Distrokid vs Tunecore vs CD BABY - 2026: Deciding Factors

TuneCore and CD BABY vs. DistroKid is Coca-Cola vs Dr. Pepper vs the store-brand cola. Sometimes, there's no difference between the store brand and the name brand. This is not one of those times. There are clear and glaring differences between TuneCore and CD BABY vs. Distrokid. TuneCore and CD BABY have completely different models. 

Subscription vs one-time payment

TuneCore and Distrokid are subscription services. You pay annually for unlimited distribution. Stop paying the subscription fee, and your release gets removed from all stores. CD BABY charges a one-time fee per release plus a share of revenue and keeps your music in stores. 

Good 

Distrokid has a feature called Leave-a-Legacy that allows you to pay a one-time fee to keep a release in stores forever. Songs can literally earn a permanent spot by generating enough revenue to cover the cost. And that only has to happen once. You get the best of both worlds. You can distribute an unlimited number of tracks and only pay to keep the ones that gain traction. 

CD BABY keeps your music in stores by taking a percentage of revenue. There's no ongoing fee. The upfront cost of each release is cheaper than Distrokid's price for Leave-a-Legacy, so you save money getting started. 

Bad 

Leave-a-Legacy charges some of the highest per-release rates among all of the distributors I've reviewed. It's also not a very transparent feature. What's included with Leave-a-Legacy beyond keeping your music in stores isn't outlined. You don't know if any of the other services are covered. 

CD BABY takes a percentage of revenue, and it's not optional. The percentage becomes punitive as you grow, and that's the point. Every artist who routinely earns little is subsidized by artists pulling in significant revenue. You could end up paying thousands of dollars a year for distribution if you find great success under CD BABY. 

Ugly

Distrokid 

You have to pay Distrokid an annual fee per release to have your music automatically added to new stores and for tools like Content ID. It's not disclosed whether any of that is covered with Leave-a-Legacy. 

CD BABY

You could end up paying thousands a year for distribution; despite that, CD BABY's services don't grow with the increase in cost. You effectively get the same level of service you could find with almost any other distributor. 

TuneCore 

If you stop paying, your music gets removed from stores. You're renting distribution, and there's no way around it. 

Catalog deletion risk

In an age of rampant streaming fraud and copyright infringement allegations resulting in takedowns and outright bans, you might wonder where you can find some level of protection. Not here. 

Ugly 

None of these distributors are here to protect you. They're about protecting their business models. You get accused, you get fined, and your music gets removed. The end. That's not comforting at all, but it is what it is. 

Hidden fees

Good 

CD BABY doesn't have hidden fees. Everything is straightforward and in your face. You see the upfront fee and their percentage of your revenue. The other features they provide are included in the service. This can make it the cheapest option to start your music journey. 

Ugly

Distrokid has extra fees we can't call hidden, but also practices that can become hidden fees based on the circumstances. You want Content ID? That will cost you. Having your release automatically added to new stores will also cost you. Your release added to audio recognition services like Shazam will cost you. There's also funny language around what happens when a company like Meta sends blanket payments to Distrokid. That money is supposed to be split among the artists it represents, but Distrokid reserves the right to keep it. Their terms grant them the right to keep any money they receive that isn't designated for any individual artist. 

The fees for Content ID, having your release automatically sent to new stores, and audio recognition platforms are all annual fees. You have to pay for these services on top of distribution. We also don't know how this plays out with Leave-a-Legacy. 

TuneCore has additional fees - some hidden, some out in the open. The strangest hidden fee has to be what you pay per Primary artist. You have to pay extra per artist, which makes sense for a label. Where it doesn't make sense is for an individual artist doing a joint release with another artist. The collaborating artist has their own distribution, yet TuneCore wants you to pay annually as if they're an artist you added to your roster. That can be limiting. 

Discovery Mode, the Spotify feature that allows artists to boost their Spotify streams, comes with complications. You have to sacrifice an additional 20% of your revenue from Discovery Mode sources on top of Spotify's 30%. Combined, you pay 50% of the revenue for those sources to activate Discovery. The same feature is provided at no additional cost with Distrokid and CD BABY. 

Publishing Administration 

CD BABY offers something like Publishing Administration with its CD BABY Boost service. You pay extra for it, but it's more about saving time than anything else. You can register a release with the MLC at the same time you do music distribution, which saves time. It also registers your releases with SoundExchange. Registration with the MLC is free. Registration with SoundExchange is also free. You pay about $40 per release for CD Baby Boost. 

TuneCore has its own full-fledged Publishing Administration service. Its parent company owns the Publishing Administration platform Sentric. There are scale issues here, and it's not included in the price of distribution. It's a separate service with an additional fee. 

Distrokid doesn't offer Publishing Administration. 

Report quality

Dashboard reports provided by CD Baby are very robust and flexible. You can poke around and find out a lot about how much you made from where with transparent financial breakdowns of gross vs. net revenue. 

TuneCore's reports are top tier, even better than CD Baby's. With CD Baby, you can't really cross-reference; with TuneCore, you can. You can find out what you made from specific stores, in specific countries, filtered by time periods. That's not something you can do is CD Baby. 

Distrokid's reports are expansive and basic at the same time. The layout is no frills. You can see stores and countries, but you don't get as much information as you do with CD Baby and TuneCore. 

Transactions fees 

This is somewhat negligible. TuneCore caps transaction fees at $0.25 per withdrawal. Distrokid caps them at $2 per withdrawal. CD Baby allows you to avoid them entirely by having your money sent directly to your bank account. 

Easiest to Use: Distrokid 

Best Tools and Features: TuneCore 

Best combination of Tools, Features, and Pricing: CD Baby 

If you're just starting with one release, I'd go with CD Baby to test the waters. If things don't work out, you won't have to keep paying to keep hope alive. 

If you plan to flood platforms with music and treat songs like lottery tickets, go with Distrokid. Paying per release is a disaster for this strategy. 

If you expect to make a good amount of money and care about a high-quality standard, go with TuneCore.