Spotify Lists Preferred Distributors, Just 5 Make Cut

Spotify recently surprised many by offering no cost music uploads to the service to all artist. Still, most artists and labels will choose to use a distributor for their other services and because they need them to get on other music services. So to help those artists, Spotify offers a list of Preferred Distributors; and just five make the cut.

click on image to enlarge

Just five distributors are listed on the Spotify For Artists “How do I get my music on Spotify?” page and FAQ. 

Distrokid gets top billing as a “Preferred Artist Distributor.”  In much smaller print are CD Baby and Glasgow based EmuBands. Under Preferred “Label Distributors,” only The Orchard and digital music distribution technology provider FUGA are listed. 

The list of established music distributors who do not have Spotify Preferred Distributor status is long. Tunecore,  ADA, Caroline, INgrooves, Ditto, OnePRM, Symphonic and RouteNote are all noticeably absent.  Each of them deliver new music to Spotify daily.

Exactly what it takes to become a Spotify Preferred Distributor is unclear. We’ve reached out to Spotify and several of the missing distributors for comment. But here is why Spotify says it lists distributors:

“If you don’t currently have a distributor, we have deals in place with companies who can deliver your music to us and collect royalties for you.”

“These services handle the licensing and distribution of your music and also pay you royalties when your fans stream your music on Spotify. There’s usually a small fee or percentage cut involved. Each service is unique, so be sure to do a little homework before picking one.”