How Many Tracks Can Be Uploaded to Cdbaby?
Information technology'southward your showtime time releasing music as an independent musician, and yous've read the names DistroKid and CD Baby about a hundred times. Every bit y'all prepare to get your music into the globe, yous need to decide which distribution service to use. They both perform the same bones role—getting your music in digital stores and on streaming services—but how exercise you pick between them?
Each distribution service comes with drawbacks that might brand one better than the other for your item career goals. Let'southward review the major differences and similarities between DistroKid and CD Babe and so you can decide which ane will work hardest for you.
Editor'due south note: This article was updated on July 26, 2021, to address an FAQ about CD Babe.
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 bond between independent artists, whereas CD Babe focuses more on the artist 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 fleck).
Different DistroKid, CD Baby doesn't facilitate any artist-to-creative person interactions or customizable social profiles. CD Baby'south interface is more aesthetically pleasing than DistroKid's though, and information technology'south easier to view its artist development tools and your releases at a glance.
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Uploading music to DistroKid is more navigable than uploading music to CD Baby. With DistroKid, you lot input all of your release's data on a single page, whereas on CD Baby you lot accept to click through several pages of information earlier submitting your release. Each of these CD Baby pages contains a fair corporeality of instructions and requirements that tin exist difficult to parse. You lot're more probable to miss some data buried in CD Baby's page log than with DistroKid's.
Is CD Babe more than affordable than DistroKid?
You tin can easily grow your audition with DistroKid'southward tools.
When it comes to charging for services, CD Babe and DistroKid have different approaches. DistroKid members pay an annual 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 tin can't gear up futurity release dates on any content, and you can't view release statistics.
| Musician | Musician Plus | Label | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Musician $19.99/yr | Musician Plus $35.99/yr | Label $79.99/year for 5 artists |
| Unlimited song uploads | Musician ✓ | Musician Plus ✓ | Label ✓ |
| Number of artists | Musician ane | Musician Plus 2 | Characterization 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 ✓ | Characterization ✓ |
| Customizable release date | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Characterization ✓ |
| Customizable preorder date | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Characterization ✓ |
| Customizable iTunes pricing | Musician ✗ | Musician Plus ✓ | Characterization ✓ |
There are likewise more costs to DistroKid than its annual fee; to go along your releases public even afterwards you cancel DistroKid, you must opt-in to the Leave a Legacy program. This costs a $29 USD ane-fourth dimension fee for a unmarried and a $49 USD i-fourth dimension fee for any release of 2 or more than songs. DistroKid as well charges quite a few boosted fees for services like YouTube and Shazam monetization.
DistroKid charges boosted fees for services similar Leave a Legacy.
While DistroKid is a great option for artists who frequently release music and aren't interested in any additional services, CD Baby is better for musicians with a slower song rollout. CD Baby charges per release, and about of the add-ons are included in the cost of a release. Those who want their music to stay on the digital shelves indefinitely will notice CD Babe is a more economical distribution service, since information technology doesn't accuse a Exit a Legacy fee.
CD Infant charges additional fees for its publishing administration service, CD Baby Pro Publishing, in order to collect publishing royalties. It also charges an additional $5 USD per single and $xx USD per album to give your release a UPC code, or product identifier lawmaking, which you'll demand to buy if y'all don't already have one for your song. Here's a breakup of how much you'll have to pay for each release (USD) if you lot don't add a UPC code:
- An album release costs $29 via CD Baby Standard.
- An album release costs $69 via CD Baby Pro Publishing.
- A single release costs $9.95 via CD Babe Standard.
- A single release costs $29.95 via CD Baby Pro Publishing.
How do DistroKid and CD Infant collect and distribute royalties?
DistroKid distributes payments monthly, and CD Infant weekly, so long as you've earned plenty money to fulfill your payment threshold.
Both DistroKid and CD Babe 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% cutting of your reproduction royalties. And, if you lot utilise CD Baby Pro Publishing, ittakes a xv% cut of your publishing royalties.
Payment delivery between the two services is slightly unlike too. DistroKid pays you every month, whereas CD Babe pays you every Mon once you reach your specified earnings threshold between $10-$10,000 USD, rounded to the nearest dollar. DistroKid delivers money through PayPal or through its payment processor, Tipalti, which gives yous access to directly deposits, wire transfers, and checks. CD Baby delivers money through PayPal, check, Payoneer, or directly to your bank account.
DistroKid and CD Babe both collect reproduction royalties, which are a subset of recording royalties.
However, you won't be able to collect all the coin that is rightfully yours with just DistroKid or CD Babe—you'll need to sign up for a few other organizations also. To collect composition royalties of whatsoever kind, you need to become a performing rights system (PRO) chapter with something like ASCAP, and yous need to sign a deal with a publisher or publishing administrator, such as CD Baby Pro Publishing. DistroKid does not currently offer publishing administration services, and it recommends that you sign upward with Songtrust to collect your publishing royalties.
