Would you choose DistroKid or CD Baby? Why?

Thank you! I’m so excited to start releasing music and these videos really help. There are so many different options, which is great but also confusing sometimes 😅

This helped soooooo much!! I just released my song with CD Baby. Kinda sucks that they take 9% out but honestly I’m just starting out and I like the organization and help

Great high quality video! Thank you for going into depth and providing further knowledge! God bless your channel and continue rocking out!

God bless everyone and protect everyone y’all be safe blessed and safe Amen 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Thank you, that was really helpful and very well explained!

Informative, clear and helpfkl. Thank you Charles ❤

Thank you. Releasing my first album. This was really helpful!

This was very informative man thanks i really have to get my music out there!

Appreciate the video. Observing my parents success over the years with their business, I can say customer service is crucial. Choose the distributor that cares the most about their customers.

I’m very broke and want to make music so I might use cd baby to release my songs after I’m done

a very calm, symphatic and helpful comparison, thank you. greetings from vienna

For anyone who wants to use distrokid keep in mind that you also would have to pay for KZfaq monetization (if you want that), Shazam Recognition and a bunch of other things, your cost could be up to $60 a year for one album and $30 one year for one single.

Thanks Charles, nice video. If we're only considering one album, then there's almost a crossover, where the annual fees to distrokid are about the same as the 9% going to cdbaby. That probably happens at around 4K streams/month (50K streams/year -> $200/year to the artist and 9% of that would be almost the 20/year that distrokid gets from everyone). Below that, and assuming you want your music up "forever", paying (cdbaby) once might be a little cheaper. And above that, you probably save money with a fixed 20/year fee (to distrokid). And obviously below 5K streams/year, the streaming doesn't cover the ongoing fees to distrokid. So: (1) if I pay cdbaby once, I can forget about it, but with an ongoing subscription at distrokid, I'll need to keep checking to make sure that it makes sense to keep it around; and (2) distrokid saves money for more popular artists. But since we don't know how popular a release is going to be, we need an initial release to guess at that. If we want the initial release to last without having to pay an ongoing fee, then cdbaby might make more sense to start. And if that does well, and we're pretty sure the next album will be above 50K streams/year, or we're pretty sure we're going to be doing a lot of releases, then we might move to distrokid. Lotsa ifs, and no real money here for individual artists. Only fees that generate money for companies in aggregate.

thank you this really helped me decide!

You killed it👍🏼

Thanx a lot! Very clear and useful! All the best! )

Thank you ...very informative

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on CD Baby for my new single release. In 2011 I released a full album with CD Baby, there was an artist ID mix up with Spotify and Apple both. 20yrs is a long time and a lot has evolved. What convinced me was the stability of the company and the tools to cover a singer songwriter like myself. Hope this helps and thanks tho Charles for the information. Best of luck to you all!

Great comparison, thanks.

Good information here. I just took a bunch of material off cd baby so I could re-release it. I'll have to pay to put it back up again, but may go with distrokid this time so I don't have to worry about additional fees for more updated versions.

DistroKid seems best for indie/hobby musicians/artists etc. wanting to test their music and puts something out constantly. CDbaby seems to be for more "serious official releases", where you actually mean to release something permanently.

This was very helpful 😊

Great video. thank you for the info but I need to know what plugins and what DAW you edit your audio on. Sounds amazing.

thank you for the comparison. i have been on cd baby for years and will likely stay.

That leave a legacy is only if you die. Once you’re signed up to them it’s for life!

Very helpful video. Thank you! Do you recommend having a Sound Exchange account if you are using one of these services? Just starting out, and I am finishing production on an EP that I plan to release. There is an overwhelming amount of information out there, but I really appreciate your video.

Nice job thanks

Nice one Charles

Does the KZfaq money addon for distrokid apply to all artists and songs if I get the label plan? For example will it add all songs for the 100 artists to youtubes content id database?

