Can I Upload With Both Cdbaby and Bandcamp?
It'due south your first fourth dimension releasing music equally an independent musician, and you've read the names DistroKid and CD Baby near a hundred times. As you prepare to get your music into the world, you demand to make up one's mind which distribution service to use. They both perform the same basic function—getting your music in digital stores and on streaming services—just how do y'all pick between them?
Each distribution service comes with drawbacks that might make one better than the other for your particular career goals. Let's review the major differences and similarities between DistroKid and CD Baby and then yous can determine which one volition work hardest for you.
Editor'southward notation: This commodity was updated on July 26, 2021, to accost an FAQ nigh CD Infant.
What's it like to use DistroKid, CD Baby?
CD Baby is very easy to navigate and keeps your releases organized.
DistroKid's interface promotes a social bail between independent artists, whereas CD Infant focuses more on the creative person as an individual. DistroKid users can customize an account profile when they input their music genres, artist inspirations, social media usernames, and their biography. DistroKid publishes this profile to its various community-driven promotional tools (more on these in a scrap).
Unlike DistroKid, CD Baby doesn't facilitate any artist-to-artist interactions or customizable social profiles. CD Baby'due south interface is more aesthetically pleasing than DistroKid's though, and it's easier to view its artist development tools and your releases at a glance.
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Uploading music to DistroKid is more than navigable than uploading music to CD Babe. With DistroKid, you input all of your release's information on a single page, whereas on CD Baby you accept to click through several pages of information earlier submitting your release. Each of these CD Baby pages contains a fair amount of instructions and requirements that can exist difficult to parse. You're more likely to miss some information cached in CD Baby's page log than with DistroKid'due south.
Is CD Baby more affordable than DistroKid?
You tin can easily grow your audience with DistroKid'due south tools.
When it comes to charging for services, CD Baby and DistroKid take different approaches. DistroKid members pay an almanac fee to release an unlimited number of singles and albums. It offers three membership plans: Musician, Musician Plus, and Characterization. The main drawbacks of the Musician programme, which is the cheapest, are that you can't set future release dates on whatever content, and you tin can't view release statistics.
| Musician | Musician Plus | Label | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toll | Musician $19.99/twelvemonth | Musician Plus $35.99/year | Characterization $79.99/yr for 5 artists |
| Unlimited song uploads | Musician ✓ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Number of artists | Musician ane | Musician Plus 2 | Label 5 to 100 |
| Spotify verified checkmark | Musician ✓ | Musician Plus ✓ | Characterization ✓ |
| Synced lyrics for Instgram | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Daily sales stats | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Customizable label name | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Customizable release date | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Customizable preorder appointment | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Customizable iTunes pricing | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
There are as well more costs to DistroKid than its annual fee; to go on your releases public even after you abolish DistroKid, yous must opt-in to the Leave a Legacy programme. This costs a $29 USD 1-fourth dimension fee for a single and a $49 USD 1-time fee for whatever release of two or more than songs. DistroKid as well charges quite a few additional fees for services like YouTube and Shazam monetization.
DistroKid charges additional fees for services like Leave a Legacy.
While DistroKid is a great option for artists who frequently release music and aren't interested in any additional services, CD Infant is improve for musicians with a slower vocal rollout. CD Baby charges per release, and most of the add-ons are included in the price of a release. Those who desire their music to stay on the digital shelves indefinitely will find CD Baby is a more economical distribution service, since it doesn't charge a Get out a Legacy fee.
CD Baby charges additional fees for its publishing administration service, CD Baby Pro Publishing, in order to collect publishing royalties. It as well charges an additional $5 USD per single and $20 USD per album to give your release a UPC lawmaking, or product identifier lawmaking, which you'll need to purchase if you lot don't already have i for your song. Hither'southward a breakup of how much you'll take to pay for each release (USD) if you lot don't add a UPC lawmaking:
- An album release costs $29 via CD Baby Standard.
- An album release costs $69 via CD Infant Pro Publishing.
- A unmarried release costs $9.95 via CD Baby Standard.
- A unmarried release costs $29.95 via CD Infant Pro Publishing.
How exercise DistroKid and CD Babe collect and distribute royalties?
DistroKid distributes payments monthly, and CD Baby weekly, and so long every bit you've earned plenty coin to fulfill your payment threshold.
Both DistroKid and CD Baby collect reproduction royalties, a subset of recording royalties derived from masters. With DistroKid you retain 100% of your earnings, whereas CD Baby takes a ix% cut of your reproduction royalties. And, if y'all use CD Baby Pro Publishing, ittakes a fifteen% cut of your publishing royalties.
Payment delivery between the two services is slightly different likewise. DistroKid pays y'all every month, whereas CD Baby pays you every Monday one time you accomplish your specified earnings threshold between $10-$ten,000 USD, rounded to the nearest dollar. DistroKid delivers money through PayPal or through its payment processor, Tipalti, which gives y'all access to direct deposits, wire transfers, and checks. CD Infant delivers money through PayPal, check, Payoneer, or directly to your bank account.
DistroKid and CD Baby both collect reproduction royalties, which are a subset of recording royalties.
Nonetheless, yous won't be able to collect all the money that is rightfully yours with just DistroKid or CD Baby—you'll need to sign up for a few other organizations as well. To collect composition royalties of any kind, you need to become a performing rights organization (PRO) affiliate with something similar ASCAP, and you demand to sign a bargain with a publisher or publishing administrator, such as CD Baby Pro Publishing. DistroKid does not currently offering publishing administration services, and it recommends that you sign up with Songtrust to collect your publishing royalties.
