How GYROstream is democratising music royalties payouts for artists around the world with Wise Business

In an industry dominated by major labels, multi-million dollar contracts and rapid digitalization, GYROstream, an independent, Australian-owned digital music distribution and artist services company, is on a mission to ensure musicians can sell their music and get the recognition they deserve on global platforms including Spotify, YouTube and iTunes.

Built with a focus on offering an end to end, customer-focused experience with premium support throughout, GYROstream’s platform helps new, growing and established artists get heard and connect with their fans globally.

Services available include royalty payment splits, data analytic tools to help artists target their efforts and grow their fan base, digital marketing through GYROdigital, and publicity through GYROpr. With this comprehensive suite of tools, GYROstream is helping independent artists and labels achieve recognition and success locally and on a global scale.

To ensure artistsget paid whenever and wherever their music is played, GYROstream uses the Wise Business, the multi-currency account from Wise, to pay out royalties quickly, efficiently and with low and transparent costs. This guide looks at the ways GYROstream is changing the rules of the game for music royalties does - and how Wise is a key partner for them in ensuring artists get paid in the currencies of their choice.

GYROstream - amplifying independent artists across the world

So what’s the deal with GYROstream? GYRO stands for ‘Get Your Record Out’ - a nod to the company’s main mission. GYROstream was founded by CEO Andy Irvine and Directors Vivienne Mellish, Alex Wilson and Andrew Wilson, who had all come from various backgrounds, including artist management, marketing, PR and distribution.

GYROstream’s core work is helping artists to get their music on streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Meta, TikTok and 40+ other platforms around the world. The company manages the process for collecting royalties from these platforms, and pays out to artists when their music is streamed and used digitally. Smart payment options are built into the system too, so artists can set up royalty splits to pay others when they’ve collaborated on a track.

From an artist perspective, the end to end process for getting your music out there with GYROstream can be very fast. In fact, your tracks could be on the platforms you’ve selected in as little as two business days following a review by the GYROstream team. However, in an industry where impact is everything, giving yourself a little more time to set up promotional activities and marketing is usually advisable - GYROstream recommend leaving about three weeks to plan and execute a promotional strategy using the tools available on the site.

Even building this margin into the timeline, using GYROstream is exceptionally quick compared to more traditional distribution methods!

GYROstream is proud to offer personalised and localised support to the artists it works with - including end-to-end services to help artists grow their fan base at any stage of their career. As well as PR and digital marketing tools, GYROstream expanded in 2021, launching their white label SaaS platform DistroDirect, which lets partner companies distribute music under their own brand.

DistroDirect is focused on helping international artists and record labels, by developing key relationships in local markets to drive better outcomes for artists.

“Wise’s technology stack and API were perfect for integrating into our payout workflow - having a direct-to-bank solution in most major global currencies, that we could use at scale, was a great selling point.”

Local knowledge with global reach - international digital music distribution

Digital music distribution is a democratising force in music, allowing independent artists to connect to fans globally. There’s no need to get signed up to a traditional record label any more - instead, by using digital music distribution, artists can have distributors like GYROstream send their music and metadata to popular platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. This allows customers to choose their preferred streaming method, and broadens an artist's reach significantly.

Since the advent of digital streaming options, music audiences are able to find artists from all around the world - so it’s natural that GYROstream has expanded from its original Australian base to serve global customers. These days, GYROstream has offices in Canada, US, UK, India, Brazil and the Philippines as well as in Australia, to make sure the premium end-to-end customer service offering remains in place for artists all over the world.

Add-on services for end to end artist support

Getting your music to a platform isn’t the end of the process for an artist - and GYROstream is there every step of the way, with a range of add on services to help artists to promote and market their work widely to get the recognition they deserve. Options include playlist pitching services as well as promotion and marketing - you can even apply for an advance payment of royalties to fund your own touring or promotional activities.

Another feature offered by GYROstream to make sure artists can succeed is publishing administration. If artists write their own tracks, GYROpublishing can help by registering original songs globally so artists don’t lose out on royalty payments. All royalties are visible in your GYROstream artist dashboard so you’ll be able to easily keep on top of your earnings - and you can use the analytic tools available to make sure your music is reaching your fans in the best possible way, too.

Music is a global business, and as we’ve seen, GYROStream helps artists all over the world get heard and connect to fans. To make sure artists globally get paid in the most efficient and cost effective way, GYROstream works with Wise Business - a leading provider of international payments and multi-currency business account services.

Since launching, DistroDirect has over 450 partners in 40+ markets globally. GYROstream and its associated brands are now servicing tens of thousands of artist accounts and paying out millions of dollars in royalties to independent artists across the globe each month. Here’s what the GYROstream team have to say about using Wise:

“Wise is integral in our payment workflow to pay our artists. They can request payment to their bank account at any time, and we integrate with their API to facilitate mass payments on a daily basis.” says CEO Andy Irvine.

Wise mass payments make it possible to initiate up to 1,000 transfers to bank accounts around the world, in any of the 40+ supported currencies, with a single upload. Because Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate for currency exchange, and has low, transparent fees this means business customers like GYROstream can save money as well as cutting down on admin time.

Wise Business solutions

Wise Business accounts can be used to send and receive international payments with the mid-market exchange rate and low fees from 0.43%¹. Send money to 160+ countries globally, in 40+ currencies - 50% of payments arrive instantly, and 90% are received within 24 hours². For GYROstream, that means there’s no waiting around on the artist's end, as royalties can be paid out quickly and in the artist’s preferred currency, with little delay.

More from Wise Business

Wise Business helps teams like GYROstream pay royalties to artists, and can be used to pay contractors internationally in double quick time too. As a provider of powerful multi-currency accounts for business, Wise also offers plenty of additional services including local account details for up to 10 currencies so you can get paid by others conveniently, options to hold your account balance in any of the supported 40+ currencies, and linked payment cards for spending and withdrawals at home and abroad.

Making royalties payouts pain-free for artists

So, what impact has GYROstream seen since working with Wise Business? Back to the GYROstream team to explain:

“We have integrated payments with Wise from day one. It’s been an integral part of how we’ve been able to payout royalties and run our business."

Using Wise to make mass payments saves time, and the Wise API can also help cut out additional administration. Funds are swiftly deposited into bank accounts around the world, in the artist’s preferred currency. The positive benefits of using Wise are felt both by GYROstream, and their artists:

“All our artists love the fact they can get low cost royalty payments direct to their bank account - they don’t need to sign up to any 3rd party platform their royalties show up very soon after withdrawal.”

If you’re looking for innovative ways to manage your business finances across borders, it’s time to check out Wise Business. Whether you’re in Australia or based elsewhere, you can open a Wise Business account conveniently online or in the Wise app, for your registered business. Use your account to hold, send, spend, exchange and receive foreign currencies with ease, with the mid-market exchange rate and low, transparent fees every time. With no ongoing costs and no minimum balance requirements, there’s nothing to lose - and you could find that like GYROstream, you save time and money for your company.

1. Pricing/fees: Please see Terms of Use for your region or visit Wise Fees & Pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information
2. Speed: The speed of transaction claim depends on funds availability, approval by Wise's proprietary verification system and systems