November 30, 2012 MondoTunes, CDBaby, TuneCore, and ReverbNation: How They Measure Up
If you wanted to sell music around the world twenty years ago, you needed to get picked up by a major label. That meant demo tapes, postal services, and constant performing on tours. That was all a ton of fun, but extremely hard work and very expensive, besides. That’s where music distribution online comes in.
Music distribution has changed in two decades. Today’s music distribution is digital music distribution. This is a good thing for modern musicians. It takes much less work to sell music online than it does to sell albums off a merch table, and you don’t even need to leave your house. In fact, today’s artists don’t even need a complete album.
If you want to know how to sell music in the modern market, the first thing you need is a music promotion company selling your songs, and handling your digital music distribution online. Distribution of music and selling songs requires a vast, ingrained network of business partners worldwide, which is why corporations like Virgin, EMI, and Capitol Records were able to control the industry for so long, but today’s music distribution companies are smaller, friendlier and more honest than the giants of yesteryear.
Today there are four major companies that handle digital music distribution, each having its ups and downs. These are MondoTunes, CDBaby, TuneCore, and ReverbNation. The following graph shows how their prices measure up (click to enlarge if it’s too small).
MondoTunes is the least expensive of the group, which would make sense if they were offering fewer products and services for the price, but in fact they offer much, much more. This can only mean that Mondo is trying to snatch customers from their competitors, naturally, and there’s no telling when the other companies will start offering more/charging less, but as of now (late August 2012) MondoTunes doesn’t show any sign of raising their low flat rates, and their service is probably going to stay superior for the following reasons:
They offer free UPC and ISRC codes, which is extremely unusual in all kinds of publishing (music, books, whatever). They offer the ability to create your own music label, too, as well as live representative assistance (think actual phone calls, also unheard of). Perhaps most of all, however, their distribution network is the exact same one utilized by Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, U2, One Republic, Rihanna, and countless other artists signed to Universal Music, which means Mondo boasts the largest music distribution in the world today. Finally – and this may be most important of all for many artists – Mondo’s still run by the same small crew of people that started it, all of whom have been musicians in the scene, themselves. That can be extremely comforting.
Selling songs online can seem daunting, but it’s far easier than one might expect, and far, far easier than the traditional method of music promotion. Selling your songs is now as simple as – well, the click of a button. If you can compare prices (as above) then you no longer need to understand the distribution of music or how to sell songs. You don’t have to know an A&R rep to sell albums, anymore, and while the old-school music fan in you may feel nostalgic for the old ways, the truth is, music all around the world is much better off without them. As long as honest, inexpensive companies like Mondo are around, absolutely anyone can sell music online.
Reader Comments (13)
Thanks for your article. For the record, CD Baby does NOT charge any additional fees for distribution to our always growing list of partners. Here is a representative list of our partner companies: http://members.cdbaby.com/digital-distribution-partners.aspx We deliver your music to all these providers and more – at no extra cost.
Thanks,
Molly K
CD Baby
http://members.cdbaby.com
Hey Molly,
thanks for chiming in here. I have to say CD baby is by far better than tunecore and ditto. We just distributed a few new songs with Mondo tunes and feel they have the best value available today. We were turned on by them at Sxsw and have had a great experience so far. They don't do monthly and yearly fees but they also do not have UPC and ISRC code fees. I did a project with you guys a few years ago, you still have those costs?
the game changer for us was sending the same email to the main distributors and Mondo tunes responded MUCH faster than everyone else and did not provide a generic template email. tunecore took forever and Ditto didn't even respond (those guys customer service is atrocious).
anyway, just thought I'd share our experience in hopes of everyone bettering their services.
Just adding my two cents of experience. I found ditto also didn't respond to a few of my mails which was odd as I was trying to use them at first (was 90% finished with my subscription but they didn't answer so I didn't complete as it worried me for the future) . Cd baby seems expensive to me though they seem to offer a good service and check a lot of boxes.
I have been with CDBaby for years. I sent them an email asking why they raised their rate like 40% in a matter of just a few years. No response.
The exorbitant fee raising, coupled with their lack of response turns me off.
They lost me... and most likely they will lose many others.
Any company that say the worlds largest and in fact is not the worlds largest reads signs of run the other way
Hey Alex,
that's a good point and I was hesitant at first to sign up with Mondo tunes but then I found out that they distribute through their relationship with Interscope Records. That made much more sense. Our experience with them has been pretty solid so far. The only feature I'm hoping to get hopefully soon is real time sales stats.