Hi, Charles. Thanks for this video. My question is, doesn't the PRO with which we subscribed to pay already the KZfaq Royalties? Why would we need to select KZfaq money as an option? Thank you. Hope to hear from you asap

Great video. Very informative. Re: Your comments at (4:02) A few years ago, out of the blue, I got an email from CD Baby saying “ Hello, we have just placed your song in the HBO series with Sarah Jessica Parker called “The Divorce”…you will be receiving $3000”….. and I did! ….and it was a cover song too! So you never know. CD Baby came through big time on that one for me.

For a record label would Distrokid be best? I like that you can have up to 100 artists. Although CDbaby sounds appealing I have to pay min 10$ for a song for each artist which is 1000$ for a basic plan. Does CDbaby have a plan for record labels

Outstanding!

Thank you 😊

Thanks for posting!! My question is, and pardon my ignorance, as this will be my first song to release - is do we get paid per stream, or only if the person downloads the song?

I've been using CDBaby since Derek Sivers owned the company. Back then that was good because if I ever had a problem I would just email him and he would make sure it was sorted out. Where as there is customer support at CDBaby they don't help as much as Derek did back in the days. The advantage that CDBaby has over DistroKid is once you pay for your catalogue to be distributed by them you don't need to pay anything else again. Most people won't look at this advantage unless they are very forward thinking but seeing as I'm old and I've lost quite a few of my colleagues over the last 5 years mortality comes into it and leaving a legacy for my children and grandchildren. Once I leave the passwords for my children to get into the account they can continue it without having to pay annual fees or the government stepping in to add inheritance tax. I'm still feeling the loss of my friends and I know someday (hopefully a long long time away) I will go too so getting a quick cheap deal that is okay now for me but could be lost when I pass away and the distributor then takes over the rights if it's not claimed is a definite no for me so even though CDBaby isn't perfect I won't be leaving them any time soon just because DistroKid seems to be saving me money because in the long run they aren't.

Great video and info! So, I released an album via Distro 4 months ago. I'm wanting to release another album in May, but I'm thinking about using Cdbaby. If I use Cdbaby, will this 2nd album still show up under my already existing name on streaming platforms? I hope my question makes sense and thanks in advance.

Distrokid allows payment splits, cdbaby doesn't even if you have shared publishing agreements. But cdbaby provides itemized breakdowns of your payments and collects money from more sources.

This was really helpful. I've been with CD Baby for a long time. I have received an offer for music licensing to a movie documentary. It was a very nice payment! What I wish I could do is have an three of my artists names ( I am the songwriter and producer for all on my indie dance label) connected to my main KZfaq account. Other than that, CD Baby had been good. Yes, the sign up is cumbersome. Thanks!

That Annual Feature is Pretty Good. I Wonder What Marketing Tools Distro Kid Has 🤔

The best people are here, thanks because your comments helped me choose.

hey charley...i use cdbaby and i prefer them than any other DSP

It's also worth thinking about if you were going to do collabs. With Distrokid, it would count as another artist slot - and thus an extra yearly subscription cost. I use distrokid for my own releases, but I think I would use CDbaby for collabs.

Hey Charles, thanks for sharing. May i know what run time we get for standard album in cdbaby? Is it depends on number of songs or the play time ?

one thing i really don't like about distrokid is that you can't see the individual track payments. all you get is a total number.

The pricing really balance itself out. My only issue with CD Baby is they are slow. However, I can talk to an actual person if there is an issue, which is important for me.

I submitted my band’s first song to Cdbaby. Waiting for the inspection to end. I hope our song gets approved. Fingers crossed.

Thanks a lot for the info! I think I’ll be going with CDbaby cause I don’t think I’d like knowing I owe 20 bucks to distorkid a month

if i want to switch from distrokid to cd baby can i still maintain the same profile on spotify,apple music, so i dont loose my followers from distrokid

2:43 on the point leave a legacy it's not only on Spotify available is it? Is it also on every other platform you've uploaded available?

