Onboarding, step by step

The first time you open your workspace, Run walks you through a short setup: your artist profile, your plan, your label if the plan you pick includes one, and the agreements. It finishes on your first release.

Nothing about it is a one-shot. The wizard remembers where you got to on the server, so you can close the tab, switch device, and pick up on the same step.

1. Your artist profile

This is the artist name the stores will show. If you already have Spotify or Apple Music pages, connect them here by pasting a link: Run checks them against the store and links your releases to the pages you already have, so your catalog does not get split across a duplicate profile.

If you have never released anything, say so. The stores create your pages on first delivery and Run picks them up automatically afterwards.

You can skip this and add artists later from Artists. See Your roster and artist slots and Connecting your store pages.

2. Choose a plan

Pick Free, Artist or White-label, monthly or yearly. The step shows what each one includes: how many releases and artist profiles, whether a label comes with it, and how much of your royalties you keep (92% on either paid plan, 70% on Free). Plans and what they include has the full comparison.

Staying on Free is a choice, not a delay: the allowance is 1 release a month and it refills, so nothing forces you off it.

Choosing a paid plan sends you to Stripe to pay, then back to the wizard. Two things worth knowing:

• If you cancel at Stripe, nothing is charged and you land back on this step. Pick again, or continue on Free.
• If you pay and then close the tab, the payment still lands. The next time you open setup, the step says which plan you are on and offers a Continue button.

Right after a payment there can be a short lag before the plan shows. The wizard waits for it rather than sending you on with the wrong plan.

3. Your label

This step only appears if the plan you picked includes a custom label. Name it here and it becomes the record label the stores display on your releases, in place of the Run label.

The name is worth a moment’s thought, because it is public and it is what the stores show. You can rename a label yourself right up until its first delivery. After that it takes a support request. See Your own label.

Everyone else goes straight from the plan to the agreements, and releases ship under the Run label with the rights lines still crediting you.

4. Accept the agreements

Two documents: the Terms of Service, which covers using Run at all, and the Distribution Agreement, which covers distributing music through it.

One checkbox covers both, because it is one decision. The step summarises what they say (a non-exclusive licence to distribute, you keep your masters, you confirm ownership and clearances, disclosure of AI use, the revenue share for your plan, either side can take a release down) and links the full text of each. Read them there rather than taking the summary for the contract.

Run records which version you accepted and when. If the tab has been open a while and a new version was published in the meantime, accepting reloads the step first: what you accept has to be what you read.

The Privacy Policy is deliberately not part of this. It is published for you to read, not something you sign. See Agreements.

5. Your first release

The last screen points at the release wizard. Your first release is the quickstart from here.

Skipping, and what it costs you

The artist and label steps can each be skipped and sorted out later from Artists, Labels and Settings. Staying on Free at the plan step is not a skip at all, it is a choice.

The agreements are the exception, and there is no way past them: you cannot submit a release until both are accepted, and accepting them is what finishes setup. If you leave before that, the workspace brings you back to the step, and the agreements section in Settings accepts them too. Nothing else is blocked in the meantime, and you can build a draft in full first.

The same applies when a version changes later: you are asked to accept the new one, and only new submissions wait for it. Your catalog keeps distributing and keeps earning.

If you were invited into someone else’s workspace

Accepting an invitation to work in a White-label workspace does not put you through this wizard. There is no plan to pick and no agreement for you to accept: the workspace owner holds both. You sign in and start on their catalog. See Inviting collaborators.