If you have recorded your own single/ep/album and you want to sell it via digital downloads and digital streaming, there are a lot of options out there. But there are 3 big companies that most people choose from: CDBaby, DistroKid, and TuneCore.
CDBaby was first. You would pay them a fee, somewhere around $50 – $65, and send them a box of 5 CDs. They’d open up one of the CDs, digitize the files, send them to iTunes and some other places, and then whenever you had a stream or a sale, they’d take a cut.
TuneCore came along next and said “Hey, for a flat fee (each year,) we’ll do all the digital stuff (but not the physical CDs) and we won’t take a cut.” A lot of people liked the sound of that.
DistroKid is newer. They use a similar approach to TuneCore, in that you pay annually and they don’t take a cut from each sale.
All three companies can change details from year to year, but essentially the decision is this; do you go with CDBaby, or choose between DistroKid and TuneCore? DistroKid is paying for a lot of YouTubers to promote them. They’re the new hip thing. If I post a list of features of each, it’ll be obsolete within months. It’s always better to do your own research. Don’t just go with something because some YouTuber gets paid to plug them (or because some random blogger like me has an opinion. That said, I’ll still give you my opinion.)
CDBaby handles physical CDs and the other two don’t. They used to have a credit card gizmo you could get from them to take credit cards at live shows. I’m sure they still have something similar – probably an app now. But if you are selling hundreds (or more) of your albums, you’ll make more money with the other two, because CDBaby always takes a small cut.
So why not just go with TuneCore or DistroKid? Here’s something to think about: CDBaby does take a cut, but you don’t pay any annual fees, and if your music never sells, it stays online and you don’t owe them anything. With TuneCore or DistroKid, you pay them every year. Forever. And if you don’t, they’ll yank your music. I think DistroKid might have a feature where you can pay a set amount of money and they’ll leave it up forever. Not sure about TuneCore.
I use CDBaby. I still sell physical CDs, but I’m not making that much money in streaming and sales. My last check was twenty bucks. I can sell physical CDs at gigs, of course, and not pay CDBaby anything. But I’m not comfortable with the idea that someone can pull my music if I don’t pay them annually. If I were selling 10,000 digital albums I’d feel differently.
So I’d say that if you want to do this professionally and make serious money from your music, maybe look at DistroKid. I’d want to see if TuneCore also offered the ability to pay a lump sum to keep your music online forever. But if you’re a hobbyist and you don’t really expect to make a ton of money, AND you don’t want to pay an annual hostage fee to keep your music online, CDBaby might make more sense. You pay something like $55 up front and you’re done. IF you make any money, they take a small cut.
