Comprehensive RouteNote Review 2024: Pricing, Features & Everything You Need to Know

Top Reason to Choose RouteNote

Free distribution and no KYC. RouteNote, outside of SoundOn, might be the only music distribution company with a revenue share model where artists aren’t required to pay an upfront fee per release or an annual fee for unlimited. As noted, there’s also SoundOn but the difference between the two, among other things is the KYC requirement.  SoundOn requires all users to upload a photo of their State ID and input their ID number to use its service while RouteNote does not. If KYC is a major deterrent for you but you like the idea of no-fee commitments, then RouteNote might be worth a try.

 

Scale. Scaling a business means growing a company in a way that allows it to handle more business without increasing costs. RouteNote provides unlimited distribution to all the stores you’d get with any other distributor and carries out the same basic functions of collecting and distributing payments. What’s key is that there’s a reason nearly every distributor with the revenue share model has dumped it. It’s incredibly difficult to provide quality service and reinvest in growth and development with super thin margins and this model relies on artists generating revenue to run its business. Artists are attracted to this model mainly due to a lack of faith in their ability to earn, It’s why they want to avoid paying anything. The result can be lots of artists, lots of releases, and little revenue which strains resources. When it comes to reviews we like to take them with a grain of salt. We know what’s standard which are complaints around streaming fraud accusations and poor customer support. With RouteNote it’s different, their complaints center around issues with delivery: releases showing up in stores late or not at all, being deleted from artist dashboards, in addition to customer support being unresponsive to addressing those issues. It’s free, but as my good friend always says “you get what you pay for”

 

Details

RouteNote

Price - Annual fee

Price per release

Price - Revenue split

Stores

Beatport is a very important store for EDM aritsts and not all distributors send music to it because of the level of set up. Some distributors charge a monthly fee to send music to the store while others roll it into their standard service. The difference between the two options is that a monthly fee will get you a dedicated Label account on Beatport exclusive to your releases. Distributors that send your music to Beatport as part of their service have their distribution companies registered as Labels with the platform and will list your music under their Label.

Beatport

New Stores

Pre-orders

Digital booklets allow you to add something extra to incentivise sales. You can provide buyers with a PDF document containing images, lyrics, thoughts about each track, etc. The PDF would come attached with downloads on iTunes.

Digital Booklets

Apple Music pays 10% for songs mixed in Spatial audio

Dolby Atmos

Custom Label Name

Some distributors restrict you from distributing music for more than one Primary artist. This is a rule to prevent users from building a distribution service on top of the one they're using. When collaborating with other artists you may want to list them as Primary artists while not functioning like a label where you don't plan to dsitribute music for them, you just effectively want to feature them on the release. You shouldn't have to pay for that, but some distributors will charge you. Make sure you view our blog for detailed reviews

Primary Artist

Content-id is a process where an audio fingerprint is created of your song file and a system is ran that scans YouTube and other platforms for matches. If matches are discovered on YouTube, ads are placed on the content and the revenue from the ads are paid out to the distributor, which pays the artist. It's primarily for third party content that's unauthorized but artists commonly use it to monetize channels that don't qualify for the YouTube Partner Program. Check our guide for the best way to monetize YouTube Distributors normally charge a fee between 20 - 30% of revenue and the feature can discourage the free promotion that you'd get from users sharing your music on the platform so it's arguable as to whether it should be activated.

Content ID

Will the distributor remove your music if you cancel your subscription or no longer can afford to pay?

Music Stays Live

Split Pay

Classical

Music Video

Customer Support

A transaction fee is charged every time an artist withdraws their funds. It's a percentage of the amount withdrawn that's charged by the payment gateway that processes the transaction. Different payment gateways charge different fees. The most common gateway is PayPal which charges 2.9% of each transaction. ACH direct bank transfers usually have reduced fees or no fees at all. These fees can work out to be an additional subscription fee. For example:

Artist withdraws $1,000/Month

Artist pays 2.9%

That amounts to a $29 subscription fee on top of the subscription fee paid to the distributor.

In this scenario, the artist would end up paying $348 in additional fees.

Capped fees means the distribute imposes a maximum where you'll never pay more than that amount. If the distributor says 2.9% up to $0.25 like Tunecore does, it means you'll never pay more than 25¢ in transaction fees.

Transaction Fees

Payment Threshold
Minimum amount required to receive a payment

Countries without a US Tax-treaty are subject to a 30% tax withholding. View your country's tax status here

Tax-Treaty

Requires taking a photo of your ID + a Selfie (less likely). This positions your distributor to doxx you to DSPs and could result in bans being tied to your personal identity if you're ever accused of streaming fraud or any other violation.

KYC

What you're charged per accusation of streaming fraud

Artificial Streaming Fee

Are you restricted from licensing your music to 3rd parties?
Some distributors have Exclusive agreements in their Artist Agreements. These terms allow the distributor to dictate where you can place your music online and strip away your independence. It's advised you seek to avoid distributors with Exclusive terms.

Exclusivity

Does the distributor have to pay a third party for facilitating distribution? If yes, this means you don't keep 100% of your royalties. Instead, your royalties are split between you, the third party, and your distributor.

Direct Deals

We rate distributors on a scale of 1-5 based on transaparency, customer support, how they handle payment, stores, features, and longetivity.Visit our Blog for all music distributor reviews

Payusnomind Rating

Details

Free: $0.00
Premium: $9.99

Free: $0.00
Premium: $30

15% 0f Royalties

Unlimited

Yes

Yes - Manual

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Includes Unlimited Artists

15% of Royalties

Yes

Yes

No

No

Email- General
No dedicated customer support rep

2.9% Uncapped for PayPal
ACH: Free

$50

Yes - Subject to 30% Tax

No

Yes

No

Undisclosed

5
3
2
5
3
4

Overall Rating: 3.7/5