CDBaby vs. Tunecore

[strathound]

 

But I trust Derek Sievers implicitly. You don't get the good rep these guys have by screwing your clients.

 

 

Yeah, Derek Sivers is a freakin' Independent Music saint. He's the one that started the online movement. And it all started out because he wanted to sell his own music online. He's a musician that built the site for other musicians. You can read more about the history of the site here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Baby

[mikezawitkowski]

 

That's right. Itunes pays 70 cents for a 99 cent download, you get 70 cents with tunecore. CDbaby takes 9% of that 70 cents. Tunecore does distribute and manufacture CD's. It's done through a ministore provided by tunecore you can put on your website or myspace or whatever, and people can order your CD through tunecore and they handle everything. They take $2 for each one sold, CDbaby takes $4. Tunecore also adds $2 for shipping, paid by customer, not by artist. So, as an artist, Tunecore wins there too, the only drawback is the buyer has to go to your site to buy it, but I don't think that's a bad thing personally. If they like you enough to buy the disc, then surely they know your website.

 

 

Actually, the payout from iTunes is more like 65 cents. Most online retailers pay 60% of wholesale for downloads. Note, however, that subscription models like eMusic and Rhapsody use an entirely different model.

[mikezawitkowski]

 

do either cdbaby or tunecore allow you to change to a different mix after you have already sent the first one in? ..thanks!

 

 

Nobody is going to let you do that easily. It's a pain in the butt to swap out old mixes or mastered versions with the old. Better to pull the whole thing down and deliver the new version as a new copy.

 

I know of distributors that will replace audio for little or no money, but it's a time consuming and hit-and-miss process.

 

In general, making any changes to an already processed and delivered album is a painful process, whether it's through cd baby, tunecore, or one of your own direct deals. Of course, it's easier than physical, where you simply throw the old copies away and eat the cost...

[mikezawitkowski]

 

how honest is cdbaby and tunecore with respect to revealing actual download information? do either tell you where geographically the purchases were made? read this on snocap... http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=358054897

 

 

I think there's a separate thread about Snocap somewhere in H.C., but I thought we were comparing CD Baby to TuneCore.

 

I haven't heard anything positive regarding Snocap...

 

Mike

[rockizoid]

cd baby claims to be able to get your music to more sites, and because they take a percentage, will be more aggressive in gaining ongoing sales. either to make sure the links etc are working properly, or discovering new channels to licence. i cant help but think that with tunecore, once they have your money up front they wont care about what happens to your files down the road because there is no remaining potential from you (other than to keep you as a customer and adding more songs) the million dollar question is....will cd baby's aggressive nature result in more net sales than the 9% commission will cost? you want your product to succeed long after you have it placed.

[Dreabfly]

A few months back some of us got into a roundabout discussion about the commission vs. no comission model. I went back through all our digital sales reports from Cdbaby to figure out the real difference between paying a yearly fee and not. Here's what I found:

 

1. For the most part, people don't buy full albums, so you can't calculate your royalty based on that. Over the course of 3 and a half years, we sold 4 full albums. (this was a period when we had some extra film exposure, too).

 

2. Not all downloads are created equal. The majority of our downloads didn't come from Amazon or iTunes or sites that sell only the download. The majority of our sales came from sites that offer "Paid listens" like Rhapsody or MusicNet. These pay a MUCH lower royalty (like .011 or .013). So over that period, we sold 740 downloads, but made only $93.12 - hardly the almost $500 we would have been expecting if we had used .60 as our royalty. I'm pretty sure most people here when they do their calculations are assuming they will always make .60 on every download. That is likely not the case.

 

3. iTunes Europe downloads pay the best royalty, coming in at .79 cents so you'll want to make sure that any program you're in offers your music there.

 

4. The measly amount of money that we made on digital downloads was really made worth it by all the other programs that cdbaby offers. For the setup fee you get the online store and the ability to join a bunch of other programs (like the credit card swiper for live sales). When it came to actually making money, in that same 3 year period, we made roughly $1200 on the other programs offered with cdbaby. And since we never had to pay another yearly fee after the setup, I the 9% commission was more than fair. Like right now, the band is defunct, and I never have to pay another fee, but our music will be up on iTunes and our lead singer (who now lives in the UK) can promote it without it costing us anything. If we make anything, cdbaby takes their bit. If not, I'm still not paying for a band that isn't functional anymore.

