anything I’ve said today helpful, use my VIP LINK to sign up for Distrokid. You’ll get 7% off your membership and I’ll get a small commission from Distrokid.

Have you made the switch to Distrokid? Let me know in the comments what your experience has been with them.

 

 

Andre is the head audio engineer at ADG Mastering, which he helped found in 2012. For the last 10 years, he has made it his mission to empower aspiring artists and musicians from around the world. You can see more of Andre's writings on our Blog.

59 Comments

    • Thanks for the review. I uploaded a song on DistroKid yesterday. I’m hopeful but then I read horrible reviews on Trustpilot about them ripping people off. Have you heard about this and what is your reaction now that you’ve had some time using them?

      • I’ve been with them for a while and the plus side is the ease of uploading and quick distribution. The downside for me is that according to their own stats I have been underpaid for album sales. I’m not talking about a lot of money but the principle. Their so called Customer Support is imho atrocious, as they have not explained this in any way that makes any sense – The monthly stats take about 2 -3 months to be uploaded which is fine, but then they seem to say that your monthly and yearly record of album sales is only as estimate!! How a 2 month turnaround results inane estimate is farcical. This means that your recorded album sales are meaningless! In my case the record shows I sold more copies of my second album than the first but received about half the amount!! Their so called explanation for this is simply absurd. I would move to another distributor but I have read about similar issues with all of them. Bad enough that we receive so little for the work we put in, but even worse when we are subsequently ripped off!!

      • Same here, I became skeptical after the reviews on Trustpilot about them ripping people off and being a bot company. They are definitely a bot company but you can read the spelling of the review and tell the people do not read well. You sound legit and I trust this review. Tip sign up for an account wait a few days then they send you a large percent off.

    • DistroKid is the best of all these type of sites in my opinion. I don’t give a damn what the thing looks like! DistroKid is always in front of EVERYONE ELSE when it comes to putting up lyrics, song information and a lot of other things and that’s why the CD Baby guy recommended them. I moved from CD Baby to DistroKid.

    • They made my single I submitted 16 days ago late. I had to delete any pre-made scheduled content. I thought this was better and I left CD Baby for the same reason. I gave more than enough time to be released on a specific date. O even upgraded to think that I wouldn’t have any issues with future dates but I still do. I need to find a new distributor

  1. Distrokid’s customer service is the worst I’ve ever come across, anywhere in my entire life. My music was suppose to release 3 days ago, and I can’t even get a reply to my emails.

    • Did your music go live in the end? I’m asking as mine currently has the yellow dot and “in the midst of being transferred to stores”. Would be good to know how you got on.

    • THEY POSTED MY SONG WITH MY ACCOUNT NAME ON SPOTIFY AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT ACCOUNT LITERALLY NOTHING! NO I CANT CHANGE THE PHOTOS OR EVEN EDIT MY OWN ACCOUNT !

    • I got response from support like in fastest possible time, it looked to me that they are working but if you had bad expirense please explain in details and by doing that you can help to many other Artists. Please share your experience

  2. What do you say about all the negative reviews for Distrokid on Trustpilot? I chose Distrokid to distribute my music, and after reading the reviews on Trustpilot, I’m very nervous!!!

    • Hello Gordon,

      I’ve had terrible experiences with distrokid. Switched to CDBaby, never looked back. I prefer paying a one time fee and I don’t have to worry about anything.

    • Are you referring to their customer service?
      I have seen a lot of complaints concerning their customer service. Can you be more specific? My biggest concern of course is GETTING PAID and not scammed!

