Flat Fee or a Cut Forever? The Only Distributor Question That Matters.
There are only two kinds of distributor. One charges a fee. The other takes a percentage of everything you earn, for as long as the track exists.
Every other difference between them is a tie-breaker. Get this one wrong and it costs you for years.
All prices in US dollars, taken from each company’s own pricing page on 10 September 2026.
What each one costs
DistroKid — $24.99 a year for one artist, $44.99 for two, $89.99 for up to 100. Unlimited uploads. You keep 100% of streaming royalties.
TuneCore — $24.99 a year for Rising Artist, $44.99 for Breakout, $54.99 for Professional. Unlimited distribution to 150+ stores. You keep your streaming royalties, though social platform revenue carries a 20% share.
Ditto — $19 a year for Starter, $59 for Pro, $109 for Labels. Unlimited releases. No commission on streaming royalties at all. Publishing and sync royalties, on Pro and Labels only, carry a 15% commission.
CD Baby — $9.99 for a single, $14.99 for an album, paid once rather than annually. Then 9% of all digital distribution revenue, permanently.
The number that decides it
CD Baby looks cheapest. For a lot of artists it is. Here is exactly where it stops being cheapest.
Nine per cent of your annual streaming income equals DistroKid’s $24.99 subscription when you earn $277.67 a year, which is about $23 a month. Above that, the subscription is cheaper, and the gap widens every year because the fee is flat and the commission is not.
Against Ditto’s $19 Starter plan the crossover is lower still, at about $211 a year.
Run it over five years on one release and the shape is obvious:
| Your annual income | CD Baby, 5 yrs | DistroKid, 5 yrs | Ditto, 5 yrs |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | $55 | $125 | $95 |
| $300 | $145 | $125 | $95 |
| $500 | $235 | $125 | $95 |
| $1,000 | $460 | $125 | $95 |
| $3,000 | $1,360 | $125 | $95 |
At $100 a year, CD Baby wins comfortably. At $3,000 a year it costs eleven times what Ditto does.
Who each one is for
CD Baby is for a catalogue you are not actively working. Old releases, live recordings, a one-off you will never promote. You pay once and forget it, and 9% of almost nothing is almost nothing.
Ditto is the cheapest annual option at $19 and the only one taking no streaming cut on any tier. If you are releasing regularly and watching every pound, start here.
DistroKid is the default for a reason. $24.99, unlimited uploads, and the largest user base means the most guides, the most forum answers, and the fewest surprises.
TuneCore costs more at the top tier than DistroKid and the practical difference is thin. Its Professional plan at $54.99 makes sense if you manage several artists and want priority support.
What they all do badly
Nobody promotes your music. Every one of these is a delivery service. The playlist pitching tools they advertise are submission forms, not placements.
They all hold royalties before paying out, with thresholds and schedules that vary. Check the payout minimum before you choose, because on small numbers that is the difference between being paid this quarter and next year.
Leaving is friction. Moving a catalogue means re-delivering releases, and you can lose your Spotify URI and the streaming history attached to it if you do it carelessly. Choose as though you are staying.
Verdict
If you release more than one track a year and earn more than about $280 from streaming, take an annual subscription and never look at a percentage deal again. Ditto at $19 is the cheapest, DistroKid at $24.99 is the safest.
If you are parking a catalogue you will never promote, CD Baby’s one-off fee is genuinely the right tool.
What to do
Open your distributor dashboard, find your last twelve months of streaming income, and multiply it by 0.09.
If that number is bigger than $25, and you are on a percentage deal, you are paying for the privilege of earning. Work out what moving would cost before your next release rather than after it.
