TuneCore pricing explained: plans, add-ons and promo codes

TuneCore pricing in 2026: the short answer

TuneCore pricing starts at $24.99/yr for Rising Artist, the cheapest of three Unlimited plans, which covers unlimited releases for one artist and keeps 0% of your store royalties. Breakout Artist and Professional cost more and add tools, extra artist names and faster support. TuneCore also sells releases one at a time, billed yearly per single or album. The Unlimited plans include YouTube Content ID, with a 20% fee on money from YouTube and social platforms. Add-ons such as extra artist profiles, a Splits Collaborator plan, publishing and mastering are charged separately. These are US prices from TuneCore’s pricing page and help center, checked Sep 24, 2026.

Three things decide what you’ll actually pay, and the number of songs isn’t one of them on an Unlimited plan:

1. How many artist names you release under. One name fits Rising Artist. A second name means Professional plus a yearly fee per extra artist.
2. Whether you’re on a plan or paying per release. Per release, every single and album is its own yearly bill.
3. Who you share money with. A collaborator who isn’t on a paid plan needs a cheap yearly option to collect, and publishing admin charges per songwriter.

There’s no free way in anymore. TuneCore ended its free New Artist plan on June 18, 2025, so every new release needs a paid plan or a paid release.

This page is about the bill. Whether TuneCore is the right distributor for you in the first place is a separate call, and our TuneCore review covers it.

The plan you pick sets most of the bill, so start there.

TuneCore plans: Rising Artist, Breakout Artist and Professional

TuneCore has three Unlimited plans, and they differ in tools, artist names and support speed, not in how many songs you can release. Rising Artist, at $24.99/yr, includes unlimited distribution, YouTube Content ID, social platform monetization and trend analytics. Breakout Artist, at $44.99/yr, adds Store Automator, which sends your releases to stores TuneCore adds later, and Cover Art Creator. Professional, at $54.99/yr, adds a custom label name, the option to manage more than one artist, TuneCore Direct Advance and one-business-day support. All three are billed yearly and keep 0% of store royalties. Prices come from TuneCore’s pricing page, checked Sep 24, 2026.

Here’s the full list from TuneCore’s pricing page, as of Sep 24, 2026:

Two of those rows need a translation. Store Automator delivers your releases to new stores as TuneCore adds them, usually 2 to 6 weeks after the new-store notice, so you don’t have to add each store by hand. Cover Art Creator is a template tool for artwork. If you already make your own covers, it’s nothing.

TuneCore Direct Advance, powered by RoyFi, is an advance offer, not a discount. Treat any advance as money against your own future royalties and read the terms before you accept one.

Seeing the list is easy. Deciding which row is worth money is the harder part.

Which TuneCore plan is worth paying for?

TheDebutRoom’s view is that Rising Artist is the right TuneCore plan for almost every solo artist, and that Breakout Artist is the hardest tier to justify. Rising Artist already includes unlimited releases, YouTube Content ID, social monetization, splits and analytics, which covers what most people pay a distributor for. Breakout Artist’s two additions, Store Automator and Cover Art Creator, only help if you care about the smallest new stores or can’t make your own artwork. Professional is where a real reason to upgrade shows up: a second artist name or a custom label name. If one of those applies, go to Professional. If neither does, stay on Rising Artist.

Run the upgrade features against your own plans:

• You release under a second name (a band and a solo project, or a side alias). That’s Professional, plus the yearly fee for the extra artist. Breakout Artist doesn’t help here at all.
• You run a label or plan to release other artists. Professional again, for the custom label name.
• You want new stores added automatically. That’s Breakout Artist’s main feature. The big stores are already in every plan, so this mostly reaches smaller ones.
• You want faster support replies. Worth something the week a release goes wrong. Not worth a higher bill every year on its own.

Here’s the worry behind most upgrades: that the cheapest tier is a second-class account and your songs get less care. Nothing on TuneCore’s pricing page says so. Rising Artist lists the same unlimited distribution, the same Content ID and the same 0% store cut as the top plan.

