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DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION COMPARISON SHEET
AWAL - CD Baby - The Orchard – IRIS – IODA - Reverbnation - FineTunes - KVZ Music - KIR Records – Symphonic Distribution – OneRPM – Zebranation – Virtual label – PVipe – Clockwize – KUDOS – Square One Music – Distribution Select – BFM Distribution – 24 Hour Distribution – Dash N Go – Didg – 101 Distribution – Song Cast Music – Ditto Music – Mondo Tunes – Catapult Distribution – Zimbalam – In Grooves
(Any Companies that have BOLD Lettering, has been evaluated below and anything not in BOLD is coming Soon!)
Distribution Company
(Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| AWAL |
$0.00 |
15% |
30 days |
90 days |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
$50 |
5 |
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Overall Notes: I did NOT have a good experience trying to get things going with this company. They are very hard to communicate with as far as time frames to make sure your product gets placed at retailers. We decided not to work with this company and doing so, it was not that bad of a situation when all was said done. However, the contract is vague, and, in defense of how they worked with our labels and artists, they were very easy and very applicable to when it came to our parties not executing the deal. There was none of our music placed up online and aside from time to go through the processes, this was not an awful situation. They never collected any of our money in any way. They also get your product into a ton of stores.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| CD Baby |
$49.00 |
9% |
30 days |
Perpetual |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
$20 |
8 |
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Overall Notes: First thing to note is that signing up to CD Baby’s digital service means you also have to sign up to their physical program, and send them at least 5 physical CD’s. On top of the signup fee, you’ll also need to pay them $20 to set up a UPC for you [we do this for free], then they’ll take 9% of the revenue that comes back from their online retail partners [slightly less than 10%]. Their signup fee is a flat, per release deal, and they now offer a fee to release “singles” for $9.95.
CD Baby is best suited for new artists and overall is a great system that seems to work like a machine. I use their Film Baby and Book baby which I am very happy with and I have had one album at CD baby. You do NOT have to worry about getting paid and you get paid like clock work every pay period. They are NOT a company that is going anywhere and therefore all young artists can be secure in that regard. They offer marketing tools like a store at Facebook, Download Cards (for a fee), web hosting plans and they do happen to offer anything an artist may need to set up and work their product. I also feel that business plan of combining the likes of Discmakers and CD Baby, is a great one for music artists today.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| Reverbnation |
$119.95 & $94.95 Accordingly
$59.95 & $34.95
(Plus $59.99 Take Down Fee) |
15% |
30 days |
Remains To Be Seen – Never |
No |
Yes
(On-Demand) |
Yes |
Yes |
$20 |
1/2 |
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Overall Notes: They have two plans. One gets your product into 40 Plus stores and the lowered price gets you into 30 plus stores. They have since changed up their pages that did say that they had one time fees but what I want to do now, is take you on the life cycle of one account (Kevin Hart), which they refuse to take down to this day. They have also added terms along the way to help them gain more fees. It is absolutely impossible to get them to take down your product and in getting it taken down, they add fee after fee. For instance, we had “abandoned” the digital distribution after about a year and to take that down that album, we had to pay a $20 reinstatement fee, and then we had to buy the year of digital distribution which was another $60.00 just to pay another $30.00 to take it down. And, we had used what was a balance in that account just a day after we had transferred money to the payPal account. And, rather than taking the money from the balance in the account, that company put back the money that had been transferred to the Paypal bank. That in turn, created a situation where we had to transfer lesser money that month, and then wait to get paid the balance due a month later. As far as getting paid your own money every pay period, they post your money however, they hold that money for 60 days. It comes up as 30 days but its not because its always posted before that last period, and then to get your money, it takes anywhere between two (2) and five (5) days to get the money into your PayPal account (which then takes another two days to get the money into your actual bank account)
At least today, they have adjusted their FAQ and/or term sheet, to reflect those fees but they were not listed there when we signed up. And, further, they have also since adjusted the lie that the ONLY fee they take, is the initial one. Now, it does not say anything like that on their site. They have since stopped lying to gain business, but it also took putting them, and many retailers, on legal notice. We are still waiting for them to NOT collect any more money, however, they continue to do it to this day. But they went from not charging any fee to me complaining about that lie, because in fact, you cannot start that process at Reverbnation, without paying the take down fee.
I have therefore paid out a total amount of $150 to set up and take down one artist title.
Plus, if you consider the total accumulated amount of money of all of the closed artist accounts, that have NOT met their $20.00 threshold, Reverbnation gained over $200 of our artists money for free.
And, when calling them out on the way conduct their business, they point to some made up term on a FAQ as their binding contract that again, evolves every day to suit their needs, and that came about after they realized that most bands that are credible in this industry, would not use a company like reverbnation, unless they were amateur and not established in any way. They make 100% of that money. Its a rather high tech and pretty way to scam many young artists out of their money. I would love to get an audit done of that company, to figure out the amount of money they gained that way. I will eventually find out how much money they have extracted from artists that way.
