In February 2026, Universal Music Group acquired Downtown Music Holdings for $775 million. That deal included CD Baby. The flagship indie distributor is now part of the largest major label on the planet. They still take 9% of every stream you earn, forever.
See the Artist-Owned AlternativeEvery event below is sourced. Click any date's source link to see it for yourself.
CD Baby's homepage marketing leads with a one-time $9.99 per single, "no annual fees, no hidden costs." What they don't lead with: a 9% commission on every stream you ever earn, forever, that cannot be removed. And their pricing page shows annual subscription tiers on top of that. Here's what they actually charge, using their own published prices.
One-time pricing and 9% commission per CD Baby's own cost page. Annual subscription tiers per CD Baby's pricing page. The 9% cut is baked into every release permanently and cannot be removed.
Privately owned by artists and operators.
No major label. No hidden fees. No plans to sell.
We'll walk through your CD Baby statements with you and show you where you are wasting money. We'll also do a complimentary royalty review to make sure you are not leaving money on the table.
We surveyed 2,311 indie artists. 62% either aren't registered with a PRO, or don't know if they are. That's real money slipping past them every month.
If a migration makes sense after that, we'll work with you to get it done with no downtime.
Book A Free DitchTheBaby AuditYes. Privately owned by working artists with no outside investors and no plans to sell. Every founder here is releasing music on the platform.
Yes. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, and every other major DSP.
Book a free 15-minute call. We walk you through migration one-on-one. No forms, no support tickets, no waiting.
DistroFlowy, part of Make Our Music, an artist-owned music company. This site exists because artists deserve to know who actually owns their distributor.
That's not indie.
Distribute with artists instead.
P.S. This isn't just CD Baby.
DistroKid just agreed to hand majority control to a bigger PE firm. TuneCore is owned by a publicly traded French company. The whole "indie" distributor space is consolidating. See DitchTheKid.com and DitchTheCore.com for the full picture.