Skip to main content
Soft 'n' Web

Scattered music systems, one platform

Distribution, artist and label storefronts, payments, royalties and rights in one place.

What we did

Product Strategy & Platform Architecture
Full-Stack Product Engineering
Music Distribution Automation
Multi-Tenant Artist & Label Storefronts
E-commerce & Payments
Royalty & Financial Automation
Licensing & Rights Management
Third-Party Integrations
Ongoing Platform Engineering
Unified music distribution, storefront, and royalty platform
Project Overview

From scattered systems
to a unified music commerce platform.

The business operates across two sides of the music industry: distributing label and artist catalogs across major streaming, download, and social platforms, and running direct-to-fan storefronts where audiences buy music and merchandise.

The problem was simple: these two sides weren't connected. Sales lived in one place. Royalty data lived somewhere else. Storefronts operated independently.

We built the platform that connected them — one shared foundation from catalog to customer to royalty.

Services

Product Strategy & Platform Architecture
Full-Stack Product Engineering
Music Distribution Automation
Multi-Tenant Artist & Label Storefronts
E-commerce & Payments
Royalty & Financial Automation
Licensing & Rights Management
Third-Party Integrations
Ongoing Platform Engineering

Industries

Music Distribution
E-commerce & Royalties

Highlight

5 systems replaced by one; 10K+ artists onboarded

Technologies

Platform architecture
Multi-tenant experiences
Workflows
+17 more
The Challenge

Growth had created
a systems problem.

The real problem wasn't just legacy technology — it was the distance between one business event and the next.

01

Fragmented distribution

Every platform had different formats, delivery requirements, and processes.

02

Manual royalty reconciliation

Sales and royalty data came from multiple sources and needed to be matched before statements could be produced.

03

A storefront for every label and artist

The business needed hundreds of branded websites without building hundreds of separate products.

04

Sales disconnected from royalties

Direct-to-fan purchases weren't naturally connected to the catalog and rights data behind royalty reporting.

05

Repeated commerce infrastructure

Cart, checkout, payments, orders, and inventory needed to work consistently across every storefront.

06

Rights and licensing without a central workflow

Licensing invoices and rights disputes relied too heavily on manual processes and scattered records.

Catalog & back-office

  • Labels, artists, releases, tracks
  • Territories & rights
  • Operational workflows

Distribution & delivery

  • Automated delivery workflows
  • 30+ external music platforms

Label & artist storefronts

  • Multi-tenant storefront engines
  • Branded experiences across the roster

Commerce & payments

  • Shared cart & checkout
  • Payments & orders
  • Inventory management

Royalties, licensing & rights

  • Royalty statements
  • Licensing invoices
  • Rights-related case workflows
How We Worked

Build once.
Connect everything. Automate the handoffs.

We didn't rebuild everything just for the sake of rebuilding it. We followed the business — tackling the biggest operational bottlenecks first, then connecting storefronts and commerce to the same foundation.

01

Start with the biggest bottlenecks

We tackled distribution and royalty reconciliation first — the two problems creating the most operational drag.

02

Connect storefronts to the same foundation

Once the back-office was solid, storefronts and commerce were connected to it rather than rebuilt as separate products.

03

Make new storefronts a configuration, not a build

A new artist or label site launches from the existing platform foundation instead of needing a new product build.

04

Automate the handoffs between systems

A sale doesn't need to be manually joined back to the catalog and royalty workflow — the connection is built into the platform.

The Solution

One platform,
connecting catalog to customer to royalty.

Five shifts turned scattered distribution, storefront, commerce, and royalty systems into one connected platform.

01

One delivery engine

A unified delivery layer handles the different requirements of major music platforms from one place. New distribution partners become contained integrations instead of entirely new workflows.

02

Royalties that follow the sale

Sales from distribution partners and storefronts feed into the same royalty workflow — the path from purchase to catalog to rights holder to royalty statement becomes connected.

03

One storefront engine, many brands

Shared storefront technology powers branded artist and label websites without rebuilding the product for every new site.

04

One commerce layer

Cart, checkout, payments, orders, and inventory run through a shared foundation across the storefront network.

05

Rights connected to the catalog

Licensing and rights workflows live alongside the catalog data they depend on.

Laptop mockup of the unified music commerce platform
Inside The Product

Four systems,
one connected music business.

The platform's core systems, each built around a different part of the journey from catalog to royalty.

Delivery Engine

Get music where it needs to go — with automated delivery, takedowns, holds, and bulk operations.

Automated deliveryBulk operations

Royalty Suite

Brings sales from multiple sources together and turns them into structured royalty reporting.

Multi-sourceStructured reporting

Storefront Platform

Powers branded artist and label websites from shared product foundations.

Multi-tenantBranded

Commerce & Payments Hub

One consistent checkout, payment, order, and inventory experience across every storefront.

Consistent checkoutInventory
What We Shipped

Four connected parts of the business,
working as one.

The real product wasn't the four systems — it was the connection between them.

A purchase on an artist or label website flows into the same data foundation used for royalty reporting.

A new storefront can launch from an existing platform foundation, and a new distribution partner can be added without rebuilding the platform — connecting the full journey from catalog to distribution to storefront to payment to royalty.

The music commerce platform shown across back-office, storefront, and commerce surfaces

Central back-office

Catalog, rights, and operational workflows in one shared foundation that every other system reads from.

Label & artist storefront platforms

Two shared storefront engines power hundreds of branded label and artist websites without a separate build for each one.

Shared commerce engine

One cart, checkout, payment, and inventory foundation runs across the entire storefront network.

We didn't just connect the software.

We connected the business. What started as scattered systems became a unified platform across distribution, commerce, royalties, licensing, and rights management.

Stack & Services

Every discipline this build touched.

From platform architecture and storefront engineering through commerce, data, and third-party integrations — the disciplines behind a unified music commerce platform.

Product

Platform architecture
Multi-tenant experiences
Workflows
Permissions

Frontend

Server-rendered applications
Responsive storefront experiences

Backend

PHP
Workflow & permissions systems

Data

MySQL
Shared product data
Scheduled processing

Integrations

30+ distribution platforms
Stripe
PayPal
Cloud storage
Email

Engineering

Automation
Document generation
Spreadsheet workflows
Inventory & currency management
The Result

A unified ecosystem
instead of disconnected systems.

Distribution, storefronts, payments, royalties, licensing, and rights now work together through one connected platform. Royalties follow the sale, new storefronts don't start from zero, distribution can keep growing, and commerce works as one.

30+

distribution & reporting partners

100s

of artist & label storefronts

2

shared storefront engines

1

unified platform from sale to royalty

Start a project

Have a similar problem? Send a brief

We reply within one business day and set up a free 30-minute call.

Book a 30-minute call