Guide
DistroKid pricing and review: plans, extras and what to check
DistroKid charges a yearly fee for unlimited uploads, and you keep 100% of your earnings. The headline price is low and easy to compare. The decisions that matter are which plan you need, which extras you'd add, and what you want to happen to your music if you ever stop paying.
Updated November 2, 2026
Short answer
DistroKid has three plans billed yearly: Musician at $24.99, Musician Plus at $44.99 and Ultimate from $89.99. All three include unlimited uploads and let you keep 100% of your earnings. Extras cost more, such as Leave a Legacy at $29 per single, which keeps a release up after you stop paying. Without it, DistroKid's help pages say your music can be removed if you don't renew.
What to do, in order
Start with Musician if you're one artist
It covers unlimited uploads, lyrics, royalty splits, the mobile app and a Spotify registered artist profile. Move up only if you need something a higher plan adds.
Check the features you'd pay more for
Musician Plus adds things like custom release and preorder dates, your own label name, daily stats and synced lyrics in Apple Music. Ultimate adds monitoring on Spotify and Apple Music, playlist contact search and replacing song audio.
Add up your extras
Work out the yearly cost for your actual catalog. Extras are mostly priced per song or per release, so they grow with your catalog.
Decide about Leave a Legacy
If your music matters to you beyond the next few years, compare its one-time price for each release with a yearly plan you'd have to keep paying.
Keep your codes
Save the UPC and ISRCs of every release. Your own ISRCs are only an option on Musician Plus or Ultimate, and custom UPCs aren't available on any plan.
DistroKid plans and prices
All plans are billed yearly. Ultimate's price is its starting price, and Ultimate plans go up to 100 artists.
| Plan | Yearly | Per month | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Musician | $24.99 | $2.08 | Unlimited uploads and lyrics, royalty splits, Spotify registered artist profile, mobile app, free promo tools |
| Musician Plus | $44.99 | $3.75 | Synced lyrics in Apple Music, daily streaming stats, your own label name, custom release and preorder dates, custom iTunes pricing |
| Ultimate | From $89.99 | From $7.50 | Everything in Musician Plus, monitoring on Spotify and Apple Music, playlist contact search, advanced stats, replacing song audio |
From DistroKid's pricing page on 2 November 2026. Prices change, so check before you buy.
What the extras cost
These are charged on top of your plan.
| Extra | Price | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Leave a Legacy | $29 per single, $49 per album, one time | Keeps that release up after you cancel or a payment lapses |
| Social Media Pack | $4.95 per single or $14.95 per album a year, plus 20% of ad revenue | Notifies and pays you when your music is used in YouTube or TikTok videos |
| Store Maximizer | $7.95 per album a year | Delivers your release to new stores as DistroKid adds them |
| Discovery Pack | $0.99 per song a year | Adds your release to music databases such as Gracenote and Luminate |
| Cover Song Licensing | $12 per cover song a year | Required for every cover you upload |
| Beatport | $9.99 a month | Delivers electronic releases to Beatport |
| Dolby Atmos | $26.99 per track, one time | Marks a properly mixed track as available for spatial audio |
| Loudness Normalization | $2.99 per track, one time | Adjusts your audio to Spotify's recommended level |
From DistroKid's album extras page, checked 2 November 2026.
Our review: where it's strong
DistroKid suits an artist who releases often and wants one predictable yearly bill. This review is based on DistroKid's own pages, not a paid test.
- A flat yearly price with unlimited uploads, so more releases don't cost more.
- You keep 100% of your earnings on every plan.
- Its store list names Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer, TIDAL and others.
- Royalty splits and promo tools are included on every plan.
Our review: what to check first
None of these rule it out, but each one is easy to miss on the pricing page.
- The yearly fee is ongoing. DistroKid's help pages say releases can be removed if you stop paying, unless each one has Leave a Legacy.
- Extras can add up across a large catalog.
- Its store list doesn't name SoundCloud (checked 2 November 2026). If SoundCloud matters to you, ask DistroKid first.
- Custom UPCs aren't available, which matters if you need a code that works outside DistroKid.
- Mostly artificial streams can mean removal, unpaid royalties, a warning or account closure.
How Traxure helps
Traxure isn't a distributor, and it works alongside DistroKid on any plan. DistroKid Ultimate's Artist Profile Alerts cover Spotify and Apple Music. Traxure checks your Spotify profile every 12 hours and your full catalog every day, and it also checks Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, TIDAL, SoundCloud and Pandora. It emails you when a release stops showing, with a note to your distributor ready to send. Monitoring starts with a seven-day free trial.
Questions artists ask
How much is DistroKid a year?
$24.99 for Musician, $44.99 for Musician Plus and from $89.99 for Ultimate, as shown on its pricing page on 2 November 2026.
Does DistroKid take a percentage of royalties?
On its plans, you keep 100% of your earnings. The Social Media Pack extra takes 20% of ad revenue.
Does DistroKid have a free plan?
Its pricing page shows no free plan. The lowest is Musician at $24.99 a year.
What happens if I stop paying DistroKid?
DistroKid's help pages say your music can be removed if you don't renew, and that releases with Leave a Legacy stay up. Check its current terms before you cancel.
Is DistroKid Ultimate worth it?
It depends on whether you'd use what it adds, such as monitoring on Spotify and Apple Music, replacing song audio and advanced stats. It costs $65 a year more than Musician at its starting price.
Sources
Traxure
Know the same day, not weeks later.
Traxure checks your releases on Spotify and other platforms around the clock, confirms a change before alerting you and tells you what to do next. Seven-day free trial.
Pricing
Plans from $12 a month.
7-day free trial on every plan. Cancel anytime.
- Artist $12/mo
- Manager $69/mo
- Label $199/mo