Stem Music Distribution Review

Stem is a new company making waves in the music distribution industry. They have made payment splitting a priority and are partnering with some very notable artists. Let’s find out if Stem should be on your radar!

Check Out Stem Here

Absolutely Free – No Annual or Submission Fees

Features

 3.5/5

Solid list of features especially their payment splitting and help with monetization

Price

 4.5/5

Stem offers a very competitive pricing model only taking a 5% commission on your music and charging you zero annual or submission fees

Ease Of Use

 3.5/5

Platform is easy to use and uploading your music is not difficult

Support

 4/5

Responsive support team

Check Out Stem Here

• Only 5% Commission Taken
• No additional fees
• Top-of-the-line payment splitting setup
• Very good analytics & reports
• YouTube & SoundCloud monetization built-in with super-low commission
• Playlist pitching offered in-house
• Cover song licensing integrated with Loudr
• Free barcodes

• Very limited distribution reach – only 12 store and platforms
• No pre-order option
• No daily trending reports
• Payout threshold is $50 and only available monthly

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If you’ve spent any time working as an independent musician, you know that managing your own business affairs can be demanding. You have to keep track of all your own financial and legal details, tasks that oftentimes don’t come easily to artistic types.

One of these chores is ensuring that everyone you collaborate with gets paid their proper share of royalties. For example, if you make $5,000 off a song you wrote with two other artists, how do you go about paying them their share of the earnings? And how do you even keep track of those earnings in the first place?

This is an issue championed by distribution company Stem. In their own words, they are “building a platform to bring clear and timely payments to the creative class.” With Stem, you can distribute your music online and make sure that every one of your musical partners gets paid their fair share.

In the following review, we’ll take a look at how well Stem handles their payment splitting and if they live up to the hype. We’ll also investigate their other features for online music distribution and ultimately help you to determine if their services are a good fit for your needs. 

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Stem Distribution Review 2019 – What You’ll Learn

• How Stem’s payment splitting system blows away the competition
• Show you how Stem can help you save money compared to other distribution companies
• How Stem can help you promote your music through playlist pitching

Who Is Stem For?

Stem has been making big waves in the music industry and has garnered lots of attention as a startup business. (Their list of press coverage includes such mainstays as The New York Times, Forbes, Inc, and Billboard). Contributing to this attention has been the large number of high-profile artists using their services – Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino, and Deadmau5, to name a few.

Stem may be a new distribution company, but this fresh perspective has helped them to build a platform that really excels in delivering on what independent artists are looking for.

If you do any sort of collaboration with your music where you’d like to share your earnings, then Stem might be a great fit. No other distribution company out there is as good as them in splitting up revenue between multiple collaborators.

Even if you don’t do extensive collaboration, Stem is still a great choice because they are very inexpensive and their focus is very artist-friendly. Their platform is easy to use and is set up to help you succeed as an independent musician.

However, there are limited instances where Stem may not be the optimal choice. For example, if it is important for your music to be available everywhere online, you should probably look elsewhere, as Stem only distributes to 12 stores. Their distribution is limited to only the top, most-used platforms, while the smaller, more niche platforms are overlooked.

Fees & Commissions

To start things off, let’s take a look at Stem’s fees and pricing system. These help to answer the all-important questions in every artist’s mind: how much will it cost to distribute my music online? And how much money can I earn from my release?

As it turns out, signing up for Stem’s services is absolutely free! There are no fees whatsoever to set up an account with them.

In the past Stem used to operate as a submission-based company. This meant that you had to send in your music to them to be approved before it could be distributed. However, this is no longer the case – it’s now open to anyone.

Not only does Stem not charge any sign-up fees, they also charge zero submission or annual fees! The only thing they take is a 5% commission on the earnings from your music. What does this mean for you?

Well, first off, you don’t have to pay anything out of pocket to release your music! Only once your music starts making money will Stem take a small cut off of that to pay for their services. This is extremely rare, as almost all other distribution companies make you an up-front fee before you can release your music.

In addition to that, if you have a year where you’re not making any money from your music, you don’t have to pay out of pocket to keep your music online. This is unfortunately what happens with competitors like TuneCore or DistroKid where you have to pay a fee each year just to keep your music online. Instead, with Stem there is no financial loss to you whatsoever.

Stem’s super-low 5% commission is noteworthy to us because it is the cheapest commission-based distribution company out there. For comparison, take a look at the commission that competitor CD Baby takes: 9%! That’s almost double what Stem charges!

For all of the above reasons, Stem can be one of the most cost-effective options for distributing your music online.

Takedown Costs

If at some point in the future, you want to take down your music release(s), you can do that with Stem free of charge.

Outlets & Release Options

If you choose to release your music using Stem, they will distribute it to 12 different stores and platforms. These include all of the industry mainstays you’re familiar with: iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

However, as you may realize, 12 stores is not very many, especially in the ever-changing Internet age. For example, competitor TuneCore distributes to over 150 different platforms, while competitor Symphonic actually distributes to over 200! Meanwhile, Stem’s limited distribution doesn’t even cover some platforms we’ve come to expect (like Shazam).

This is a little disappointing, to say the least. However, in Stem’s defense, they are working to add new stores and are even open to suggestions! If you have a particular store that you would like added to Stem’s distribution list, you can contact them via email to recommend it.

