TuneCore Review 2024

In this post, we’ll get into everything you need to know to make a good decision in choosing your music distribution partner.

You’ll learn what TuneCore is all about, how much it costs, what’s included in the service and more.

If you’re trying to get your music out there, there are a lot of distributors out there vying for your business.

Be sure to check out our step-by-step guide on how to upload music on Spotify and every other digital platform out there.

Now, let’s get right into our full deep-dive Tunecore review…

— Related Content: FULL comparison of Distrokid vs Tunecore – read now —

Rating:

8.4/10 Stars Overall

Key Decision Making Factors

• TuneCore Price – 10/10 – subscription based for unlimited releases, now cheaper than biggest competitor
• Customer Support – 10/10 – highly responsive, quick turnaround, very helpful, dedicated team for artist support
• Perks and Bonuses – 7/10 – decent amount of perks – career opportunities (placements, etc), career help/guides, artist rewards,
• Exclusive Features – 5/10 – not a ton of exclusive features – includes pre-schedulable release dates, cover art creator.
• Artist Payouts – 10/10 – work directly with stores to collect royalties/payments and give 100% directly to rights holder – no middle man taking a cut

Recommendation

Should you Subscribe to Tune Core: YES, if you have music you want released on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and other music streaming services and digital stores around the globe, we think TuneCore is hands-down the BEST option from all of the digital distributors out there.

Even when they were the most expensive option to release music, they were still our preferred choice – but now that they’re the most affordable choice as well as the best, using them for your music releases is a no-brainer.

Pricing and Costs

Is TuneCore free? It can be… They do have a very limited free tier where you can get started, but your music won’t get distributed to the major stores/streamers like Spotify.

Here’s what the price structure looks liike:

Plans (Unlimited Releases on All): (Sign Up for a FREE Account!)

• FREE TIER: $0 – release music to all social platforms (no Spotify, etc)
• RISING ARTIST: $14.99/year – release music to all streaming/social/stores (including Spotify, etc.)
• BREAKOUT ARTISR: $29.99/year – includes advanced features to customize releases
• PROFESSIONAL: $49.99/year – best for labels, releases from multiple artists possible

Premium Addons:

• Music Publishing + Sync Licensing: $75 lifetime fee

Service Overview

• Gets your music on 150+ platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, TikTok and more
• Collects royalties/sales money directly from stores – no middle man taking a cut
• Pays out 100% of royalties/payments collected
• Provides comprehensive sales data and analytics
• YouTube monetization included in all plans
• Social media tool helps with music promotion
• Artist Rewards – VIP Sessions, Marketing Opportunities, Priority Support
• Ability to pre-schedule release dates

Pros

1. Most affordable option for releasing music
2. Trusted brand with proven track-record/history
3. Top tier customer support (better than the competition)
4. Collects money directly from stores – 100% revenue payout to artists
5. Continually evolving their service offering
6. Not a “bare-bones” company or service
7. Best exclusive features compared to competitors – specifically Music Pub + Sync Licensing
8. Has a handy cover art creator online

Cons

1. Free tier only gets music onto social media platforms
2. Currently no option to release Master/MQA (hi-res) audio (I’ve been assured they’re working on it)

Who Tunecore Is Best For

• Any independent music artist looking for a rock-solid partner for distributing your music
• Anyone who wants to release a large amount of music regularly
• Artists who want TRULY 100% of your store earnings paid out to you
• Artists that need a fast support response time and not wait for days to hear back on issues/problems
• Up and coming artists who want help advancing their careers
• Established artists who want to be able to manage and track their growth in-depth

GET STARTED ON YOUR FIRST RELEASE QUICKLY AND EASILY!

What It Is

TuneCore is a digital music distribution company (sometimes known as an “aggregator”) that specializes in getting the music of independent artists (not signed to a major record label) onto all of the various digital music platforms out there (both streaming and download).

The company exists because you, as an artist, can’t just upload your music directly to Spotify or Apple Music like you can with something like YouTube. These companies don’t work directly with artists. They only work with aggregators/distributors like TuneCore.

So you need to use a company like them to get your music out there into the world.

So, is TuneCore Legit?

100% YES.

Off jump, know this – TuneCore is a pretty big name in music distribution, and is one of the OG’s in releasing independent music.

And it used to be the more expensive option for releasing your music. But with new price plans, it’s solidified it’s place as our #1 choice for getting your music out there into the world.

Wait One Second…

“You’re partnered with Tunecore, of course you’re going to recommend them! I can’t trust you!”

That’s not entirely accurate. We’re also partnered with DistroKid and have received offers from other companies to partner with them too.

Our partnership doesn’t mean we can’t offer our objective opinion on which service we think is best. And that’s exactly what we strive to do. Give you a detailed and honest analysis of a product or service.

You can check out our full DistroKid Review (read now) to get an idea of why we feel the way we do (spoiler: DistroKid isn’t as good, in our opinion…).

More About the Company

Tunecore has been around for years and years – they’re one of the oldest names in the indie music distribution game. They’re also one of the biggest, often cited by the rapper Russ as part of the reason for his unbelievable success in the music business.

Simply put, they let you easily release your music everywhere that music is available online (see just how easy in our guide on getting your music on Spotify).

Tune Core has a reach of over 150 stores/streaming platforms and give artists 100% of their store payouts. (That’s an important point we’ll get back to later).

They also have some decent perks and bonuses for artists that use their service to release their music.

The biggest downside to using TuneCore USED to be that it was expensive – between $10-50 PER release. But in 2022, the pricing structure changed from per-release to a flat yearly subscription model for UNLIMITED releases. No more pay-per-release. Beyond that, they’re also now the most affordable option. The change to the subscription plans has been a real game changer.

