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Music Distribution

Free Music Distribution [2026]

9 min read

Key takeaway

Three established services still distribute your music to streaming services for free in 2026: RouteNote Free (you keep 85%), SoundOn Lite (you keep 90% of streaming income) and FreshTunes New Artist (no streaming cut listed, 20% on YouTube Content ID, songwriter and social-platform income). TuneCore, UnitedMasters, Amuse and LANDR have no free distribution plan. Paid unlimited plans cost $19 to $25 a year and take no streaming commission, so once your music earns more than about $167 a year, paying keeps more money.

Free distributors compared

Distributor Cost You keep What the free tier withholds
RouteNote Free $0 85% of net revenue Same store choice as Premium · approval queue was 26–27 working days in October 2026
SoundOn Lite $0 90% of streaming income Release quota, major stores only, selected social platforms, 1 artist
FreshTunes New Artist $0 Streaming: no cut listed 20% of Content ID, songwriter and UGC income · 1 artist · slower support and payouts

Checked against each service's own pricing and help pages on 2026-10-16.

Distributor Cheapest plan Streaming commission Free option?
Ditto Music Starter, $19/year 0% ("Keep 100% of royalties") No
UnitedMasters DEBUT+, $19.99/year 0% No (free DEBUT distribution ended October 2025)
Amuse Artist, $23.99/year 0% except YouTube Content ID, where Artist pays a 15% royalty fee No
LANDR Distribution Basic, $24/year 0% No (no free trial)
DistroKid Musician, $24.99/year 0% No
TuneCore Rising Artist, $24.99/year None listed; 20% on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube No
SoundOn Core $2.50/month, billed annually 0% Lite plan
RouteNote Premium $10 single, $20 EP, $30 album, then $9.99/year per release 0% Free plan
CD Baby $9.99 single, $14.99 album, once 9% of download and streaming revenue No

Subscriptions also differ in what happens when you stop paying: some remove your releases, some keep them up for a commission. See what happens if you stop paying your distributor before you choose.

Which should you pick?

  • You have no budget and no earnings yet: RouteNote Free. Every store, no fee, and you can upgrade a single release to Premium later.
  • TikTok is where your audience is: SoundOn Lite, then Core once you outgrow the release quota or want all stores.
  • You expect more than about $167 a year in royalties: a paid plan. DistroKid, TuneCore, LANDR and Amuse sit at $23.99 to $24.99; Ditto Starter is $19.
  • You release once or twice and never want a renewal bill: CD Baby's one-time fee, accepting its 9% commission.

The math: when free costs more

A 15% commission is the price of the free plan. Here is what you keep at different royalty levels.

Annual royalties RouteNote Free (keep 85%) SoundOn Lite (keep 90%) DistroKid Musician ($24.99/yr)
$100 $85 $90 $75.01
$200 $170 $180 $175.01
$300 $255 $270 $275.01
$500 $425 $450 $475.01
$1,000 $850 $900 $975.01
$5,000 $4,250 $4,500 $4,975.01
  • RouteNote Free vs DistroKid: break-even at $166.60 a year ($24.99 ÷ 15%). Above that, the subscription keeps more.
  • SoundOn Lite vs DistroKid: break-even at $249.90 a year ($24.99 ÷ 10%).
  • At $5,000 a year, RouteNote's 15% costs $750 against DistroKid's $24.99, a $725.01 difference.

Rule: if your catalog earns more than about $250 a year from streaming, RouteNote Free and SoundOn Lite both cost you more than a $25 subscription.

What the commission costs in real streams

The Dynamoi royalty dataset covers 24 platforms across 116 markets through June 2026. The median published Spotify market pays $2.20 per 1,000 streams. At that rate:

  • RouteNote's 15% costs $0.33 per 1,000 Spotify streams.
  • About 76,000 Spotify streams a year earn the $166.60 break-even, after which a $24.99 subscription is cheaper.
  • At 1,000,000 streams (about $2,200), the 15% commission is $330, against $24.99 for DistroKid.

Higher-paying services cross the line sooner: the median published market pays $6.77 per 1,000 on Amazon Music and $6.35 on TIDAL. Your own rate depends on where your listeners are and whether they pay, so treat these medians as a guide, not a forecast.

RouteNote

SoundOn

SoundOn is TikTok's distribution service. Its pricing page lists three plans:

  • Lite ($0): keep 90% of streaming earnings from services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music; quota-based releases; major stores only; selected social platforms; 1 primary artist.
  • Core ($2.50/month, billed annually): unlimited releases to all available stores; keep 100% of streaming earnings; up to 2 primary artists.
  • Max (from $6.25/month): 5 to 500 primary artists.

SoundOn says music stays online after a paid plan ends, and separate fees can apply to YouTube, Meta and TikTok income on any plan.

FreshTunes

FreshTunes advertises free unlimited distribution with 100% of rights and royalties. Its pricing page shows what the free New Artist plan gives up next to Pro ($100 a year):

  • 20% commission on YouTube Content ID, songwriter royalties and UGC platforms (10% on Pro).
  • 1 artist, standard review time, support replies within up to 10 days and payouts within up to 30 days.

Services that are no longer free

DistroKid Musician costs $24.99 a year for one artist, and DistroKid says it takes no percentage of store earnings. CD Baby charges $9.99 per single or $14.99 per album once, with no renewal, and keeps 9% of download and streaming revenue.

When free distribution makes sense

  • You are testing a first release with no budget. RouteNote Free gets you on Spotify with nothing upfront, and you only pay out of earnings.
  • You release one project you will not promote. If it never earns $167 a year, the commission costs less than a subscription.
  • TikTok matters more than streaming. SoundOn Lite plugs into TikTok, and you can move to Core later.

When to switch to paid

  • Your catalog earns more than about $167 to $250 a year.
  • You release often enough that per-release fees would add up.
  • You want every store, not a quota or a major-stores list.

On RouteNote you can upgrade a release to Premium without re-uploading. Moving to a different distributor means re-delivering with the same ISRCs and identical metadata; switching distributors without losing streams covers the steps. To compare every distributor's cut, see what percentage music distributors take.

Dynamoi (our service)

Dynamoi distribution is by application for artists who already have an audience: 18 or older, own the rights, at least 1,000 Spotify followers and 10,000 monthly listeners, and in the United States today. It is free to release, with a 10% commission on net receipts and no annual or per-release fee. See eligibility and terms. If you are not there yet, release with any service above; Dynamoi's managed Meta, Instagram and YouTube ad campaigns are open to artists whatever their distributor.

Sources and method

Last checked: 2026-10-16. Scope: Plan prices, royalty commissions, free-tier limits and lapse terms for RouteNote, SoundOn, FreshTunes, DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, UnitedMasters, Amuse, Ditto and LANDR; platform, market and median per-stream figures from the Dynamoi royalty dataset; and Dynamoi's own distribution terms. Method: Each price and commission was checked against the distributor's own pricing page or help centre on October 16, 2026. Third-party reviews were not used. Platform and market counts and median rates come from the published Dynamoi royalty dataset overview and service pages, which run through June 2026; medians are dated snapshots and can change. Break-even figures are arithmetic on those published numbers.

Prices are in US dollars before tax and change often; check the distributor's page before you pay. Earlier versions of this page described a 10% UnitedMasters commission and a one-year commission-free SoundOn plan; neither matches the services' current terms.