TuneCore Vs CD Baby [An Honest Comparison]
Aug 11, 2023
In this post, I will be breaking down the main features of TuneCore and CD Baby and giving them an honest comparison and review. Recently, both of these platforms, TuneCore and CD Baby, have made significant changes to their offerings, so I'll be sure to dive in those as well.
TuneCore and CD Baby are two big players in the music distribution space, and either one might be right for you depending on your needs as an artist.
I have personally released some of my music using TuneCore but also like some of the features that CD Baby offers.
In this post, I’ll break down and compare both music distributors on the following topics:
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Distribution
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Cost
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Extra Features
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Getting Paid
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Customer Service
If you want to see my review of the individual platforms, you can read my TuneCore review here and my CD Baby review here.
If you prefer to learn by watching a video, then check out me breaking down TuneCore and CD Baby here on my YouTube channel. By the way, you might like my YouTube Channel. I'm an indie artist myself and I'm documenting what I do to sustain a career as a full time musician and I have a lot of videos on music distribution, music marketing, and music production.
1. Distribution
If you are new to the world of digital distribution, here’s a breakdown:
Digital distributors put your music on streaming platforms and online music stores. They’re the “middle man” between you and platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer etc.
If you are signed to a record label, the label will take care of all physical and digital distribution. But, if you’re an independent artist like me, you need to find a digital distributor to release your music.
First, let’s look at how TuneCore handles digital distribution.
TuneCore’s distribution is comprehensive, and they partner with over 150 stores to get your music out there. They even distribute to stores like TikTok, Snapchat, and Peloton. You can find a full list of stores here.
Here is a great post if you're specifically interesting in getting your music uploaded to TikTok.
Their distribution process is fairly straightforward. Once you sign up, by the way, I can offer you a 20% signup discount here, after that you can go to your artist dashboard to access your data, stats, and prep a release.
Uploading a release is easy to do with TuneCore, and they will even provide UPC codes if you don’t have them already.
As with most distributors, TuneCore recommends at least a one-month lead time for getting your song into the world.
Now let's look at CD Baby.
CD Baby has a similar process for uploading and sharing music to online stores and streaming services. And it seems that both distributors send your music to the same places.
However, if you want to upload your music to a more obscure streaming platform or store, you’d need to do some digging to determine if it’s supported on either CD Baby or TuneCore. For example, let's say a big part of your audience is outside the mainstream of Spotify or Apple Music and you want to be uploaded to a specific streaming service in a specific country. Be sure to check with either TuneCore or CD Baby first to see if they have your desired streaming service. If you're just looking for the major outlets like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, YouTube Music, etc, you'll be covered by both of this digital distributors.
So, in the case of music distribution, I would rate them at the same level.
👑 Distribution Winner: TuneCore and CD Baby
2. Cost
TuneCore Pricing
Digital distributors differentiate themselves in terms of pricing and features.
You need to consider the features you want in order to make sense of which pricing structure fits your needs.
It is also helpful to consider whether or not you plan to release one or many projects in a given period of time. This will help you determine if you want to pay a recurring fee for your music or a one time fee for a project. For example, I like to release many songs per year so I am looking to pay for a recurring fee that includes unlimited music and not just per release.
TuneCore pricing relies on an annual fee or you could choose to pay per release. Offering an annual fee was a big change in 2022 after seeing other digital distributors like Distrokid use this model.
Let’s look at TuneCore's four different pricing plans:
New Artist (FREE)
This plan is great because it is free but because of that i's quite limited in features. However, you can still release music on social platforms and get sales reports, but that’s about it.
If you are looking to get your music on prominent streaming services, like Apple Music or Spotify, I wouldn’t recommend it. However, this could be a great plan if your looking to just "test" some songs out on TikTok. For instance, if you upload a song to TikTok, you can test if people connect with it. What do they think of it? Specifically, ask them, do they like it. Leverage your TikTok audience and get them involved.
You can rinse and repeat this strategy by using the free TuneCore New Artist plan and keep releasing songs on TikTok. Once a song hits, then you can upgrade and release the same song on Spotify or Apple Music.
If you're unsure how to build a following on TikTok then be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel, this is something I regularly talk about.
Rising Artist ($14.99/year)
This plan includes everything from the free plan, plus unlimited releases to all digital stores, verification for Apple and Spotify, Artist revenue splits, and the ability to schedule your own release date.
It’s important to mention that TuneCore also bases its customer support response time on which level you are paying for. For the rising artist, it’s three business days. That's a pretty descent response time but if you're looking to have faster customer service then you'll want to look at the higher tiered plans.
Breakout Artist ($29.99/year)
The third tier includes everything from the first two tiers plus extra features like store automator, daily trends report, and the cover art creator. The title suggests where you may be at in your musical journey. For instance, you've already released a few singles, you know how the game is played a little bit but you're ready for some more features. For example, store automator which is a feature that will add your song to any newly added streaming service that joins TuneCore. Also, daily trend reports which give you more insight to who is streaming your music.