 

Of course, getting both or just getting Tunecore is a totally personal choice and everything will depend on what you actually sell. Yes - I'm biased towards cdbaby because if I'm paying for something I'd rather get more than less and we had a fully packaged CD to sell, played out here and there, and found cdbaby's physical fullfillment aspect totally invaluable. If you're in it just for digital downloads, your situation might be different - but try to factor in that you won't receive the full .60 royalty on every download, because you probably won't.

[uz3r]

 

A few months back some of us got into a roundabout discussion about the commission vs. no comission model. I went back through all our digital sales reports from Cdbaby to figure out the real difference between paying a yearly fee and not. Here's what I found: 1. For the most part, people don't buy full albums, so you can't calculate your royalty based on that. Over the course of 3 and a half years, we sold 4 full albums. (this was a period when we had some extra film exposure, too). 2. Not all downloads are created equal. The majority of our downloads didn't come from Amazon or iTunes or sites that sell only the download. The majority of our sales came from sites that offer "Paid listens" like Rhapsody or MusicNet. These pay a MUCH lower royalty (like .011 or .013). So over that period, we sold 740 downloads, but made only $93.12 - hardly the almost $500 we would have been expecting if we had used .60 as our royalty. I'm pretty sure most people here when they do their calculations are assuming they will always make .60 on every download. That is likely not the case. 3. iTunes Europe downloads pay the best royalty, coming in at .79 cents so you'll want to make sure that any program you're in offers your music there. 4. The measly amount of money that we made on digital downloads was really made worth it by all the other programs that cdbaby offers. For the setup fee you get the online store and the ability to join a bunch of other programs (like the credit card swiper for live sales). When it came to actually making money, in that same 3 year period, we made roughly $1200 on the other programs offered with cdbaby. And since we never had to pay another yearly fee after the setup, I the 9% commission was more than fair. Like right now, the band is defunct, and I never have to pay another fee, but our music will be up on iTunes and our lead singer (who now lives in the UK) can promote it without it costing us anything. If we make anything, cdbaby takes their bit. If not, I'm still not paying for a band that isn't functional anymore. Of course, getting both or just getting Tunecore is a totally personal choice and everything will depend on what you actually sell. Yes - I'm biased towards cdbaby because if I'm paying for something I'd rather get more than less and we had a fully packaged CD to sell, played out here and there, and found cdbaby's physical fullfillment aspect totally invaluable. If you're in it just for digital downloads, your situation might be different - but try to factor in that you won't receive the full .60 royalty on every download, because you probably won't.

 

 

Guys, there is some amazingly useful info in this thread, thanks all - and extra props to the above response ^

 

I think reading the responses in this thread, Im leaning towards CDBaby as a preferred option for my band. Im just going to lay down my bands situation/requirements and see if you guys also believe CDBaby is a better option – any help appreciated.

 

- My (independent) band is about to release our debut EP (5 tracks).

- We want to offer our songs for sale digitally online, both singularly and as a complete EP – especially via iTunes.

- We will already have a packaged physical CD ready to go - whilst it is not critical it would also be great to be able to sell our existing package online.

- We intend this release to last us for between 6 and 12 months before we cull it and/or release something new (or break up haha).

- Not sure if this matters - but we are a hard rock/progressive type band based in Australia.

 

As mentioned before, any help would be much appreciated!

[MichaelFriedman]

Can you do both?

 

And let me just say that as someone who starts recording his first album in a few weeks, I'm thrilled to have found this place.

[Bobsax]

how honest is cdbaby and tunecore with respect to revealing actual download information? do either tell you where geographically the purchases were made? read this on snocap... http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=358054897

In your monthly statement TuneCore tells you what country your iTunes downloads were from. If you want more the Trending Report tells you the city or region but it costs $3 (intro price). I don't really get what it's for

[daddymack]

In your monthly statement TuneCore tells you what country your iTunes downloads were from. If you want more the Trending Report tells you the city or region but it costs $3 (intro price). I don't really get what it's for

it is for targeted promotion. If you are selling 30% of your down loads in say Latin America, you might want to offer a Spanish language version, or promote the heck out of the music in that region.

