You can distribute any music content you own the rights to. If you are covering a song or using samples or work from other writers or musicians, we may need you to share licensing information or documentation that proves you have the rights to distribute.

When distributing for the first time, it’s important you follow the guidelines set for by platforms like Apple Music and Spotify where you are likely hoping to distribute. These guidelines include specific specifications for artwork, your release’s audio, as well as the metadata related to your release. For more details on best practices when distributing, see:

Once you start distributing, you can update your preferred payout method and fill out your tax form in your SoundCloud for Artists dashboard. Earnings are two months delayed because it takes music platforms 30-45 days usually to pay us on a given period's earnings and then a bit of time for us to turn those royalties around to our partners. For example, if your release goes live on May 1, you would see the earnings from the month of May in the July payout period which happens on the last business day of each month. 

SoundCloud Monetization and Distribution are similar, but are not the same. You can monetize your content on SoundCloud, meaning you’ll get paid for streams that happen on SoundCloud, but that does not automatically mean your content is distributed elsewhere. Similarly, when you distribute a release, it does not automatically mean the release is available on SoundCloud nor is it automatically monetizing. For more information on both monetizing and distributing, see our SoundCloud for Artists help page:

When you distribute through SoundCloud for Artists, you keep 80% of the earnings you generate through other platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and 60+ others. When you monetize directly through SoundCloud, you keep 100% of your earnings from listens on SoundCloud.