Too Lost vs Tunecore: Deep Dive Comparison

TuneCore has a better business model than Too Lost. With TuneCore, you pay more for more. With Too Lost, you pay less for more. Too Lost may seem more appealing, because how could more for less be a bad thing? Here’s how:

It’s the age old battle of quantity vs. quality. You go to the Supermarket to buy Ketchup. One brand gives you 16 oz for $5. You look around the packaging and see non-GMO, Organic. You flip it to see the ingredients, it says “Tomatoes.” Another brand offers 24 ounces for $2. You flip it to look at the ingredients and it’s an essay with a bunch of words you can’t pronounce.

TuneCore focuses on delivering quality features. That comes with a price and you feel it in what you pay for the service. But, it’s honest.

Too Lost focuses on feature quantity, but not necessarily quality. If any feature performs poorly, users might be more forgiving as a result of the price. The expectation is set by life experience. Usually a low price means a sacrifice of quality. No company will say it, but that’s the way users are desired to perceive it.

Customer support

Too Lost gets dragged for poor support. Long response times. Unresolved closed cases. Poor communication. Now, just about every distributor at these price points gets these types of complaints. But, it’s not what, it’s why.

Tunecore scales customer support across three tiers. Paying less gets you slower support, paying more gets you faster support. Attention goes to those paying the most. It’s transparent and honest.

The cheapest option with a 5 day customer support time doesn’t seem like a big deal when you don’t anticipate problems or seemingly don’t care. Most artists go in with low performance expectations as far as revenue.

Surprise! The release does well and they’ve got a thousand dollars heading their way. Wait, they get a notice they’ve been flagged for streaming fraud and the money is being withheld. That 5 day support wait now doesn’t look so great.

You think that artist remembers what they signed up for? No, all they can think about is the money they’re owed so they’ll complain like they signed up for the 24 hour support tier.

With Too Lost, it is what it is. I can’t say maybe the artist was confused about what they signed up for. It’s one price, the support you get for that price is what you get. There’s no upgrading for better support. No way around it.

Direct deals

Tunecore operates on direct deals with DSPs. That can mean faster royalty collection, advanced access to tools and features, and more money in your pocket.

Too Lost mostly works through 3rd parties like Merlin and Fuga. You get paid from what’s left after they pay Merlin and Fuga. Access to features and tools get passed down through Merlin and Fuga to all distributors operating in their deals where none of them get advanced access to anything.

There’s a passage in most terms of agreement that go unnoticed. It usually states something about how you get paid from net receipts. This means you only get paid after they deduct their expenses. The more expenses they have, the lower your royalty payout.

Additionally, the 3rd party platforms set the rules. If they adopt a zero tolerance policy with things like streaming fraud, Too Lost has no choice but to comply and impose a zero tolerance policy.

Documentation

Too Lost has been noted for flagging releases and requiring documentation of proof of ownership. A core complaint is the lack of transparency around which documents serve as proof. This has led to some artists paying for the service and being unable to distribute any release.

Tunecore manages to review releases without running into this problem. It’s rare that an artist would be required to submit documentation with Tunecore.

Streaming Fraud

Too Lost, you get accused, you get removed. Zero tolerance policy.

Tunecore - depending on the level of abuse, you get notified and allowed to take action to fix the issue. It’s far more forgiving.

KYC

Too Lost requires you to upload for a verification process. This can extend punishment for accusations beyond ISRC codes and artist emails and have them impact your personal life.

Final Thoughts

Too Lost and TuneCore are solving different problems.

Too Lost is built around maximum feature quantity for minimum cost. The goal is to make artists look at a comparison chart and wonder why they would pay more anywhere else. More stores. More features. More tools. Lower price.

TuneCore is built around infrastructure. The goal isn’t to offer the most features. It’s to offer a service backed by direct DSP relationships, tiered support, established royalty collection systems, and a business model designed to fund those things.

The question isn’t which company offers more.

The question is whether the things being offered are worth anything when you actually need them.

Most artists never contact customer support. Most artists never get flagged for streaming fraud. Most artists never have a release held for review. Most artists never need to prove ownership of a recording. Most artists never run into payment disputes.

Until they do.

That’s when the difference between quantity and quality becomes visible.

A comparison table can tell you how many features a distributor offers. It can’t tell you how those features perform when something goes wrong.

Too Lost wins the quantity argument.

TuneCore wins the infrastructure argument.

Which one matters more depends on what you value and how much risk you’re willing to accept.