If you are a metal band, and you are selling big in Germany...you might want to promote in German, maybe arrange a short tour there, etc. (this happened with our former drummer's former metal band)

[John Tutino]

Anyone hear of Indierhythm.com?

 

I joined them too. They sell your CD's but they don't digitize your music and send it to Itunes and all the rest like CDbaby does but I already have that service with CDbaby. The reason I went with them too is that they have an Indie internet radio station where you get put into rotation and they also offer for an extra 40 dollars a spot on the Artist Highlight page. I just joined a few weeks ago and havent sold any CD's yet but I have noticed more traffic on my website.

 

 

Instrumental jazz

http://www.johntutino.com

[JonPaulP]

Can you upload files on CDBaby instead of sending them a physical CD?

[richardmac]

Yes, you can upload files.

[Thamel]

CDBaby charges you $20 per upc code. That's insane. There are much cheaper options today like Reverbnation or the Bizmo:

 

http://en.audiofanzine.com/the-bizmo/articles/The-Bizmo-Digital-Music-Distribution-.html#pages

[DeuceyBaby]

neither

 

http://www.catapultdistribution.com/

[Bobsax]

So fill us in?

is it really just $25?

What do you get?

[JonPaulP]

 

neither http://www.catapultdistribution.com/

 

 

It says, "Catapult Distribution is the leading distributor of audio content to all of the top digital music stores."

 

How come I've never heard of it before? Have you tried it yet?

[DeuceyBaby]

 

It says, "Catapult Distribution is the leading distributor of audio content to all of the top digital music stores." How come I've never heard of it before? Have you tried it yet?

 

 

I have, and I like it alot the only think is sometimes it takes a while for the sales to register like a month or so but I think thats how it is with all of them

[Popkorn615]

Hi all,

 

Here's a very helpful article on Tunecore vs. CD Baby.

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-9739478-27.html

 

In summary, the point is that you will always do better with Tunecore in your FIRST year - this is because they pay you 100% of your royalties after iTunes, etc, takes their cut. HOWEVER, during your second year, for Tunecore you will have to pay the annual fee again ($19.99 if it's an album, or $9.99 if it's a single).

 

For a relatively unknown artist, if you don't think that you can at least break even by covering the cost of Tunecore's annual fee with your downloads, then the choice is simple - use Tunecore for one year, and then switch.

 

As per the article's comments, Peter at Tunecore says that you can cancel at anytime and they will remove your music. Also, Tunecore provides UPC and ISRC codes at no charge. As per Peter, Tunecore will never reuse ISRC's or UPC's if music is taken down. They are yours for life.

 

I guess the next question would be to ensure that upon cancellation (provided that my 2nd year sales will not make up for the annual fee), will Tunecore remove my music in a timely manner so that it can be uploaded via CD Baby or a similar company soon after.

 

Anyway, hope this helped.

 

For those of you that are familiar with CD Baby, I have a question for you - am I able to upload single tracks for digital distribution, or do they have to be full albums? If so, about how much is the initial payment to upload each single track?

 

Thanks.

[Blackwatch]

I just got my renewal notice form Tunecore today. When I went to the site I was very happy to find I had $155.00 in my account that I had no idea was there.

Tunecore has been painless and I'm still drawing on a 5 year old album.

[BlueStrat]

 

Hi all, Here's a very helpful article on Tunecore vs. CD Baby. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-9739478-27.html In summary, the point is that you will always do better with Tunecore in your FIRST year - this is because they pay you 100% of your royalties after iTunes, etc, takes their cut. HOWEVER, during your second year, for Tunecore you will have to pay the annual fee again ($19.99 if it's an album, or $9.99 if it's a single). For a relatively unknown artist, if you don't think that you can at least break even by covering the cost of Tunecore's annual fee with your downloads, then the choice is simple - use Tunecore for one year, and then switch. As per the article's comments, Peter at Tunecore says that you can cancel at anytime and they will remove your music. Also, Tunecore provides UPC and ISRC codes at no charge. As per Peter, Tunecore will never reuse ISRC's or UPC's if music is taken down. They are yours for life. I guess the next question would be to ensure that upon cancellation (provided that my 2nd year sales will not make up for the annual fee), will Tunecore remove my music in a timely manner so that it can be uploaded via CD Baby or a similar company soon after. Anyway, hope this helped. For those of you that are familiar with CD Baby, I have a question for you - am I able to upload single tracks for digital distribution, or do they have to be full albums? If so, about how much is the initial payment to upload each single track? Thanks.

