Horus Music Alternative for Labels and Platforms
Short answer: Horus Music sells a yearly distribution subscription, £20 a year for an independent artist with unlimited releases, and their homepage says “Keep 100% of your royalties. We don’t take a cut.” LabelGrid sells the infrastructure a label, a roster or a platform runs on: royalty accounting with per-artist statements, a documented REST API on the API tiers, DDEX in both directions, and a workspace of its own for each of your end customers. An artist releasing their own record pays less and keeps more on theirs. Every Horus Music value in the table below is taken from one of their own published pages.
How does the price scale as you sign more artists?
Their pricing FAQ puts the label subscription on one meter: “For record labels, the yearly subscription cost is dependent on the number of artists they have signed. Starting at £30 per year for x2 artists.” That figure is theirs for two signed artists, and their 18 distinct captured pages, read 23 September 2026, state no price at any higher artist count. LabelGrid publishes every distribution plan and API tier price, including the Custom Distribution and Custom API starting prices, beside the meter each plan runs on, so a buyer can budget their own growth off a public page before talking to anyone.
SOURCED ROW BY ROW
What each company publishes
Each Horus Music value below comes from one of their own published pages, linked beneath the table with the date we read them. Where their pages do not state a dimension, or state it two ways, the row says so rather than picking one. Their figures stay in pounds as they publish them; ours are in US dollars.
| Feature | LabelGrid | Horus Music |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | A flat yearly plan fee, published in US dollars for every distribution plan and API tier. Self-serve plans are metered by a track limit and a label limit; Pro and Custom Distribution add a per-track charge above their track limit ($0.15 and $0.25 per track a year), and the three standard API tiers add a monthly royalty-processing cap measured in US dollars of royalties processed per month ($35,000 Starter API, $115,000 Growth API, $350,000 Scale API) with no overage fee — sustained excess is a tier-upgrade conversation | £20 / year (artist) |
| What the customer keeps | You keep 85% of standard-DSP royalties on Solo and Basic and 90% on Pro; on Custom Distribution and every API tier you keep 95% of standard-DSP royalties earned through LabelGrid's deals and 100% of what you earn on your own direct DSP deals or through SOBO, which is available on Custom Distribution and the API tiers only. Content ID and UGC revenue carries a 20% fee on revenue earned through LabelGrid's deals, with 80% to the artist | Their published claim: keep 100% of royalties on the subscription plans |
| How the price scales | The meter is a track limit and a label limit, published per plan: Solo 1 label, Basic 3, Pro 5, Custom Distribution 50. On the API tiers the same number counts END-CUSTOMER PORTALS instead — 5 on Starter API, 25 on Growth API, 100 on Scale API, unlimited on Custom API — and each standard API tier can add ONE fixed pack of extra label portals through support (5 on Starter, 10 on Growth, 25 on Scale). Solo, Basic and Pro move up a tier when they reach their label limit; past one pack the answer is the next tier | £30 / year (label, 2 artists) |
| Account structure | Every label inside an account carries its own profile and defaults — name, logo, email, website, default primary and secondary genres, P-line and C-line, publishers and copyright owners, and which outlets and monetization services are enabled subject to the plan — and the royalty statement export breaks earnings out by label. Automated royalty splits and per-artist statements run from Basic up and on every API tier, with LabelGrid issuing the statement and paying the collaborator from the platform; Solo carries neither. On Imprint and the API tiers each end customer is a full workspace with identical capability, composed by the reseller rather than a profile inherited under a parent | Artist sub-profiles, automatic label/artist splits, role-based team permissions |
| API, DDEX and integrations | A public API whose documentation is readable without a sales call, with the sandbox opening once a paid API plan is active; DDEX ERN delivery to stores as part of distribution on every distribution plan, and DDEX ERN import — a one-time catalogue import or a continuous feed over SFTP or S3 — on the API plans and on Custom Distribution, after support enables it and technical onboarding; ERN 3.8.2, 4.3.0, 4.3.1 and 4.3.2 supported in both directions; and an official open-source MCP server (MIT, npm @labelgrid/mcp, listed on the public MCP registry) that connects Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client | Their 18 distinct captured pages, read 23 September 2026, describe a client portal; no API or DDEX material appears in them |
| White-label platform | Imprint, the LabelGrid white-label portal: the customer's own brand on their own domain, every end customer in its own full workspace, and self-serve signup available to the reseller's own artists on the reseller's domain. Imprint pricing is scoped at onboarding rather than published | White-label distribution and video platform, set up in as little as 72 hours |
| Royalty advances | Not offered — LabelGrid does not make advances against streaming royalties | Royalty advances, up to 8x annual streaming income, masters retained |
| Audio formats and advanced audio | A finished WAV or AIFF master and artwork to spec, the same as the category — plus Dolby Atmos spatial-audio mixes and high-resolution masters (Lossless, FLAC, WAV) delivered on every standard plan and every API tier at no extra charge and with no per-track add-on fee. Atmos needs an ADM BWF file (24-bit LPCM, 48 kHz, Dolby Atmos Master ADM profile) with its own ISRC alongside the stereo master, and is supported on Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL | WAV only, no MP3; artwork 3000×3000 at 300dpi |
Each of the 8 Horus Music values above is sourced from their own published pages, read 2026-09-23: www.horusmusic.global/, www.horusmusic.global/apply-for-an-advance/, www.horusmusic.global/faq/how-much-does-it-cost/, www.horusmusic.global/faqs/, www.horusmusic.global/music-distribution/, www.horusmusic.global/white-label-music-distribution/. Dimensions we could not source from one of their primary pages are omitted rather than guessed.