Starting low costs you nothing if you change your mind. TuneCore prorates an upgrade against the time left on your current year, and the new features switch on right away.

The three plans aren’t the only way to pay, though. TuneCore still sells releases one at a time.

TuneCore pay-per-release pricing for singles and albums

TuneCore’s pay-per-release option charges a yearly fee for each release instead of one plan fee for everything: $24.99 a year per single, and $44.99 for an album’s first year, then $56.49 each following year. Each release renews on its own date, and a release that isn’t renewed is taken down. On TuneCore’s pricing page, YouTube Content ID and social platform monetization are listed under the Unlimited plans, not under pay-per-release. Because one single costs as much per year as Rising Artist, which covers unlimited releases, pay-per-release rarely saves money. Once you switch to an Unlimited plan, you can’t go back to paying per release. Prices come from TuneCore’s pricing page and help center, checked Sep 24, 2026.

Do the math with your own release count. One single on pay-per-release costs the same per year as Rising Artist. A second single doubles the per-release bill while the plan stays flat. An album is worse: its first year alone costs more than a year of Rising Artist, and it goes up after that.

The renewals are the other catch. On a plan, you have one date to remember. Per release, every single and album renews separately, so five releases can mean five charges scattered across the year, and a missed one takes that release down.

The one thing pay-per-release keeps is Store Automator, which TuneCore’s help center lists for pay-per-release accounts as well as Breakout Artist and Professional. That’s not enough to beat the plan.

If you’re on pay-per-release now, know that switching to an Unlimited plan is one-way. It’s still the right move for almost anyone releasing more than one song.

Plan or per release, that’s the base. Add-ons sit on top of it.

TuneCore add-ons: extra artists, Splits, publishing and mastering

Beyond the plan, TuneCore charges separately for four optional things: extra artist profiles, a Splits Collaborator plan, TuneCore Publishing and TuneCore Mastering. Extra artist profiles are for Professional accounts and cost $14.99 a year per additional artist. The Splits Collaborator plan costs $7.99 a year and lets someone collect a royalty split without a distribution plan. TuneCore Publishing charges $75 per songwriter once, plus a commission on the songwriting royalties it collects. TuneCore Mastering costs $5 per track, with free previews. None of the four is needed to release music. Sources are TuneCore’s pricing page, help center and mastering page, checked Sep 24, 2026.

Extra artist profiles. TuneCore’s help center says you pay the fee once a year per unique artist, no matter how many releases that artist is on. A side project with ten singles costs the same as one with a single.

Splits Collaborator. On TuneCore Splits, each collaborator needs either a paid TuneCore plan or the $7.99 yearly Splits Collaborator plan to accept and collect. Picture a producer on 30% of one single who doesn’t distribute through TuneCore. If that single earns a few dollars a year, the producer’s share may not cover their own fee. Settle who pays it before release, not after the first statement. If the producer charged you for the beat and wants that back first, Priority Payouts pays a fixed amount before the percentages start.

TuneCore Publishing. It collects songwriting royalties, which distribution doesn’t touch. The setup fee is per writer, so a band with three songwriters pays $75 three times, and each writer needs their own account. Check the current commission on TuneCore’s publishing cost page before you sign up.

TuneCore Mastering. You can preview as many masters as you like for free, then pay $5 per track for the ones you keep. It isn’t included in any plan, and the charge shows up on your statement under Masterchannel, TuneCore’s mastering partner, which is worth knowing before you think you’ve been double-billed.

With every piece priced, you can add it up for your own situation.

How much does TuneCore cost per year?

For a solo artist on Rising Artist, TuneCore costs $24.99/yr whether you release one song or twenty, so the price per song drops the more you release. TheDebutRoom compares distributors by what you’d pay over two years for the number of songs you actually plan to release, because a yearly plan and per-release fees only line up once that count is known. On TuneCore, the total rises above the plan price in three cases: a second artist name, which means Professional plus a yearly fee per extra artist; a collaborator who needs the Splits Collaborator plan; and paid services such as publishing or mastering. YouTube Content ID doesn’t add to the bill, because it’s in every Unlimited plan.

Three common setups, using TuneCore’s prices as of Sep 24, 2026:

1. Solo, six singles over two years. Two years of $24.99/yr and nothing else. The same six singles on pay-per-release would be six separate $24.99 yearly charges, each renewing on its own.
2. Solo artist with a side project under a second name. Professional at $54.99/yr, plus $14.99/yr for the second artist profile, every year both names stay active.
3. Duo with a producer on every song. Rising Artist if you release under one name. If the producer has no TuneCore plan, add the $7.99 yearly Splits Collaborator plan, paid by whoever you agreed on.

Your cash flow has one more piece. TuneCore lets you withdraw from $1, but the minimum depends on the payout method, so check the one you plan to use.

To see how these totals sit next to the competition, our DistroKid pricing breakdown prices DistroKid’s plans and per-release extras the same way, and the DistroKid vs TuneCore comparison puts the two head to head. For every distributor at once, see our roundup of the best music distribution services.

Before paying list price, most people go looking for a code.

TuneCore promo code: is there one that works?

TheDebutRoom didn’t find a working public TuneCore promo code for its distribution plans as of Sep 24, 2026, and TuneCore’s pricing page doesn’t list any discount. TuneCore does accept promo codes: its help center says a code goes into the shopping cart through the Enter Promo Code link on each product. The only codes on TuneCore’s own site belong to a past sale, so the pricing page is the place to check for a new one. TuneCore Rewards, a free points program, lets active artists redeem points for things like free distribution credits. The points have no cash value. Everything here comes from TuneCore’s pricing page and help center, checked Sep 24, 2026.

Working codes right now: 0. That’s the honest count, and it’s why no code is printed on this page.

You’ll still find sites listing TuneCore codes. Some point to an old TuneCore sale page with 50% codes for singles and albums. That page gives a deadline of April 27 with no year, excludes multi-year distributions, and shouldn’t be counted on. The bigger worry is where you type the code. Only enter a code, and a card number, on tunecore.com. A “coupon” site that asks for your login or payment details is the scam, not the discount.

TuneCore’s help page on promo codes walks through the checkout steps, repeated at the bottom of this page. TuneCore Rewards is the only built-in way to earn money off, and it rewards artists who are already active on TuneCore.

The discount most people actually have is plan choice. Staying on Rising Artist instead of Breakout Artist, and on a plan instead of paying per release, saves more every year than any sale code does once.

A code changes the bill once. Renewals and plan changes shape it every year after.

Upgrading, downgrading and renewing a TuneCore plan

Upgrading a TuneCore plan takes effect right away with a prorated discount for the time left on your current year, while a downgrade needs a request to Artist Support and starts at your next renewal. Every Unlimited plan renews yearly. If a renewal payment fails, TuneCore emails you every 7 days for 35 days, then downgrades the account and takes releases down from all stores after 42 days. If you cancel the renewal yourself, the music comes down the day the plan expires. Releases bought on pay-per-release each renew on their own and are taken down if not renewed. The sources are TuneCore’s help pages on switching plans and renewing an Unlimited plan, checked Sep 24, 2026.

A downgrade isn’t automatic. TuneCore’s help center says Artist Support decides whether you can move down based on the features your releases already use. If you’ve added a second artist or a label name on Professional, expect to sort those out before Rising Artist is an option.

The renewal is the part to plan for. You take a year off, a card expires, and on day 42 the song your friends saved is gone from every store, along with its playlist spots. TuneCore’s renewal page lays out that timeline, and you can’t upload anything new while the reminders run.

So think three years ahead. If you’ll keep releasing, the plan renews and this never comes up. If you might stop, know that TheDebutRoom didn’t find a TuneCore option that keeps a song up without paying for the plan or the release. Our distribution hub covers the distributors that charge once per release or keep music live after you cancel.