Professional (49.99/year)
The fourth and final tier includes everything from the lower tiers plus a ton of other features like promotional opportunities, custom label name, release country-level restrictions, and more. I would suggest you consider this plan if you have multiple Spotify accounts. For example, it's not just solely you as an artist releasing music. For instance, I release music under my artist name Charles Cleyn but I also release music under different artists names too. Like Palma, which is my chill house music project. Strawberry Blonde which is my indie pop project or A/V club which is my pop punk project. You can have as many as you want. Alternatively, they don't need to be you either. You can start releasing music for your friends under this account if you'd like. Basically, you can start your own label. BUT. If you want to do this, then you'll need to add a profile which is $14.99 under the professional level tier.
So, what about CD Baby? Well, let's get into that now.
CD Baby Pricing
While TuneCore uses a recurring cost model, CD Baby charges a flat fee per release.
They have two basic tiers that apply to singles and albums. You can see the details on their cost page and in the graphic below.
Standard Single/Album ($9.99/release)
Their standard level is the same price whether you’re releasing a single or an album. Their standard level has many features of the upper tiers of the TuneCore model if you include all that CD Baby has to offer in terms of marketing. You also get access to tools for sync licensing and artist verification on major platforms.
Pro Single/Album ($49.99/release)
The jump from standard to pro is quite big, and there’s a reason. A Pro release through CD Baby includes everything from the standard tier PLUS royalty collection and song registration with royalty collection societies. Basically, this tier ensures that you get paid for your releases through CD Baby, while the standard does not.
Neither of these companies have much hidden fees on the distribution side, and their tiers are laid out in a pretty comprehensive way.
Is TuneCore or CD Baby cheaper?
It’s hard to directly compare the costs of these two companies because they have different payment structures. The answer is a bit more tricky. TuneCore has a free option, but it doesn’t offer much if you are trying to get your music in as many places as possible. On the other hand, CD Baby has no free option. So, who is cheaper? Well, if we're strictly looking at cost, then TuneCore is.
However, once you start adding features, like popular streaming services then CD Baby’s standard release is the next cheapest option. However, you lose the opportunity to keep 100% of your music royalties because CD Baby keeps a flat 9% of royalties. They do this because they are only charing you a fixed fee for the release. Where TuneCore is charging you every year.
You need to ask yourself, do you want to pay an annual fee to keep 100% of your royalties? Or would you like to pay a one time fee but give up 9% of your royalties. I'll be honest, this really only matters if you have significant streams. For example, let's say your song got 1,000,000 streams over three years. On TuneCore, you choose the Rising Artist Plan and on CD Baby you did a standard release
Let's do the break down.
TuneCore:
Revenue from 1M Streams: $6000
Distribution Cost: 14.99 * 3 years = $44.97
Profi: $5955.03
CD Baby:
Revenue from 1M Streams: $6000
Distribution Cost: $9.00 + $540 (9%) = $549
Profit: $5451.00
This is a very simple example because we are excluding a lot of other potential expenses. For example, marketing cost, co-writing splits, production costs, music video, etc. However, in this very simple example, you come out more on top with TuneCore than you do with CD Baby.
Overall, I’d say that TuneCore is the way to go if you plan to release more than one project within a year or two. But, if you’re planning to release one project and don’t mind setting up royalty tracking and registration, then CD Baby’s standard option is best.
Cost Winner: TuneCore and CD Baby
Extra Features
The main feature I want to highlight for TuneCore is the TuneCore Music Publishing feature. This feature allows TuneCore to collect publishing royalties on your behalf for every “play” the song receives above the standard mechanical royalties on streaming services.
Not only does TuneCore allow you to register your songs, but they also provide sync licensing opportunities and provide extra royalty collection through applicable platforms.
This feature does include a one time $75 setup fee and the artist receives 15% of all royalties collected plus 50% of all sync commissions (if opted-in).
Keep in mind that you keep 100% of your copyright with this feature. While TuneCore does not own any of your song, they do retain some royalties from “plays” in order to cover administration costs.
Another feature that TuneCore has is their splits feature. This is a brand new feature with TuneCore and rivals the splits feature on DistroKid.
With splits, you can easily divide and distribute royalties among project collaborators. If you are an artist who thrives on collaborations or does a lot of co-writes, this is an important feature to consider. See how TuneCore compares to other popular competitors in the graphic below.
CD Baby boasts features specific to promoting your work and growing as an artist. They have an entire page of promotional tools and relationships with companies that can broaden your audience. Here are a few that stand out:
Show.co
This platform allows you to promote your music through a variety of channels. You can launch a pre-save campaign through Spotify, build your email list, run ads, and more.
