Music Distribution: Fresh Tunes Review – The Honest Truth

Can we agree, being a musician is not easy? There’s a lot of crap that you have to deal with mentally to even see a bit of success. You grind it out though and do what you can to get by. All in search of that big break that will one day come!

If you’re like me, you may not have a strong financial backing to catapult you into stardom. Heck, you may be looking at how you can save a couple dollars here and there to keep you afloat.

Well, what if I told you there’s a company that wants to help you keep more of your money if not all of it in your pocket?

As we explore the music distribution companies available to you we want to help you make the best decisions as an artist to further your career. A key element of getting your music out to the world is through a music distribution company.

Today we will be exploring a little-known secret on the distribution circuit named Fresh Tunes. This cool little company may not have all the bells and whistles as other platforms but they certainly pack a punch with how they offer their services to musicians.

So let’s dive into our Fresh Tunes Review to see how they can help you keep more of your money when you’re gearing up for a release!

Who Is Fresh Tunes For?

To recap, the purpose of this review was to highlight both the good and bad about Fresh Tunes to help you make a more informed decision.

The huge benefit that stands out for Fresh Tunes is the fact that you pay zero distribution fees, zero annual fees and are not charged a commission for any revenue that you generate on your music. That is a pretty strong case for anyone who is looking to eliminate costs on music distribution and doesn’t want anyone getting a commission on their revenue.

If you are just looking for your standard run of the mill music distribution platform that does not come with a number of bells and whistles then Fresh Tunes could be right for you.

Fees & Commissions

Fresh Tunes may not be as popular as some of the other distribution companies out there but they do have some benefits that may be of interest to you. One of their biggest upsides comes in the form of their fees and commission structure.

Fresh Tunes is quite unique in how they operate their business. During this review we will help you understand more about the company and how you can benefit from this unique offering.

Like the majority of music distribution platforms on the market, Fresh Tunes is free to join. There is one tiny thing that I did notice however which is unlike other companies. In order to Join Fresh Tunes, you will have to do so by linking a social media account like Facebook or Google Plus.

I personally am not a fan of this as I would rather offer a name and email like other sites. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I don’t like the idea of being forced to provide this information.

However, you do not have a choice if you decide to use this service. Now with that minor blemish in mind, it should be said that Fresh Tunes is one of the only platforms that does not charge an artists anything to distribute their music.

Distribution Fees & Commissions

Now usually I’d be setting you up for some catch or unfortunate reality to balance out this fact. Well, I’m not going to do that today because Fresh Tune actually offers cost-free distribution.

Zero Distribution Fees, Zero Annual Fees, and best of all…Zero Commissions on the sale of your music!

Pretty awesome right?

Additional Stores & Takedown Costs

Furthermore, Fresh Tunes will not charge you additional fees for the addition of new stores. Neither will they charge you for removing your music from the platform.

So I’m sure you are wondering how Fresh Tunes makes their money then if they are not charging artists for distribution. It is important to note that Fresh Tunes is heavily backed by investors which is what keeps them afloat.

Aside from that, they push their other promotional services on you in order to generate other forms of income. We will discuss these features in a moment but I will say that I find there business plan interesting.

With their additional offerings being the main source of their income, I would expect them to be upselling like crazy, but they don’t which is a plus. Aside from that, I would have expected their promotional features to be a bit more in-depth and enticing but they just seem thrown together and not well thought out.

Regardless I shouldn’t complain as the fact of the matter is, you are getting free distribution and keeping 100% of your sales revenue!

Outlets & Release Options

I cannot begin to stress the importance of having a well thought out plan in place when it comes to the release of your new music. When dealing with Fresh Tunes, you have the ability to determine your release dates. Fresh Tunes also provides you the ability to set a Pre-Order date free of charge.

The amount of stores that Fresh Tunes Distributes to is not very vast in comparison to their competitors. Fresh Tunes will distribute your music to about 14 stores but they do hit the big names like Spotify, iTunes, etc. Fresh Tunes also allows you to determine which stores and countries you would like to opt out of for distribution.

Speed To Stores

So when you are ready to have your music distributed, the big question is… How long does it take Fresh Tunes to distribute your music?