And also, even though you abandoned your title and project, they still collect that money and again, if that account is closed at Reverbnation, they not only collect that money, they keep 100% of your money. You must get the retail outlet to take that down by what I call the roots, and to “point” any accounting to new and proper distribution company. Reverbnation will NOT only NOT help, they are pro active in scamming clients this way.
Now, I don’ know why anyone would use this company, and pay those fess, when every other company on this planet, is half that cost and they work with artists and not against them.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| The Orchard |
$0.00 |
30% |
No |
1-5 yr |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes (Licensing) |
None |
8 |
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Overall Notes: The ONLY real issues I had with this company was the communication between myself and their label partner. It seems like at that time I thought about working with the Orchard, they had a lot of kids running around that office. I like the business plan with their acquisition of the NIN catalog and by acquiring the entire TVT records catalog. I like that business plan of them owning the copyrights. It reminds of how a major label would work. They have also since combined partnerships with the IODA (IODA also recently bought the IRIS company) company, and they will all be worked via the Orchard today.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| IODA |
$0.00 |
30% |
No |
1-5 yr |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes (Licensing) |
None |
8 |
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Overall Notes: Bought Out By The Orchard. Now A Part Of The Orchard System.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| IRIS |
$0.00 |
30% |
No |
1-5 yr |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes (Licensing) |
None |
8 |
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Overall Notes: Bought Out By IODA. Now A Part Of The Orchard System. Some elements are exclusive but not master recordings. High threshold and long terms require careful consideration. Very Hard to take down your material but again, that was when it was IRIS. They did not respond to any calls, emails or any letters for months. It took sending out a fake press release and spending money on legal to get them to start the take down process, and to pay everything to do the artists they collected money for in that span of time. It was obvious why they had to be bought out by the IODA company.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| TuneCore |
$49.99 |
$0.00 |
No |
6 months |
No |
Yes |
Yes (Amazon) |
No |
$0.00 |
9 |
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Overall Notes: They really have it together in every way. As much I want to find something off about the work done by the staffers at Tunecore, but they are very good to great at their jobs. Money / Accounting comes in like clockwork every couple weeks. Their customer service has grown to be perfect today. The ONLY real negative issue I had was at first and only with regard to them making our physical product. That had since been worked out, however, there was a time line broken at that time in 2007. Things in that regard work perfect today. Their royalty accounting is top notch and they show money received to the 15th of decimal point. They also seem to get things placed at retail, within days from the submission.
They boast(ed) to having an 8 point process to determine what retailers that work which I love the concept, but they do only deal with a precise set of retail outlets. They work only with iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, I Heart Radio, Spotify, REAL/Rhapsody, MySpace Music, MediaNet, Nokia, Zune/X Box Live, Verve Life, Google Play, SIMFY, MUVE, Rdio and they charge either a flat fee of $49.99 (plus $49.99 Annual renewal fees) or you can purchase being placed in stores a la carte, for $0.99 cents per store.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| KVZ Music |
$0.00 |
15% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
Yes / Not Contractual |
No |
No |
No |
$50 |
2 |
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Overall Notes: This is a an unusual situation because even though I have had my issues with regard to getting paid on time, and even though I have had issues with regard to communication between our two companies, I also feel they were a victim of being lumped into the companies that pirate music. If you use this company, be careful with all meta data because they have made a lot of mistakes with text copy and its not necessarily them as workers, its about that admin system. You have to write exactly how you need it without any mistakes and some of their listings of our product, was inconsistent with things like the Pline and the Copyright name. Most songs if not all though, we entered in perfect. I don’t know if that’s an issue that was our data entries fault, or whether the system in the admin section at KVZ is hard to deal with or figure out and/or if it was them that made those typos and/or added in the wrong information. Regardless, if you check your data entry work, you should be ok and also, the way that you get paid is a bit old in the sense that you must take your Excel Spreadsheet they post every pay period, add up the numbers in Euros. And, then you must send them invoices as opposed to getting the money automatically placed into your account, and even though they state it takes 3 to 5 business days, its always taken a longer amount of time to get the money. In the last pay period, it went weeks before we saw any of the money due and invoiced for that period. You will also have to pay some type of fee to get your money from this company (maybe not in Europe, but for American bands and companies). If you use PayPal to transfer that money from KVZ, you will no doubt have to pay a percentage of that money, to PayPal. Also, if you do use a bank wire transfer, you are also subject to paying that fee from your bank. The other issue that should be spelled out more on their contracts, is what “third parties” they use because in most cases for bands and labels, you can go direct to those companies yourself and that way, get paid 85%, rather than 85% of 85% (of 100%).
