Best Distribution Service for an Independent Musician in 2022.
If you are reading this article, there is a pretty good chance you are an independent musician. It does not matter if you make hip-hop, rock, country, EDM, reggae, or any other type of music because the article remains the same. No matter what kind of music you make, you need to find a distributor to put your content in front of people who will buy it, or atleast listen to it and get you paid through streams. First off let’s get you to step into my mind for some background information.
I began making music at the age of eleven, and then put it down for two years before jumping full force into learning everything I could about music. By the age of thirteen I released my first mixtape. I was learning how to make beats, how to write music, how to mix vocals, how to shoot video and edit it. Anything that could remotely be used to make my music seem more professional and well put together, I was learning how to do it, I was saving every penny I got to put towards music in one way or another. This pattern went on for quite a few years, I ended up starting a collective of local hip hop artists, under the idea that, the more of us that were working together, the more likely we were to get our music heard. It worked to a degree, playing at music festivals, and sharing the absolute crap out of every music video I made also helped getting my content in front of people.
But by the time I turned eighteen, I was a senior in high school, I had a job, I had money, and I was still making music whenever I could find the time. I knew since I was young, that I would want to release an actual album, once I felt I was ready to do so. I had the money, I had the skills, I was confident in the product I was making, and I started looking around to see how I could get my music from my computer, to Apple Music/iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else.
It has already been four years since I did this, but I have used three different distributors and think some of my experience with them could potentially help you with finding a good fit for yourself.
Distrokid
Distrokid was the first distributor I ended up giving a shot. I did my research and was stuck between TuneCore, which at the time was getting amazing reviews, DittoMusic, which some YouTubers I followed at the time were endorsing heavily, and of course, Distrokid.
What won me at first was the pricing, it was cheap to begin with in comparison to other options, it reached stores and services that most other distributors could not. And I loved the fact that I did not have to pay per release, and instead would simply pay a membership fee and then keep my profits after that. Many distributors have models that have you paying per release, and still doing a revenue split with the distributor, and some distributors are completely free to use, and the only way they make money off of your releases is from your revenue, keeping anywhere from 10–25 percent of what your releases make.
Royalty splits like that may be common place on big music labels, but as an Independent musician, losing that type of money hurts, especially if you are struggling to find listeners to begin with, turning what should have been a one dollar payout, into a seventy-five to ninety cent payout, it adds up. The goal of most independent musicians is to get to a point where they are making profit every time they release, nobody wants to lose money by making music, at the very least, even in the beginning, everybody wants to be able to at-least finance their own music, using the money they make off of their music.
Distrokid made it incredibly easy to budget your expenses, you know every year you are going to pay your membership fee, there are no hidden fees, you use it and release your music. Distrokid even gives you tools to help you grow your fanbase. Hyperfollow being my favorite tool, it’s a smart link that can help anyone who clicks the link find your music on all platforms, and if the song has not come out yet, there is an option for a fan to pre-save your song on Spotify. This is an essential tool in growing your presence on Spotify. Distrokid also operates Slaps.com, which is essentially a social network for musicians to share their work. It is a great idea, and although it’s not ideal for finding fans (since it is pretty much only artists using the website), it is a great way to network with other artists/producers and get feedback on the songs you are working on, if used efficiently, Slaps.com is a great tool to help refine your sound and network with other artists.
CD Baby
CD Baby was the second distributor I used in my music career. In 2019, I was working on a collaborative project with another artist, so there was two primary artists on the album, well unfortunately, Distrokid is horrible at handling multiple primary artists. My options were to pay to upgrade my Distrokid account to a plan that would allow another artist on my profile (this would jump me from 36 bucks to 79 bucks), or I could distribute the project somewhere else. As much as I liked Distrokid, I was left with no choice.
CD Baby’s payments are straight-forward, you pay per release, and since I was only releasing the one album, the price wouldn’t kill me. CD Baby is a very bare-bones distribution service, it has everything you need, but none of the bells and whistles, and the website design looks like it would have been considered bad even in 2005. BUT what I needed was to release the album, I did not need smart links, promo material, or anything else. If I did, CD Baby does offer these things, it would just cost me a bit extra.
CD Baby makes collaborative projects super easy to do, but if I were releasing solo projects only, I would have never ended up using CD Baby. It got the job done as needed though, but did not exceed my expectations in any way. To this day I actually use it about once a year to release collaborative projects, so although it did not blow my mind, it is a solid enough service to justify continuing to use it.
ONErpm
In 2020 I was sick of paying the fees to continue to use Distrokid, and I had a small project ready to be released, so I figured I would try out a new distributor for my solo work, I came across ONErpm, and noticed it is completely free to use, so figured I would try it out.
ONErpm has a bit of a reputation for being one of the most professional distributors for independent musicians, and it’s easy to understand why. Tons of big names use it, just do a quick Google search, “Artists who use ONErpm” and you’ll probably recognize a lot of those names. Better yet, ONErpm has no subscription fees or release fees. They even let you distribute music videos for free. So what could be the drawback with ONErpm?
Well it depends what you are looking for out of your distributor. ONErpm has been amazing in almost every aspect I have paid attention to. Except for how they handle collaborative efforts. Specifically how they handle feature verses from established artists. As a hip hop artist, I work with other rappers all the time, some of them having pretty big names in the industry. How we handle guest verses is generally very informal, we might chat in Instagram DM’s and then I might email my track to them so they can record their verse and send it back, and then that’s it, song is done. I had a song that was made like this, and when I went to upload it on ONErpm, it got kicked back by their system saying I needed a signed document with the date and signature from the person that was on my song. Here’s the thing, I made this song a year before I was uploading it, and I highly doubt the artist I worked with would want to spend time downloading a PDF, filling it out and returning it to me along with a current picture of himself and whatever the hell else ONErpm wanted with it, unless he is getting paid again. As an independent musician, I do not have the money (or the time) to try to resolve these issues. Especially when ONErpm’s competitors never give me this issue.
That issue may not apply to you and your career at all, and if it doesn’t, I would happily recommend ONErpm to you, it is truly an amazing service. However for me, I had to stop using it after this, it completely ruined my release and I know it would happen again in the future. But if you want to use the most professional of the online distributors, I suppose you should be prepared to be the most professional in all aspects of making your music. As a one man team, that is just too much for me. So I went back to Distrokid for my solo releases, and have had no problems since.
My pick for the Best Distribution Service for an Independent Musician in 2022
After reading all of that, I’m not going to waste your time explaining why I picked who I picked, but I’d say Distrokid is the best way to go right now.
Do your own research, don’t rely on me, but I am beyond happy with what they do for me.
If you want to start releasing your music through Distrokid, please consider using my referral code and saving 7% on your membership:
