You will soon be able to get your tracks and albums on Spotify, Pandora, and dozens of other major streaming services using a new service in the Avid Link app called AvidPlay. But how does it work and how many streams or plays do you need to get to pay for the annual fee from Avid? We have the answers.

Whether you’re an artist, producer, or music label, AvidPlay has been created to provide a one-stop shop that makes it easy to get your songs discovered and heard around the world and you get to keep 100% of your streaming royalties.

Avid appear to have done their homework by partnering with the popular streaming platforms, including Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud, YouTube Music, Google Play Music, Amazon Music, TIDAL, and iHeartRadio. From sharing and managing all of your music tracks and album releases, to tracking stats and getting paid, AvidPlay has been designed to make distributing easy and structured so you keep all the royalties.

Getting started With AvidPlay

• In Avid Link, visit the Marketplace to purchase one of the plans that meet the number of songs and artists you wish to distribute; you can manage and upgrade your plan in Avid Link (Products tab) at any time.

• Release individual tracks and full albums across the most popular music streaming services* around the world from Spotify, YouTube, and SoundCloud, to NetEase Music, Gaana, Anghami, and Deezer

• Manage music releases and track how many plays your songs are getting, as well as where they’re coming from, in the dashboard

• Get and keep 100% of your streaming royalties, which are paid monthly through PayPal for the number of plays accrued during that time period

* All songs/albums you share will remain live on all of the streaming services you select as long as your service is active.

How Much Does It Cost To Distribute Your Music?

Currently Avid are offering 2 plans to help you distribute your music.

1. A single track for will cost $4.99 per annum

2. An album (from 2 to 20 different tracks) will cost $19.99 per annum

We wanted to see how many plays or streams it would take to pay for the annual fee of $4.99 per annum, before you start to make a profit. As you can see some services pay more than others.

Notes

• Streaming rates vary all the time and our research show that artists don’t necessarily get the published rates, so please treat this table as a rule of thumb.

How Much Will I Earn From Music Streaming Services?

Here is another way to compare the fees you get from different streaming services and shows how many streams it takes to earn $1. There are several underlying factors such as:

• What rate the outlet is using to pay performance royalties. Since a stream generates both a performance and mechanical royalty.

• The country and the currency the stream occurred in – rates fluctuate over time

• The type of plan the listener has, ad-supported streams vs. Subscription supported streams

With that in mind, here’s a breakdown based on the most popular streaming services:

How Does AvidPlay Work?

There will be a detailed FAQ available from Avid that explains everything in detail and it’s wisely aimed at independent musicians and bands who may not have explored this kind of music distribution before, but to help you understand the service better, here are some of our observations that we felt were worth highlighting…

• You will continue to own the music. With AvidPlay you will not have to sign over the rights to your music.

• You will need to keep up with the annual payments as Avid explain in their FAQs, if you let your payments lapse, your music will be removed from all outlets but will remain in your AvidPlay account, so you could redistribute again at a later date.

• With AvidPlay, you won’t be able to give your music away free, or upload a podcast or sell ringtones this way. This service is just for distributing music in audio form.

• It is good to see that Avid is including EAN (European Article Number"), UPC (Universal Product Code) and ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) for free. Some agencies charge for these. If you already have your own codes you will be able to use those instead.

• AvidPlay will use PayPal as the provider through which you will get paid and you will be able to choose how often you get paid.

• AvidPlay won’t handle paying out mechanical royalties to rights and collection societies like the MCPS here in the UK. Avid say that is between the various outlets and the various collection societies. Avid promises to pay out 100% of what is paid to them by the streaming services.

AvidPlay Is Available Now

You can find AvidPlay in the free Avid Link app right now. if you haven’t already then you will need to download and install Avid Link 2019.7, which you can do within the Products tab in Avid Link and then when you go to Plugins And Services section in the Marketplace tab you will find the first two AvidPlay plans for you to buy and setup.

What Do You Think About AvidPlay?

Will AvidPlay work for you? Will it open up markets that you haven’t had access to before? Do share your thoughts and observations in the comments below…