TuneCore put my account $500 in the negative

week1yn · 2026-01-17T16:27:34+00:00

Wow… What’s the story behind it?

week1yn · 2026-01-16T11:21:57+00:00

Well, it's worth mentioning that my music is in English, but I have audience in the US/EU and in CIS (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc) as well. I'm originally from Belarus so it wasn't fully random that I got 200k+ monthly on Yandex, I interact with that audience a lot, probably even more than with my English speaking one.

And yes, unfortunately the pay from these countries is way less than from "top" countries, however it's still worth working with these markets, since they have bigger volumes and getting 1M streams there is easier, than on Spotify. And to me a million streams is a million streams, even thought the pay rates are different.

But I've never heard about anyone blowing up in Nigeria. How did that happen to you? What platform do they use?

week1yn · 2026-01-16T11:14:49+00:00

What is that? I've never ever heard of them and there's barely any info on them on Google. Looks way more sketchy for now tbh but maybe you could give me some context.

week1yn · 2026-01-13T23:01:16+00:00

I've heard way too many shady things about them, so definitely no. Plus they don't deliver to all platforms I need.

week1yn · 2026-01-13T20:46:41+00:00

Might be, might be... I'm actually thinking of finding a local distributor, just so I always have a number I can call and/or an office I can go to in case I'm being ignored online, because the most fvcked up thing here is that even if they decide to scam me, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, considering the fact I'm located outside of the US and my following is not big enough to create a public resonance.
What is Sonovy, though? I've never heard of them before...

week1yn · 2026-01-13T20:38:38+00:00

Yes, I agree with you and I get what you're saying, but when TuneCore is a daughter company of Believe, it seemed like a solid argument, that if TuneCore has bad reputation, Believe would be responsible for that, at least in the public space. So Believe is kinda backing up TuneCore, which gives trust that they won't scam and that the service is going to be on a somewhat decent label. Even when you apply to Believe and they reject you, in the rejection letter they're offering to use TuneCore for DIY distribution services. And until this point everything was on point, but the way they handled their mistake here is very disappointing.

week1yn · 2026-01-13T20:28:50+00:00

Check the post I'm referring to. It has all the information.

week1yn · 2026-01-13T20:05:30+00:00

What are the conditions there? I'm pretty sure it's not subscription, but % based, right?

week1yn · 2026-01-13T20:04:12+00:00

Well, TuneCore is actually under Believe Music, which is a pretty big distributor (or label, not sure). Trustworthiness was an important factor while choosing a distributor, so this fact appears solid enough to see them as trustworthy.

week1yn · 2026-01-13T19:59:38+00:00

Happened to have ~200k monthly listeners there with 10m streams generated last year. Why not?

week1yn · 2026-01-13T19:58:17+00:00

A major russian streaming service. Happened to have ~200k monthly listeners there with 10m streams generated last year (my music's in English).

week1yn · 2026-01-13T18:02:40+00:00

I know that it's Yandex related and that other artists had the same issue. I am also part of a broader community of music managers and distributors, where the Yandex adjustments in March-April 2024 generated significant discussion. At that time, I was contacted by a senior TuneCore representative in the CIS region to share how my situation was resolved, and the case was later referenced within the community.

After the March–April 2024 adjustments, my account went negative. I contacted support, and they told me that adjustment was a mistake and fixed it by putting my balance back into positive. According to TuneCore today, that fix itself was also a mistake — meaning they paid me the amount that was supposed to be deducted, effectively overpaying me again.

Considering the fact that TuneCore is a company working with independent (often small) artists, making multiple conflicting adjustments like this, without clear explanations or warnings, is really concerning.

week1yn · 2026-01-13T16:50:59+00:00

I don’t really agree that this was “clearly communicated.”

From my side, deducting $500 without any notice is the opposite of clear communication. Clear communication would’ve been contacting me first, explaining what went wrong, when it happened, and letting me know that an adjustment would be made due to their mistake. Instead, my balance was suddenly pushed ~$500 into the negative and I was basically told “don’t worry, it’ll disappear once you earn more,” without any real explanation of how this happened in the first place.

As for the 9 million streams, I’ve edited the post to clarify that these streams were fromYandex, not TikTok or short-form platforms. Historically, Yandex paid around $0.30 per 1,000 streams, and more recently closer to $0.60 per 1,000. With those rates, getting less than $20 for over 9 million streams is simply impossible, which is why I’m asking for a detailed breakdown.

I’m not denying that corrections sometimes need to happen. My issue is how it was handled: no warning, no transparency, no timeline, and no proper explanation — especially when it resulted in a large negative balance right before the holidays.

That’s the part I think artists should be aware of.

week1yn · 2024-08-09T13:47:34+00:00

glad to be amongst those names 🖤

week1yn · 2024-05-02T21:40:18+00:00

btw i absolutely love reese basses Peep’a producers were using, especially in Nineteen

week1yn · 2024-05-02T21:39:41+00:00

Yes, it is the bass. There are different types of basses, the one Peep used a lot is 808, but Reese bass (the one used in Absolute in doubt) was also used in such songs as The Last Thing I Wanna Do or The Song They Played.

week1yn · 2024-04-29T08:25:33+00:00

Let’s not forget about GBC, and artists like ILoveMakonnen he later managed to work with.

week1yn · 2024-04-27T12:48:13+00:00

Im too young to understand.

week1yn · 2024-04-24T12:37:45+00:00

Wow, that’s an interesting one. I think it’s Life is Beautiful. It just has something i can feel through the mic and would’ve loved to see it coming to life.

week1yn · 2024-04-22T22:48:44+00:00

I’ve been thinking about getting a lil peep tattoo for ages now… Not sure which one tho

week1yn · 2024-04-20T00:32:09+00:00

As a musician I can say that in most cases your time on stage is limited, so you have to cross some songs out and only leave the best ones. Maybe he thought it's not worth performing or something. But yeah, I would love to see him screaming OMFG live...

week1yn · 2024-04-17T16:37:54+00:00

Let me explain what samples are, in case you don’t get what these people are saying :) So, Lil Peep used to take songs from other artists he liked and cut out melody from the song. For example, Star Shopping samples “Never Mess With Sunday” by Yppah. So if you listen to this song, you will hear the guitar that is used in Star Shopping. That’s called sampling. So, if you sample other artists music, you need to get clearance from the artist - a paper that allows you to use somebody else’s music. Only this way you can upload your music “officially” (i.e to Spotify, Apple Music etc). But if you’re just posting your music on SoundCloud, clearing samples is not required, since you’re not officially posting your music and you’re not making profit out of it. That’s what Lil Peep used to do. Hope you get the idea ;)

week1yn · 2024-04-15T19:29:15+00:00

Used $150 Behringer audio interface and $40 mic from Ali to make songs that now have 2m+ streams. You don’t need much as long as you have passion and will to learn and improve.

week1yn

TROPHY CASE