Answers/Royalties/ASCAP or BMI — Which PRO Should a Beginner Join?

Royalties

ASCAP or BMI — Which PRO Should a Beginner Join?

By Boboy Watson·Last verified September 1, 2026·Royalties

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This is usually the first real decision an independent artist has to make about the business side, and it gets overcomplicated online by people comparing royalty distribution formulas you cannot verify and will not notice at your volume.

Most of the numbers circulating for this question are wrong or out of date, including some I repeated for years. So here are the current ones, taken from ASCAP's and BMI's own pages on 1 September 2026, and then the decision they actually point to.

How much does ASCAP cost and how much does BMI cost?

Those figures were checked on ASCAP's and BMI's own pages on 1 September 2026. ASCAP's application page says it in one line: joining ASCAP is free for writers, or if you join as a writer and publisher at the same time. The $50 on ASCAP's publisher card is real but narrow. It applies if you are already an ASCAP writer and want to add the publisher account afterwards, or if you publish other people's music without writing any yourself. Apply for both halves in one go and you pay nothing.

BMI's publisher fee is the one number I can no longer give you. BMI's join page says a publisher applicant needs a credit card issued by a U.S. bank for payment of a one-time processing fee, but the amount appears nowhere on the page, and BMI's publisher agreement PDFs do not contain a figure either. The two BMI pages that used to list $175 for an individual publisher, $250 for a corporation or LLC and $500 for a partnership now return 404. Those were last retrieved in August 2026 and cannot be re-verified, so treat them as history, not as a price you can budget against.

On the writer side, BMI is explicit: although some performing rights organizations collect annual dues, BMI does not. ASCAP does not bill annually either. Neither charges recurring membership fees, so nothing in that table repeats.

Is BMI actually free?

Yes, for the songwriter and composer affiliation. There is no application fee and no annual dues. What has changed is that this is no longer a point of difference: ASCAP's writer membership is free as well, so the door into performance royalty collection costs nothing at either organization.

The nuance people add — that BMI is only "free" until you need the publisher side — is now the whole cost story, because the publisher half is the only place the two differ. ASCAP gives you the publisher account for nothing if you ask for it in the same application. BMI charges for it and does not say how much until you apply.

Do I need a publishing company to collect the publisher share?

Not when you are starting. BMI's own FAQ says a new songwriter "will not need to set up a publishing company", and that "creating a publishing company will not mean that you receive more royalties."

That is a directly citable myth-buster, and it cuts against a lot of advice circulating in independent music forums. The version of this page you may have read elsewhere — including an earlier version of this one — treats a publisher entity as urgent and mandatory on day one. BMI says otherwise, and BMI is the organization writing the cheques.

The honest framing for a self-releasing artist in the United States is this. If you want both halves of your performance royalties formally registered under your own entities right now, ASCAP does it for nothing, provided you apply as writer and publisher in the same application. That is the clearest cost fact in the decision, and it points the opposite way from most of what is written about it, including earlier versions of this page. The one thing to avoid at ASCAP is joining as a writer now and going back for the publisher account in a separate application later, because that is the case the $50 fee is for.

If you would rather affiliate with BMI, join free as a songwriter and add the publisher affiliation later, if and when a publisher entity is actually warranted — when you are administering other writers' songs, entering a co-publishing arrangement, running a label, or dealing with a foreign sub-publisher who needs a publisher entity to point at. BMI charges a one-time processing fee for that half and does not publish the amount, so you will find out what it costs at the point of application.

What you should not do is skip a performing rights organization altogether while you decide. The writer affiliation is the thing that connects you to the money, and it costs nothing at either one.

What is the difference between the songwriter share and the publisher share?

Every performing rights organization divides performance royalties on a composition into two shares:

• The songwriter share — roughly 50%, paid to whoever wrote the composition
• The publisher share — roughly 50%, paid to whoever publishes the composition

They are not two descriptions of one payment. They are two separate claims on two halves of the same pot, and ASCAP and BMI pay each half to whoever is registered for it.

In a traditional deal, a publishing company signs the writer and claims the publisher share in exchange for administering the catalogue. When you self-release, there is no such company, which is where the confusion starts — and where BMI's line about not needing a publishing company becomes important context rather than a loophole.

Which performing rights organization should a beginner actually pick?

The five-year picture is flat, because neither organization charges annual dues — and on the ASCAP side it is flat at zero. An ASCAP member who applied as writer and publisher together has spent $0 across five years. A BMI songwriter who never adds a publisher affiliation has also spent $0. Only two paths have a number on them at all: adding an ASCAP publisher account in a separate later application, which is $50, and a BMI publisher affiliation, which costs a one-time processing fee BMI no longer publishes.

That is the entire financial stake in this decision, and both sides of it are avoidable — one by applying for both ASCAP halves at once, the other by taking BMI's own advice and not registering a publishing company before you need one.

