Distrokid and TuneCore are pillars in the music distribution community. However, how does their track record stack up against their competitors both new and old? Read through our Landr Distribution Review to learn more about the company.
An excellent choice if you are looking for one-stop-shop for distribution mastering, samples, plugins and courses. Distribution standalone is good, but a bit behind Tunecore and Distrokid for all the additional features.
- No Commission
- Access to a Large Number of Digital Channels
- Speed to stores
- Good Support and Customer Service
- Mastering Options
- Collaboration and Shared Workspaces to Work on Music as a Team
- Ability To Get Samples From Other Producers
- Playlist Pluggers
- Desktop App
- ASCAP Member Benefits
- Confusing pricing
- Monthly/yearly fees
- Push You To Try Mastering Services
- No Publishing Administration
- No Seamless Cover Song Licenses
- Not the easiest platform to learn
Contents
Landr Distribution Summary
When you think of it, music distribution sounds fairly basic. You make music, and then you work to get that music in front of as many people as possible. While this might be the core idea behind music distribution, it is easier said than done. Unless of course, you have a distribution company by your side.
When I started making music, I had no idea how distribution worked. I thought I’d have to approach the likes of iTunes and Spotify in person to convince the big bosses of my potential. This of course had me scared {Insert Explicative} until I did my research and got to know about digital distribution. I was thrilled to find out that there were distribution companies out there willing to help me reach a larger audience.
In my search to find the best music distribution company, I came across several. One in particular was Landr, which is more of a music mastering company but also offers music distribution services as well. The purpose of this specific article is to provide a review of Landr so you can get an idea of what they have to offer and if they are right for you.
Who Is Landr For?
Landr is a solid platform for someone who wants the convince of getting their masters and distribution done all in one place. Although they do not take a commission on your music you will still need to have some disposable income to pay for your mastering or distribution fees.
An important thing that artists sometimes do not realize the power of is collaboration. With Landr they provide you with unique collaboration tools to help you easily connect and work with other artists. If you are big on collaboration then Landr may be the right fit for you.
Fees & Commissions
One thing that you can always count on when trying to decide which distribution platform to use, is that they rarely charge you to sign up. The only platform that used to, was Symphonic but they have recently removed their sign up fee.
When you begin to use your Landr account, you will notice that you have a couple upgrade options to choose from. We go into more detail on these below.
Free Account
With a free account, you have the option to master and distribute two low-resolution MP3 tracks per month. I personally started with a free account and if you ask me, the free package wasn’t too bad. Of course, this may provide limitations for someone trying to release an album which would require you to upgrade.
Paid accounts come with several benefits and Landr allows you to pay a monthly fee or a discounted yearly fee.
Masters & Releases Pricing
Mastering services are heavily promoted on Landr because this used to be their sole focus. Since expanding to provide distribution services, Landr tries to package both solutions together. If you choose to leverage both, you will then need to select either a basic, advanced or pro plan.
The difference between each plan is found in the quality of masters that are available to you. There are also different distribution parameters at each level. On a basic plan for example, you can only receive LO-MP3 quality mastering but are able to distribute an unlimited amount of them. For higher quality masters you will have to pay an additional fee.
Below is pricing for both monthly and yearly options. The yearly options come with considerable savings if this is within your budget.
Monthly
Yearly
Releases Only
A lot of people reading this review may only be interested in distribution services. This is perfectly fine, as Landr also offers distribution separately from mastering.
Once again you are offered better pricing for paying yearly which can be helpful for some. Again you are hit with a good, better, best package in which you will need to decide what suits your needs the best.
The upgrade levels range from 10 tracks, 30 tracks and unlimited. Below is the entire breakdown on pricing for just distribution alone.
Monthly
Yearly
Word Of Caution: Pricing is Confusing
The way that Landr presents their pricing to you is quite confusing and misleading. They employ a very strong marketing tactic to make you think that their prices are extremely low.
For example, on their yearly distribution only plan for 10 tracks, they state that this will only cost you $1 per month. They have this written in large bold letters that grab your attention. Underneath, in smaller font they state the full price for the year of $12 followed by the fact that you are saving 50%. Which seems great right?
Not exactly! When you break down what you are actually getting this is not the greatest deal. In fact it is either just on par with the competition or more expensive depending on who we are comparing Landr with.
Having to decide if you want their mastering and distribution package or just distribution alone is a not an issue. However, when you begin deciphering what you are actually getting depending on the plan you choose, your head will start to spin.
What you decide should come down to how much music you plan to distribute as well as if you need mastering completed. If you do, then you will always want to ensure that your masters are of the highest quality. Hence you will need to fork over more money to ensure that your music is up to standard.
An excellent choice if you are looking for one-stop-shop for distribution mastering, samples, plugins and courses. Distribution standalone is good, but a bit behind Tunecore and Distrokid for all the additional features.
Commission Structure
Landr provides artists with a very attractive commission structure. As aspiring musicians, handing over your hard earned cash can be painful. So when we have the chance to keep some in our pockets, we tend to be quite thrilled.