      • I have a good experience with support so I’m sorry when I hear opposite or I’m just lucky but it would be great for complies to be explained. Payment is correct and like it’s written in documents so no worry about that but it’s delayed for 2-3 months back but when you spend some time it gegins to be like it’s on time and always you know there is more coming because of 2-3 months delay. And 30% tax for non USA countryes or countries that don’t have trade deal with USA and that county by law can ad tax on already taxed payment but that’s politics so don’t worry about payment it’s clear and transparent no hidden rules

  3. I just started using DistroKid and my experience has been pretty good so far.
    I have been playing at music festivals for 2 or 3 years now and figured that it would be a good idea to get some extra publicity and royalty money.
    And because DistroKid gives you ALL of it.
    DistroKid is the publisher I decided to go with

  4. Distrokid looks like is to good to be true. 20$ for 1 year uploading unlimited music and no comition customizable spotify arstist profile you are able to split the revenue with your band or the engeniers and many more. Its good if you only want to upload your music and just be on spotify for you to promote it. Now lets see. If you want to monetize on youtube your song you have to pay $4.95 per single/year, $14.95 per album/year, + 20% of YouTube ad revenue. If for some reason you havent payed the subscription on time distrokid takes down your songs from all the music stores, unless you pay 30 $29.00 per single, $49.00 per album of 2+ tracks . So if you want to be consistant with the full stenghth of what distrokid is giving you (1 song per month) its costs you about 59.4 dollars PER YEAR plus the 20% from Youtube revenue, for monetizinbg your music plus 360 dollars for not taking down your song if you dont want them to be taken down if you dont pay the subcription on time. You also have to keep in mind that this is just for a year. If you still want to monetize your music on youtube for another year now you pay $118 per year plus 20% of the youtube revenue.
    In conclusion, Distrokid is an awesome website if you want to release a song on digital music stores, but if you want to get the most out of your music this is not the distributer to go with. I was really impressed by the price as well but as you can see numbers almost never lie. And yes.. Its to good to be true

    • Which distributor would you recommend then? Doing my research now. And we are in the thick of Corona. Are songs being uploaded on time? Thank you for any help. Trying to help someone figure out the best distributor platform to go with.

    • Sorry I didn’t understand the point or to be specific I want to understand but I don’t, can you please explain simpler . I don’t understand why 1 track is so expensive? I didn’t find that info and I’m using Distrokid for two years and it’s OK I’m happy and payment is like it says so I didn’t have any problems but maybe your info can help for future and to others so please share your experience

    • How about to speak or directly email DistroKid about a technical issue? Do they have an email address or phone number?

  5. YO MARCUS!! APPRECIATE YOU, MAN!

    I just wanted to echo what “the star creature” said. This is literally this fist thing I’ve read about anything to do with distributing music digitally and this was EXACTLY what I needed to know. Not only did you teach me something about the process but also about the product and I like saving time!
    Keep it poppin’!!

  6. I have been using Dittomusic until they scammed me. They blocked my account saying that they are investigating something and from that moment they never replied. My music was performing well on Spotify and still is and on other major platforms such as Apple Music an Deezer, however they have stolen my Royalties and denied me any access. SO I have resorted to Distrokid and have uploaded my music which already exists on Spotify etc… it has been accepted obviously because I am not scamming an this is my Music which I worked on for nights and days ! What I actually wonder now, how would I get what I deserve from my music especially that DITTOMUSIC isn’t responding which means they won’t be taking down my music! It is so sad! These Assholes on DittoMusic are rich people and dont care at all about the independent artist who has spent every penny he/she has to develop his/her studio in order to gain more and in order to spread the Love ! Horrific ! before becoming a Music producer I was a DJ for 10 years and was resident DJ at SOHO club and once ive discovered I could earn from my Hard worked on Music which I create on LOGIC ive realised that the world of clubs was much more honest than those like Ditto

  7. If you don’t feel comfortable with Distro or CD baby, who do you recommend. I’m in the process of choosing a distributor an any guidance you can offer is appreciated.

  8. All I know is that I cannot stop filling in data midstream, save what I have done, and come back to finish. I spent the last couple of hours filling out forms. Song names, various contributors, etc. I went to save and it said ” you forgot to fill in #26 #27″ So I tried to change the number of required slots…. POOF! All that work disappeared! So frustrating. Yeah, lots of tunes, but it’s years worth of work.

  9. Hi guys, I signed up with Distrokid yesterday and (thankfully) I have only uploaded one song so far.
    A friend alerted me to Distrokid’s bad reviews on TrustPilot this morning.
    Damn! Wish I hadn’t gone with them now…. 🙁
    I see that my song is still in the process of being uploaded…….. but I currently have the option to ‘abort’ it.
    If I do cancel it, does anyone know if I’m free to upload the song to another platform (like CD Baby)?
    Or have I now sold my soul to the devil….?!

