Assessment 

United Masters established itself in the market by selling artists the dream. Founded by music industry heavyweight Steve Stoutte and backed by major corporations like Google and Apple, it made a major splash with a media blitz of interviews promoting the service. Speaking in interviews was, not only Steve Stoutte but also United Masters’ flagship artist NLE Choppa. A core messaging point was artist empowerment using NLE Choppa to showcase how United Masters could help them succeed while they maintained their independence and control. The messaging blurred the lines between what United Masters provided to artists on distribution deals vs what it would provide to artists who signed up for its distribution service. United Masters’ distribution service does not provide marketing support, White-Glove customer support, or anything beyond sending music to stores and collecting, and distributing payments. Yet, I often heard artists citing NLE Choppa as being the reason for United Masters being their choice. The service also offers artists Exclusives which are opportunities to get their music used by the NBA and ESPN in online, offline, and broadcast content. Artists that distribute with United Masters are also provided with a micro-website that features a mechanism for collecting fans’ phone numbers and emails and a mobile app that gives them the power of a "label in [their] pocket". 

Scale. Scaling a business means growing a company in a way that allows it to handle more business without increasing costs. United Masters launched its service with a revenue share model where artists paid nothing upfront, only 10% of revenue. The cheapest option at the time was Distrokid’s $20 annual fee for Unlimited distribution but that didn’t beat free. Though attractive to artists, free isn’t scalable or sustainable and that was proven true in this instance with United Masters changing its pricing and offers multiple times before completely ditching its free tier leaving artists with the decision to pay or have their music removed. Transaction fees, originally covered by United Masters, are now charged to the artists. Due to the way it was constructed, it’s almost constantly making changes to drive more profits which means you can’t be secure in knowing that you’re going to get what you paid for. 

Top Reason to Choose United Masters 

Exclusives. United Masters offers promotional opportunities where, if selected, you could get your music used by ESPN or the NBA. What’s key to note, is that you are not promised anything. You submit music, which the most recent Terms I’ve seen for United Masters stated may not be reviewed, if it manages to be reviewed it has to be chosen to participate. It reminds me of when companies send out emails requesting reviews but instead of offering you compensation for your time, they offer “the chance to win $100” which means you’re doing it for free. This is United Masters’ flagship feature and I can’t say it’s an actual feature because what are you really getting?

There are other United Masters features beyond Exclusives like your own micro-website and the ability to collect fan phone numbers but they don’t carry much value. The micro-website doesn’t allow analytics integrations or the ability to do much of anything you’d need to do to have a website that does anything for you. You can use it to collect phone numbers but there’s no mobile fan club management system so you’re effectively all dressed up with nowhere to go. Lastly, United Masters’ artist agreement contained some seriously worrying terms and their latest Terms of Agreement no longer showcase the actual distribution terms artists are agreeing to, instead, it repeatedly references terms outlined in something called “Additional Terms” which I haven’t been able to locate anywhere. 

Top Features

 Mobile App 

United Masters comes with a companion app you can download on your phone to manage your account on the go. You can view performance stats, royalties, distribute releases, and more. 

Micro-website 

The Micro-website provided by United Masters is borderline useless. It doesn’t compare to Link Tree or Feature.fm 

Mobile Collection 

Talk about Peanut butter, no jelly. Ham, no burger. United Masters allows you to collect mobile phone numbers but doesn’t provide a way for you to send messages to mobile phones. 

Things to Note 

Artist Agreement. The last United Masters Artist Agreement I could locate granted it the right to enter the music of its artists into exclusive agreements while restricting their ability to reject those agreements if they weren’t in their best interest financially. It also included a Right-of-First-Refusal which, to my understanding, restricted artists from signing agreements with any other entity without presenting whatever contract they were offered to United Masters and waiting for them to match or decide to pass. Being chosen for Exclusives of any kind resulted in a 20% revenue split of all royalties after that point for the duration of their agreement with United Masters. In United Masters’ latest Terms of Agreement, there’s barely any mention of distribution. When it comes to distribution, artists are informed that they’re subject to the terms of an "Additional Agreement" that doesn’t appear to be listed anywhere on the website. 

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