TuneCore overhauls pricing to offer unlimited music distribution for a single annual fee – laying down gauntlet to rivals like DistroKid

Believe– licensed DIY music distributor TuneCore has overhauled its pricing structure for independent artists – in what it says is “the biggest change since it opened for business 16 years ago”.

Announced today by Andreea Gleeson, CEO of TuneCore, the platform will introduce a new ‘Unlimited Release Pricing Plan’.

What that means: TuneCore – for the first time – allows artists and labels to distribute an untapped amount of music to services like Spotify and Apple Music per year for a single annual rate.

TuneCore’s new unlimited pricing includes four different plans (see below) with different annual costs:

• The ‘New Artist’ plan provides artists with unlimited releases of songs to the social platforms’ music libraries – Facebook, InstagramTikTok and YouTube (includes Shorts, Content ID, and access to the Official YouTube Artist Channel) – for no upfront fees. TuneCore will pay artists 80% what is collected on those platforms, kept for other platforms 20%;
• The next step is The ‘Rising Artist’ Plancost $14.99 each five and includes unlimited distribution to over 150 streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer and Tidal as well as social media platform libraries. Artists who have signed up for this plan will paid 100% of the revenue earned with their music on these platforms. The plan also includes access to schedules before all release dates, official verification on Spotify and Apple Music, and promises artist-support response times from TuneCore within 72 hours;
• New TuneCore’s The ‘Breakthrough Artist’ Plan cost $29.99 per year and includes any perks/services offered in the ‘New Artist’ and ‘Rising Artist’ bundles (including receiving 100% royalties from digital stores), plus free access TuneCore’s entrance fee ‘Automator’ feature – ensure music distribution of a play to additional digital and streaming stores that will be available/available in the future. This tier also offers downloadable reports plus a guaranteed “within 48 hours” artist support response time;
• The top level of TuneCore’s new price menu is ‘Professional’ plan. Valuation at $49.99 per year, TuneCore says the tier is “designed for brands, managers and artists who are more advanced in their careers and will benefit from more sophisticated publishing features”. The Professional plan includes everything from the other three plus premium sales reports, use of your own UPC (universal product code) and custom label names, access to select country restrictions , exclusive partnerships and promotional opportunities. This package also allows TuneCore users to add additional artist profiles to their accounts for $14.99 every artist, every year. TuneCore promises a 24-hour support response time for artists signed up for the ‘Pro’ plan.

In the past, TuneCore has charged artists on a price-per-upload model, most recently $9.99 per single and $29.99 per album.

Now, with the ‘Unlimited Release’ plan, that’s all changed – bringing TuneCore closer in its pricing structure to competitors like DistroKid.

(Basic of DistroKid’Degree of musician e.g. allows a band or artist to distribute an unlimited number of tracks to streaming services for a flat fee of $19.99 each year. Like TuneCore’s new paid plans, DistroKid doesn’t take a cut of the artist’s income from streaming royalties, which means the artist keeps 100%.)

Discussing TuneCore’s newly overhauled pricing structure, Andreea Gleeson said: “We spent a year talking directly with artists and brands about how we can make our service good. more for them.

“What’s emerged is: artists want to be able to test their new music for free before it’s distributed to all services, and they want to release the music they’re creating instantly, often, and seamlessly with one an annual subscription that allows for unlimited music distribution.

“The new TuneCore program gives self-publishing artists at any stage of their career the freedom to choose the plan that works best for them, while maintaining the high quality of service for which TuneCore is famous. . With TuneCore Unlimited, artists pay less and earn more. ”

“With ALL THIS CHANGES, ONE SAME THING – TUNECORE WILL NEVER WAIT FROM THE BRIDGE ARTISTS AND WITH EVERY UPDATE TO OUR SERVICE, WE WILL KEEP OUR ARTISTS OUR WILL BEFORE DESCRIBILITY. AMAZING, WE’RE HERE TO HELP THEM MAKE THEIR MUSIC BETTER AND HELP THEM BECOME BETTER KNOWLEDGE. ”

ANDREEA GLEESON, TUNEORE

Gleeson added: “With all these changes, one thing remains the same – TuneCore will never give up on putting artists first, and with each update to our service, we save attention to the needs of the artist. Ultimately, we’re here to help them make their music better and make them more known. “

TuneCore artist, Papoose, commented, “Anyone who has followed my career closely will know that I believe in giving artists as much control as possible. This is done by allowing artists to create what they want and release music when they want.

“It is exciting to see that TuneCore values ​​its artists enough to give them consistent creative freedom and I truly believe this will change the face of the music industry. TuneCore has always been the best distributor and now everyone can afford it. ”

TuneCore announced in April that it has passed the milestone of paying more $2.5 billion in royalties for artists since the company was founded in 2006.

Follow it most recent financial year resultsBelieve’s ‘Automatic Solutions’ Business – aka TuneCore – collect 188 million euros ($222 million) in artist royalties in calendar year 2021.

In keeping with TuneCore’s business model (100% of royalties collected will be returned to the customer), all of this money was and/or will be paid to TuneCore artists.

In 2020, this annual figure (the amount collected and paid by TuneCore to artists) stands at 133 million euros ($152 million).Worldwide music business