    Thanks in advance for any help!

  10. Do you have any insight on how DistroLock works or the Pros & Cons of using it cause this “one man opp” is horrible at helpful email respones & providing problem solving information.

  11. Great article! Very well-rounded review sir!

    Have you figured out how to submit a ticket or ask a question to DistroKid? They take GREAT pains to make sure that no one can contact them by email, phone….and now even through their support site, unless I’m missing something. When you go to “submit a ticket”, it gives you a drop-down menu of about 5 issues. below that is a sub-drop-down menu. It’s a very convenient way to sort questions, as long as you actually have one of the questions they list, in which case they’ll just direct you to the FAQ site. What if you have a question that they don’t list? Is there any way to actually submit a ticket? Or does “submit a ticket” actually mean: we’ll direct you to an online answer if you’re lucky enough to have one of these 5 problems – but if you don’t, we’re not interested.

  12. They have been great, took about a week before I could see my stuff on all major streaming platforms. I’ve read some pretty nasty stuff about DK but also some balanced and pro things about them as well. I just put my big boy pants on and deal with things should they come up. Distrokid is awesome!

  13. So….. Can ANYBODY recommend what would be the company to go with.. Everybody is talking about how horrible these companies are, but no body is saying which company is the best.. can i get a straight answer as far as which company is ideal

  14. I have done everything they said needed to be done and haven’t been able to upload anything.After everything was uploaded it keeps telling me to try again.

  15. When people click and listen to my music in Youtube and this generates money through monetization do I receive those funds or does distrokid take a cut? They make you click on I selected “YouTube Music” as a store. So I won’t email DistroKid later asking, “why’d you upload my music to YouTube?!” …mkay? before you can go any further but I didn’t select this option. It’s confusing. They have no customer service. No email contact and a stupid robot you can chat to but only allows for short sentences. It’s ridiculous. Does anyone else know?

    • Hi I have an answer to you question. Distrokid as company must pay taxes Wich is 30% in most cases it is for countryes Wich don’t have trade deal with US so Distrokid is best in terms of transparency and everything is written so everyone can see agreement. You are paying Yearly and that’s it Distrokid is keep your earnings safe until you withdraw then taxes going to be uplied and that’s 30% . Distrokid is US. Company and so far best in my 15 year of releasing music. This is best solution

  16. I don’t know why but my quality was rendered to the most awful sound on Spotify… yet sounds great on other streaming platforms… Also I’m thinking about switching but I still need to do my research if I’m gonna leave Distro…

    • Quality of sound has no anything with Distrokid. Try using loudness penalty online search it on Google and you’ll be supported. Conclusion is that Distrokid doesn’t do anything with sound quality it is up to EBRU-128 as reference to start that includes Dynamic, LU, true Db. End every streaming service have there’s own rules but it all comes to same standard

  17. I think a lot of the gripes on here are actually due to user error, or unfamiliarity with the processes., rather than with Distrokid.
    Yes, the site looks awful, but so what?
    It delivers in spades getting my music into online stores and streaming channels, and my royalties are ALL mine, AND I have no problem getting them into my bank.
    I have released three albums worth of material, and an EP, with not a single glitch or problem.
    I don’t understand the negativity.
    For the price, I can’t grumble

  18. Hi – I’m already with CDBaby (have been forevermore), do I have to cancel my CDBaby before I can list all my songs (have around 300) with Distrokid…? Secondly, I have some cover albums (and yes, I have the royalty payments complete) can I list them on Distrokid…?

  19. They don’t give a hoot about anyone now that they’ve purposely blocked all contact and instead forced users to go on a merry-go-round with a computerised cretin. Their former contact email address now redirects to the bot, and there’s no way to speak to a human being when the bot is unable to address issues not in its programming – the cretinous bot draws one into a loop from which there’s no escape.

    Bad blood. We throw money at DK, and they disrespect us.

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