RouteNote Adds Flat Fee Digital Distribution
UK based RouteNote is joining the limited but growing group of flat fee digital music distributors led by TuneCore and ReverbNation with a new Premium offering.
For a yearly price of $10 for singles, $20 for EP’s (2-6 tracks), $30 for an album (7-18 tracks) and $45 for extended albums (19 tracks and over) artists then receive 100% of the revenue paid out by each digital music outlet. RouteNote also continues to offer the option of distribution with no up front fee vs. 90% of the revenue. UPC and ISRC codes are free with either plan.
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And that wraps up the so called “FREE distribution service” they’ve been rambling about. This is why I still trust distributors like TuneCore and CD Baby!
@Paul I dont really understand why you think this wraps up the our Free Distribution service. Our Free distribution option is the core of our business. We want to now offer an option to artists who didnt want to use the Free option and only keep 90% of their revenues. We are the only distributor to run these together and we will always run the Free and Premium options together!
With all due respect Stevie,
How can you offer a “FREE” service if you’re taking 10% of all sales & royalties? That’s not a FREE service. The Orchard and IODA charges no upfront fees yet they are not considered a FREE service. Heck even distributors like Symphonic Distribution is offering the same model you have with more stores.
Just because there is no upfront fees doesn’t constitute that its a FREE service. Since you are taking 10% of royalties that is considered a “Distribution Fee” because its costing the artist a royalty percentage to use your service.
If you would like a simpler option ( 30p per store ) with hundreds more stores, fixed release dates, chart eligibility and keep ALL of your rights and profits then head over to http://www.dittomusic.com
We have so far had 7 UK top 40 singles all with unsigned artists.
James
Excuse me Routenote / Steven but this is a complete joke.
These are YEARLY fees. You seriously expect me to pay $45 for you to distribute my album EVERY year to 6 stores?
Are you seriously expecting to compete in the market with these prices?
Artists currently pay $46.99 for Tunecore (via there new service), or $59.58 for their A la carte service. Thus, im not really sure I see your point.
If you had previous dealings with The Orchard or IODA, they do sometimes charge upfront (depending upon who you are), but they also take on average 35% of your sales revenues!
RouteNote is already the leader in the UK for digital music distribution and we are first to offer a No upfront fee option and a flat fee option together. Allowing the artist flexibility to change between what makes financial sense for them.
Tunecore charge this as a one off fee with a yearly subscription of $20.
You are charging $45 every year.
Glad to see you are studying Tunecores model thoroughly in your desire to copy them, i suggest trying a bit harder.
From what i can see from your website you have a handful of artists and work out of a house in Cornwall.
Hi Stevie,
Not true. The Orchard & IODA doesn’t charge any upfront fees at all. The highest royalty rate they do take is 30% of your sales which isn’t bad considering the marketing & promotion they offer for your catalog.
As for RouteNote I still don’t see how it will catch on with the indies and the market. I mean you’re offering two fee based services. One is a percentage based service and the other is a flat fee, TuneCore-like service. If you charge $45 per year, I’d rather stick with TuneCore since they have more stores and they charge less.
A FREE service is a service where there is no upfront fees + no royalties taken from the sale. Based on my research the only company that has brought to light such a model is WaTunes. Though they failed to maintain, it was indeed a true FREE service.
Overall, I still find TuneCore & CD Baby to be much better!
RouteNote charges a $45 fee for an album per year, but it is very easy to upgrade or move down to a free version. Thus, optimising your best solution.
RouteNote isnt copying anyone, we are just trying to provide the best possible service for all artists worldwide.
I dont understand why you think we are based our of a house. Please come and visit us in our office! You can find our address on our site.
Would just like to add that the $45 fee only applies to extended or double disc album, 19 tracks or more and is our highest priced option. A more standard length album is priced at $30 per year, the extra cost comes from maintenance, storage and workload for the extra tracks.
Comparatively releasing a Single with RouteNote for $10 per year (all inclusive) is very competative, dare I say market leading?
I would also say to Daniel that even if you call over 3000 “a handful” does that mean that because we are new we are not worth using? I would argue the opposite.
Your website has a photograph of two people working in what is clearly a house and looks like a scam.
Tuncore release a single for $10 to twice as many sites as you do, so i struggle to see how you are market leading in any way.
Your 3000 artists ( unproven ) will have to earn a tidy sum for you to make your 10% and stay in business, so yes, i would call that a handfull of artists.
Daniel,
Please come and visit our office!
Why do you have (uproven), those numbers are fact.
Tunecore only have 14 stores, RouteNote has 7 currently (not counting individual countries as stores, as Tunecore and others do). Plus we have several more new stores on the way. Its not about the number of stores, its about the percentage of the market that they cover. RouteNote covers over 90% of the digital music market!
I’m sorry Steven but I have to argue this one. You say RouteNote covers over 90% of the digital music market. If that is the case, how come TuneCore has more than 250,000 artists (not to mention name brand artists like Drake, Nine Inch Nails, and Ziggy Marley) while you have 3,000 artists? How is that market leading? How are you covering over 90% of the digital music market?
Also to my count, TuneCore over 19 stores including Nokia, ShockHound, MySpace Music, and imvu. Also keep in mind that TuneCore covers big name brand stores and not all the new smaller stores.
Hi Jeff, Steven was referring to the Digital Retailer’s market share of digital downloads and not RouteNote’s share of independent artists and labels. So, RouteNote’s retail partners make up 90% of digital download market and expanding.
The point is that the number of stores that a distributor deals with can be misleading to artists. While I’m not suggesting that it’s not good to get your music to as many places as possible, the difference in number of stores is far greater than the market share of digital downloads it represents.
We are constantly signing new partners however, we are trying to optimise the service by making sure work goes into making the bigger players available to users as priority. Niche stores will follow in time.