Label Engine: The Ultimate Review

We’re on a mission to discover the best music distribution platform available to musicians.

Today we’re going to discuss Label Engine – Giving you all the details you need to know when selecting the right distribution service for your music.

What Is Label Engine?

Label Engine is a highly established and reputable distribution service. It’s primary focus is, and will always be record labels. They’ve been around for quite a while and have a lot of established labels using their platform. They offer everything you would expect from your typical distribution service but they also offer additional services for those who want a little extra. All users of Label Engine can distribute their music to over 100 stores including Spotify, iTunes, Deeze, and TIDAL. They also offer SoundCloud monetisation and YouTube Content ID.

Who Can Use Label Engine?

Although their branding implies their service is catered towards record labels only, artists can sign up too. Of course the primary focus is, and will always be labels due to the support and marketing features they offer. Either way, there’s no cost to use their distribution services, they do take 15% of royalties and you do have to go through an application process and be approved to manage and distribute your music through Label Engine. 

What Does Label Engine Offer?

On top of distributing your music to hundreds of stores worldwide, they also offer an array of services. These services are optional, but if you’re running a record label these things might entice you to give Label Engine a try.

First up, we have accounting. This is extremely important for record labels with a large number of artists. If you don’t have great accounting in place to sort out royalties then you’re going to be left feeling pretty frustrated. Not only that but when your artists don’t receive correct royalties, and it’s not on time due to your mismanagement then you can find yourself dealing with a lot of issues. 

Second, they offer music marketing in the form of emails. Everyone who sends email campaigns to a large number of people knows that it can be an expensive venture. The best thing about email marketing through Label Engine is that you can send unlimited emails. Alongside this, you can also receive feedback on the music you send which makes it a fantastic option when trying to build up real support lists for releases.

Third, and finally, they offer demo management so musicians can submit music to you with absolute ease. Not a huge game-changer but it’s a nice added benefit alongside the things I mentioned above.

Is Label Engine Free?

Yes – To use their distribution services alone, you can do so for free (although you will have to be approved by their team). They also take 15% and if you want the additional features then there’s a monthly fee.

  • Accounting – $24 per month, paid yearly.
  • Promotion – $24 per month, paid yearly.
  • Demo management – $9 per month, paid yearly.
  • All 3 (bundle) – $32 per month, paid yearly.
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What We Love About Label Engine:

If you run into any issues then you can be rest assured their support has you covered. Whenever you have an issue you can expect good quality customer care in a reasonable time-frame.

It’s got a lot of powerful services alongside distribution. Of course you can get these services elsewhere but it’s nice to have it all within one platform.

What We Don’t Like About Label Engine:

Although they do have a lot of powerful features, this can become costly and the majority of small labels will struggle to cover the costs. With this, they also take 15% of royalties – Although this isn’t a huge amount in comparison to other distribution companies that are alike, I think the added features should be included if they really want to provide the best service possible for labels. With or without the extended features, label Engine is still competitive in consideration to every other distributor we cover.

My point is that if Label Engine didn’t limit their extended services to those who pay, they would be one of the best, cost effective and most powerful distribution service available. 

Does Label Engine Offer Music Promotion?

They don’t offer in-house promotion in the typical fashion of allowing you to pitch music or receiving an extra push on release. They do however offer ‘promotional tools’ that you can use. You have to build your email list and you have to organise all of your promotional campaigns. In my opinion using ‘Music Promotion’ as a feature is a simple sales tactic as you get tools to assist with promotion, but you do not receive promotion on your music. Make sense? I hope so!

Final Notes on Label Engine:

Super powerful distribution service and great for labels who are already established. To get the most out of what Label Engine offers you will have to spend $384 per year, alongside taking a 15% cut on your royalties.

You can use Label Engine without the added features, and you can also use the added features without using Label Engine for distribution. But that takes away the value of having an all-in-one solution.


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LABEL ENGINE

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