Speed To Stores

When you release your music with Stem, they request 5 days in order to get your music to all stores and platforms. Some stores may post your music more quickly, but 5 days is the minimum lead time.

If you would like help pitching to playlists they request you submit 30 days in advance. (More on this later…)

Release Dates & Pre-Orders

An important part of any release is setting the date your music will go live. With Stem you can do this easily & free of charge!

However, they do not offer any option to set up pre-orders. This is unfortunate, as pre-orders are a very helpful marketing tool in building up the anticipation for your release. In contrast, most other distribution companies offer this service, even if it’s for a fee.

General Features

YouTube Monetization

As you may know, YouTube is one of the most popular online platforms for people to listen to music. However, what do you do when someone uploads a video with your music? Is there a way to earn money from the plays on that video?

With YouTube Content ID, the answer is yes! This service works to identify videos that include your music and then give you the option to either take down that video or monetize it.

YouTube monetization is an included service with Stem, available at no extra cost. What’s remarkable is that Stem only charges a 5% commission for this service. The majority of other distribution companies charge far more for this service – 20% with TuneCore, and a ridiculous 30% with CD Baby! In comparison, Stem’s commission is a mere fraction.

Soundcloud Monetization

Similar to YouTube, it is possible to earn money from your music on SoundCloud. This is done through both ad-supported plays and from paid subscription plans.

This feature is automatically included with Stem and once again, they only take a modest 5% commission off of your earnings.

Playlist Pitching

One stand-out feature of Stem is how they partner with artists to help promote their music. Unlike many distribution companies that offer no promotional help, Stem pitches their artists’ music to be featured on editorial playlists.

This service is available via a simple submission form on Stem’s website. There is no guarantee that your music will be featured, but it’s still a step in the right direction.

Cover Songs

If you want to release a cover song or a song with samples, Stem offers you resources to help make this happen. While they can’t personally get the necessary licenses for you, they have worked out a deal with licensing company Loudr. What does this mean for you?

Well, first off, you can obtain the licenses for your cover song or sample directly from the Stem dashboard. No need to go searching for it on an external website!

Second, there are no up-front fees – you just have to pay the royalties as you earn the revenue!

Last, and perhaps most significantly, Stem automatically keeps track of your licenses and will auto-renew them as needed. No more worries about manually having to keep a record!

All-in-all, this is a very seamless and comprehensive integration – hats off to Stem!

Barcodes

ISRC & UPC codes are available for free with Stem. No need to pay extra for them!

Artist Payout

Stem pays out their artists once a month so long as they have a minimum balance of $50 in their account. These payments can be made via PayPal or direct deposit.

While this is a reasonable setup, other competing distributors have more flexibility in their payouts – for example, having no minimum payment threshold, or being able to withdraw money at any time.

Payment Splitting

Out of everything Stem has to offer, this is their signature feature – the ability to split royalty payouts. What does this mean for you?

Well, for example, if you collaborated with several other artists on your latest release and you need to pay them a portion of the earnings, you can set this up with Stem. You can add an unlimited number of collaborators (or shareholders, as Stem calls them) and determine what percentage each one gets – it doesn’t haven’t to be an even split between everybody.

Once you have set up the payment splitting, each collaborator must individually agree to the payment terms before anyone can get paid. (Of course, this means that if one person isn’t happy with the cut they’re allotted to get, they can prevent everyone from getting paid. Be sure to arrange all these details ahead of time!)

In addition, each collaborator will then receive their own Stem account, giving them access to the content they worked on.

Stem’s payment splitting setup is arguably the best on the market right now. To our knowledge, no competitor can quite match what they have to offer. Even DistroKid, another distributor known for their payment splitting, requires each collaborator to pay an annual membership fee just to get paid. With Stem, it’s totally free.

Analytics & Reporting

Stem provides artists with an exceptional reporting system to help you understand the analytical data from your streams and downloads. It can be broken down into a number of different categories: by release, by platform, by geographical area, and more.

This data is refreshed every month, reflecting information from the past 30-60 days. Unfortunately, Stem does not provide any frequent reports, such as daily trending reports from Spotify or iTunes.

What is worth noting though is that Stem also offers their analytics via a mobile app. This is incredibly useful and a feature that is not commonly available amongst distribution companies.

Ease Of Use & Customer Support

Stem’s website and platform, is very clean and simple, making it easy to use. Their blog and FAQ are particularly worthy of attention, as it includes an extensive number of articles and guides written for independent musicians. Each of these are written in a very helpful and relevant way, giving you very insightful & professional advice on the music industry.

On the downside, we generally found their website rather difficult to navigate. Much of their content can only be located via searching the website and the search bar is not always the easiest to access – sometimes it just isn’t present at all! The FAQ and blog aren’t broken down into any topical categories you can navigate, but rather everything is just grouped together.

Stem’s customer support is available via live chat or email. If you email them you can expect a response within 1 day.

Stem Alternatives

Symphonic

Tunecore

Distrokid

Final Verdict

At the end of day Stem has a very compelling offer that leaves many competing distributors in the dust. Their payment splitting features and artist-centric model have already caught the attention of many big-name musicians. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the next one?

Check Out Stem Here


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