Learn, free

Check your cover before your distributor does.

Drop your cover art in and see what a distributor or a store would send back: the shape, the size, the file, the colour, how sharp it is, its edges, and how it looks at 60 pixels in a list on a phone. Your picture never leaves this device. It is opened here, in the page, and nothing is uploaded or saved.

Check a cover What the stores ask for The other free tools

Check a cover

The file you would send your distributor, as it is. Each check says what it found and why it matters, and the cover is shown the three ways people meet it.

Drop your cover art here or choose a file from this device A JPG or a PNG. It is checked here, on your device: nothing is uploaded.

Six things only you can check

A machine can measure the pixels, not what they say. Distributors look at these by hand, and they are the usual reasons a cover comes back. Tick them off as you go: nothing is saved.

No web addressesNo website, email address, phone number or QR code on the cover. No social handlesNo @names, and no Instagram, TikTok or other platform logos. No store names or logosNo Spotify, Apple Music or other store logos, and no “available on”. Explicit only when it is markedA Parental Advisory logo goes only on a release marked explicit, and stores refuse sexually explicit pictures whatever the mark. The name and the title matchAny artist name or title on it is spelled exactly as on the release, featured artists included, and no other artist's name is there. It is yours to useYou made every photo, drawing and picture on it, or you have permission in writing to use them on the release.

What the stores ask for

The rules distributors pass on from the stores, in one place. A cover that meets all of them is never the reason a release goes out late.

Square

Exactly as wide as it is tall. Any other shape is sent back.

3000 by 3000 or more

Apple Music's least, so the size to aim for. Bigger is fine.

JPG or PNG

The two every distributor and store takes. Not HEIC, WebP or a layered file.

RGB colour

The colour of screens. CMYK is for print, and its colours shift.

Sharp at full size

Not blown up from something smaller, and not blurred.

Edge to edge

No border, no frame, no padding to make it square.

Reads at 60 pixels

Most people meet it in a list on a phone, about 60 pixels wide.

Nothing that sells

No web addresses, handles or store logos on it.

Dots per inch do not matter. They are a printing setting: a digital cover is measured in pixels, so 72 or 300 changes nothing on a screen. Your distributor's own help pages have the last word on their limits.

More, free

Learn

The other free tools

What streams pay, a check for the codes your money travels on, who pays you for what, and the red flags in a contract.

Open Learn

Read

What a cover should cost

The handbook's ranges for artwork, and why to ask the designer for the layered source file.

Read: what things actually cost

Plan

The Release Planner

The artwork is one step of a release. Every step with its date and the reason it is there, on an example single.

See the Release Planner (free account)