How good does Mondo represent country music artist any suggestions? This is my first venture into the digial music world, but I'm representing a tremendous female artist and want to give her the best chance I possible can of moving forward.
mondotunes are using the InGrooves platform for delivering their assets to digital retailers.
This is why they claim to be using the same distribution channels as UMG.
Hey LostlnDigital,
thanks for your comment/feedback. Actually we distribute via our relationship with Interscope Records/UMG and that's how we reach the largest digital distribution channel, globally. Just wanted to make sure it is accurately explained.
Fred,
Yes, we absolutely can cater to country artists. In fact we have a tremendous roster of country artists/projects distributed globally. Feel free to shoot us an email with any additonal questions info@mondotunes.com
I am continually perplexed that more people don't know about RouteNote.
You can release for free including UPC and ISRC codes (no up front costs, they take 15%) - or you can pay $30 for an album ($9.99 annual after initial year) and keep 100%
They distribute to iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Spotify, rdio, and a couple others.
I'm not affiliated with RouteNote, just a satisfied customer.
so who would be the best cdbaby tunecore or mondotunes?
The Math of Radio & Music - Part 2
Music genres are diverse. Songs and radio programs are so prolific that it's common for companies to offer thousands of stations, or millions of songs. Pandora and Clear Channel may be the online and over-the-air gorillas, but there are hundreds of others in each camp. Cumulatively, these "hundreds" overtake the audiences reached by either P or CC.
YouTube has become a source for promoting indie artists; and bands by the gazillions have Facebook, MySpace, Bandcamp, Reverbnation, and CDBaby accounts. The line above about others cumulatively overtaking the gorillas is also accurate in this sector of music distribution.
If caution is to be thrown to an indie artist or group, beware of any company claiming "direct links to producers and radio station programmers." Also, place a little advertising math behind your expectations; it will give you examples of what to expect, relative to response.
You produce a product. Music. You are in competition with others in getting exposure for your product, and in deeper competition in getting fans to purchase or come hear you play.
Turn the term "promoting yourself" into "advertising your product" and it's easier to digest the following. These are not arbitrarily assigned numbers. They come from my own analysis of ad campaign successes and failures over the years. That said, focus on the decimal 0.4%, as it is an average response rate when tracking response to ad campaigns. Simply stated, it means 4 persons respond to your message for every 1,000 persons reached. Notice the keyword here is "respond," not buy. That is a much smaller decimal.
My target response rate hovers around 1%. Anything below that gets more attention to improve response. Anything above 1% is considered to be providing adequate response (which you may call icing on the cake).
When you see an ad for one of the above described companies claiming to offer your song to "thousands of stations, record and film producers," take a breath and consider how many of those reached are actually listening to your song. 0.4% is where I'd start, and that's if you use a company with relationships to its mailing list recipients. Take special notice here; it's not always advantageous to reach for a larger number of contacts.
I once took over an ad campaign boasting 14 million impressions each month. It delivered 25,500 in response (0.18%). 20 sales resulted, which gave this campaign a 0.08% rate on convertering response to sales.
By adjusting where ads were running (akin to an artist paying close attention on who it is they are promoting to), I raised the response rate to 1.16%. The "purchase rate" also rose to 0.62%. Both of these occurred despite impressions being lowered to 1.5 million per month.
I realize these response and purchase percentages appear small. But they represent an increase of 544.4% in response and a 675% increase in sales. Ponder that just for a moment. This is real world advertising math - and what you (as a musician) are up against when advertising yourself.
There is no magic bullet in promotion. There is no easy way onto a radio station's playlist. And there is certainly no company that will get you widespread attention and response. The worlds of advertising and promotion just don't work that way.
If your target is to play on a slew of Clear Channel stations, or to be heard by millions of Pandora listeners, work the math downward dramatically. It's much harder to get either of these two company's attention.
Avoid promoters that promise widespread distribution, too. Many of their "contacts" will end up unopened in the recipient's trash. Read James Moores' "'Has Your Music Been Featured In The New York Times?' An Exposé on Beatwire.com" at Music Think Tank for a very good commentary on this aspect of music distribution.
What you don't want to do is quit. What you do want to do is adjust expectations. Keep them in-line with reality. That's where we live.
Expecting too much sets yourself up for disappointment.
Yet, here are some final words: Please, keep dreaming. There's always the exception.
I don't know about MondoTunes yet, but CD Baby straight-up sucks now. They once were great, but now are greedy to the core and without quality to support. Hopefully MondoTunes can hold a balance and keep their soul too, guess we'll see.