You already run the label. This is about who runs the rails underneath it. Every other independent B2B distributor now answers to a major or an investment fund. limbo/ has been founder-owned since 2006, so your catalog data has nowhere else to go.
For a small independent record label in 2026, the decision comes down to four things that cannot be changed later: who owns the distributor and therefore sees your data, whether royalty accounting is auditable line by line, whether you can leave and take the catalog with you, and whether a named human answers on release day.
A distributor owned by a major sits upstream of your business and of your competitors' numbers. A distributor owned by a fund has an exit to deliver, and your terms are one of the levers. Ask the question before the demo, not after. The 2026 ownership map.
A net figure at the bottom of a PDF is not accounting. You want statements you can reconcile line by line, per track, per platform, per territory, and the ability to pull the same data yourself.
Catalog portability, notice periods and what happens to your metadata and your DSP relationships on the way out. This clause is boring on signing day and decisive two years later.
Not a chatbot and not a ticket queue measured in business days. A named senior person who knows your catalog, with a contractual response time under 24 hours and a real-world average under five. Release day does not reschedule itself.
limbo/Humans is a mandatory module, on by default, in every stack we run. That is a structural choice, not a service promise: the people are part of the product, which is why they cannot be cost-optimised away later. Meet them.
A label can distribute music under its own brand instead of a third party's by running a white-label platform: your name, your domain, your portal for your artists and sub-labels, with the delivery, accounting and DSP relationships handled underneath. Your artists never see a vendor's logo, and you own the relationship.
You release your own artists and want the pipe, the accounting and the protection to be excellent and invisible. Everything on this page applies, and you switch on only the Music Blocks you need.
You want to sign other labels and artists and distribute them yourself, under your own brand. That is a different product: a white-label platform with your branding, roles and sub-label accounting on top of the same infrastructure.
A distribution platform with integrated royalty accounting for labels means one system handles delivery and the money: splits, recoupment, sub-label shares and statements, from the same data that shipped the release. No export, no spreadsheet reconciliation, no gap between what was delivered and what was paid.
Royalties run on Curve Royalty Systems. Statements reconcile line by line, per track, per platform, per territory. Splits, advances and sub-label shares are computed in the same place the delivery happened. How royalties work.
The limbo/Chat MCP server has been in production since 2025 and is included in every plan. Connect your AI assistant and ask your catalog and marketing analytics directly, in plain language, instead of exporting reports. The MCP server.
Royalty advances through our investor partners, available to limbo/ distribution clients: capital against future royalties while you keep 100% ownership. Terms are set per deal, never off a rate card. Royalty advances.
An independent distributor not owned by a major or a fund is now a short list. FUGA sits under Universal. Revelator is Warner-linked. Vydia is fund-backed. limbo/ has been 100% founder-owned since 2006, with no venture capital and no major-label money, which is why your royalty data has no parent company to travel to.
We wrote the honest version of each, including where the other platform is the better fit: the FUGA alternative, the Revelator alternative, the SonoSuite alternative and the LabelGrid alternative.
Eleven Music Blocks. You switch on what your label needs and leave the rest off, rather than paying for a suite you do not use.
DDEX-native delivery on ERN 3.8.2 and 4.x to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, TikTok, Meta, Amazon, Tidal, Deezer, Beatport, Qobuz and the rest, on direct contracts plus Merlin Network access. Member since 2014.
Music video delivery to Apple, Spotify, Vevo and YouTube, plus YouTube Content ID monetisation through the official YouTube Services Directory. limbo/YouTube CMS.
Artificial streaming is now a takedown and a fine, not just noise in your numbers. We screen before delivery and we are an official member of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance. How we screen.
Audience, playlist and territory data for the marketing decisions, not just the accounting ones, queryable through the MCP server as well as the dashboard. limbo/Analytics.
A RESTful API for labels with their own systems: ingest, delivery, status and royalty data, so distribution becomes a service your own tooling calls. The API.
Already hold your own DSP agreements, or your own Merlin membership? We can sit underneath them as the delivery and accounting layer instead of replacing them. For Merlin members.
We distribute the releases of Earth/Percent, founded by Brian Eno, and of the Real World Studios Producers Camp, founded by Peter Gabriel. Tim Oliver, Real World's general manager, on those compilations: "What would normally be a metadata minefield with so many artists involved is a clear, simple and transparent process, with super-efficient post-release reporting." UN Live, Sonus Music Group, Audiomaze, Earthprogram, ZALA and 7/10 Entertainment run on the same infrastructure. The full roster.
Record label distribution is the service that delivers a label's catalog to streaming platforms and stores, collects the money those platforms pay, and reports it back to the label. For a label, the distributor is infrastructure: delivery, metadata, royalty accounting and rights protection, under the label's own commercial relationships wherever possible.
Four things that are hard to reverse later: who owns the distributor and therefore sees your data, whether royalty reporting is auditable line by line, whether you can leave and take your catalog with you, and whether a named human answers on release day. Features change; ownership and exit terms do not.
No. limbo/ has been founder-owned since 2006, with no venture capital and no major-label money. That is the reason this page exists: most independent B2B distribution infrastructure now sits under a major or a fund, and the label's data sits there with it.
Yes. If your label already holds its own agreements, or is a Merlin member with its own licensing relationships, limbo/ can act as the delivery and accounting layer underneath them rather than replacing them. You keep the commercial relationship; we supply the rails.
Royalties run on Curve Royalty Systems, so statements are auditable line by line rather than a single net figure. Your royalty data stays yours and is not shared with a parent company, because there is no parent company. You can also query it directly through the limbo/Chat MCP server.
No. limbo/ handles master recording royalties only. Publishing royalties belong to the writer's society or publisher. The one exception is funding: our investor partners can fund or buy masters and/or publishing, which is a different business from processing royalties.
There is no public rate card, because there is no single right answer for a 40-track catalog and a 40,000-track catalog. Every label gets a custom commercial proposal after a short qualification conversation. What we can say in advance is what drives the number: catalog size, release cadence, which Music Blocks you switch on, and how much of the work stays with your team.
Under 24 hours, contractually. In practice the average is under five hours, and the reply comes from a named senior person who already knows your catalog rather than from a queue. limbo/Humans is a mandatory module in every stack, so support is part of the product rather than a cost line that gets trimmed.
Under 24 hours once the release passes quality control. Up to 48 hours if the content needs corrections from your side. Anything longer than that is a content quality problem rather than a pipeline problem, and we will tell you which one it is.
Tell us the size of your catalog, your release cadence and what is going wrong where you are now. We will come back with a custom commercial proposal and an honest read on whether moving is worth it for you.