With Landr, you get to keep 100% of your earnings. That’s right, no pesky commission fees to deal with! Furthermore, Landr will automatically add new stores that they partner with for distribution, free of charge. Aside from that, they will not charge you a penalty if you decide to remove your music from stores.
Outlets & Release Options
Landr offers a wide variety of stores for distribution including iTunes, Spotify, Tidal, Pandora and many others.
You can have a look at all the available stores and select as many as you wish or remove the stores that you don’t wish to distribute to.
Speed To Stores
Landr is pretty quick to release music on platforms such as iTunes and Spotify. Your songs will typically be up on iTunes in about a day, while Spotify takes about 3-5 days. In case you dont choose a specific date for your release, your music will typically be out in 3-5 days.
Pre-Order
Landr does not have a pre-release feature, but you can opt for a future release. As always you should pick a date that gives you enough time to create some kind of buzz regarding your song or album.
General Features
Promotion
Landr provides you with some solid promotional tools to help you market your releases professionally. One of those tools provides you with promotional links to your music. This allows fans to easily find and enjoy your new release on the platforms they enjoy the most. This is also great for tracking purposes as you can monitor these links to see how much traffic they received.
Collaboration
The collaborators section of Landr lets you share your work with friends, producers, and other artists to get their feedback on your music. This can help you to improve your sound or to come up with great ideas on the fly without having to be face to face. This is perfect for when you may be collaborating with someone across the globe or when you need a last minute opinion on what you’re about to release.
Samples
Running with the theme of collaboration, you can also utilize the Landr platform to work with producers and use their sample packs when creating your own music. The best part about these samples is that they are completely free and you will not get in trouble for using them.
Getting samples cleared that are not free to use and are owned by someone else can be quite difficult. No distribution company that we have come across, provide services to help you get samples cleared. So the fact that Landr offers this service is quite unique and could benefit artists producing their own music.
Desktop App
Landr provides artists with the option to download their desktop app in an attempt to make life easier on artists. For those who produce music, you can use the Landr desktop app alongside your production software.
According to Landr: The app offers all the same great features as their website. You can use it to master tracks, build and distribute releases, check your stats, collaborate, and promote.
Share To Soundcloud
A feature that not many platforms provide is the option to link your SoundCloud account. As you may already know, when you distribute your music with any platform, SoundCloud is not an option for you to choose. Still it is important to have a presence on SoundCloud and Landr helps make this easier for you.
You are able to upload tracks as normal to the Landr platform but if your Soundcloud account is linked they will now prompt you to have your song sent to SoundCloud and optimized for the platform. All of this is at no extra cost to you which is great!
Landr Academy
The Landr Academy is a section of their site that is meant to provide artists with tips to help them with their career. The information ranges from help with promotion, mastering and mixing your music, and interviews with successful artists. Below we provide details on each section.
How To Promote Your Music
Landr understands the importance of promotion and provides you with a free guide to help you better promote yourself. The guide is 33 pages long and walks you through building an audience, releasing music, networking and much more. You can check out the guide here.
Analytics & Reporting
It’s important to look at how Landr stacks up with regards to analytics. From what we have found Landr provides artists with a solid foundation of data to make business decisions. They provide you with a breakdown of your music reports based on audience, streams and downloads. You can see your numbers to understand how each track is doing and how you are performing on each streaming service you have uploaded your music to.
Artist Payout
You must have a linked PayPal account in order to withdraw your money from Landr. They do not imply any threshold restrictions on your withdrawals but it should also be noted that they are another company who fails to provide payment splitting.
Ease of Use
With Landr trying to offer a number of different features to their artists I would say that their platform can be a bit tricky to use. It isn’t rocket science by any means but it will certainly take a bit of time to get used to for someone who is less technically inclined.
Overall you cant blame them for trying to push both mastering and distribution on you but for some users you may find yourself scanning through the FAQ section a couple times for clarification.
Customer Support
The company has three offices, but no phone numbers to get in touch. Their FAQ section is quite elaborate and you can also write to them in case you have an issue. This can be done by going to the Help section and opening a ticket. You will typically hear back within 24 hours.
Final Verdict
Landr is a strong platform for mastering services and are making headway on the distribution side of things. This is certainly something that a lot of artists could benefit from. If we were to look at distribution alone it is important to note that Landr is not the strongest when it comes to the additional features they provide artists to help further promote themselves. There are other stronger companies out there but Landr is still a good choice for your distribution needs.
An excellent choice if you are looking for one-stop-shop for distribution mastering, samples, plugins and courses. Distribution standalone is good, but a bit behind Tunecore and Distrokid for all the additional features.
Kevin is the founder of Music With Flavor, which joined Whipped Cream Sounds in 2023. He is a seasoned musician turned industry expert. His passion for music goes beyond melodies; he delves deep into the intricate world of music marketing, striving to unearth the most effective strategies for indie musicians. However, Music With Flavor isn’t just about Kevin’s knowledge; it’s a network of industry experts handpicked to provide the most trusted advice. Kevin’s role is to pose the right questions, not just answer them, as he and his team tirelessly research trends, connect with artists, and gather valuable insights.