As a CD Baby customer, you get to use show.co for free. I think this is a really big feature that CD Baby has on TuneCore. When I released my first EP, called Decisions, in 2018, I used show.co to organize a pre save campaign. If I had known you could get that for free, I may have gone with CD Baby at the time.
Bandzoogle
Bandzoogle is a platform that helps you build an artist's website. This is a great option for artists who know very little about building a website but want a space to sell merch, grow a newsletter, and more.
As a CD Baby customer, you get discounts when you use Bandzoogle. For myself personally, this isn't a useful feature because I'm already setup with my website, you're on it right now! However, if you're a new artist then you might not have one so this could be the push to starting your own site. I do think thought the bandzoogle styles are a little outdated in my opinion compared to other focused website builders like SquareSpace or Wix.
CD Baby Curated Content
Since CD Baby has been around for a while, they have an impressive amount of free content through their blog, podcast, and conference.
While these are free resources that technically anyone could use, it is important to note that the DIY musician resources all stem from CD Baby.
Both TuneCore and CD Baby have helpful add-ons to grow and promote your music. While TuneCore’s additional features are more geared toward revenue for original music, it seems that CD Baby has more features geared toward promotion.
One feature that neither of these platforms promote really is the ability to license cover songs which is a feature that DistoKid really promotes. If you are a cover artist or want to make a cover album, this is an important point to consider. I do believe it is possible to release cover songs on TuneCore and CD Baby but it's not completely obvious to me and I have no experience doing so. Please reach out to me if you know otherwise.
Now, which platform has better features?
If you are looking more for features that maximize direct profits from music, I’d recommend TuneCore. But if you want more features in terms of promotion and artist development, I’d recommend CD Baby, especially if you're a really new aritst but remember it's super subjective, meet me in the next section where I go over getting paid with TuneCore and CD Baby.
Extra Features winner: TuneCore and CD Baby
Getting Paid
When it comes to royalties from digital streaming and downloads, TuneCore takes 0% commission, while CD Baby takes 9% commission. In other words, you keep 100% of your music royalties with TuneCore but you only keep 91% with CD Baby.
Publishing royalties depend on whether or not you are registered for publishing royalty collection for either company. For example, TuneCore Music Publishing. However, you can also use another publishing admin service to collect your royalties to make sure you're getting paid for your work. You should also consider looking into SoundExchange or signing up to SongTrust as well which helps you get paid too!
Keep in mind that TuneCore has an annual fee. If your streaming numbers are not that high, you might be losing more money than if you paid a one-time fee with CD Baby. Remember the 1M stream example I gave above? Well, technically if you got 1 stream on your song then you'd be paying much more for distribution with TuneCore than with CD Baby. The problem here is we all think our songs will be number 1 hits and we don't want to believe our songs will only get 1 stream.
So, who wins?
If you don’t have many streams and are a small artist, CD Baby could be more lucrative in the long run. If you have a good number of streams (more than 150,000 per year), TuneCore is the way to go.
Getting Paid winner: TuneCore and CD Baby
Customer Service
Does customer service really matter when it comes to digital distributors? It depends! I know, I feel like I've been saying that a lot in this post but there is so much subjectivity that comes down to choosing the right music distributor that fits for you.
When I was first started my music career, I wanted to make sure that I used a distributor with good customer service to help me navigate the sometimes confusing world of releasing music.
Now that I've got a hang of it, I don’t need as much help because I know what's going on, more or less, the music world is always changing fast!
As I mentioned earlier, TuneCore builds its customer service response times into their payment tiers. Want a quicker response? Consider choosing a higher-tiered plan! Simple as that. I can also tell you from my experience using the TuneCore support team that they are fast and helpful which is exactly what you want in a customer service team.
CD Baby does have a help center with articles and helpful information. And, while they do have a form to submit a request, their response time is not indicated: “A member of our support staff will respond as soon as possible.” In today's world, you can usually bet that means anywhere from 3-7 business days. I doubt they would be longer than a week.
Based on this information and my own experience with TuneCore customer support, I would have to rate TuneCore as the winner in this category.
Customer Support winner: TuneCore
Overall Rating
Through all of these categories, I hope I’ve made it clear that the best distributor for your music rely on your needs as an artist. I'm not convinced that I can tell you the perfect answer unless I get more information from you about what you need. For example, how large is your audience? Are you releasing a lot of music? Do you plan to do any co-writes or covers? What do you need in terms of artist support? Are you releasing globally or just locally?
See what I mean? That's a lot of information I need to know to make sure you are going with the right distributor.
Because of my audience and needs as an artist, TuneCore is the winner. But I think both platforms are fantastic for uploading music and putting it out in the world. I’d recommend digging into both platforms and talking to some other independent artists to find out what they use.
Need More Help With Music Distribution?
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