Distrokid Review 2025: Pricing, Features & Everything You Need to Know

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Top Reason to Choose Distrokid

Distrokid's Leave-a-Legacy - A feature that allows you to pay a fee per release that ensures your music will remain in stores even if your card can’t be charged or you cancel your Distrokid subscription. With Leave-a-Legacy, you continue to collect 100% of the royalties you’re owed. This addresses a top concern with the unlimited distribution model. Artists fear the prospect of their music being removed due to non-payment or cancelation. Too Lost and Landr are two distributors that offer artists the ability to keep their releases in stores but come with revenue splits. It’s a great mixed-model offer because you can distribute tons of tracks and allow them to pay for themselves. When a track earns $29, it pays for a permanent spot with Leave-a-Legacy.

Leave-a-Legacy Price

• $29/Single
• $49/Album

Things to Note 

Distrokid Extras - Hidden Fees?

Features other distributors include with their service are add-ons with Distrokid: Content ID, automatically having your releases added to new stores, Shazam, and other audio recognition services all cost extra. The fees are applied annually, per release which drives up the price. 

• Content ID Price: $4.95 per single, per year | $14.95 per album, per year
• Store Maximizer Price: $7.95 per album, per year 
• Discover Package Price: $0.99 per track, per year  

Content ID is a feature where an audio fingerprint of your song is added to a tracking system that searches YouTube for matches to identify your song when it’s used in third-party videos. The vast majority of artists use Content ID to monetize uploads of their music to their channel without qualifying for YouTube’s Partner Program. The often overlooked consequence of activating Content ID is that any channel that seeks to promote your music by using it in its videos will have 100% of the revenue generated from it taken and paid to you. A music channel with a following will elect not to promote your track if it means a loss of revenue, so Content ID works out to be counterproductive. You’d be better off distributing an Art track through VEVO than activating Content ID. 

Store Maximizer is a feature that automatically adds your releases to new stores. Distrokid doesn’t restrict you from adding your releases to new stores, instead, it’s charging you for the convenience of having it automated. You can manually add your releases to any new stores you desire. Additionally, Distrokid often breaks this rule when it adds popular services so it isn’t competitively disadvantaged.

Discovery Package is an audio recognition service. Beyond Shazam, there are metadata service providers like Graceonotes. Apple owns Shazam so all songs in Apple Music’s library are automatically identifiable. Gracenotes gathers data from various sources including DSPs, direct user submissions, and web crawlers that scan the internet for public information. Though having Distrokid submit the data directly would ensure the correct data is collected and made available to consumers faster, they’ll get the information one way or another so it’s unnecessary.

The Rundown 

Model:  

Unlimited distribution for an annual fee 

Price: 

Ultimate: $7.50 per Month or $89.99 Annually
Musician Plus: $3.33 per Month or $39.99 Annually
Musician: $1.92 per Month or $22.99 Annually

Transaction Fees: 

ACH (U.S. only) - $1.07 per payment
PayPal (Non-US resident): USD 1.07 + 2% Up to USD 22.47
PayPal (US resident): USD 1.07 + 2% Up to USD 2.14

Stores: 

Limted Inventory 

Distribution to New Stores: 

Yes +$8 per release annually for Store Maximizer

Artists: 

Musician: 1 Artist
Musician Plus: 2 Artists
Ultimate: 5 - 100 Artists

Split Pay: 

Included - Payees must pay $10 annually for their own Distrokid subscription to collect. 

Keeps Music Live: 

Yes - Requires the Leave-a-Legacy feature 

$29/Single or $49/Album for Leave-a-Legacy

Exclusivity:

No Exclusivity clause. 

Customer Support:

Average at best 

Content ID:

Included - Keep 80% +

$4.99/per single Annually
$14.95/per album Annually
+$20% of Royalties

UPC Codes:

Included x cannot bring your own 

Check the Comparison Charts for the most updated and expansive information

Final Assessment

Distrokid offers unlimited distribution to a limited number of stores and the ability to keep music in stores if you cancel or can no longer afford to pay. The company has a proven track record of delivering the releases of a ridiculous number of clients for more than a decade with minimal incidents. It's the safest pick outside of Tunecore and CD Baby. Tunecore doesn't provide an option to keep music in stores and CD Baby takes 9% of revenue to do it. Distrokid's Leave-a-Legacy allows you to keep 100% after paying a one-time fee to keep music in stores. Artists can experiment with multiple versions of the same release, and different types of releases, and pay to keep only what it makes sense to keep. 

The company consistently looks to add value to the service that benefits all artists and not just a select view. They have a playlist directory supplying the contact information for playlist curators, they worked out a partnership with Roblox to make their music available to developers for usage in games, and are generally one of the most innovative and forward-thinking distributors.