HOW THE FEE BEHAVES
A flat fee that never becomes a percentage
On Custom Distribution and every API tier the platform fee is a flat yearly amount in US dollars. It steps up with volume, and it never turns into a share of what the catalogue earns. On those plans a customer keeps 95% of standard-DSP royalties earned through LabelGrid’s own deals and 100% of what they earn on their own direct DSP deals or through SOBO, which runs on Custom Distribution and the API tiers rather than on the self-serve plans.
Two more things on the same pricing page can be checked before you speak to anyone. Dolby Atmos spatial-audio mixes and high-resolution masters go out on every standard plan and every API tier at no extra charge, with no per-track add-on fee, while their 18 distinct captured pages, read 23 September 2026, do not mention Dolby Atmos, spatial audio or high-resolution delivery. ISRC and UPC codes are included at no extra cost, assigned automatically, and yours to keep if you ever move; their plans include codes too, so that one is a fact about us rather than a win over them.
Where the mechanism stops mattering is the bottom of the ladder. On our three self-serve plans a customer keeps 85% on Solo and Basic and 90% on Pro, which is below their published 100%, at a higher yearly fee than their £20.
ONE PUBLIC API
Your catalogue on your own site
The LabelGrid WordPress plugin pulls releases and artists, plus your download gates, onto your own site every six hours, on any account and without an API plan, so a discography can go up today. The @labelgrid/mcp server is MIT licensed and listed on the public MCP registry, and the @labelgrid/cli companion wraps the same public endpoints; both want what any API client wants, which is an active API plan, a token and Node 20+.
INSIDE A DISTRIBUTION PLAN
What a label gets on one account
Distribution plans here are billed yearly in US dollars and sized by two meters: how many tracks the catalogue holds, and how many labels you keep apart. The label limit is 1 on Solo, 3 on Basic, 5 on Pro and 50 on Custom Distribution. Each label carries its own profile, which covers name and logo, default primary and secondary genres, P-line and C-line, publishers and copyright owners, and which outlets are enabled for it subject to the plan. The royalty statement export breaks earnings out by label.
Automated royalty splits and per-artist statements run from Basic up and on every API tier; Solo carries neither. Where they run, LabelGrid issues the statement and pays the collaborator from the platform rather than leaving you to make each transfer by hand. Also inside the plan: Dolby Atmos and high-resolution delivery at no extra charge, and YouTube Content ID registration on every distribution plan, where the artist keeps 80% of the revenue earned through LabelGrid’s deals and a 20% fee applies.
Release review is parity rather than an asymmetry, and it belongs in the open. Their distribution page recommends lead time “just in case our submissions review team spot any issues with your release”; on a LabelGrid distribution plan a person checks quality, metadata plus rights before delivery, at no extra cost, unless the account distributes only through its own direct deals. Self-serve plans open with a seven-day free trial, which reaches no API and no sandbox.
TWO ACCOUNT SHAPES
Sub-profiles, or a portal each
Both companies sell a white-label platform, and both let one account release for several artists. What differs is whether those artists sit inside your account or hold accounts of their own.
Neither company publishes a white-label price. Imprint is scoped at onboarding, and their 18 distinct captured pages, read 23 September 2026, carry no figure for their white-label product either. LabelGrid does publish every distribution plan and API tier price, on the pricing page.
READ IT BEFORE YOU BUY
Docs first, then the plan
Infrastructure gets chosen for years rather than for a month, so the useful question is how much of it you can read before you sign. The Engine documentation is public and needs no sales call. Every API tier is priced on the pricing page, including the Custom API starting price. The sandbox is a separate claim from the docs: it is enabled once a paid API plan is active, not before purchase, and the seven-day self-serve trial does not reach it.
Delivery to stores uses the DDEX ERN message suite as part of distribution, on every distribution plan. In the other direction, DDEX ERN import, whether a one-time catalogue load or a continuous feed over SFTP or S3, runs on the API plans and on Custom Distribution, needs support to turn it on plus technical onboarding, and carries a one-time setup fee wherever it is enabled. We support ERN 3.8.2, 4.3.0, 4.3.1 and 4.3.2 in both directions, which is a support statement rather than a membership.
Own the meters plainly. A standard API tier carries a track limit, an end-customer portal limit and a cap on royalties processed each month, set at $35,000 of royalties a month on Starter API, $115,000 on Growth API and $350,000 on Scale API; sustained excess starts a tier-upgrade conversation rather than an overage charge. Their 18 distinct captured pages, read 23 September 2026, do not mention an API, DDEX, ERN, a sandbox, webhooks, rate limits or an MCP server; what they describe is an upload dashboard and a client portal called My Client Zone. If a developer route is part of what you need, put that question to them rather than to us.
WHERE THEY WIN
Three reasons to choose Horus Music
Three places where Horus Music is the better answer, each from their own pages. Two are about money and the third is a product LabelGrid does not sell.
We keep this section in every comparison we publish; a comparison you cannot trust is worth nothing.
WHICH ONE SUITS YOU
Choose Horus Music if, choose LabelGrid if
Choose Horus Music if you are an independent artist putting out your own records and want the simplest purchase on the table: £20 a year with unlimited releases, and their published 100% on the subscription plans.
Choose them if you want an advance against streaming income, or if a one-off release suits you better than a subscription: their pay-per-release mode is £25 for a single, £35 for an EP and £45 for an album, set up by their support team on an existing account.
It tips the other way once the releases stop being yours. Paying four collaborators by hand every month is a job, and so is answering “what did my artist earn in Brazil last quarter” out of one shared account.
SEVEN QUESTIONS
What to ask any distribution platform
Put them to us as readily as to anyone else.
Frequently asked questions
See the price before you talk to us
Every distribution plan and API tier is priced on the pricing page, the Engine documentation is public, and Imprint is quoted at onboarding. Each Horus Music value in the table above comes from one of the pages linked beneath it, read 23 September 2026. If any of it is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.