Frequently asked questions
Who is Too Lost, and what do they sell?
Too Lost is a distributor headquartered in New York City, with additional offices including Los Angeles and Reykjavík. Its formation paperwork was filed in June 2019 and the service launched in 2020; the company is founder-led, with strategic investment from GoldState Music Group and private-equity firm TA Associates. They sell an Artist Account, a Label Account for a roster, a free Collaborator account for split recipients, and Enterprise deals. LabelGrid, founded in 2017 and based in Denver, sells self-serve distribution, Imprint (the white-label portal) and Engine (the API) on one backend.
Does Too Lost publish its pricing?
Yes, for the self-serve plans: the Artist Account is $2.99/month or $19.99/year, the Label Account is $5.99/month or $35.99/year, and the Collaborator account is free. The Enterprise plan, which carries the B2B services, is not priced on the page. LabelGrid publishes every distribution plan and every API tier, including the Custom Distribution and Custom API starting prices.
Is LabelGrid cheaper than Too Lost?
For one artist or a small label, no. Too Lost's subscriptions cost less to start, and their pricing page says a subscribed account receives 100% of its royalties, while an account that stops paying and keeps its releases live continues to earn 85%. LabelGrid's Solo, Basic and Pro retain 85%, 85% and 90%. Above that size the comparison changes: Custom Distribution and every API tier are flat yearly fees that retain 95% of standard-DSP royalties earned through LabelGrid's own deals and 100% on your own direct deals. Then ask what the percentage is a percentage of, because a $19.99-a-year subscription is an entry price rather than a revenue model. Too Lost's Terms of Use say fees may be collected 'whether through direct billing, recurring subscription charges, Platform Access Fees, or authorized deductions from revenue allocations'; 'Net Income' 'excludes Platform Access Fees, which Company retains' and is struck after licensing fees, administration fees, store deductions, taxes, payment processing costs, chargebacks, reversals, refunds, DSP clawbacks, reserves, offsets and risk adjustments; and the Company 'may determine, in its sole discretion, the portion of Gross Receipts properly attributable to End User Content' and 'may, in its sole discretion, allocate up to one hundred percent (100%) of Net Income to You', with allocations 'provisional, conditional' and 'no time limitation' on recoupment. Publishing administration at 15% of composition royalties retained, advances against up to 10 years of future earnings, per-payout processing fees and an unpriced Enterprise tier all sit outside the subscription. The parity is ours to state: if a LabelGrid subscription lapses for more than 60 days we may withdraw the content and suspend the account on any plan, and LabelGrid likewise withholds and reserves royalties where it suspects infringement or Improper Activities, and our own Terms say a reserve 'may remain in place indefinitely' while a claim, investigation, dispute or clawback risk is unresolved. Both companies deduct costs before they pay; the difference is that LabelGrid's retention is a published term of the plan applied to net revenue received from the DSPs, and Too Lost's is a discretionary allocation of a base the company determines.
Do LabelGrid and Too Lost both have a public API?
Yes, with a difference in what is published. Too Lost's developer portal at developer.toolost.com is readable without a login and is marked 'Beta Version': OAuth 2.0 with PKCE, a sandbox at api-sandbox.toolost.com/v1, and three tiers metered per call, Free ($0 a month, 5,000 calls), Starter ($99, 250,000) and Scale ($999, 3,000,000). Those figures sit in the API reference rather than on the pricing page, and production access follows an app request that 'An admin will review and approve'. LabelGrid's API documentation is public with no login, calls are not metered, and a sandbox comes with every API plan once the plan is active.
What is in Too Lost's Enterprise plan, and how does it compare with Imprint?
Too Lost's pricing page describes Enterprise B2B deals for platforms, large record labels, distributors and other organisations: bulk delivery, ingestion and royalty processing, access to their API, custom data exports, custom DSP contract configuration, dedicated account representatives and label services. The White Label Dashboard, which runs their tools under your own brand, is part of that suite, and the suite is priced through their sales team. Imprint is the LabelGrid white-label portal, with pricing scoped at onboarding on top of a published API ladder.
How do the two account structures differ?
A Too Lost Label Account holds your artists under one account and one subscription, with team management to 'invite team members, assign roles, and control who has access to what across your account'. A LabelGrid reseller has end-customer workspaces: each is one label with its own portal login, catalogue, analytics and earnings, and an artist who wants their own label becomes their own end customer through self-serve signup on the reseller's domain.
What happens to your catalogue if you leave?
On Too Lost you can cancel at any time from the Billing page; that stops future recurring charges, with no refund for the current billing period except as required by law, and either side may terminate on at least thirty days' prior notice. Priority Status is something you elect, and if you have elected it, the Terms say the Company 'shall retain the exclusive right to distribute such End User Content until December 31 of the following calendar year'. On LabelGrid the distribution licence is non-exclusive and no exclusivity survives termination, so your catalogue can be delivered elsewhere as soon as you take it down with us. Solo, Basic and Pro end at any time in writing, and fees already paid for the term are not refunded.
Which DDEX versions do LabelGrid and Too Lost support?
LabelGrid delivers DDEX ERN 3.8.2, 4.3.0, 4.3.1 and 4.3.2. Too Lost's services page lists DDEX ingestion for large catalogs; no ERN version is stated on any of their pages we read.
Does either company offer advances, publishing administration or Dolby Atmos?
Too Lost offers all three: an Instant Royalty Advance giving 'early access of up to 10 years of future earnings from your music catalog and upcoming releases'; publishing administration in partnership with BMG, under which “you retain 85% of the royalties generated from your compositions”; and Dolby Atmos delivery to Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL, 'included with your subscription at no extra cost'. LabelGrid does not fund advances and does not administer publishing. Dolby Atmos is included on every LabelGrid distribution plan at no extra charge.
Does LabelGrid do custom deals, and who should choose LabelGrid?
Yes. A custom deal is for a business that has outgrown the ceilings of the published plans: too many tracks, too many labels, or too much monthly royalty income for any listed tier. Negotiable: caps and ceilings, platform fees, bespoke packaging such as bulk label pricing for an operation running thousands of single-label artists, contract terms and, in special cases, royalty retention. The numbers are agreed under NDA. Choose LabelGrid if you have outgrown a subscription, want retention published as a plan term, or run a white label where every customer needs its own workspace.