Guide
Free music distribution: what to check before you upload
Free distribution can get your music onto Spotify, Apple Music and other stores without an upfront fee. The price is usually paid somewhere else: a share of royalties, paid extras, or rules about what happens when you leave. Ten minutes with the terms before your first upload saves a lot of trouble later.
Updated November 2, 2026
Short answer
Free music distribution usually means no upfront fee, with the distributor keeping a share of your royalties or charging for extras. Before you upload, check four things in the terms: that you keep ownership of your recordings, what happens to your releases if you leave or the service changes, whether you can reuse your ISRCs and UPCs elsewhere, and how takedowns and disputes are handled. Write the answers down, because they decide how easily you can move later.
What to do, in order
Read the rights section of the terms
Look for the words license, assign and exclusive. A distributor usually needs a license to deliver your music to stores, not ownership of it. If the terms say you assign or transfer rights in the recordings, stop and ask before uploading.
Find out how you are paid
Note the royalty share the distributor keeps, any minimum before you can withdraw, any withdrawal fees and how often statements arrive. Free plans often keep a percentage instead of charging a yearly fee.
Check what happens if you leave
Find the section on ending the agreement. Ask whether your releases stay live, are taken down, or are removed after a notice period, and whether the distributor can end the agreement or change the free plan on its own.
Ask who owns your identifiers
Your ISRCs identify each recording and your UPC identifies the release. Ask whether the distributor issues them for you and whether you can keep using them if you move. Keeping the same ISRCs is what usually lets a release move without starting its history over.
List the stores and extras
Check which stores the free plan actually delivers to, and which services cost extra, such as YouTube Content ID, pre-saves, faster delivery or editing a release after it is live. Make sure the stores you care about are included.
Keep your own records
For every release, save the title, release date, UPC, ISRCs, artwork, audio files and the store links once it is live. If you ever need to restore or move a release, these are the first things anyone will ask for.
Which distributors are actually free
Free can mean a few different things, so check what you get before you upload. This is what each company's own pages said on 2 November 2026.
| Service | What's free | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| RouteNote Free | Distribution, with no charge to stay online | RouteNote takes 15%; Premium keeps 100% for a fee per release |
| UnitedMasters DEBUT | An account | It doesn't include distribution |
| Amuse | An account and building a release | Distributing needs a paid plan, from $23.99 a year |
| Ditto Music | Joining as a collaborator | No free tier for releasing, from $19 a year |
| Too Lost | A Collaborator account for splits and team access | Releasing needs a paid plan, from $19.99 a year |
| DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby and Symphonic | No free tier shown | From $24.99 a year, $24.99 a year, $9.99 per single and $29.99 a year |
What free usually means
Distribution costs money to run, so a free plan is paid for another way. The common models are a share of the royalties your music earns, paid add-ons, or a limited set of stores and features with upgrades offered later. None of these is wrong, but each one changes what you actually earn and what you can do.
Compare the total cost over a year or two, not just the price on the sign-up page. A small percentage of royalties can cost more or less than a flat fee, depending on how much your music earns.
Rights, takedowns and disputes
Look for how the distributor handles a claim against your music, or a flag from a store. These are the questions worth answering before you need them.
- Who decides to take a release down after a rights claim or a store flag, and whether you are told the reason.
- Whether there is an appeal, how you start it and whether it costs anything.
- Whether the distributor charges fees or applies strikes to your account after a store flags a release.
- How you reach support, and whether free accounts get slower or more limited help.
Leaving or switching later
Many artists start on a free plan and move later. A clean move usually means uploading the release at the new distributor with the same audio, metadata, UPC and ISRCs, waiting until it is live on every store, and only then asking the old distributor to take its copy down. Taking the old release down first often leaves a gap where the music is offline.
If the free distributor removes releases when you leave, or will not let you reuse the identifiers it issued, moving becomes harder. That is why the exit terms matter as much as the sign-up terms.
Your artist profiles
When you upload, the distributor matches your release to an artist profile on each store. If you already have a profile, give the distributor your existing artist links or IDs where it asks for them. A mismatch can put your music on another artist's page or create a second profile for you, and that is usually fixed through the distributor too.
How Traxure helps
Traxure watches your releases once they are out, whichever distributor delivered them. It checks your Spotify profile every 12 hours and your full catalog on 12 platforms every day. If a release goes missing on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, TIDAL, SoundCloud or Pandora, you get an alert with a note ready to send your distributor. Audiomack, iHeartRadio, Qobuz and Shazam show on each release without alerts yet. If you switch distributors, Move Guard keeps your UPC and ISRCs together and tells you when the new upload is live everywhere. Every plan starts with a seven-day free trial.
Questions artists ask
Is free music distribution really free?
Usually there is no upfront fee, but the distributor is often paid another way, such as a share of your royalties or paid extras. Read the pricing and terms pages to see which applies.
Do I keep the rights to my music with a free distributor?
Usually, yes. Most distributors take a license to deliver your music, not ownership. Check the terms for words like assign or transfer, and ask before uploading if you see them.
What happens to my music if I stop using a free distributor?
It depends on the terms. Some keep releases live, others take them down when you leave or after a notice period. Find this in the agreement before your first upload.
Can I move my releases to another distributor later?
Usually, yes. Upload them at the new distributor with the same audio, metadata, UPC and ISRCs, wait until they are live everywhere, then ask the old distributor to take its copy down.
Can I use two distributors for the same song?
Avoid it. Two deliveries of the same recording often cause duplicates, profile problems or a takedown. Use one distributor per release, and overlap only briefly while switching.
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