Is the check from cdbaby or d kid for royalties every month or every year let me know please thanks 🙏🏾

DistroKid doesn't have anyone actually there to help answer your questions. Big no-no for me. Also, a year on and they still haven't synced my lyrics. What can I do? There's no one there to speak to.

Can I upload my music to a distributor like CD baby and upload to bandcamp too? How do you sign your music to be a copyright holder?

CDBaby for the win! 9% is nothing when you add up all the annual fees of both distro and/or tunecore.

Hey buddy , great explanation Just wanted to ask something important distrokid seems more appealing to me cuz I'm someone who produces like 10 songs a month. But where i have to spend most of my money is copyrighting work with lawyer as they charge me around 35-40 dollars per song :( I wanted to know if i distribute with distrokid , will i get my content id for claiming youtube videos that use my work? And is my original work safe cuz here in india many songs are stolen and used for their benefit by many people. What i want is to immediately have my work copyright protected for my name as soon as i upload it. I'm a new artist about to release my first single soon♥

If you pay for an album on cd baby can you still control the single releases? Like when each song from it drops? Might be a dumb question.

I don't know about the 9% commission on CD Baby cause sometimes I got 3c per play. But I don't really have precise infos on plays. Some plays are almost 0...

Do you have to have a paid spotify account and your own youtube befoes distributing through cd baby?

Spinx Empty Faces is my favorite band!

If I want to distribute duet song via distrokid then which type of plan I have to buy?

Been issuing CD Baby for years. They were great then, today they still are 💯

I'm releasing my first EP and I'm leaning towards CD baby. Any advice?

As an Independent Label I let my artists choose how they distribute their music. I always had success as an artist with CD Baby. I have looked into Distrokid , but as an artist I can honestly say I have never committed based on the reoccurring fees. Just doesn't make sense to me. To each is own but thanks for the review!!

After some months of Distrokid and a few releases I'd like to say that DISTROKID has some bugs which really annoyed me: 1) My songs show up in the wrong KZfaq Artist page. I complaint a few times already and they never got it fixed. 2) Hyperfollow is quite bugged. I couldn not embed an KZfaq video to my latest release and had to manually edit the page on the release date to make the link work, even with a pre-save planned. 3) The lyrics don't seem to work on Spotify. My first release was on November 13th and still, no lyrics. Even though I've pre-configured this WAAAAAY in advance. I'm now considering switch over to CD Baby.

On distrokid, cover song licensing is v also yearly, which can pose a problem

Is it okay if I release a single on CD Baby and hold off on an album for another time if I do one? Right now I only have one song ready to be released very shortly.

Cd baby is starting to sound really good🤔

Can you upload a song that has an instrumental from KZfaq? A beat that's possibly free to use?

tnx sir

Might be smart to put albums on CD Baby and Singles on distrokid. But then I may just change it all over to CD baby

Can i use them both at the same time?

Hello ... I have a question ... Which is do we have to pay every time we release a song in CD baby .... Like tune core ..... Or we can post unlimited songs and give an amount annually in cd baby

My main problem with the pricing CD Baby use is that it doesn't make you want to be more productive, but rather less productive. I feel like the way DistroKid works on the other hand makes it so that the more music you make a year, the more you benefit from being there. (Which might show from my discography, where I released three albums last year, and two so far this year)

Probably how often you release stuff would be part of the decision.

If I used someone’s song in my video for background music, will it get blocked off or just copyright Claim

I recently quit DistroKid, I had an easily fixable problem with my artist name. I uploaded a mixtape and when it got to the stores it had the wrong formatting due to their uppercase - lowercase correction. I tried my very best to get a real person to make this complaint to but all they have on their website is a chatbot. Customer service used to be great years ago, but now you are on your own. Trust me they are pretty shady, they even charge you 30% off your revenue but claim that you will receive 100% income when you sign up. Good luck explaining that to a chatbot. I will try CD baby next

02:50 Do I have to pay for these add-ons everytime I release a single or does this apply to all singles Iplan to release with Distrokid? For example, do I have to pay $5 for every single I release with Disrokid to get the KZfaq Money benefit?

