The Digital Music Aggregator List

AWAL - (Sheffield/London, UK) – Take 15% cut but doesn’t seem to be a sign up fee. No upload area, good old fashioned mail in signed agreement and CD for encoding. Handling Arctic Monkeys, Sparks, Klaxons and Moby and 100s more. Aimed more at labels as apposed to individual artists. Promotion and licensing services too. Co-owned by ex-Comsat Angel Kevin Bacon (no not that one!). No store listing but iTunes seems to be the biggest focus.


IRIS – (San Fransisco, USA) – Take a 15% cut of sales. Impressively comprehensive list of retailers and mobile music outlets worldwide. Again, another outlet aimed more at label catalogues than DIY artists. Submissions for consideration are initially via an online form. In house marketing arm too.

CD Baby – (Portland, Oregon, USA)- $35 one off sign up fee and take a 9% cut of download revenue. Digital distribution sticks to the ‘big 5′ retailers and some of the ‘second tier’ stores. Can get your CDs into US stores via one stop distributor Super D. Now owned by New Jersey based CD manufacturer Discmakers. @cdbaby

101 Distribution – (Phoenix, Arizona, USA) – Not sure what warrants the high costs here. But there’s a massive $599 sign up fee, then $49.95 a month. 100% payout of all sales. You’re gonna need it with those kind of upfronts! You can Twitter questions why, here: @101Distribution

Nimbit – (Framingham, MA, USA) -$15 per album sign-up fee and they take a 20% cut for getting you on iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody and CDFreedom . They do the encoding so you mail in your CD and artwork. They have a number of extra services like CD duplication, merchandising, online storefronts, widgets and download cards. @nimbit

IODA – (San Fransisco, USA) – One of the longest established digital music aggregators with an impressive list of distribution partners and services. Again, one of those services that is aimed at labels vs individuals.  @iodapromonet

Catapult - (Frisco, Texas, USA) – $25 set-up fee (plus $20 for a barcode) which includes placement on the usual big five stores plus Verizon’s VCast, Tesco Digital and HMV Digital (UK), Puretracks (Canada), Zune and FYE. Full list here. Artist keeps 91% of sales which is inline with CD Baby and means you can expect something like 56c from a 99c download. Like most USA based services (excluding IODA) there’s a lack of niche outlets, with the majority being USA and Canadian mainstream retailers.

ReverbNation – (Durham, NC/New York, USA) - RN looks like it was designed for the MySpace generation with its ADD inspired layout! Nevertheless dig around and there’s a bunch of great services. Digital distribution will cost artists a one off $34.95 sign-up fee and get you on iTunes worldwide, and the rest of the ‘big 5′. 100% of sales goes to the artist. Where RN possibly beats out similar priced outlets like CDBaby and Tunecore is with the additional viral marketing tools. There’s a bunch of free promo tools, widgets, email lists, and a Sonicbids feature beating EPK . @ReverbNation

SongCast – (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, USA) – Another relatively new name (to me at least). Songcast offer the basic ‘big 5 ‘ distribution deal for $19.99 signup and $5.99 a month. You keep 100% of sales but with the monthly fee that works out at $91.96 for the first year. Something like triple the fees of other ‘entry level’* distributors like Tunecore, ReverbNation and CDBaby. Oh, they throw in a free barcode. Difficult to see why you’d go here and pay more to get on the same major download platforms though.

KJER – (Brabrand, Denmark) – KJER use the services of IODA to get artists and labels on one of the most comprehensive retail store lists mentioned here (presumably the same list as IODA itself). Their client list seems to be mainly European independent labels though their services extend to clients worldwide and their website invites individual artists to submit material for distribution. Further details on their blog and on the main website FAQ. The lack of information on their website doesn’t fill you with confidence.

Ditto Music -(Birmingham, UK) – Ditto have a massive retail partner list including the usual big 5, all the major dance music stores, mobile music outlets and white label branded stores too. The service seems to be geared towards artists aiming to crack the UK download charts and Ditto claim to have ushered seven unsigned artists into the UK top 40 already. There’s a sliding scale of sign up fees depending on the amount of stores you want to be on, from the basic 25 UK Pounds ($36) package which includes iTunes and Amazon UK but not eMusic, Napster or Rhapsody bizarrely. A total of 70 UK pounds ($103 approx) gets you just about everywhere in Europe, including those ‘illusive’ dance retailers Beatport, Trackitdown, DJDownload, Stompy, XpressBeats and Juno. Artists keep 100% of revenue. There’s an additional 55 UK pounds service to register your release with the chart authorities Catco/PPL. @Dittomusic , MySpace.

RouteNote – (Redruth, UK) – Routenote are another UK based distribution service (and a new service, less than a year old) that’ll get your music on iTunes, Amazon eMusic, Snocap, iMeem and LastFM, though no Rhapsody or Napster. Nothing different here really, though there’s no sign up fee and artist share is 90% of revenue. @routenote

Symphonic Distribution -(Tampa, Florida, USA) Symphonic is aimed squarely at getting dance music artists across the variety of niche electronica and digital dance music retailers worldwide (and as such is of great interest to me!). They service just about all the dance specialists, including Beatport, Juno Download and TrackitDown . They will also get you on iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic and Amazon with their SymDirect offshoot which seems to be their ‘mainstream outlet’. As far as I can gather. 100% of sales royalties go to the artist and an album signup fee would be $29.99. Promising, I really like the look of these guys. MySpace.

Musicadium – (Brisbane, Australia/Tokyo, Japan)- Australian based digital distribution setup that lets you keep 100% of sales in return for a sign-up fee of $39Aus per album, (about $28US). They seem to be limited to iTunes, eMusic and Amazon MP3 right now though more retailers are promised. Blog. @musicadium

Tunecore – (Brooklyn,New York,USA) – I like Tunecore a lot. I use them, I trust their service and they’re fair to the artist. They’re pretty transparent too with an informative blog, free PDF downloads and multiple Twitter accounts. They service the ubiquitous ‘big 5′ stores as well as smaller retailers and outlets like Lala, Shockhound and Amie St. There’s a $19.98 sign-up charge which is yearly and artists keep all the sales $$$. More FAQs here. I think the common consensus into what would make Tunecore better than it is, is more stores. Recommended for the mainstream retail distribution. @tunecoregary @TuneCore @viva

Feiyr.com – (Traunstein, Germany) – German based digital distributor that is an offshoot of major vinyl distributor Dance All Day. Feiyr supply a massive selection of dance retailers across Europe and also the ‘big 5′ retailers worldwide. Recomended for their wide and specialist coverage. Sign up fee is around 10 Euros and the artist share seems to be variable. Not the best website in the world.

The Orchard – (New York, USA/London, UK) – Another company (like IODA) that seem to have been around forever. Offer a comprehensive list of download stores worldwide and other services like sync licensing, marketing and video distribution. Again, like all the ‘higher end’ distribution services there’s an application process here. Not aimed at artists with one off releases.