As far as the customer service, when you get the attention by their staff, they have been very hard to deal with and they also are proactive with their effort to be antagonistic and most of all, they withheld payment based on those childish tactics. It was very rough dealing with the staff people at this company. At first, I thought it was the language barrier but then I realize that they put other things in front of paying their bills. The main rep and maybe the owner was not only very loose with his words and comments to our complaints and legal notices, he lied in writing, on a forum and on our blog, many times. Plus, his comments were ramblings that made no sense to anyone that knows English and that’s when we started to feel bad about the people that work at this company.
I assume they are just learning how to deal which is great for anyone in this industry, but they did let intangibles like self conscious issues come first and before paying their bill. As far as them taking down any product, we fought tooth and nail so to speak, to get out of the deal. I feel they should list any and all third parties used to work any copyrights. I also feel that farming out this work, takes money from artists and from labels in such an unnecessary way. Most entities in this industry would go to direct to say IODA or The Orchard, rather than again, giving up that money for no reason. Its not bad if you spell it out that way and it is shady if that information is hidden in any way.
Last, after that last pay period, they did send us our spreadsheets the day of the due date (exactly 45 days after the last quarter). We sent them our invoice the day afterward and we should be paid in a timely way. I had replied to them on a public forum saying that even though they were self conscious about me not telling people that eventually paid us after like three weeks of fighting for it, that we shall see how they act in that next pay period. Therefore, I do want to give credit where credit is due because like I just said in this paragraph, they were pro active in sending us those spreadsheets. We will see if they pay within the 3 to 5 business days they say they will and even though we have NOT been paid yet, its ONLY been 2 to 3 business days since we received that conformation.
Overall, I don’t know what to say about this company. I don’t want to hate them but they did treat us horribly a few months ago. Maybe time will heal that about it, but I do want to give them credit for trying. Honestly speaking in writing because I do NOT have to way these words, but I had them at a SIX (6) out of my TEN (10) before I wrote my description or about my experiences with them, and after I rehashed it today, I lowered it to a ONE (1) for effort. I get angry when discussing what I had to deal with those weeks I tried to get my very own money.
They did pay what they are calling a FINAL PAYMENT to us this pay period, in a timely way.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| Symphonic Distribution |
$0.00 |
30% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
$300 |
9 |
| Symphonic Distribution(Plan #1) |
$0.00 |
20% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
$500 |
9 |
| Symphonic Distribution(Plan #2) |
$200.00 |
10% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
$500 |
9 |
| Symphonic Distribution(Plan #3) |
$200.00
($50 Per Title) |
100% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
$500 |
9 |
| Symphonic Distribution(Plan #4) |
$500.00 |
100% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
$500 |
9 |
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Overall Notes: I recently started to use Symphonic. I believe they either started as one of those places that gets dance and electronic music into the Beatports and DJ places accordingly, however, they have grown to deal with all outlets.
And even though I feel like I am walking away from a house built out of a deck cards (meaning waiting for something to go wrong), this may be one of the best systems in place today. They have plans for every walk of life which makes me skeptical but then at the same time, they have been good to deal with first hand. They also have an array of partners and therefore, if you work electronic music along with rock and say Urban or rap, they will apply your titles to each outlet accordingly. Which is hard t be that detailed and then they have many plans in place.
You can pay money upfront and receive 100% of the royalty money and//or a portion depending on your plan and then they offer percentage based plans.
I, honestly, put them through what I consider to be a grueling process and that’s why I am impress with their customer service. What I put them through is not appealing to most retailers and that’s why I was impressed with their customer service and again, that they did adhere exactly to what I needed today.
They offer a lot of ancillary services (Mastering, recording, Marking / Promotion, Piracy Protection, Licensing Efforts, Music Publishing Services, Web Design & Graphic design, etc.).
They seem to have a great business plan.
We will see how this deal pans out over the next few years.
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| Distribution Company (Includes Aggregators) |
Upfront Cost |
Sales
Fee (%) |
Opt Out Time Frame |
Time Frame Take Down |
Exclusivity |
Physical Product |
On Demand |
Marketing Efforts |
Payment Thresholds |
Overall 10 Point Rating |
| One RPM |
$0.99 Per Store |
15% |
30 days |
60-90 days (2 Year Term) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
6 |
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Overall Notes: My ONLY pet peeve with One RPM, is that with any pay to play service, it should guarantee placement and I paid to have every artist placed at JB Hi Fi and I have not seen one title of mine, placed at that store. Therefore, I can’t trust them to have done it for stores we do NOT have access which again, were paid for ahead of time. I use their Mobile Services and Latin America services and because of it, I am shifting everything to another company to do this same work, but I put us on a percentage basis. That way there is NO up front money.
However, their interface is second to none. their system is pretty high tech. I love the way you can pick and choose your retailers. Its very easy to use and again, top notch programming.
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50 Sunset Distribution songs in the 
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