Getting Started
What is Indie Insights?
Indie Insights is a free analytics dashboard that turns your DistroKid streaming data into actionable insights. Upload your earnings export and instantly see revenue trends, platform performance, geographic distribution, and personalized recommendations to grow your music career.
Who is it for?
Indie Insights is built for independent musicians who distribute through DistroKid. Whether you have 1 song or 100, the dashboard adapts to your catalog size and surfaces the insights that matter most to you.
What data do you need?
You need a streaming earnings export from DistroKid. This is a TSV (tab-separated values) or Excel file that contains your monthly streaming data broken down by song, platform, and country.
Here's how to get it:
Go to distrokid.com and sign in to your account.
Click on "Bank" in the top menu, then click on any year or month to access your earnings details.
Look for a link that says "Download detailed streaming/earnings report" or similar. This generates a complete export of all your streaming data.
Choose the widest date range available. We recommend all time or at least the last 2 years — more data means better insights, trend detection, and more accurate forecasts.
Save the TSV or Excel file to your computer. The file will contain one row per song/platform/country per month — don't worry, Indie Insights handles all the number crunching for you.
Head to Indie Insights, sign in (or create a free account), and drag your file into the upload area. Processing typically takes 10-30 seconds depending on the size of your catalog.
Supported File Formats
Try It With Demo Data
Want to explore the dashboard before uploading your own data? Download our sample dataset featuring a fictional artist with 18 songs across 24 months.
Download Demo DataDashboard Overview
Your dashboard has four main tabs, each designed to answer a different question about your music career.
Overview Tab — "How am I doing?"
This is your home base. At a glance, you can see your total earnings, stream counts, and which songs and platforms are driving your revenue.
KPI Cards
Four key metrics at the top of the dashboard:
Each card shows the current value and a percentage change compared to the prior period. Green means growth, red means decline. The comparison period depends on your time filter — if you're viewing by Year, it compares to last year; by Month, to last month.
Top Songs & Platform Tables
Two side-by-side tables show your top 5 songs by earnings and top 5 platforms by earnings. These update dynamically based on your filters.
Platform & Country Charts
A donut chart shows your earnings distribution across streaming platforms, and a horizontal bar chart shows your top countries by earnings. Hover over segments for exact values.
Monthly Trend Chart
A line chart showing your earnings over time. Use the breakout selector to switch between views:
- Total: Single line showing overall earnings
- By Platform: Stacked area chart breaking out earnings by streaming service
- By Country: Stacked area chart breaking out earnings by country
- By Song: Stacked area chart breaking out earnings by individual song
Decomposition Tree
An interactive drill-down that lets you explore your revenue hierarchy. Start at the total and click to expand: Platform → Song → Country. This helps you understand exactly where your money comes from.
Insights Tab — "What should I know?"
The Insights tab goes deeper into your data with analysis sections that surface patterns, risks, and opportunities you might miss on your own.
Concentration Risk
A banner alert appears if a single song, platform, or country represents more than 50% of your total revenue. High concentration means your income is vulnerable — if that one thing declines, your earnings drop significantly.
Revenue concentration cards show the percentage share of your top song, platform, and country.
Platform Economics
A bar chart comparing $/stream rates across your streaming platforms. This shows which platforms pay the best per stream and helps you decide where to focus marketing efforts.
Additional breakdowns show rates by release type, by individual release, and over time (quarterly).
Song Segmentation
Your songs are automatically categorized using machine learning into groups:
- Cash Cows: Reliable earners with consistent revenue streams
- Rising Stars: Songs with strong recent growth momentum — worth promoting more
- Niche Performers: High per-stream rates but lower volume — they earn well where they're played
- Underperformers: Low earnings and growth — may need promotion or can be deprioritized
Growing & Declining Songs
Tables showing songs with increasing vs. decreasing earnings trends. Growing songs are worth doubling down on; declining songs may need fresh promotion or playlist pitching.
Geographic Analysis
High-Value Markets: Countries where you earn the most per stream — ideal targets for ads and promotion.
High-Volume, Low-Value Markets: Countries with lots of streams but low rates — be aware of where your streams come from but don't over-invest in these markets.