Is cdbaby can claim content id on youtube?

Hi bro If i want my music to be on my KZfaq channel through distrokid, do i have to make account with same email id on distrokid as it is on my youtube channel?? I earlier signed up distrokid with a different email id and it made a new youtube channel for me.. 😟😟

I'm planning in releasing some music in 2021 and I've got it narrowed down to these 2 companies.. but I keep hearing some bad stories about Distrokid when you start making some good money they won't pay you and give you the runaround or drop you you when it's time for payout.. what is your experience with this..thanks in advance.

Does CDBaby do the Apple Music Lyrics? That’s another main thing I wanted to compare.

so for 30 dollars you can upload and album forever on cdbaby but you have to pay 20 dollars a year too keep it up on spotify with distrokid?

Kindly send me your discount link for cd baby? Thanks

Can you get both?

I was deciding between the two for a LONG time before I released my first EP in June, and I ultimately decided on CD Baby. I’m happy with my choice for many reasons and I’m gunna address all the complaints about how CD Baby takes a long time to approve the release. You can either see it as a pro OR a con. Pro being, you now have a month to buckle down and decided how you’re going to market the shit out of your project. Contact the paper, submit to blogs through submit hub, update your website, get channel banners ready, record an acoustic version of your song to upload, create social media ads, etc. Etc. (Even get going on the next project!!) And quite honestly, this will take a long time. If you really believe in your release and want to create a worthy campaign for a project you worked so hard on, you WILL need this time. So, if you are willing to put the work into promoting your release then the extra time at CD Baby really shouldn’t phase you. However, if you are throwing up a project for fun and don’t care about traction or putting in more work, then choose distrokid! Just my thoughts though!

What about Tunecore? Are they as good or better than CD Baby and Distrokid.

are the songs on CD Baby lifetime online?

I was leaning towards distrokid, but after watching a lot of videos and doing my research about them I am going to CdBaby. According to others distrokid is horrible when you run into problems... I dont care about the 9% taken away, no way i will be using distrokid!!

are you allowed to have some songs on distrokid and other different songs on cd baby at same time? somehow i recall you can only use one digital distributor.

Hi mate i've watch your previous one that said we can share a mony on Distrokid how about on cd babay?

but yeah maybe I should go on distrokid

Just FYI if your a hip hop artist Distrokid doesnt really look out for you. Do your own research.

Who's more honest? Does CD Baby make sure artists don't have previous copyrights that were granted to others or are they willfully blind? IMO, the feds should be investigating them. Either they are willfully blind or have artists change just enough of a song where they can get a new copyright and still trigger KZfaq's algorithm to make a copyright claim for the older version. I am sick of paying money for licenses to uses music, or getting music with CC copyright only to have a copyright claim filed by CD Baby. A CC license is for LIFE. I've won all my appeals, but why does KZfaq still accept copyright claims from CD Baby?

When I'm on instagram, and want to use my music on my story, it finds the song but without my album art. Its just blank with a music note on it. Not my album art. Does anyone know how to fix this?? I'm with CDBaby

Кроме PayPal, который перестал работать в России из-за санкций, куда можно вывести деньги с CDbaby?

Different stories, different opinions, different youtubers and one says this and the other that. This way I can't make the right choice lol

can I published cover songs on CDbaby ?

What about releasing 48 songs for a year but just starting out, low streams

Hey, I was trying to submit my music through CdBaby until I came across a thing called Partner Artist ID. It wants you to link your name as well as your band to Spotify and iTunes. Our first release is not live yet (done it through Distrokid) but it’s sent everywhere, I can access Spotify for artists. But since it’s not live yet, if I link the band with Spotify, will it put our release on a different, newly created Spotify profile? (Because our profile is not live/visible yet) It also put our producer’s name there too to link it for some weird reason. Anyone know anything about this?