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7 min read

Releasing music without a label: what you take on, what stays yours

By Yelen Lüle, Co-Founder of Lay Distribution

You can release music without a label. You cannot release it without a distributor, because the stores do not take uploads from artists: Spotify says plainly that you work with a distributor to get your music onto the platform, and that a signed artist’s label most likely works with one too.

That single sentence explains the whole difference. A label is not a permission slip for the stores. It is a company that takes on a set of jobs and, in exchange, owns or shares your recordings. Without a label you keep the rights and you take the jobs. Here is what each side of that trade actually contains.

What stays yours

Without a label, nothing about your ownership changes hands. On Lay, you keep all rights in your recordings, compositions, artwork and other content, we acquire no ownership, and you grant only the rights needed to deliver your releases and collect what they earn. Ownership of the recordings remains with you even while a release is distributed.

The one limit is narrow and worth knowing: those rights are exclusive only for the stores you pick. While we deliver a release to Spotify, you cannot deliver the same recordings to Spotify through a second distributor. Everywhere else you stay free, including uses a distributor never touches.

The six jobs a label used to do

A label does more than sign you. Released on your own, these are the parts you own, and they are the parts that decide whether a release works:

  1. The money before the release. Studio time, mixing and mastering, artwork and any video come out of your pocket, and nothing is recouped later.
  2. The files and the metadata. The stores need audio in their formats, correct artist and contributor names, explicit-content marking, artwork that meets their rules, and codes. We check every release before delivery and can ask for corrections or decline a delivery. ISRC and UPC codes are assigned on request, or you bring your own.
  3. The timing. Delivery depends on those checks and on the stores, and no distributor can promise a specific release date. A label usually plans a release weeks ahead; on your own, that planning is yours.
  4. The promotion. Playlist pitches, press, social posts and the release window are work, not luck, and no distributor delivers an audience. We can deliver the release; we cannot promise streams, chart positions or playlist placement.
  5. The paperwork around money. Your share is credited to your account once the stores pay, and payouts run on a minimum and a schedule. Someone has to read the statements, notice errors and keep payout details current.
  6. The composition side. Distribution covers recordings. Royalties for the composition are collected separately, and a GEMA membership is personal: each member who writes music or lyrics applies for themselves, a band cannot be a member, and pure performers are not eligible at all. Registering your works stays your job either way, and your GEMA membership is not affected by a distribution contract.

How the money reaches you without a label

Without a label, the chain has one station fewer. Stores pay the distributor, the distributor credits your share, and you withdraw it. What a label would have taken sits in a contract you did not sign; if you ever compare an offer, read its share, its term and its recoupment clause before the advance.

Two facts shape what arrives:

  • Spotify pays no per-stream rate. It distributes a share of its net revenue by streamshare, the proportion of all streams that went to your rightsholder, and the money reaches artists through the distributor or label that delivered them.
  • Small releases can earn nothing. Since April 2024 a track needs at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months to be included in Spotify’s recorded royalty pool. Below that, the streams pay nothing at all.

On our Free plan the chain is short: you keep 70 percent of the Net Receipts, we keep 30, the balance sits in your Lay Credit Account in US dollars, and payouts run monthly by PayPal from USD 20.00. If a release earns nothing, you paid nothing to release it, because Free has no fee and no minimum term.

What you should not do yourself

Some parts of the label’s job are better left to a distributor, and doing them yourself costs more than it saves:

  • Do not deliver to the stores yourself. There is no artist upload on Spotify, and every store formats, checks and rejects differently.
  • Do not invent codes. Duplicate ISRCs split your streams across two entries and are painful to repair.
  • Do not sign away exclusivity you do not need. Read what a contract makes exclusive and for how long. Our agreement is exclusive per store and only while the release is distributed.
  • Do not skip the composition registration. Unregistered works collect nothing from collecting societies, however well the release streams.

When a label still makes sense

A label is worth its share when it brings money you cannot raise, a team you cannot hire, or a market you cannot reach, and when you are willing to give up ownership or a permanent share for it. For a first release, a single or an EP that you finance yourself, the trade is rarely in your favour: you would give away rights to get distribution, and distribution is the cheap part.

If you release alone, choose the distributor by what happens after the release: who holds the rights, what the share is, when the payout comes, and what happens when you cancel. On Lay the answers are 70 percent for you, monthly PayPal from USD 20, no minimum term, and your rights stay yours.

Apply for Free if you want to start there, or read what a release costs before it earns anything first.