Releasing music on Spotify for free: what free actually costs

Yes, you can get a release onto Spotify without paying anything up front. What “free” means is decided by the distributor you pick, not by Spotify: the store itself takes no uploads and charges you nothing. The distributor sets the price, the share, the minimum payout and the contract term, and that is where the money question actually sits.

This guide goes through what Spotify itself says about delivery, the three pricing models that exist, and where a free route hides costs that a yearly fee does not have.

Spotify does not take your upload

Spotify names the route plainly: you work with a distributor to get your music on Spotify, and if you are signed, your label most likely already works with one. Distributors handle the distribution and pay the streaming royalties. There is no upload form on Spotify that an independent artist can use.

The same page adds the sentence that surprises most people: most distributors charge a fee or commission.

So “free” is never a Spotify decision. It is a distributor’s business model. Three of them are common:

• No fee, a share of the royalties. You pay nothing to release and nothing per year; the distributor keeps a percentage of what the stores pay. Our Free plan works this way.
• A yearly fee, no share. You pay once a year, in advance, and keep the full royalty. DistroKid’s cheapest plan was 23.99 euro a year on 25 October 2026, TuneCore’s cheapest $24.99; both then take no percentage of streaming revenue.
• A one-off fee per release, a small share. You pay once for the single or album and keep most of the royalty. CD Baby charges $9.99 for a single and $14.99 for an album and keeps 9 percent.

Where a free route hides its costs

A route without a fee still moves money. Four places matter:

1. The share. Thirty percent of a small royalty is small, but it is never zero once the release earns. On USD 100 of net receipts you keep USD 70 and we keep USD 30.
2. The payout minimum and the withdrawal fee. Spotify’s own explanation of its royalty rules says distributors typically charge a banking fee to withdraw earnings, usually between $1 and $20 per withdrawal, and set minimum amounts, usually between $2 and $50. A release that earns a few dollars can therefore earn money you never withdraw.
3. Zero below the threshold. Since April 2024 a track needs at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months before it counts in Spotify’s recorded royalty pool at all. Below that, the streams pay nothing, on every model. We wrote a separate guide on Spotify’s royalty rules.
4. The end of the contract. Some distributors remove your releases from the stores when a paid term ends without renewal, because their agreement has the stores take the recordings down. On a free plan there is no renewal date to miss, but the release still comes down when you end the contract. What it earned until then stays payable.

The arithmetic: when a yearly fee is cheaper

A fee and a share only compare at a royalty figure. Take the cheapest yearly plan at 23.99 euro and a 30 percent share:

• 23.99 divided by 0.30 is about 80 euro. At 80 euro of net receipts a year you keep about 56 euro either way: 70 percent of 80, or 80 minus the fee.
• Below 80 euro a year, the share leaves you more, because there was no fee to earn back.
• Above it, the yearly fee wins: at 300 euro a year, about 210 euro on the share against about 276 euro on the fee.

That arithmetic is ours, not a distributor’s statement. It counts one artist on one plan, ignores currency conversion and taxes, and leaves out the withdrawal fee that both models can carry. Your own numbers decide.

What a free plan has to include to be worth it

A free plan is only free if nothing else is missing. Our own checklist, and the answers on our Free plan:

• Your rights stay yours. You keep all rights in your recordings, compositions and artwork and grant only the rights needed for delivery, as our Terms and the Distribution Agreement set out.
• The stores you expect. The stores are the plan, not an add-on. Under the same rights section you are exclusive only for the stores you choose: you can still use your recordings anywhere else.
• Codes. ISRC and UPC codes are assigned on request, or you bring your own.
• A payout rule you can read. On Free you keep 70 percent of the Net Receipts, the balance is credited in US dollars to your Lay Credit Account, and payouts run monthly by PayPal from USD 20.00.
• No minimum term. Free runs indefinitely and you can end it any time. Your releases come down when you do, and what they earned before is paid out.
• Clear content rules. On Free, AI-generated content is not permitted. If you work with AI, that is a reason to look at a different plan rather than to sign up and hope.

What it costs to start with Lay

Free is USD 0 and stays USD 0: no fee per release, no yearly fee, no minimum term. Every account starts with an application, because a person reads it and sets the account up by hand rather than a form creating one automatically.

If your release goes on to earn, we keep about 30 percent of what the stores pay and you keep about 70. If it earns nothing, you paid nothing.

Apply for Free, or read how the Free plan works first if you want the payout and review details in one place.