Anomaly Detection
The system automatically flags unusual patterns — sudden spikes or drops in streaming activity for specific songs, platforms, or countries. These alerts can help you spot viral moments, playlist additions, or concerning trends.
Trend Forecast
Based on your historical data, the system predicts your earnings trajectory for the next 6 months. A direction badge shows whether you're trending up, down, or stable. The forecast also accounts for seasonality patterns in your streaming data.
Ownership & Deals
If you have songs with collaborator splits (Team Percentage less than 100%), this section shows your effective ownership rate, how much goes to partners, and a per-song breakdown of splits.
Release Strategy Tab — "How should I release music?"
This tab helps you make data-driven decisions about how to release your music — singles, EPs, or albums.
Release Type Performance
Side-by-side comparison cards showing how Singles, EPs, and Albums perform in terms of earnings, streams, and $/stream rate. See which format works best for your audience.
Cross-Release Analysis
When a song appears on both a single and an album (or EP), this table shows the stream share split between versions. The "Single Capture %" tells you what percentage of streams go to the single version vs. the album version.
Strategy Recommendations
Priority-labeled recommendations generated from your actual data. These might suggest whether you should focus on singles vs. albums, which platform favors which format, and more.
Detailed Release Data
An expandable section with your complete release catalog — every UPC release with its type, track count, total streams, and earnings.
Action Plan Tab — "What should I do?"
A prioritized list of recommended actions based on your data, plus key metrics to track over time.
Prioritized Recommendations
Actionable recommendations sorted by priority (High, Medium, Low). These include platform diversification strategies, geographic targeting suggestions, and catalog optimization tips.
Key Metrics to Track
A table showing your current value vs. target for important metrics like concentration risk, $/stream rate, and top song share. Use these benchmarks to measure your progress over time.
Using Filters
Filters let you slice your data to focus on specific time periods, songs, platforms, countries, or release types. Filters are available on the Overview and Insights tabs.
Time Period
Quick-select buttons to view your data by Month, Quarter, Year, or All Time. Selecting a period automatically adjusts the date range and all charts/tables update accordingly.
Date Range
Two date pickers let you set a custom start and end month. This is useful when you want to analyze a specific period (e.g., "How did Q3 2025 compare to Q3 2024?").
Song, Platform, Country & Release Type Filters
Each filter is an Excel-style multi-select dropdown:
- All selected by default — when no filter is active, all items are included
- Search — type to find specific items quickly (search only filters the visible list, not your selection)
- Select All / Deselect All — always available at the top of the dropdown
- Individual checkboxes — check/uncheck specific items
Clearing Filters
A badge next to the filter icon shows the number of active filters. Click "Clear All" to reset everything back to defaults (all items selected, full date range).
Key Metrics Glossary
Here's what every metric means and why it matters for your music career.
| Metric | Definition | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Total Earnings | Your net earnings after any ownership splits. This is what you actually received. | Your bottom line — the number that hits your bank account. |
| Total Streams | The total number of times your songs were streamed across all platforms. | Core engagement metric — shows how many people are listening. |
| $/Stream | What streaming platforms pay per stream on average. This is the gross platform rate before any ownership splits. Varies by platform, country, and subscription type. | Shows which platforms pay best. Higher is better. |
| Period Change % | Comparison with the same time period before. For "Year," it compares to the prior year. For "Month," to the prior month. | Instantly answers "am I growing or shrinking?" |
| Concentration Risk | How much of your revenue depends on a single song, platform, or country. Above 50% is risky. | If that one thing declines, your income drops significantly. |
| Effective Ownership | Weighted average of your ownership percentage across all songs, based on earnings. 100% means you own everything outright. | Shows how much of your gross earnings you actually keep. |
| Partner Share | Total earnings that went to collaborators, producers, or labels based on ownership splits. | Helps you understand the true cost of collaborations. |
| Single Capture % | When a song appears on both a single and an album, what percentage of total streams go to the single version. | Informs whether to release singles first or go straight to album. |
| Trend Direction | Based on statistical forecasting (Holt-Winters smoothing). Shows whether the model predicts increasing or decreasing earnings over the next 6 months. | Helps you plan ahead — are things looking up or down? |
| Cash Cows | Reliable earners — established songs that consistently generate revenue. | Your bread and butter. Protect these. |
| Rising Stars | Songs with strong recent growth momentum. | Worth promoting more — these have momentum on their side. |
| Niche Performers | Songs with high per-stream rates but lower total volume. | They earn well where they're played — potential for growth with the right push. |
| Underperformers | Songs with low earnings, streams, and growth. | Consider whether they need fresh promotion or can be deprioritized. |
| Streaming vs Downloads | Streaming = revenue from plays on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, etc. Downloads = one-time purchases from iTunes, Amazon. | Useful context, though most revenue now comes from streaming. |
| Catalog Depth | Your top-earning songs excluding the #1 hit. | Shows how strong your catalog is beyond your biggest song. |
Understanding Insights
Anomaly Detection
Indie Insights automatically scans your data for unusual patterns. An anomaly is flagged when a metric deviates significantly from its expected range based on your historical data.