DistroKid vs CD Infant: Distribution partners and times
There's 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 can sometimes have several weeks. DistroKid doesn't review releases earlier it distributes them, sending them to partners immediately, where they will quickly get live. At offset glance, you might think that DistroKid is the winner hither, merely its lack of a review system leaves y'all on your own if you demand to bargain with copyright issues or problems with file requirements. DistroKid Musician subscribers also tin't select their own release appointment, which tin can create release date asynchrony across dissimilar distribution partners. If your vocal is available on Spotify but not yet on Apple Music, you lot could have issues marketing the release to your fans.
Both distribution services are partnered with numerous music streaming services and digital stores, but CD Infant'due south list is a chip longer. What's more, CD Infant can automatically transport your music to SoundExchange, which collects sound recording performance royalties, giving a cut to CD Babe. These types of royalties tin only be collected by SoundExchange. DistroKid won't ship your music to SoundExchange, but you lot tin can always sign upward for information technology on your own—y'all won't have to share any per centum of it with your distribution service that way.
Does DistroKid have amend sound quality than CD Baby?
CD Baby has more restrictions on the types of sound files y'all can upload.
When uploading a track for your next release you'll want to make certain the audio file is equally high quality equally possible. DistroKid accepts uploads using WAV, WMA, M4A, FLAC, MP3, and CDDA. CD Baby accepts WAV, FLAC, and MP3 files, simply it highly advises against uploading MP3 files considering they are lossy. All CD Baby files must be stereo and 16bit, with a 44.1kHz sample rate. DistroKid, on the other hand, will take 24-chip WAV files, with sample rates of 96kHz or less, and doesn't specify restrictions for other file types.
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Artist development tools and resources
thegersom Information technology'southward nice to accept easy admission to artist development tools when you're an independent musician.
CD Baby and DistroKid offer dissimilar resources to members, though both services emphasize getting your music heard.
CD Infant offers cheap motorcar audio mastering on its website and can help connect you with professional audio engineers. CD Baby continually publishes articles to its blog DIY Musician, which is an excellent resource to learn nigh the music industry and how to make information technology as an independent artist. CD Baby likewise has a relationship with Show.co which offers discounts on promotional tools such as personalized audio ads on Spotify and banner ads on websites like Rolling Stone. 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 Infant come down to whether you're trying to aggrandize your outreach to artists, or to fans.
DistroKid's tools encourage artist-to-artist interaction and can connect y'all with tape labels. Playlist Spotlight presents you lot with previews of two songs released by DistroKid members. After listening to each preview, y'all vote for which song you think DistroKid should feature on one of its genre-themed Spotify playlists. Yous tin can also submit one song of yours at a time to Playlist Spotlight, and the Spotify playlists refresh every week.
Some other dandy DistroKid characteristic is Slaps, a social media platform for DistroKid members. Here you can listen to other musicians' releases, join groups, and get your music promoted the more than y'all appoint with and comment on other artists' posts. If you're an independent musician now, but hoping to sign to a record label, y'all can register for DistroKid Upstream; this lets record labels look through your profile and accomplish out to you directly if they are interested in signing your human activity.
Both distribution services give you a verified checkmark on Spotify, build release webpages for you, and offer tools to make music videos. The basic features are very like, and the differences just come up down to whether you lot prioritize artist connections or fan connections.
Does ane have better customer service over the other?
Navigating the independent musician industry tin get confusing, and it'due south nice to be able to ask for help when you need information technology.
It's easy to get lost in the bounding main of distribution rules and processes as an independent musician. CD Baby knows that, and then its client service department is very helpful, though non e'er immediately responsive. Most of the reason its customer support response times accept been tedious recently is that everyone has been stuck at dwelling house for the past year, and more than people than e'er accept been using CD Baby to release music.
The DistroKid Aid Center besides has a customer support channel, and every message gets a response. The founder of DistroKid, Philip Kaplan, is too fairly active on the r/DistroKid Reddit folio and often responds to questions and concerns posted past DistroKid members. He also uses the subreddit to crowd-source data nigh how he should change DistroKid—plainly, the idea for Exit a Legacy came straight from user requests.
DistroKid vs CD Baby: Which service should you use?
Yous don't have to commit to using CD Baby or DistroKid forever, just you tin only distribute a singular release through one distribution service.
These two music distribution services both have their claim and demerits. Those whose career goals middle around forming artist connections, and who intend to brand frequent releases, should sign up for DistroKid. It's more likely to assistance you on the path to getting signed to a record label and has much quicker release times. In the future, if you want to switch from DistroKid to CD Infant or another distribution service similar Repost by SoundCloud, you tin can always opt in to Leave a Legacy on your releases before ceasing your annual payments.
CD Infant is a better option for musicians who don't want to worry nearly their music beingness taken down. If your career goals are more than focused on connecting with fans and expanding your outreach, CD Baby offers more accessible tools. If y'all endeavor CD Baby and dislike it, in that location'due south no Leave a Legacy fee—you can just switch to a different distribution service for your side by side release.
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Oft asked questions
Yes, as a CD Baby member you volition frequently receive emails with offers and discounts on its various services. You lot can opt out of these emails if you find them annoying, merely the deals can be quite helpful.
Source: https://www.soundguys.com/distrokid-vs-cd-baby-52157/
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