limbo/ builds modular distribution infrastructure for labels, distributors and music-tech platforms. Founder-owned and self-funded since 2006, we keep a small roster of long-term partners: you work directly with the people who build the platform, not a ticket queue. Music Blocks ships as a REST API, a white-label platform, or an MCP server for AI-native workflows.
You most likely arrived from that listing. To be precise about what it is: limbo/ appears in the directory Spotify publishes of providers that labels and artists can work with. It is a directory listing and nothing more. It is not an endorsement, a partnership, or any other commercial relationship with Spotify. You can see the directory at artists.spotify.com/en/providers. Everything else on this page is about what limbo/ does and how it operates, which is what you came to assess.
These are not three products. They are three doors into the same platform, the same catalog and the same royalty history. Start on the white-label portal and move to the API later without a migration, or run both at once: your labels on the portal, your own product on the endpoints. Modularity is the point.
For teams building their own product. A REST and JSON:API surface with
OAuth 2.0 across every Music Block: catalog ingestion, release scheduling, metadata
validation, DDEX ERN 4.3 and 3.8.2 delivery, royalty reporting, analytics and delivery
logs. Named developer support on every plan.
api.limbomusic.com ↗
For distributors and label groups without an engineering team. A
distribution platform on your own domain and brand, where your partners never see a
limbo/ mark. Three account tiers with no limit at any level: you, your labels, and
their artists, each with their own interface, permissions and audit trail.
How the white-label works →
For teams running AI-native operations. In production since 2025, and
included with every plan. Connect Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP-compatible client and run
distribution and analytics tasks in plain language, not just read reports. You can open
it to your labels and their artists under your own brand.
mcp.limbomusic.com ↗
> Which releases scheduled for the next 14 days are still missing artwork or ISRCs, and which DSPs are affected? 3 releases blocked / TIERRA-0114 missing ISRC on tracks 2, 5 · all DSPs / ZALA-0221 artwork below 3000x3000 · Apple, Beatport / SONUS-0119 no AI-disclosure declared · Spotify, Deezer > Fix the ISRCs on TIERRA-0114 and requeue it. ISRCs generated for tracks 2 and 5. Release requeued. Delivery window: next scheduled run.
An illustrative session. The operations it performs, querying release readiness and requeuing a delivery, are real MCP operations. Read the documented tool list at mcp.limbomusic.com.
limbo/ has no major-label parent and no venture capital. That sentence is getting harder to say in this category: over the past few years the largest independent-facing platforms have been bought by the companies their customers compete with. When that happens, three things change for the customer, and none of them are in the customer's contract.
After an acquisition, engineering capacity gets reallocated to the parent's priorities. limbo/ answers to its partners, so what you ask for competes only with what other partners ask for.
Royalty and release data is commercially sensitive. limbo/ reports royalties on Curve, the platform regulators required Universal to divest precisely so a major could not see independents' royalty data, and which Merlin has co-owned since August 2026.
Terms signed with an independent company stay with that company. There is no acquisition clock and no investor timeline forcing a change of terms you already agreed.
limbo/ keeps a small roster of long-term partners on purpose. That is the reason the specifics below are possible, and it is also the reason limbo/ turns work away. Here is what the relationship actually involves, stated as facts you can hold us to.
The founders and the engineering team. Not a tiered helpdesk, and not an account manager relaying questions to someone you never meet. Our contracts commit to a response within 48 hours. We answer in under 24, and the current average is 5 hours.
Two to four weeks for an API or DDEX migration, depending on catalog complexity. A white-label launch is measured in days. Before you sign, your team runs a guided integration test against the same validation rules production uses, so both sides know the integration works before money moves.
Every prospective partner goes through an application and a conversation before access. Delivery relationships are shared: fraud rings move between platforms and reuse the same catalogs, and the damage lands on everyone in the same supply chain. The door policy protects the partners who did nothing wrong.
When your operation needs a report, a delivery flow or an integration that does not exist, that becomes work we do. When what you asked for improves the whole partner network, we build it once and every partner gets it. Several features in the platform today started as one partner's problem.
Every item here is externally verifiable, and every link goes to the third party rather than to us. Nothing on this list is a self-assessment.
Founder-owned and self-funded for the entire twenty years, through two decades of the industry restructuring around it.
Merlin is the global digital licensing network for independent music companies. limbo/
co-founder and CEO Fer Isella served on the Merlin Board of Directors from 2024 to 2025.
merlinnetwork.org ↗
With CMS and Content ID access, so UGC and social-video rights are managed by a
dedicated copyright team rather than left to automated claiming.
Our directory listing ↗
The cross-industry alliance formed to remove fraudulent actors from the streaming
ecosystem.
musicfightsfraud.com ↗
Delivery to every major platform on limbo/'s own direct agreements and, where relevant, on Merlin's collectively negotiated terms.
Standards-compliant delivery per DSP, and DDEX ingestion for catalog migration in.
Named with their permission. They range from global cultural institutions to regional label groups, which is what a small roster of long-term partners looks like in practice.
We published a full comparison of the white-label platforms in this category, and the short version is this. If you want a mature turnkey platform and major-label ownership is not a concern, FUGA and Revelator are real options. If you want a pre-configured package without deep customisation, SonoSuite is straightforward. If you care about independence, data sovereignty, Merlin-level access, a modular API and a human team, that is what limbo/ is built for, and it is the one thing on that list no acquisition can take away.
The things an evaluator asks first, answered here so the call can start further along.
limbo/ builds modular distribution infrastructure for record labels, distributors and music-tech platforms. The stack ships as three delivery modes that compose: a REST API, a white-label platform, and an MCP server for AI-native workflows. It is B2B infrastructure, not a DIY tool for individual artists.
No. limbo/ is founder-owned and self-funded, with no major-label parent and no venture capital. That is unusual in this category: several of the largest platforms are now owned by majors, FUGA by Universal and Revelator by Warner.
The founders and the engineering team. limbo/ keeps a small roster of long-term partners on purpose, so the people who answer are the people who build the platform. Contracts commit to a 48-hour response; the current average is 5 hours.
Two to four weeks for an API or DDEX migration, depending on the complexity of the catalog. A white-label launch is measured in days. Before anything is signed, your team runs a guided integration test against the same validation rules production uses.
Yes. The REST API documentation is public at api.limbomusic.com and the MCP server documentation is public at mcp.limbomusic.com. You can read both before speaking to anyone.
It means limbo/ is listed in the directory Spotify publishes of providers that labels and artists can work with. It is a directory listing, not an endorsement, a partnership or any other commercial relationship with Spotify.
No. limbo/ calculates and pays master (recording) royalties. Publishing royalties belong to the composition and are collected by the writer’s society or publisher.
One short qualification form. It goes to the founders, not to a queue. Our contracts commit to a response within 48 hours; in practice you will hear back in under 24, and our current average is 5 hours. If limbo/ is not the right fit for what you are building, we will say so on the first call rather than after the third.
Last updated: August 2026. limbo/ is an independent, founder-owned music-technology company, distributing since 2006 and a Merlin member since 2014. Listed in the Spotify for Artists Provider Directory; that listing is not an endorsement or partnership.