What triggers an anomaly?
- A sudden spike or drop in monthly streams for a specific song
- An unusual change in earnings from a particular country
- A significant shift in platform-level $/stream rates
How to interpret alerts
Spikes are usually good news — they might indicate a playlist placement, viral moment, or successful promotion. Drops could signal a song being removed from a playlist, a market shift, or seasonal variation.
Song Segmentation
Your songs are automatically categorized using K-Means clustering, a machine learning technique that groups songs based on multiple factors: earnings, stream count, growth momentum, and platform reach.
Here's how to use each segment:
- Cash Cows: Don't neglect these — keep them in playlists, use them in ads, and reference them in new releases.
- Rising Stars: Double down. Increase ad spend, pitch to more playlists, and promote on social media.
- Niche Performers: These earn well per stream. Try expanding their reach to new markets or platforms.
- Underperformers: Don't throw more money at these. Either refresh the marketing approach or focus your energy elsewhere.
Trend Forecasting
The trend forecast uses Holt-Winters exponential smoothing to predict your earnings trajectory. This statistical method accounts for:
- Level: Your baseline earnings amount
- Trend: Whether earnings are generally going up or down
- Seasonality: Recurring patterns (e.g., streaming often dips in summer and spikes in December)
How accurate is it?
Forecasts are most reliable when you have 12+ months of data. They predict the general direction — treat them as informed estimates, not guarantees. External events (a song going viral, a playlist removal) can change things quickly.
Concentration Risk
Concentration risk measures how dependent your income is on any single song, platform, or country.
- Below 30%: Well diversified — your income is spread across multiple sources
- 30-50%: Moderate concentration — worth monitoring but not urgent
- Above 50%: High risk — if that one thing declines, you'll feel it significantly
To reduce concentration risk: promote other songs in your catalog, expand to underserved markets, and make sure you're active on multiple platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Troubleshooting
File Upload Errors
- "Invalid file type" — Make sure your file ends in .tsv, .xlsx, or .csv. If you downloaded from DistroKid, it should be in one of these formats.
- "Upload failed" — Check your internet connection and try again. If the problem persists, try a smaller file or a different browser.
- File seems stuck uploading — Large files (10+ MB) may take up to a minute. If it takes longer than 2 minutes, refresh the page and try again.
Data Not Showing
- Dashboard is empty after upload — Make sure you uploaded a DistroKid earnings export, not a different type of report. The file must contain the expected columns (Reporting Month, Store, Title, Quantity, Earnings, etc.).
- Some sections say "insufficient data" — Certain analytics require minimum data. Upload a longer date range for better results.
- Filters are hiding data — Check if you have active filters (look for the badge count on the filter icon). Click "Clear All" to reset.
Charts Not Loading
- Blank chart area — Try refreshing the page. If charts still don't appear, try a different browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Edge recommended).
- Charts look broken on mobile — Some complex charts work best on larger screens. Try rotating your phone to landscape mode or use a tablet/desktop for the full experience.
Account Issues
- Can't log in — Double-check your email and password. Use the "Forgot Password" link if needed.
- Stuck on loading screen — Try clearing your browser cache or using an incognito/private window.
Contact & Feedback
Get in Touch
Have a question, found a bug, or want to suggest a feature? We'd love to hear from you.