“How can I release a song for free?” is one of the first questions new artists ask. The honest answer: you can upload for free, but not everywhere, and “free” almost always has a cost. Using official guidance from Yandex Music, YouTube and SoundCloud, we explain where you can upload yourself, how a track reaches streaming catalogs and when free distribution costs more than a subscription.
Two routes: upload yourself or use a distributor
Places to upload a song fall into two groups. You upload to social networks and hosting services yourself, for free. A distributor delivers to streaming catalogs such as Yandex Music, VK Music and Spotify, where you get an artist profile, recommendations and royalties. Yandex Music and VK Music are major streaming services in Russia; they offer a route to audiences beyond the international platforms you may already know.
- A VK social profile or feed, or a Telegram channel
- SoundCloud: up to 2 hours of audio on a free account
- Videos on your own YouTube channel
- No streaming artist profile, royalties or recommendations
- Yandex Music, VK Music, Zvuk, Spotify, Apple Music and others
- Artist profiles, search, recommendations and playlists
- Streaming royalties and stats
- Free upfront in return for a share, or a subscription for a fixed fee
Where you can upload a song yourself for free
These options require no payment or distribution contract. They’re useful for sharing a track with friends and early listeners, gathering feedback and testing a song before an official release:
Why you can’t upload directly to Yandex Music
These streaming services don’t give artists an “upload a song” button. Yandex Music’s help says tracks must be delivered through its partners: distributors and labels. VK Music, Spotify and Apple Music use the same approach. Their catalogs are supplied under rights holder agreements, and a distributor sends your track, cover art and metadata to multiple services.
Internal review usually takes up to 2–3 business days. After delivery, each platform determines its review and publication timeline. Upload at least 5–7 days before your target date, or 2 weeks ahead if you want time for pitching.
Free distribution: what you actually pay
Free distributors do exist and deliver tracks to platforms. But the service needs revenue. If you don’t pay upfront, you pay with a share of future royalties, usually on every stream for as long as the release stays with the service.
A subscription pays for itself when the extra earnings from a higher royalty share exceed its price. Until then, the free model is cheaper—and that’s a fair choice.
The figures above use an illustrative rate. Platforms don’t publish a fixed per-stream price, and effective rates change each month. If a free service takes closer to 15%, the subscription advantage shrinks; at closer to 30%, it pays for itself roughly 1.5–2 times sooner. See our royalties guide for the calculation and our 2026 comparison of Russian distributors for actual prices.
What to check with a free distributor
A ₽0 entry price tells you nothing about the remaining terms. Before uploading, open the agreement and answer six questions:
Already releasing through another service and considering a move? Follow our step-by-step guide to changing distributors.
How to release a song on platforms, step by step
See our release preparation checklist and cover art requirements for the details.
If you release through creator
creator is a paid service, and we’re clear about that: you pay a fixed plan fee, with no extra per-stream deduction beyond the plan’s stated royalty share.
