How it works
From the day you apply to the day it's out.
Four stages, in the order they actually happen. You apply. You build the release — the music, the artwork, the words. We plan the campaign backwards from your date, and you approve it post by post. Then it goes out through Sony Music's channel. Every screen on this page is the real product.
It starts with an application.
Not because of who's good enough. Everything that ships through Sony Music's channel is looked at before it goes, and that is work with a limit to it — so we take on what we can look after properly. The door exists for that reason, and it's cheap to walk through if you actually make music.
- Apply with a track and a few lines about what you're making — finished or not, any genre
- Musicians listen to it. Not marking polish, not guessing at an audience — working out what you're making and whether we can do right by it
- You usually hear back within one business day
- If it's a yes, you set up your artist profile and your first track the same day
We're on your side of the table. By application only — any genre, finished or not.
You're in
You always know what's left.
- The dashboard opens on one thing to do next, not a wall of features
- Release readiness lists what a release needs — profile, music in the catalog, distribution, campaign, payout — and ticks off what's done
- What's still open is named. Some of it is ours to do and some of it is yours, and the list says which
- Nothing sits behind a status you can't read
The screens on this page are the real product, captured on a demonstration account. Vera Lindqvist is a demo artist we use for testing, not a customer, and nothing shown is anyone's real catalogue.
01 · Create
The music, and everything around it.
- Upload the master. Tracks, EPs and albums live in one catalogue, with the credits, genre and technical details the platforms need
- Cover art made to a working designer's brief and sized for submission — yours, with full commercial rights
- Press-ready bios in three lengths, in your voice
- Social content prepared for every platform, ready to go into the campaign
- Nothing ships half-finished, so setting a date is the last step rather than the start of a scramble
Cover art is 5 credits, a press bio is 1 — from your monthly plan. Everything made here belongs to you.
02 · Plan
A campaign with dates on it.
- Set the date and the campaign is built backwards from it — announce, tease, remind, celebrate — mapped from pre-save through to after release day
- Every post arrives with its caption, hashtags and media already prepared, in your voice
- Or start with an empty plan and build it yourself on a suggested schedule, using your own videos and images
- You review and approve each post. Nothing goes out until you say so
- The moves that aren't posts — pitching the song to Spotify's editors, the pre-save — are dated in the same plan
Auto-posting covers TikTok, YouTube and Instagram — stories post themselves too. Instagram allows no link, poll or location sticker on a story we post for you, so the link still goes in your bio, not the story. Facebook Pages is download-and-post for now — automatic publishing is awaiting Meta's app review.
03 · Release
Out the same road the majors use.
- Your release is delivered through Sony Music's distribution channel — the route the industry uses, not a self-serve upload
- Timed about three weeks ahead, because Spotify's playlist editors need a release delivered before its date to consider it at all
- One delivery reaches Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, TikTok, Tidal, Deezer and the rest
- Your ISRCs are registered to you, so your streams and playlist places stay with the recording
- We watch what's performing — and pitch our best artists to the team at Sony.
A release is 10 credits from your monthly plan, on any paid plan — no annual per-release fee. We take nothing from your royalties on any plan. If you cancel and we keep your music distributed, we recover only our distribution costs from what it earns — everything above that is still paid to you.
After release day
It stays live, and it stays yours.
The release keeps running on the platforms and keeps earning. The campaign finishes itself out on the dates you approved. Your masters, your artwork, your copy and your ISRCs are yours the whole time — and if you ever leave, the recordings take their streams and playlist places with them, because the codes are registered to you rather than to us.
Load-out · 23:50Each stage, in more detail.
Planning a first release? How a release campaign runs · How to get your music on Spotify