Is Lay Distribution legit? Company, payouts and safety
Straight answers to the questions artists ask before they trust a distributor with their music: who we are, how the money reaches you, what we can charge and how to tell a real Lay message from a fake one. Each answer names the page on this site where it is written down.
Lay at a glance
- Company
- Lay Distribution UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
- Address
- Maxburgweg 1, 76187 Karlsruhe, Germany
- Managing directors
- Philipp Börsig, Yelen Lüle
- Commercial register
- Amtsgericht Mannheim, HRB 745505
- VAT ID
- DE359320884
- Support
- support@laydistribution.com
- General contact
- info@laydistribution.com
Written down in Legal Notice
Who runs Lay
Is Lay Distribution a real company?
Yes. Lay Distribution is run by Lay Distribution UG (haftungsbeschränkt), a limited company registered in Germany at the Amtsgericht Mannheim under HRB 745505, with its seat at Maxburgweg 1, 76187 Karlsruhe. Its VAT identification number is DE359320884.
Lay delivers releases to the music stores and streaming services, collects what they earn and pays artists their share.
Written down in Legal Notice
Who is behind Lay?
The managing directors are Philipp Börsig and Yelen Lüle, who founded the company. The legal notice names them, the address and the register entry, as German law (§ 5 DDG) requires of a commercial website.
Written down in Legal Notice
How can I check these details myself?
The register number can be looked up in the German commercial register at handelsregister.de, and the VAT number in the European Commission’s VIES check. Both are public services, independent of us.
Where the German and English Terms or Distribution Agreement differ, the German versions prevail.
Written down in Legal Notice, Terms and Conditions
How the money reaches you
How do payouts work?
Once a store has paid us and sent its statement, your share is credited to your Lay Credit Account in US dollars; revenue in other currencies is converted at the rates the stores or our payment providers use. You see your statements on the platform.
From a balance of $20 you can request a payout. Payouts run monthly through PayPal to an account in your name. The fees PayPal or your bank charge are yours; Lay adds none.
Written down in Terms and Conditions, Distribution Agreement, Payouts explained
Why can a payout take a while?
Stores report and pay in arrears on their own schedules, and a new or small release may earn nothing at first. If a store corrects or reclaims a payment, for example after fraud or a chargeback, your balance is corrected too.
Where there are concrete signs of fraud, artificial streaming or a rights infringement on a release, its revenue can be held until the case is resolved. Revenue that proves legitimate is paid out and never forfeited.
Written down in Terms and Conditions, Distribution Agreement
What happens to my money if I leave?
When the contract ends, we have the stores take your releases down and still pay what they earned before. A positive balance is paid out on request, even below $20, less any payout fees.
Written down in Terms and Conditions
Fees and fake payment requests
What can Lay charge me?
Only the fees our Terms name. The Free plan has no fee: we earn our share of about 30 percent of what your releases bring in. Pro is not yet available to order, and its price is shown before you can order it. On Partner, any fee is agreed with you individually in text form.
One further fee is in the Terms: if a store charges us a penalty because of artificial streaming on your releases, we pass it on at cost, unless you show you were not responsible. Fees that are due can be set off against your Lay Credit Account.
Written down in Terms and Conditions
How do I spot a fake “Lay” payment request?
On Free, Lay charges nothing for accepting your application, setting up your account, keeping your releases in the stores or paying you out; only PayPal or your bank may charge their own payout fees. A message asking you to pay Lay for one of these, for example to “unlock” a payout or “verify” your account, does not describe any fee in our Terms.
Do not pay and do not follow its links. Write to support@laydistribution.com from your own email instead, and we will tell you whether the message is ours. Our own profiles are the Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn accounts linked in this site’s footer, and you log in to your account only at laydistribution.sonosuite.com.
Written down in Terms and Conditions, Support
Can Lay ask me to prove who I am?
Yes, in individual cases, for example when a store asks us to or there are signs of fraud or a rights infringement: we may ask for an identity document, project files or licence agreements, and pause deliveries and payouts for the releases concerned until the check is done. The Terms name no fee for it.
Our application form asks for no password.
Written down in Terms and Conditions
How to reach Lay
How do I contact Lay?
By email. Artists and labels write to support@laydistribution.com; Free typically hears back within 48 to 72 hours, Partner within 24, with no guaranteed response time. There is no chat or phone line.
For everything else, including authorities and requests under the Digital Services Act, the address is info@laydistribution.com, in German or English. Our postal address is Maxburgweg 1, 76187 Karlsruhe, Germany.
Written down in Support, Legal Notice
Not sure a message is from us?
Forward it to support before you pay or click anything, and we will tell you whether it came from us.
Email supportComparing distributors? Our comparison pages put Lay next to DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby and others, every competitor fact from its own page with the date we read it.