How to Get Your Music on Amazon Music

The Secret: Digital Distributors

Amazon Music does not allow artists to manually upload MP3 or FLAC files directly to their platform. Instead, you need a distribution service that acts as the middleman to deliver your track to Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, and many other stores at the same time.

What they do:

• Deliver your audio to Amazon Music, whose Unlimited plan streams in HD
• Collect royalties from Amazon Prime and Unlimited tier streams
• Deliver the song details Alexa matches when fans ask for your music

Distributor benefits:

• Keep 100% of your earnings (with some services, such as DistroKid)
• Split payments automatically with collaborators
• Access to Spotify, TikTok, and Instagram as well

Why We Use DistroKid for Amazon Music

There are many distributors, and DistroKid is one of the options Amazon Music names for independent artists. They deliver to Amazon directly, and on the Musician Plus and Ultimate plans you can set a release date; DistroKid advises picking one at least four weeks ahead to avoid delays.

What They Do Best

• Releases typically go live on Amazon 1 to 2 days after delivery
• One flat yearly fee for unlimited uploads
• You get 100% of the royalties from Amazon
• Instant Amazon Music for Artists access, where you can pitch

When to look elsewhere

• You only plan to release 1 song ever
• You need heavy label services or advances
• You only want to release physical CDs or Vinyls

The Reality Check: Amazon Music for Artists

Uploading is just step one. Pitching is step two.

Amazon Music reaches listeners through Amazon Prime, which includes it at no extra cost, and through Echo (Alexa) devices. To tap into this, you should claim your profile on Amazon Music for Artists as soon as your first release is live.

Ask yourself:

• Is my metadata clear so Alexa can easily understand voice commands?
• Have I claimed my Amazon Music for Artists profile?
• Am I pitching my upcoming releases through Amazon Music for Artists?

Our advice? Optimize for voice search.

Fans can start Amazon Music plays with voice commands ("Alexa, play..."), and Amazon Music for Artists counts these voice requests. Make sure your artist name and song titles are easy to pronounce and spell. Pitch new tracks through their app for playlist and programming consideration.

After upload, the real work begins.

What Can You Do in Amazon Music for Artists?

Amazon Music for Artists is Amazon's own app and website for artists, which it describes as a one-stop shop to manage your business and presence on Amazon Music. As of November 2026 it offers:

• Claiming: Amazon does not accept profile claims before your first release is publicly available. Artists who use CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore or TuneCore Japan get instant access by signing in with their distributor account.
• Stats: real-time streaming data, which you can export as a CSV file.
• Alexa: a count of voice requests, meaning explicit requests to Alexa that matched your artist name, an album, a song or a lyric. Plays from playlists or stations are not counted. A Daily Voice Index compares your Alexa activity with artists of a similar audience size, on a scale from Cool to On Fire.
• Profile: tools to change your profile photo and background image, plus sections for bios and lyrics.
• Pitching: a team member with Owner or Admin access can submit one track per new release, up to 14 days after its street date, for curation and programming consideration.

A pitch is not a promise. Amazon says it will not show whether a pitch was reviewed, accepted or rejected, and a pitch cannot be changed once it is sent.

How Do Prime, Unlimited and Amazon Music Free Differ for Artists?

Amazon's artist FAQ describes three ways to listen:

• Amazon Music Unlimited: over 100 million songs in HD, ad-free and on demand.
• Amazon Music with Prime: included with a Prime membership at no additional cost, with over 100 million songs ad-free. Prime members can shuffle-play any artist, album or playlist.
• Amazon Music Free: an ad-supported option in countries including the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Japan.

Amazon pays royalties to rightsholders in each country where its services operate, based on usage, and those rightsholders pay artists under their own agreements. If you release through a distributor, it collects that money; DistroKid says it passes on 100% of store earnings, minus banking fees and taxes.

One exception is worth knowing: DistroKid says Amazon curates the music it adds to Prime and Amazon Music Unlimited in Canada, so delivery there does not guarantee a place in those plans.

Can You Put AI-Generated Music on Amazon Music?

In practice, yes, but Amazon has not published a detailed AI music policy. A March 2026 Digital Music News overview found that Amazon Music hosts AI tracks, stresses "catalog integrity" and works with labels against unlawful AI voice cloning and deceptive releases. As of October 2026, Amazon had not announced how AI-generated music would be labeled or treated.

In December 2024, Universal Music Group and Amazon Music said they would work together to address unlawful AI-generated content and to protect against fraud and misattribution.

Because Amazon takes music only from labels and distributors, your distributor's rules are the ones you meet first. DistroKid accepts music made with AI tools on four conditions:

• You own 100% of the rights, including the right to distribute anything made with AI tools.
• No impersonation of anyone's voice, likeness or identity without permission.
• No mass-generated spam made to game streaming algorithms or flood platforms with generic content.
• No infringement of anyone else's rights.

When you upload, DistroKid asks whether AI generated any of the lyrics, music or audio, and records your answers as AI Credits. As of November 2026 it names Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube as the services that show these credits to listeners; Amazon is not on that list. Streaming services can still reject or remove releases that break their guidelines.