What does a PRO collect that DistroKid and The MLC do not?

ASCAP and BMI collect the public performance royalty on the composition. That is generated when your song is streamed on Spotify or Apple Music, played on terrestrial or satellite radio, performed live in a licensed venue, played as background music in a business, or used on television.

DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby collect the sound recording royalty and nothing else through basic distribution. The MLC collects US mechanical royalties on the composition and nothing else. SoundExchange collects the digital performance royalty on the sound recording from non-interactive services like Pandora radio and SiriusXM.

Four collectors, four different jobs. If you never affiliate with ASCAP or BMI, no other organization in that list picks up the performance royalty on your behalf. Even DistroKid Publishing, which does collect some composition income, states that it collects both the publisher and songwriter shares only if you are PRO-affiliated — and the publisher share alone if you are not.

Which PRO pays more, ASCAP or BMI?

Nobody outside those organizations can answer this honestly, and anyone who tells you they can is selling something.

ASCAP and BMI both use a mix of census data for large digital services and statistical survey sampling for smaller venues and stations, with weighting formulas that are partially published, partially not, and periodically revised. Two writers with different catalogues, different territories and different play patterns can have opposite experiences at the same organization.

At beginner volume, the variance between ASCAP and BMI is dwarfed by three things you control completely:

1. Whether you registered at all.
2. Whether your works are registered, not just your account.
3. Whether the splits on those works are correct and match what your co-writers registered.

Pick one this week. The choice between them matters far less than making it at all.

Can I switch from ASCAP to BMI later?

Yes, but not casually and not instantly. Both ASCAP and BMI affiliate you for a defined term with a resignation window, and you generally cannot resign mid-term or move works that are already registered and earning until the term ends and the works are properly re-registered at the new organization.

The practical consequence is that switching is a project, not a click. You give notice inside the window, wait out the term, re-register your entire catalogue at the new organization, and accept some administrative drag on payments during the crossover. Co-writers stay where they are; a song with an ASCAP writer and a BMI writer is completely normal and both halves get paid.

None of that should make you agonise over the initial choice. It should just stop you from picking one with a plan to flip in six months. If your catalogue is small and you have a genuine reason to move — a publishing deal that requires it, or a persistently unresolved reporting problem — switching early is much easier than switching with two hundred registered works.

Do I need a PRO outside the United States?

ASCAP and BMI are United States organizations, and everything on this page describes the US system. They do collect foreign performance income for you, but indirectly: both have reciprocal agreements with foreign societies such as PRS for Music in the UK, SOCAN in Canada, GEMA in Germany, SACEM in France and APRA AMCOS in Australia. Those societies collect in their territories and remit to your US organization, which pays you.

You affiliate with one performing rights organization worldwide for your writer share, not one per country. If you live outside the United States, you normally join your home society rather than ASCAP or BMI, and the reciprocal network works in the other direction.

The gap in that network is mechanicals. Reciprocal performance agreements do not collect foreign mechanical royalties, and The MLC covers US usage only. That is the specific hole a publishing administrator such as Songtrust, DistroKid Publishing or CD Baby's publishing product is built to fill, and it is the honest argument for paying one a commission.

What actually costs you money, versus what does not

Things that genuinely cost you money:

• Never affiliating with ASCAP or BMI — the performance pot has no fallback collector
• Having an affiliation but never registering your works against it
• Registering works after release instead of before
• Mismatched splits between co-writers, which freeze payment on the disputed share
• Paying for a publisher entity you did not need — BMI's processing fee, or the $50 ASCAP charges to add a publisher account you could have had free by applying for both halves at once

Things that will not meaningfully change your income at this stage:

• Which of the two performing rights organizations you pick
• Distribution formula differences you cannot audit
• Whether your publisher entity has a clever name
• Anything anyone argues about in a forum thread

What to do after you join

Joining ASCAP or BMI is not the same as registering your songs. These are two separate actions, and the second one is where beginners stall.

1. Affiliate as a writer — free at ASCAP, free at BMI.
2. Decide on the publisher entity deliberately. At ASCAP, ask for it in the same application as the writer account and it costs nothing; going back for it later costs $50. At BMI, defer it until you have a reason, and expect a one-time processing fee BMI does not publish.
3. Register each work, listing yourself as writer, your publisher entity if you have one, and the exact splits agreed with any co-writers.
4. Do that for every song you have already released, then for each new one before release.
5. Register the same works with The MLC — free — and with SoundExchange — free — so the other pots are connected too.

Step 3 is the one people skip. An active ASCAP or BMI account with no works registered against it collects nothing, forever, no matter how many streams the songs get.

I am an artist who has been through this, not a lawyer or an accountant. Fees change — check the current numbers on ASCAP's and BMI's own pages before you register.