When it comes to iTunes it will take them about 5 days before your music goes live. Where Spotify is concerned, Fresh Tunes promises to make your music available in about 3 days. Usually, distribution companies will outline specific times within their F.A.Q. but Fresh Tunes gives a very vague answer as you can see below.

We Will Moderate Your Songs within No More Than 48  working hours After You Upload Them, Then Your Album Will Be Sent To Stores (The Status Of Your Album Will Be “Released”). The Time It Will Take To Go On Sale Depends Entirely Upon The Store, And We Unfortunately Have No Control Over This.

General Features

Professional Assessment

When trying to navigate through the music business there tends to be a lot of unknowns. There is a lot of guesswork and sometimes you lack the confidence that what you are doing is the right thing.

Sometimes a little constructive criticism or words of encouragement are all you need to keep your moral in check. Fresh Tunes provides you with a way to get just that. When you are uploading your music you will be prompted with an option to have your submission assessed by certified Fresh Tunes Professionals. This is a feature that will cost you $25.

Promotional Campaigns

Within this section, you will have the ability to promote your releases further. You have the option to promote further on Shazam, YouTube, and Facebook.

After selecting where you would like to engage your promotional efforts, you will then need to determine your budget and where you will deploy your marketing efforts geographically.

Next, you can identify your start and end dates for the promotion and then submit your payment. I made a comment earlier about Fresh Tunes not pushing their additional offering hard enough. This is mainly where I think they dropped the ball. I say this because a lot of what they are offering can be done on the specific platform (Youtube, Facebook, etc) which would be more convenient.

What I mean is, I’d prefer to run Facebook campaigns through Facebook, and any YouTube promotional campaigns through Google Ads. I’m not saying that Fresh Tunes will not do a good job of promoting your releases for you but I would not turn to them first.

I feel they could have taken this opportunity to really offer something uniques in terms of promotion to truly help artists gain some traction with their releases.

Analytics & Reporting

Your analytics are a core part of your music career if you are treating it as a business. You want to work with companies that provide you with detailed information that you can leverage. So how does Fresh Tunes stack up against the competition in regards to analytics?

The analytics and reporting provided to you by Fresh Tunes is not as thorough as some other platforms but they do provide you with a solid framework to review how your releases are doing.

Keep in mind that whatever distribution platform you choose, there will always be other information out there that you should be gathering as well. Information from social media, for example, your website and your streaming accounts like Spotify’s Artist accounts.

Artist Payout

Money might not be why you got into music but when checks start rolling in from your hard work, I’m sure you won’t be complaining. How does Fresh Tunes go about paying their artists?

They provide you with three options for the withdrawal of your funds from the platform.

• Payoneer: $3 transaction fee
• Bank Transfer: Minimum withdrawal threshold of $300
• WebMoney: 1% commission

Note: FreshTunes do not provide payment splitting options which is unfortunate.

Ease of Use

Overall, the Fresh Tunes platform is quite easy to use and navigate. I feel like the site could certainly use a bit of an update but it gets the job done. They also provide you with helpful tips to guide you through the platform and ensure you are able to accomplish what you are trying to do quickly and without any problems.

Customer Support

Where customer service and support is concerned, Fresh Tunes response times to emails is not immediate and may take a few days. 

One of the interesting features they provide however is live chat support to get any questions or concerns you may have dealt with. 

The difference here is that this is a paid feature. It is essentially like getting a project manager assigned to you and you can order them for months at a time.The cost of this is $25 per month.

I don’t exactly agree with this as I feel like customer service and support is something that should come complimentary. I don’t think you should have to pay for better service in this scenario.

Final Verdict

What makes Fresh Tunes stand out is the amazing fact that they don’t take a dime from you where distribution is concerned.

Fresh Tunes is the only other company aside from Amuse who offer this zero fees and commissions structure. From there, however, their offering seems to dwindle and they do not provide the strongest offering in terms of their additional features.

This is great for someone with budgetary concerns or someone who is fine with the bare minimum in overall distribution packages. Fresh Tunes has a lot of potential but they need stronger features to support the fact that they do not charge any fees.