Ditto Music and Distrokid are both music aggregators used largely across the world by independent musicians and labels to get their music to digital stores, including Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, BoomPlay and more.
The number of stores your music gets delivered to depends on the aggregator you use, most aggregators also allow you to choose if you want your released songs to be added to new stores added in future.
There are many well-known musicians who have used or still using either Ditto Music or Distrokid to distribute their music, These includes Ed Sheeran, Ludacris, Sarkodie, Magnom, Darkovibes and Davido.
With these platforms, you don’t need any training or skill to handle your independent music career, you simply go to your computer’s browser and you have an entire record label service at your disposal.
Beneath the beautiful features and offers presented by these platforms, we dive a bit deeper into some of the important bits you need to know if you want to choose between Ditto Music and Distrokid.
Ditto Music
Founded in 2005 by Lee Parsons and Matt Parsons in Liverpool, United Kingdom, Ditto Music is one of the world’s on-demand music distribution and record label services platform, offering great services at a minimal cost.
Away from its flagship music distribution service, Ditto Music also offer great PR services, social media marketing and playlist pitching for artists and labels.
How Much Does Ditto Music Charge?
Ditto Music’s pricing starts from £19 per year for music distribution services. Per their contract, Ditto Music claims they give all artists 100% of their earnings.
Paying £19 per year also gives you access to a complete Ditto Music dashboard to aid you to upload your music to various digital stores, track plays, see earnings and also make claims when due.
How long does Ditto Music take to upload to stores?
Between 10-15 days, Ditto Music will get your song live on all digital streaming/download stores.
How Do You Get Your Money From Ditto Music
The easiest way to withdraw your earnings from Ditto Music is connecting a Payoneer account and clicking on the “withdraw” button when you have at least £10 in your account.
Payoneer is one of the simplest platforms to get paid online fast. You can simply create a Payoneer account for free by clicking here.
Is Ditto Music a good platform?
Over the years, there’s been a major challenge with Ditto Music’s customer service, this has been a big issue for most users on the platform.
Distrokid
Distrokid was started in 2013 by American entrepreneur Philip J. “Pud” Kaplan, this platform is developed to serve the purpose of distributing music to digital platforms and other related services.
The advantage of Distrokid is, right from the dashboard, you can create splits for all right holders and Distrokid will fulfil all payments automatically when its due.
How Much Does Distrokid Charge?
Distrokid charge $19.99 per year for unlimited singles and albums upload.
How long does Distrokid it take to upload to stores?
Between 3-5 days, Distrokid will get your song live on all digital streaming/download stores.
How Do You Get Your Money From Distrokid?
Distrokid offers a range of payment options for users on the platform, you can choose between PayPal, wire transfer, ACH, eCheck or even a paper check.
In other to see earnings and make claims on Distrokid, artists are required to fill out a detailed form regarding taxation and bank details.
Is Distrokid a good platform?
Distrokid is a great platform with amazing features, one key part to note is, most additional services are stripped off some of their packages and sold separately. Packages like Shazam, YouTube Monetisation and future store uploads does not come with the starting package.
| Ditto Music | Distrokid |
| $19/year | $19.99/year |
| Unlimited singles/albums | Unlimited singles/albums |
| 100% earnings payout | 100% earnings payout |
| 10-15 days to release to all platforms | 3-5 days to release to all platforms |
| Shazam inclusive | Shazam sold separately |
| YouTube Monetisation inclusive | YouTube Monetisation sold separately |
| Distribute to TikTok | Distribute to TikTok |
| Distribute to Instagram/Facebook | Distribute to Facebook/Facebook |
What to know when choosing a music distribution platform
Digital music distribution platforms such as Ditto Music and Distrokid are built to distribute music to digital stores and collect royalties on streaming and downloads. What these platforms don’t have is a means to collect mechanical royalties. To get paid for all your mechanical royalties, you will need a music publishing company like BMI or ASCAP to handle that. Platforms like Tunecore also offers publishing services at a fee on their platform as well.
What are Mechanical Royalties?
Mechanical Royalties are paid to songwriters every time a copy of the song is made, this could be on a CD or Cassette. In today’s music business, we barely see CDs or Cassettes, the advancements in technology have given us digital streaming and download platforms, but the principle of mechanical royalties still stay the same.
How Are Mechanical Royalties calculated?
Anytime a song is streamed or downloaded on any digital streaming or download platform, a fee is charged for mechanical royalties per a compulsory license issued to all streaming and download platforms. These fees are collected and paid to publishers and then paid to songwriters.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these are all awesome platforms with great features but if you are looking for the fastest platform to get your music to stores as soon as possible, then your option is to go with Distrokid since it takes 3-5 days to go live, compared to 10-15 days on Ditto Music.
But if you opt for an all-round platform to have one service that covers distribution to almost all platforms worldwide, YouTube Monetisation and Shazam inclusive, then you can always go with Ditto Music.
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