DistroKid vs CD Infant: Distribution partners and times
There'due south a lot to consider when yous're deciding which distribution service to trust with your music.
CD Baby reviews every release submitted for distribution, which tin sometimes take several weeks. DistroKid doesn't review releases earlier it distributes them, sending them to partners immediately, where they will speedily go live. At first glance, yous might think that DistroKid is the winner here, but its lack of a review system leaves you on your own if you need to deal with copyright bug or problems with file requirements. DistroKid Musician subscribers too tin't select their own release date, which can create release appointment asynchrony across dissimilar distribution partners. If your vocal is available on Spotify only non all the same on Apple tree Music, you could have issues marketing the release to your fans.
Both distribution services are partnered with numerous music streaming services and digital stores, but CD Baby'due south list is a bit longer. What'due south more, CD Baby tin can automatically transport your music to SoundExchange, which collects sound recording performance royalties, giving a cut to CD Baby. These types of royalties can just be collected by SoundExchange. DistroKid won't send your music to SoundExchange, simply you can always sign upwardly for it on your own—you won't have to share whatever percentage of it with your distribution service that way.
Does DistroKid take improve audio quality than CD Baby?
CD Baby has more than restrictions on the types of audio files y'all tin upload.
When uploading a track for your next release you'll want to brand sure the audio file is as high quality equally possible. DistroKid accepts uploads using WAV, WMA, M4A, FLAC, MP3, and CDDA. CD Baby accepts WAV, FLAC, and MP3 files, but it highly advises against uploading MP3 files because they are lossy. All CD Babe files must be stereo and 16bit, with a 44.1kHz sample rate. DistroKid, on the other mitt, will accept 24-bit WAV files, with sample rates of 96kHz or less, and doesn't specify restrictions for other file types.
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Creative person evolution tools and resources
thegersom It's nice to have easy admission to creative person development tools when yous're an independent musician.
CD Baby and DistroKid offering different resource to members, though both services emphasize getting your music heard.
CD Baby offers cheap car audio mastering on its website and can help connect yous with professional sound engineers. CD Baby continually publishes articles to its blog DIY Musician, which is an excellent resource to acquire about the music industry and how to make it as an independent artist. CD Baby also has a human relationship with Show.co which offers discounts on promotional tools such as personalized audio ads on Spotify and banner ads on websites like Rolling Rock. CD Baby places a decent amount of emphasis on physical sales, and offers in-house CD manufacturing and vinyl pressing.
The differences between DistroKid and CD Baby come down to whether you're trying to expand your outreach to artists, or to fans.
DistroKid'south tools encourage artist-to-artist interaction and can connect you with tape labels. Playlist Spotlight presents you with previews of two songs released by DistroKid members. After listening to each preview, you lot vote for which vocal you lot recall DistroKid should feature on one of its genre-themed Spotify playlists. Yous tin as well submit one song of yours at a time to Playlist Spotlight, and the Spotify playlists refresh every week.
Another great DistroKid feature is Slaps, a social media platform for DistroKid members. Here you lot tin listen to other musicians' releases, join groups, and get your music promoted the more you engage with and comment on other artists' posts. If you're an contained musician now, just hoping to sign to a record label, you tin can annals for DistroKid Upstream; this lets record labels await through your contour and accomplish out to you directly if they are interested in signing your human activity.
Both distribution services give you lot a verified checkmark on Spotify, build release webpages for you, and offer tools to brand music videos. The basic features are very like, and the differences merely come downwards to whether you prioritize artist connections or fan connections.
Does ane have amend customer service over the other?
Navigating the independent musician manufacture can become confusing, and it'due south nice to be able to ask for help when you need it.
It's easy to get lost in the sea of distribution rules and processes as an independent musician. CD Baby knows that, then its customer service department is very helpful, though not always immediately responsive. Most of the reason its customer support response times have been tedious recently is that everyone has been stuck at dwelling house for the by year, and more than people than always have been using CD Baby to release music.
The DistroKid Assist Center also has a customer support channel, and every message gets a response. The founder of DistroKid, Philip Kaplan, is also fairly agile on the r/DistroKid Reddit page and often responds to questions and concerns posted by DistroKid members. He likewise uses the subreddit to crowd-source information about how he should modify DistroKid—apparently, the idea for Go out a Legacy came straight from user requests.
DistroKid vs CD Baby: Which service should you use?
You don't have to commit to using CD Baby or DistroKid forever, just you tin can only distribute a singular release through one distribution service.
These 2 music distribution services both accept their merits and demerits. Those whose career goals heart effectually forming artist connections, and who intend to make frequent releases, should sign up for DistroKid. Information technology'southward more likely to help you on the path to getting signed to a tape characterization and has much quicker release times. In the time to come, if you want to switch from DistroKid to CD Baby or another distribution service like Repost by SoundCloud, you can always opt in to Leave a Legacy on your releases before ceasing your annual payments.
CD Baby is a better pick for musicians who don't desire to worry virtually their music being taken downward. If your career goals are more than focused on connecting with fans and expanding your outreach, CD Baby offers more accessible tools. If you try CD Baby and dislike it, there's no Get out a Legacy fee—yous can but switch to a different distribution service for your next release.
Read side by side: Bandcamp review
Ofttimes asked questions
Aye, as a CD Baby member y'all will oft receive emails with offers and discounts on its various services. You can opt out of these emails if you find them annoying, just the deals tin can be quite helpful.
Source: https://www.soundguys.com/distrokid-vs-cd-baby-52157/
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