Most missed opportunities in a release are missed deadlines, not missed talent. Enter the date you want to be live and get every step dated backwards from it — including the pitch deadline, which is the one that cannot be recovered.
Everything on this page runs inside your browser. No file, image or text you enter here is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere, and no account is needed. The checks reflect published store requirements, which change — always read your distributor's current rules as well.
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Nothing about a release needs eight weeks. What needs eight weeks is the accumulation of things that can go wrong: an artwork rejection that takes three days to discover and two days to fix, a metadata correction, a licence that has to be chased, a store profile that has to be claimed. Deliver three weeks out and one rejection still leaves you room. Deliver three days out and the same rejection moves your date, along with everything you built around it.
The main editorial pitch closes seven days before release, and it takes one song at a time from the primary artist. It is not only about editorial playlists: pitching also drives the automatic new-release placement that puts you in front of the people who already follow you. Miss the window and you do not lose a maybe, you lose a certainty. Everything else on this timeline can slip a little. This one cannot slip at all.
Distribution pays the recording. The composition is a separate right with a separate income stream, collected by your performing rights organisation and your mechanical agency, and it only pays if the work is registered. Unregistered compositions sit in unclaimed pools for years and are often never recovered. Register before release, not after, and make sure the writer splits on the registration match the split sheet everyone actually signed.
A split sheet is a page with the song title, every writer, their share, their society and their signature. It takes ten minutes on the day everyone is in the room and pleased with each other. Written after a song does well, it takes lawyers. Nothing in independent music produces more permanent damage per unit of effort avoided than the split sheet that never got written.
The first week is not when a release succeeds or fails, but it is when the platforms decide how much to help. They watch saves, playlist adds and repeat listens rather than raw plays, and they respond to sustained activity rather than a single day of it. Plan the month after release with the same care as the month before it, and read the reports properly at the end — the territories that responded tell you where the next release should be aimed.
It is comfortable, not necessary. Four weeks is workable if nothing goes wrong. The immovable parts are seven days before release for the editorial pitch and enough time before that for the distributor to deliver and the stores to ingest, which is typically one to two weeks.
Then the pitch window is already gone and you should decide whether that matters. If it does, move the date — a date you chose is not worth more than the placement you would forfeit. If it does not, deliver, get the metadata and artwork right, and put your effort into the month after release.
Usually yes, if you do it early enough, though it depends on your distributor and how far the release has already propagated to the stores. Moving a date after a pre-save campaign has started is messier than it sounds, because the links and the automated notifications do not all move with it.
Friday is the global new-music day and the charting week starts then, so most releases and most editorial refreshes align to it. Releasing on another day is not a mistake, but it puts you outside the rhythm the platforms are built around, and there is rarely a good reason to.
Before this one comes out. The gap between releases matters more than any single release does, and the easiest time to plan the next one is while the current one still has your attention and its data is still fresh.
Not yet. For now, the dates are on the page and you can copy them into whatever calendar you already use. Everything here runs in your browser with no account and nothing stored, which is also why the tool cannot remember your plan between visits.
Applications are read by a human and answered by email, so leave room for that before the date you picked.
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Two engineering tools for when the basics already pass.
Free, no account, nothing uploaded. Everything runs in your browser.
Four small planning tools. Every figure comes from your own inputs — nothing here is a quote, a rate card or a promise.
Illustrative planning tools only. Rates, dates and amounts are values you set yourself — they are not payout quotes, guarantees or delivery commitments.
Estimate gross streaming revenue from your own assumptions.
Four small planning tools. Every figure comes from your own inputs — nothing here is a quote, a rate card or a promise.
Illustrative planning tools only. Rates, dates and amounts are values you set yourself — they are not payout quotes, guarantees or delivery commitments.
Pick a target date and a runway; the plan lays out working milestones backwards from day one.
Final mix and full listen-through done.
3000×3000 art, names and tags spelled right.
Application in — links and proof attached.
If approved: delivery details and scheduling.
pitch preparation where eligible materials go out.
eligible release status at once.
Four small planning tools. Every figure comes from your own inputs — nothing here is a quote, a rate card or a promise.
Illustrative planning tools only. Rates, dates and amounts are values you set yourself — they are not payout quotes, guarantees or delivery commitments.
Percentages between collaborators, with an optional pool amount to see each share. Splits are set once at upload.
Four small planning tools. Every figure comes from your own inputs — nothing here is a quote, a rate card or a promise.
Illustrative planning tools only. Rates, dates and amounts are values you set yourself — they are not payout quotes, guarantees or delivery commitments.
Distribute your own budget across the four campaign surfaces from the marketing engine.