Which is the best music aggregator? Which one have you used?

1. CD Baby

CD Baby distributes music to iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Spotify, Rdio, eMusic, Rhapsody, Myspace Music, Simfy, Nokia, Last.fm, Xbox Music, MediaNet, MOG, Tradebit, GreatIndieMusic, 24-7, 7digital, Myxer, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Omnifone, Sony Music Unlimited, Shazam, Bloom.fm and Muve Music. That’s distribution to 26 outlets/stores. I bet you don’t know half of them (and most of your fans won’t either) but there is nothing like too much distribution, right? In addition, CD Baby has its own store where they claim you keep 91% of the sales you make. Most stores give you 70-60%.

Another perk is that you can sell physical CD’s as well. CD Baby will place your CD for sale on Amazon and on their store. People that order it will have your CD shipped to them.

With their sync licensing, they set up your YouTube page to receive payments from adverts placed on your YouTube channel and also make your music available for TV, film, video games, etc to use on their content. Now, I don’t have to tell you that if you get the latter, that will be mega money but then again, that makes the chance of that happening, very slim.

Also, if you sign up for CD Baby Pro, they will help you collect royalties from radio and TV stations. Now, I’m pretty confident that this will not work for Nigerian media but there is a chance of you blowing up in foreign lands though so you my as well go for it.

CD Baby charges N8,000 per album – both digital & physical copies and N2,100 per single (no physical copies of course). If you decide to opt for the Pro package, it’s N16,000 per album and N6,300 per single. In addition, they will take N600 off every physical copy you sell and 9% of your digital sales. Fans have the option of paying via credit cards or PayPal when purchasing from the CD Baby store itself. Their customer service is very good and they tend to reply within a day.

2. Tunecore.

Tunecore does not distribute your music to as many stores as CD Baby but it distributes to the core stores – 19 of them:- iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Spotify, Rdio, eMusic, Rhapsody, Myspace Music, Simfy, Nokia, Xbox Music, MediaNet, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Sony Music Unlimited, muvemusic, wimp, Shazam, and gracenote. 

Tunecore does not do physical distribution though and neither do they have a store like CD Baby. In fact, among all the services I will mention, physical distribution is unique to only CD Baby. The cool thing about Tunecore though is that you get to keep all your profits and all the rights to your music.

The downside is that their pricing model is based on subscription i.e. you pay a yearly or monthly fee to have your music distributed. This is favourable if you’re an artist with a big fan base but if you are a newbie, a service where you pay a percentage of sales might be a more prudent decision. The advantage of this pricing is that you can have multiple releases all under one initial charge. They also help collect royalties for a N12 250 one time charge and have a Ringtone Distribution services

3. Reverbnation

Almost every independent (and even major) artist must have used Reverbnation before. If you are a newbie, I advise you to sign up for this service. They provide (almost) every tool an artist needs to launch himself. It only makes sense that they will help put your music in stores as well. Reverbnation is very similar to Tunecore – you keep all your rights and earnings and you pay a monthly/yearly fee. For N5,500 they deliver to 34 stores and for N9 600 they deliver to 40 stores! This is cheaper/more expensive option than Tunecore’s N8 000 per year. They also have a great Customer Service that is faster than CD Baby as they are ready to reply questions in maximum of an hour. Still I would recommend Reverbnation to core users of the service.

4. JTV Digital

JTV is a company that just started this year but they are making a lot of noise already. They are also into the subscription model where you can pay N22 000/year or you can pay per single/EP/Album. For a single it is N500, an EP (max of 8 tracks) is N2 857 and a full length album for approx. N7000. They also have discounts for multiple orders. They deliver to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Grooveshark, YouTube, imusica, Nokia store, Rhapsody, juno download, digital tunes, gracenote and movistar. They also have some very helpful extras which are not as cheap as their distribution packages but are really helpful. They have a custom website package (hosted on wordpress) for N108 000, they have song mastering packages for N3 000 per track, and so much more. They even offer consultation but one will have to contact them for a quote.

JTV has the absolute best customer service I’ve come across. When you visit their site, a representative begins chatting with you and she will answer all your questions. I’ve been there thrice and she has been available 2 out of 3 times.

Here is a summary of everything discussed –

*all prices are approximated

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