You have a finished master, a cover, and a release date you would rather not move. The question in front of you is not philosophical — it is whether to hand over a card number before anyone has heard the track, and what happens to that release in three years when your situation has changed. "Free versus paid" is usually argued as a matter of price. It is really a matter of what you still control after the money stops.
This guide breaks the decision into the parts that actually differ, explains the mechanism behind each one, and ends with a checklist you can run before you commit to anything.
The four costs, only one of which is the price
Distribution has four separate costs, and comparing services on the first alone is how artists end up trapped.
- The upfront charge. A per-release fee, or a yearly subscription. This is the number in the advert.
- The commission. A percentage taken from royalties before they reach you, forever, on every stream.
- The renewal condition. What has to stay true for your catalogue to remain in stores.
- The exit cost. What it takes to leave, and what you lose in the process.
A service with a low upfront charge and a permanent commission can cost far more over a catalogue's life than a one-off fee. A service with no commission but an annual renewal can cost you the catalogue itself if you miss a payment during a bad year. Price the release over five years, not over one checkout.
Subscription models and the takedown clock
The structural risk in subscription distribution is that your music's availability is tied to a recurring payment. Stop paying — because you moved countries, because the card expired, because you stepped away from music for eighteen months — and the release can come down.
Two things break when that happens, and neither is obvious in advance.
The first is your streaming history. A release that is taken down and later re-delivered typically returns as a new item in the stores' systems. Play counts, saves, playlist adds, and the algorithmic signal built on top of them do not reliably travel with it. Years of slow accumulation can reset.
The second is your links. Every embed, every article, every QR code on a poster, every link in your bio points at a store URL that no longer resolves. You do not get to update other people's pages.
Some paid services keep releases live after a lapse; some do not; some do for a grace period. This is contract text, not marketing copy, so read the actual terms and find the clause. If you cannot find it, that is your answer for planning purposes.
What "keeping your rights" does and does not mean
Almost every distributor now advertises that you keep your rights. Treat that as a baseline, not a differentiator — it is what the category does. The questions that actually separate services are narrower:
- Is the deal exclusive, and for how long?
- Is there a term you have to serve out before you can leave?
- Who holds the ISRCs, and do they follow the recording?
- Are there fees or conditions attached to requesting a takedown or a transfer?
The ISRC point is the one artists get wrong most often. An ISRC identifies a specific recording, not the song and not the release, and its twelve-character layout is set out in the ISRC and UPC reference if you want to check one by eye. Crucially, an ISRC stays with the recording when you change distributor — you carry it across rather than minting a new one, which is what keeps a track's identity, and its reporting, continuous.
You do need a new ISRC for a materially different recording: a remix, an edit, a live version, an instrumental. You do not need one for re-releasing the same recording. Remastering is the case people over-apply — the trigger is creative input to the recording, not routine technical clean-up, so most remasters carry the original code forward.
Deductions that are not commission
Money arriving in your account can be smaller than money earned, for reasons that have nothing to do with your distributor's percentage.
The largest is usually US tax withholding. With no W-8BEN on file, US-sourced royalties are subject to statutory 30% withholding; a valid form applies your country's treaty rate instead, where a treaty exists at all, and the payout calculator will show you what that does to a given amount. Line 6 of the form accepts a foreign tax identification number, so most artists do not need a US ITIN, and the form is valid through the last day of the third succeeding calendar year.
Bank and payment-provider transfer fees are the other. Both of these are third-party costs, not a distributor's cut — but they change what actually lands, so model them when you compare offers.
Where Mazufa sits
Mazufa is free to release: no upload fee, no subscription, no per-release charge. Commission is 0% — Mazufa takes no percentage of your royalties. Third-party bank fees and statutory tax withholding still apply as described above; those are outside any distributor's control and are not a Mazufa deduction.
Mazufa is invite-only, and every complete application gets human review. Delivery destinations depend on the release, the territory, eligibility and current provider support, and are confirmed per release before delivery — so you get a specific answer for your record rather than a marketing number. If that fits how you work, apply here.
A note on what stores actually publish
While you are comparing services, be sceptical of confident numbers about the stores themselves.
Spotify states plainly that it does not pay a per-stream rate: revenue is pooled and divided by streamshare, and per-country differences follow from local subscription prices and ad rates. No service publishes a per-country payout figure. Any distributor quoting you one is quoting an estimate.
Loudness is similar. Spotify publishes a normalisation target of −14 LUFS integrated, with a true-peak ceiling of −1 dBTP (−2 dBTP if the master is louder than −14 LUFS). Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, TIDAL and Deezer publish no target at all — the figures you see quoted for them are widely reported but not published by those services. Because playback is normalised, over-limiting buys flatness rather than volume. The loudness checker measures your master in the browser so you can see where you stand.
Checklist before you commit
- Total the five-year cost: upfront charge plus commission on realistic earnings, not just this month's fee.
- Find the clause that says what happens to live releases if payment stops. Read it, do not assume it.
- Confirm the term, any exclusivity, and what leaving costs.
- Confirm you keep and carry your ISRCs, and reuse the existing code when you move a recording.
- Get a W-8BEN on file before your first payout, and check your country's treaty rate.
- Check metadata, artwork and loudness before delivery, not after a rejection — the free toolkit runs entirely in your browser and uploads no audio.
- Ask any service for delivery destinations specific to your release and territory, in writing.