Which distributor, and what they quietly take
The headline prices are nearly identical. The differences are in social and user-generated content fees, Content ID cuts, and what happens to your catalogue when you stop paying.
Distribution is close to a commodity: twenty to thirty euros or dollars a year buys unlimited releases at most of the big services. The interesting differences are elsewhere. Prices checked 10 September 2026.
| Service | Entry price | Releases | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| DistroKid Musician | €23.99 / year | Unlimited | Keep paying or the catalogue comes down |
| TuneCore Rising Artist | $24.99 / year | Unlimited | 20% fee on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube social earnings |
| CD Baby single | $9.99 one-off | 1 single | CD Baby keeps 9% of digital distribution revenue, forever |
| Amuse Artist | $23.99 / year | Unlimited | 15% fee on YouTube Content ID unless you take the top tier |
| Symphonic Starter | $29.99 / year | Unlimited | A percentage on YouTube, Meta and TikTok user-generated content |
| Symphonic music video | $25 or $95 per video | per video | 70% of royalties, not 100% |
The subscription trap, plainly
The annual services are cheap because they are subscriptions. Stop paying and your releases come down. CD Baby's one-off fee is the opposite trade: pay once per release, and CD Baby keeps 9 per cent of digital distribution revenue while the artist keeps 91 per cent. For a catalogue that earns nothing, the subscription is cheaper. For a track that keeps earning for a decade, the arithmetic flips.
Where the real money leaks
Look past the headline "keep 100%" claims to the social and user-generated columns. TuneCore discloses a 20 per cent fee on social earnings from TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Amuse charges 15 per cent on YouTube Content ID on its entry tier and nothing on its top tier. Symphonic charges a percentage on YouTube, Meta and TikTok user-generated content.
For an artist whose music is mostly used in other people's videos, these clauses matter far more than the annual fee does.
Music video distribution
Symphonic is the one on this list publishing music video distribution prices: $25 per video for Spotify and Vevo, or $95 per video for a larger network, at 70 per cent of royalties.
Checked from Europe
DistroKid's pricing page is geo-localised and served euros to us. Dollar prices circulating for DistroKid come from third-party blogs and we could not confirm them on DistroKid's own page, so they are not printed here. TuneCore's exact distribution commission sits behind a login wall.
Source
distrokid.comA number here out of date? Tell us and we will re-check it against the source.
