Beatport is a very important store for EDM aritsts and not all distributors send music to it because of the level of set up. Some distributors charge a monthly fee to send music to the store while others roll it into their standard service. The difference between the two options is that a monthly fee will get you a dedicated Label account on Beatport exclusive to your releases. Distributors that send your music to Beatport as part of their service have their distribution companies registered as Labels with the platform and will list your music under their Label.

Digital booklets allow you to add something extra to incentivise sales. You can provide buyers with a PDF document containing images, lyrics, thoughts about each track, etc. The PDF would come attached with downloads on iTunes.

Some distributors restrict you from distributing music for more than one Primary artist. This is a rule to prevent users from building a distribution service on top of the one they're using. When collaborating with other artists you may want to list them as Primary artists while not functioning like a label where you don't plan to dsitribute music for them, you just effectively want to feature them on the release. You shouldn't have to pay for that, but some distributors will charge you. Make sure you view our blog for detailed reviews

Content-id is a process where an audio fingerprint is created of your song file and a system is ran that scans YouTube and other platforms for matches. If matches are discovered on YouTube, ads are placed on the content and the revenue from the ads are paid out to the distributor, which pays the artist. It's primarily for third party content that's unauthorized but artists commonly use it to monetize channels that don't qualify for the YouTube Partner Program. Check our guide for the best way to monetize YouTube Distributors normally charge a fee between 20 - 30% of revenue and the feature can discourage the free promotion that you'd get from users sharing your music on the platform so it's arguable as to whether it should be activated.

Will the distributor remove your music if you cancel your subscription or no longer can afford to pay?

A transaction fee is charged every time an artist withdraws their funds. It's a percentage of the amount withdrawn that's charged by the payment gateway that processes the transaction. Different payment gateways charge different fees. The most common gateway is PayPal which charges 2.9% of each transaction. ACH direct bank transfers usually have reduced fees or no fees at all. These fees can work out to be an additional subscription fee. For example:

Artist withdraws $1,000/Month

Artist pays 2.9%

That amounts to a $29 subscription fee on top of the subscription fee paid to the distributor.

In this scenario, the artist would end up paying $348 in additional fees.

Capped fees means the distribute imposes a maximum where you'll never pay more than that amount. If the distributor says 2.9% up to $0.25 like Tunecore does, it means you'll never pay more than 25¢ in transaction fees.

Countries without a US Tax-treaty are subject to a 30% tax withholding. View your country's tax status here

Requires taking a photo of your ID + a Selfie (less likely). This positions your distributor to doxx you to DSPs and could result in bans being tied to your personal identity if you're ever accused of streaming fraud or any other violation.

What you're charged per accusation of streaming fraud

We rate distributors on a scale of 1-5 based on transaparency, customer support, how they handle payment, stores, features, and longetivity.Visit our Blog for all music distributor reviews