How to distribute your music: a guide to music distribution
You can’t upload a song to Spotify or Apple Music yourself: it goes through a distributor or a label. Here is what a distributor does, how to choose one, what you need ready before uploading, how long it takes and how to move your catalog later without losing anything.
This guide explains how distribution works in general. Prices, deadlines and file rules change and differ between distributors, so check them on your distributor’s own site before you choose. The Spotify pitching rule comes from Spotify for Artists, checked on October 15, 2026.
What a music distributor does
A distributor delivers your recordings, cover and metadata to streaming services and stores (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, TikTok and others), collects the money they pay for the master and passes it on to you with a report. Most also assign the ISRC and UPC codes if you don’t have them.
What a distributor usually does not collect: publishing royalties for the song as a composition. Those go to writers and publishers through collecting societies and publishers — see how music royalties work. Registering your songs is a separate step.
Types of distribution
| Type | How it works | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Self-service distributor | You upload the music on a website and keep your masters. They charge a yearly fee, a fee per release, a percentage, or a mix. | Independent artists and small labels |
| Distribution with services | A distributor that selects artists and adds pitching, marketing or advances, usually for a bigger percentage and a contract with a term. | Artists with an audience who want a team without a record deal |
| Through a label | The label distributes and usually owns or controls the masters for the term of the deal. | Artists who sign a record or 360 deal |
How distributors charge, and what to ask
The difference between two distributors is rarely the stores: most reach the same main services. It is in the terms. Before you upload, find the answers to these questions in the distributor’s terms or help pages:
- What it keeps: a yearly fee, a fee per release, a percentage of royalties, or a combination. Work out what each model costs for the number of releases you plan in a year.
- What happens if you stop paying: with some yearly plans, the music can be taken down when the subscription ends.
- Exclusivity and term: whether the contract is exclusive, for how long, and how you leave.
- Splits: whether it can pay collaborators their share automatically. If not, you need a split sheet and to pay them yourself.
- YouTube Content ID and social platforms: whether they are included, and what percentage they keep for them.
- Codes: whether it lets you use your own ISRC and UPC, and whether it gives them to you if you leave.
- Payments: how often, the minimum to withdraw and how detailed the reports are.
Before signing anything with a term or a percentage, read the contract clause by clause. The 14 contracts musicians sign explains what a distribution agreement decides, and TONTRIA Law marks the risky clauses of a contract you upload.
What you need before uploading
- The master: the final mixed and mastered audio, usually as a WAV file. Check the format your distributor asks for.
- The cover: a square image. Most distributors ask for at least 3000 × 3000 pixels, with no web addresses, social handles or prices on it. No cover yet? You can make one with the AI album cover generator in TONTRIA Motion Studio; before uploading, check the size your distributor asks for.
- Metadata: title, artist names written exactly the same way on every release, featured artists, genre, language, explicit or clean, and the release date.
- Credits: writers, producers and performers, with their real names. Credits are how royalties and profiles find the right people.
- Codes: an ISRC for each recording and a UPC for the release — or let the distributor assign them.
- Lyrics, if your distributor sends them to services, and the written permission for any sample or cover song (a cover needs a mechanical license in many countries).
- The splits agreed and signed before the release, not after.
Step by step
- Choose the distributor with the questions above.
- Create the release: single, EP or album, and the release date.
- Upload audio and cover and fill in the metadata and credits carefully. Most rejections and delays come from metadata.
- Pick the stores and countries. Usually all of them.
- Set up the splits, if the distributor pays them.
- Get the links: when the release appears in your Spotify for Artists account as upcoming, pitch the song and make your pre-save link.
How far ahead to upload
Spotify adds a song to your followers’ Release Radar only if you pitch it, unreleased, at least 7 days before release, and the song has to be delivered before you can pitch it. Many artists upload three to four weeks before release, so there is time to fix a rejection, pitch editors, set up the pre-save and prepare the content. The release planning checklist has the week-by-week calendar.
Switching distributors without losing streams
- Upload the release again with the new distributor using the same ISRC for every track, the same audio and, if allowed, the same UPC.
- Wait until the new release is live on every service.
- Only then ask the old distributor to take down its version.
New codes can split a release’s history, its links and its playlists. Keep a list of every code: what an ISRC code is explains why.
After the release
Distribution puts the song in the stores; it doesn’t bring listeners. The weeks after release are about content: short clips with the lyrics on screen for TikTok, Reels and Shorts, a Canvas and a lyric video. TONTRIA Clips makes them from your song and your footage, and the release assets from your cover. To understand what the streams pay, see how much Spotify pays per stream.