For the first time in my musical career I dared to master my songs myself, just to see where I get with it. Just out of curiosity and because I tried out LANDR before, I got a 20$ HD WAV of one of the songs. It was a real disappointment. I’m really no mastering brain, but my own version, mainly mastered with Newfangled Audios Elevate Limiter AI, is so much more transparent and fresh, it has more attack and punch and it sounds more three dimensional. Get some cool plugins, watch some mastering videos and try it yourself if it has to be low-budget.
For the first time in my musical career I dared to master my songs myself, just to see where I get with it. Just out of curiosity and because I tried out LANDR before, I got a 20$ HD WAV of one of the songs. It was a real disappointment. I’m really no mastering brain, but my own version, mainly mastered with Newfangled Audios Elevate Limiter AI, is so much more transparent and fresh, it has more attack and punch and it sounds more three dimensional. Get some cool plugins, watch some mastering videos and try it yourself if it has to be low-budget.
To anyone considering LANDR, a word of caution.
I have been working with clients to publish their music in physical formats and online for about 5 years now, and when LANDR came on the scene I was happily using their distribution service because of the great UI and speed. However, in a time of crisis, their communication is some of the worst out there. My client received a notice out of the blue that their account was being closed and all their music was being removed from stores (in fact it had already been removed at that point). Within that email was another, dated earlier, that had never been sent which stated that they had discovered suspicious streaming activity (which we were not guilty of). They gave us absolutely no chance to dispute the claim, and they do not allow you to speak to a representative on the phone. Futhermore they copy and paste pre-written text into emails rather than helping you personally. All this is to say, if you are serious about launching professional, commercial music and would like to be taken seriously as a customer, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
To anyone considering LANDR, a word of caution.
I have been working with clients to publish their music in physical formats and online for about 5 years now, and when LANDR came on the scene I was happily using their distribution service because of the great UI and speed. However, in a time of crisis, their communication is some of the worst out there. My client received a notice out of the blue that their account was being closed and all their music was being removed from stores (in fact it had already been removed at that point). Within that email was another, dated earlier, that had never been sent which stated that they had discovered suspicious streaming activity (which we were not guilty of). They gave us absolutely no chance to dispute the claim, and they do not allow you to speak to a representative on the phone. Futhermore they copy and paste pre-written text into emails rather than helping you personally. All this is to say, if you are serious about launching professional, commercial music and would like to be taken seriously as a customer, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
Hi there, and thanks for this nice article.
I distributed one album of my band on Landr, and I just wanted to take profit of the post of Vanessa to give a small feedback : I think your pricing options are quite confusing. It should be much more clear.
Anyway, no problem with Landr until now…
Hi there, and thanks for this nice article.
I distributed one album of my band on Landr, and I just wanted to take profit of the post of Vanessa to give a small feedback : I think your pricing options are quite confusing. It should be much more clear.
Anyway, no problem with Landr until now…
Hey,
Vanessa from LANDR here.
Just wanted to clarify a few things mentioned in this article 🙂
1. Free account: A free account allows you to master 2 low-res MP3s every month (non-cumulative). It also allows you to have 2 released tracks live for 1 month–it doesn’t allow you to release 2 new tracks every month. If you’d like to release more than 2 tracks, or keep your 2 free releases live for more than 1 month, you’ll need to upgrade.
2. Release-only plans: Each plan allows you to have a different number of releases tracks live at a given time. Your options are 10 tracks, 30 tracks, or unlimited tracks. These plans don’t grant you additional release credits every month/year, they simply allow you to release a certain number of tracks total. The 10 track plan costs $2/month or $12/year, the 30 track plan costs $3/month or $24/year, and the unlimited track plan costs $6/month or $48/year.
3. LANDR cons (correction): Cover song licensing is now included in every LANDR subscription (even release-only) at no extra cost. No other distributor offers this 🙂
Thanks!
Hey,
Vanessa from LANDR here.
Just wanted to clarify a few things mentioned in this article 🙂
1. Free account: A free account allows you to master 2 low-res MP3s every month (non-cumulative). It also allows you to have 2 released tracks live for 1 month–it doesn’t allow you to release 2 new tracks every month. If you’d like to release more than 2 tracks, or keep your 2 free releases live for more than 1 month, you’ll need to upgrade.
2. Release-only plans: Each plan allows you to have a different number of releases tracks live at a given time. Your options are 10 tracks, 30 tracks, or unlimited tracks. These plans don’t grant you additional release credits every month/year, they simply allow you to release a certain number of tracks total. The 10 track plan costs $2/month or $12/year, the 30 track plan costs $3/month or $24/year, and the unlimited track plan costs $6/month or $48/year.
3. LANDR cons (correction): Cover song licensing is now included in every LANDR subscription (even release-only) at no extra cost. No other distributor offers this 🙂
Thanks!