My friends say my music is pretty good. Now, how do I get on a streaming service?

First of all, congrats on having friends. We weren’t sure you would ever get there. And yes, let’s get that music of yours out to the world.

Thankfully for you and millions of Sound Cloud rappers, it has become much easier for independent artists to enter the streaming service world. No longer do you need a fancy industry label to represent you. If you have a working computer and a few bucks, you’re ready to roll.

As one might guess, before getting to this stage of the process, you’ll need to have some of your music recorded. And on something better than a staticky voice memo (no shame, we’ve been there too). This article is going to assume you’ve already got that covered and will pick up the adventure at the beginning of the streaming service process.

Let’s get distributive

The easiest way to get your music on the top apps, and the method this article recommends, is via a music distribution service. For a fee, these hand-dandy companies will handle all of the licensing agreements and arrangements necessary to get your wonderful melodies onto a whole slew of platforms.

There are several major competitors in the distribution game. After doing some market research for past clients, Triumph generally recommends one name above the rest (especially for new artists): DistroKid.

For just $19.99 a year, DistroKid will automatically upload an artist’s music to Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, Pandora, Amazon, Instagram, YouTube…you get the point. Your music will start showing up places—a lot of places. When an individual with impeccable taste decides to stream your song, the platform (e.g. Apple, Spotify, etc.) will send your hard-earned royalty money directly to DistroKid. After that, DistroKid will pass that money directly on to you. Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.

At the time of this publication, DistroKid does not currently charge any sort of percentage fee. In other words, the yearly $19.99 hit is all you have to pay. After that, every dime is yours. Pretty neat, eh?

What other goodies will this get me?

For your $19.99 a year, DistroKid offers quite a bit beyond just unlimited song uploads. As an artist, you will also get unlimited lyric uploads (for the aforementioned songs), royalty splits, and a Spotify verified checkmark.

Not going to lie, that last one is probably the most important one, to us at least. Nothing carries more clout than a blue check.

What if I get even more serious?

So this whole music thing is really panning out, and you’re ready to upgrade from the basic plan. Fantastic, we always believed in you. Luckily for you, DistroKid offers a couple other advanced packages, so you can expand your brand without having to find a new distributor.

For $35.99 a year, DistroKid allows you to upgrade from basic Musician services to their “Musician Plus” package. Along with adding a cool “plus” to the name, this new subscription level comes with several other great features. In addition to everything in the lower level plan, Musician Plus allows you to sync lyrics in Instagram, view your daily streaming stats, customize your own label name (if you’re into that kind of thing), customize pre-order and release dates for upcoming bangers, customize iTunes pricing (to make some extra change), and even customize ISRC codes (kind of like the musical equivalents of ISBN numbers).

If you were somehow able to hold onto those friends from earlier, you can even let one of them share the plan. Musician Plus allows for up to two artists or bands.

What if I get the most serious?

Ah, so you’ve really hit it big and want to stay with DistroKid. What are you to do now? Fear not, the distributor has another subscription tier, the crown jewel of DistroKid recording: the “Label” plan.

A DistroKid Label plan will run you $79.99 a year, and this price tag fetches quite the nifty feature. In addition to everything available in lower-tier plans, Label allows you to spread this goodness to 5-100 individual artists or bands. You read that right, with just one Label plan subscription, you could launch a hundred unique artists on Spotify. Expand and manage your new musical empire all with the ease of the DistroKid interface.

Congratulations, you are now ready for your rise to stardom. Hopefully you hang on to those friends, and try not to forget the rest of us when you blow up.

As always, feel free to Ask Triumph with any additional questions and consider Supporting the Team.

All views expressed in the article are opinions of the author and should not be misconstrued as professional consulting or legal advice. Users are responsible for verifying all information before taking action, and Triumph Group LLC is not responsible for any outcomes. Pursue subjects at your own risk. Seriously, man. It’s your life.