The company does offer a free tier but it’s a limited membership level (very limited).

So now, the biggest downside is they don’t have a couple of interesting features that some of their competitors do – specifically I’m thinking of DistroKid’s ability to upload master-quality audio for platforms like Tidal Hi-Fi.

But in terms of the overall service offering, customer support, and payout transparency, TuneCore is definitely our go-to recommendation when asked about who to distribute music with.

That’s because they ALSO has some value-added perks/features that you won’t find elsewhere, and their customer service and support is unmatched.

Click Here to Try TuneCore Today and Release Unlimited Music!

How They Stack Up Against Competitors

There are quite a few options out there for releasing your music. Sometimes, reviews of Tunecore don’t offer a nuanced comparison of the service to it’s competitors. We hope we can do that in this section.

It can be hard to figure out which service to use, but with this company you have a reliable, long-term partner that has an established track-record of success for artists.

Two interesting features the company has that other competitors don’t is a cover art creator and Music Publishing and Sync Licensing services. Those are both pretty huge benefits that others just don’t offer.

DistroKid

DistroKid does definitely have a couple of cool release options we wish TuneCore had as well, but in my opinion it doesn’t change my opinion. The biggest difference-maker is the transparency behind the payouts each company gives to it’s artists. Both pay out 100% of the money they collect, but there’s an important distinction we get into more below.

Beyond that, the subscription plans actually include a few features that you have to pay extra for with DistroKid – like pre-scheduled release dates or YouTube monetization.

Another thing we noticed about Distrokid, is their addon services can really add up. Just as an example, if you released a project with DistroKid and wanted all the add-ons (some of which are included at no extra cost), it would cost you $64.87 for a single and $112.78 for a 10 track album – PER RELEASE. And that’s on top of the subscription fee. Their text-message marketing tool also costs $12.99 per month.

United Masters

United Masters is a newer player in the sphere, and is also the more expensive option now that TuneCore pricing structure has changed so dramatically. United Masters costs $59.99/year for their select plan and doesn’t offer as much as other options do.

They only release your music to 38 different stores/platforms. Beyond that their YouTube monetization feature is limited to Content ID only and costs an additional $59.99 fee.

Tune Core Payouts

This is probably the biggest reason we recommend TuneCore over other options – even when it used to be the more expensive option out there.

Although everyone will tell you they payout 100% of the revenue they receive, it’s not entirely accurate. The key words are usually “revenue they receive.”

These guys are a big enough company that they’ve got direct partnerships with the stores they distribute to. Some of the smaller competitors have to deal with middle-men, not with the stores directly.

That middle-man actually takes a percentage of the revenue before they pay it out to a company like DistroKid. DistroKid then pays out 100% of the revenue from your music that they received from their middle-man partner.

It’s a small, but important distinction to know about.

And, interesting note, Tunecore has paid out over $2 billion to artists in their history. That’s a genuinely gigantic number. Especially for the independent music game.

What’s Included and How it All Works

You sign up for an account and when you’re ready to release music you can choose from one of the plans you’d like to go with.

Once you’ve paid you’re able to start a new release project – whether it’s a single, an EP or an album.

With the new pricing structure you are able to release unlimited music – so if you want to follow the “Russ method” of releasing a new song every week, you can do that affordably.

We’ve got an entire guide walking you through a release, step-by-step right here.

Once your release is ready to go, it will be release to 150+ platforms, including all the major streamers like Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal.

Your music will also be on social platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, etc. As for YouTube monetization, TuneCore DOES take a 20% commission from that.

If you’re on the Breakout Artist plan ($29.99/year) you’ll also be covered if new music stores/platforms pop-up, with the Store Automator – your music will automatically get released to the new site.

The company also offers Spotify and Apple Music artist verification (get that checkmark!) and if you need, you have access to an album cover-art maker to design your music’s artwork – an important part of any release.

Finally, they also offer music publishing and sync licensing services for a one-time fee of $75.

The Evolution of TuneCore Over Time

TuneCore has been around for a long time. They are one of the OG independent artist focused music distributors in the game. And they’ve evolved over time to remain one of the top companies in the space.

They’ve always been well-known in the industry, but they really became a household name after rapper Russ would always credit them (along with his work ethic) for his success. He used TuneCore to release a new song every week for several months at a time, and he did that more than once. The result was being able to collect more than 6-figures in royalties every month from his catalog.

That, no doubt made the company a household name for artists around the globe.

They used to be the most expensive option for releasing music yourself – charging artists every time they wanted to release something new. In mid-2022, the price model changed to be more in line with other companies in the industry. Now they offer unlimited releases to artists for a small yearly fee.

And now they just happen to be the most AFFORDABLE option, not the most expensive.

Beyond that, over the years they’ve constantly rolled out new and different features to help the artists that use their platform grow their careers.

They offer help and advice, but also try to provide artists with opportunities that will help them gain more exposure and revenue. At one time they had an “accelerator” program, at other times they had publication opportunities on big blogs and they’re always trying out new things to help their community thrive.

Unfortunately it looks like the Tunecore accelerator (at the time of this writing) is no longer available.

Final Recommendation

So… bottom line. Should you use them to release your music?

YES – We highly recommend independent music artists choose TuneCore as their music distribution partner.

This is because they’re a trusted brand that offer a high quality experience – they’ve got great customer service, are easy to use, have the best payout structure, constantly evolve and are now CHEAPER than their biggest competitor Distrokid.

If you’re an independent music artist, who you choose to release your music with will be an important part of your marketing and distribution strategy, so it needs to be a top-tier provider.

In our opinion, Tunecore is just that.

Frequently Asked Questions

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