 

 

 

No offense to anyone, but damn...if you can't cover a 20 buck fee with an entire year of digital sales, then your songs suck or selling music ain't your thing. I made almost 150 bucks in a year without trying at all. That's a low amount, but like I said, I didn't really lift a finger to promote myself.

[richardmac]

 

No offense to anyone, but damn...if you can't cover a 20 buck fee with an entire year of digital sales, then your songs suck or selling music ain't your thing. I made almost 150 bucks in a year without trying at all. That's a low amount, but like I said, I didn't really lift a finger to promote myself.

 

 

I really think it depends on a lot of things. Philosophically, I like CDBaby's model better - after the up front 65 bucks, they get nothing if you get nothing. It's almost like buy vs. rent. You put your stuff up on Tunecore and you pay them x dollars per year, whether they earn it or not. If you don't sell, it's costing them NOTHING but they're charging you anyway. It's a great model for them.

 

If I were a big name artist selling a crapload of CD's per year, I'd definitely go Tunecore because I'd make more money. But part of the deal is how you feel about your music being on iTunes, because regardless of how well it sells right now, the day will come when the sales go to zero. At that point, it doesn't make sense to keep paying 20 bucks a year to keep it up there for vanity. Or maybe it does, depending on the person. But the CDBaby stuff will stay up there indefinitely for free. If that matters to you, it's something to think about.

 

And there are guys who do instrumental music who might have like 10 or 20 CD's out. On Tunecore, for 20 CD's per year, that's 400 bucks or so per year - on CDBaby, it's free. The dude with 20 CD's is going to end up pulling the ones that stop selling. The dude on CDBaby won't have to.

 

But all of that said, again, the serious people who are trying to make serious coin should choose Tunecore because they'll make more money. The hobbyists who are doing this for fun? It may make more sense to do CDBaby depending on their ego. My ego wants my CD's up there for as long as possible - I totally admit it...

[MiStErJaC]

hello!

i'm also standing in front of the decision on what to use, cdbaby or tunecore...

i've done a lot of research on the internet, and found this wonderful thread! very useful information here!

so, i only have 4 song until now, and i want to release them, because i cannot upload singes on cdbaby and on tunecore it will cost 9,99 per tune (+0,99 for every store i want as one time charge) i want to release them as an album (an ep or something like that). that will be approximately 42$ (19,99 for the album 0,99 for every song +0,99 for every store) in the first year and 20$ every year after for the whole album.

 

so my question, what will cdbaby charge for this exactly? only the 35$ for the album and the 20$ for the upc code for release on all stores, digital and cd distribution? or will there be anything else they want (besides the fees per song)? and do they charge extra money for cd distribution, or is there also "only" the 4$ fee per cd?

tunecore says they have 19 online stores, how much does cdbaby have?

 

can i set up an account on cdbaby without uploading music, only to look how it is like?

 

many questions, i know...

 

hope someone can help me!

 

thx!!

[Timezarrow]

Sorry if this has been covered already, but how is CD Baby working lately? I know there were a lot of software issues last year due to a change in the site. I've heard that some issues have been resolved, but not all.

[LaurenBateman]

CDBaby has been working great for me. Had my album up on iTunes like a week and a half after receiving my CD for digital release. I actually just sent them restock on the album.

 

I've actually decided to participate in their $5 CD sale and having been seeling a few CD every week because of that. The profit margin sucks when you do that, but I'm selling a lot more CDs and people are getting to hear the music. I would rather sell a bunch cheaper than very few at the regular price.

 

I use CD baby to push product, and my shows and in person sales pick up the slack in profit margins. Has been totally worth it. Would recommend going with CD Baby any time.