When we decided to make IndieMassive available to the public, we had a firm goal in
mind – to provide the independent community with a platform that truly works for them
and can provide all of the tools and resources they need to succeed. In order to do that,
we needed to do extensive research on our competition in order to ensure that we could
properly compete with them in this toxic industry.
We value honesty, transparency and the human element of working with a company
that cares about their community.
So why would we hide our research from you!? – We wouldn’t!
Here you will find all of the information we gathered on our competition in order to
create our competitive pricing, policies and values.
INTRODUCTION
HIDDEN FEES
Hidden fees can often be found with the vast
majority of our competitors. Their seemingly
low prices might seem attractive but if you
understand their hidden fees you know that
their price is actually much higher.
With IndieMassive you get the access to
everything avalible for one low price of 40$
per year.
Hidden Fee name
Description
Cost
Loudness Normalization
When you select this optional
extra, this distributer
automatically adjust the level and
headroom of your audio to
Spotify's recommended settings
2.99$ per track, one time fee
Store Maximizer
Get your releases added to any
new platforms that this distributer
signs after your initial purchase.
7.95$ per album, per year
Dolby Atmos
Designates the release as Dolby
Atmos on supported devices &
streaming services including
Apple Music and Tidal.
26.99$ per track
Leave a Legacy
If yearly payment isn’t made and
you purchased the Leave a Legaxy
your music isn't taken down.
29$ per single, 49$ per album
HIDDEN FEES
Here are some examples of hidden fees from our comeptitors.
CUSTOMMER
SUPPORT
Customer support is of great imporance when it comes to
distributing your music and we decided to study our
competition so that we can create a great customer
support service for our subscribers. We decided to use
our email as our primary contact point as online chat bots
can be quite frustrating and unreliable as we found out
with some of our competition.
AVERAGE EMAIL
RESPONSE TIME
Distributer
Average ResponseTime
IndieMassive
within hours, 24/7
DistroKid
1 business day
TuneCore
1 business day
CDBaby
1-2 business days
Ditto
within hours, 24/7
United Masters
1 business day
Fast and helpful communication is key when it comes to
distribution and we at IndieMassive put a lot of effort to
keep up with our emails and we always replay within
hours.
IndieMassive
DistroKid
TuneCore
CDBaby
Ditto
United
Masters
Cost
$39.99
$33.47 + hidden fees
and addons which
makes it even more
expensive
9.99$ - per
single, per year
29.99$ - per
album, per year
9.95$ - single
29$ - ablum
19$
59.99$
Payment Type
Reoccuring - Yearly
Reoccuring - Yearly
Reoccuring
yearly per
release
One-time fee
Reoccuring -
Yearly
Reoccuring -
Yearly
Commission
0%
0%
0%
9%
0%
0%
Notes
Everything included
in one low price
They do have a cheaper
plan, but it is extrmely
limited with
funcitonalities. The
33.47$ plan is
recommened
Very expensive as
you pay per release
per year, and the
cost will keep
increasing as your
distribute more.
Simple one-time
fee system with
a 9% comission
on all releases.
/
They also offer a
diffent plan which
would be good for
aboslute
begginers.
PAYMENT & COST DETAILS
SUMMARIZED
Here is a spreadsheet of summarized pricing with the most popular distributors.
DISTROKID
DistroKid works on a yearly payment basis
You pay a yearly fee and you can release unlimited music
0% commission
Hidden fees
Plan
Cost
Notes
Musician
19.99$
Suggested to buy the Musician Plus plan as the basic
Musician comes without basic features like being able
to schedule a release.
Musician Plus
34.99$
TUNECORE
TuneCore works on a yearly payment basis. You pay a price each year for them to keep your songs or
albums on the platforms
Example: If you have 2 albums distributed by TuneCore you will for example pay 99.98$ a year. If you have
three albums you will pay 149.97$ per year.
The more you distribute the more you pay, so if you release a lot they might be very expensive
You keep 100% of the royalties you make off the releases.
Album
Single
Pricing
$29.99 for the first year and then $49.99 each
following year.
9.99$ per year
YouTube Content ID
Register all songs for 10$ and keep 80% of your royalties.
Publishing
Unlimited submissions for 75$ (one-time fee). The commission is 15%, so you keep 85% of your
royalties. Sync commission is 20% so you keep 80% of your revenue.
CDBABY
No annual subscription fees
Instead of them having annual fees they simply charge an upfront charge for each single or album you
release and they take a commission on each release.
Great for smaller artists with smaller amounts of streams but can get really expensive with bigger artists
9% commission
Plan
Cost
Standard Single
19.99$
Pro Single
34.99$
Standard Album
29$
Standard Album
69$
UNITED MASTERS
Plan
Cost
Comission
Notes
United Masters
No upfront fee
10% comission fee
You can only
distribute 1 release
per month
United Masters SELECT
59.99$ per year
0% comission
Unlimited releases
They offer 2 different plans
The United Masters plan is really only applicable if you are just starting out in the industry and it offers
limited functionalities.
ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITIES
IndieMassive
DistroKid
TuneCore
CDBaby
Ditto
United
Masters
Lyric
Distribution
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes (Ditto
Plus Users
only)
No
Presave
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Analytics
Industry Leading
Minimal
Minimal
Moderate
Minimal
Moderate
Credits
Distribution
All
All
main artist,
featured,
songwriter,
producer, actor,
composer,
lyricist, remixer
songwriters
only
No
songwriter,
producer,
featured artist
Here are some functionalities that you should consider when choosing your distributer.
CONTACT US
At IndieMassive we value communication with our customers and
subscribers. You can reach out at any time and we will do our absolute best
to reach out as quickly as possible.
contact@indiemassive.com
@indiemassive
@indiemassive
