The Free Disco Alternative for Sharing Music with Industry
Disco.ac is great for private A&R workflows. BetterGate covers the other half of the release cycle: public-facing smart links, download gates, pre-save, and real-time analytics. 100% free, no credit card.
Disco is strong where it is strong. We do not compete on its turf.
Disco.ac built one of the cleanest private music sharing tools on the web. If you are an A&R rep at a label, a manager pitching unreleased records, or a sync agent shipping demos to music supervisors, Disco earns its monthly fee. The folder system, the permission controls, the comment threads on individual tracks, and the way it tracks who actually opened your pitch - those features are tuned for industry workflows, not for fan promotion.
BetterGate solves a different problem. We are built for the public half of a release. When you finish a track and need fans to find it on Spotify, save it before drop day, follow you in exchange for a stem pack, or click through to your merch store - that is the moment BetterGate steps in. We do not pretend to replace Disco for label-to-label workflows, and Disco does not pretend to be a smart link service for public links shared on Instagram and TikTok.
Where the overlap exists, it is real but narrow: both tools let you share a file. The difference is the audience. Disco assumes the recipient is a known industry contact in your private list. BetterGate assumes the recipient is a stranger on the internet who needs to be tracked, attributed, retargeted, and eventually converted into a listener on a streaming platform. Different audience, different tooling, different price.
BetterGate vs Disco at a glance
An honest feature-by-feature comparison. Each tool wins on the use case it was built for.
Who Disco is for vs who BetterGate is for
You work inside the industry
You are an A&R, manager, sync agent, label coordinator, or publisher who lives in a world of pitches, demos, and private folder shares. Your day involves dropping unreleased tracks into a folder, sending the link to three named contacts, and later checking who actually opened it.
You need granular permission controls, watermarked streaming, comment threads pinned to specific timecodes, and an audit trail of who heard what. The monthly fee is a rounding error next to one signed sync deal or one cleared sample.
Your audience is a closed list of industry people, not the open internet.
You are promoting to fans
You are an independent artist, producer, or small label pushing releases out into the public. Your day involves posting clips on TikTok, dropping smart links in Instagram bios, running pre-save campaigns, and trying to figure out which platform fans actually click through to.
You want one URL that opens Spotify on Spotify devices and Apple Music on Apple devices, a download gate that converts a TikTok view into a follower, and real-time analytics that update the moment a post hits. You do not have a monthly budget for tools, and you do not want a trial timer hanging over your head.
Your audience is the open internet, and you need to measure every click.
Use BetterGate when...
Specific scenarios where BetterGate is the right tool, regardless of whether you also have a Disco subscription.
You are promoting a release to fans, not pitching to labels
BetterGate is built for the public side of a release. Smart links, social-action unlocks, and pre-save campaigns are the bread and butter.
You need analytics that update the moment a TikTok hits
Visits, platform clicks, and downloads stream into the dashboard in real time. You can see within minutes whether a post moved listeners or burned for nothing.
You want to give away a free download in exchange for a follow
Set up a download gate where fans complete a follow, save, or join an email list to unlock the file. Files live on Cloudflare R2 with presigned URLs.
You are working with a zero-dollar marketing budget
No card on file, no trial timer, no feature paywall. BetterGate stays free at any scale of usage.
You want pixels firing on every fan interaction
Meta CAPI, Google Measurement Protocol, and TikTok Events API all fire server side, so your ad attribution stays clean even after iOS tracking changes.
Frequently asked questions
Is BetterGate a direct replacement for Disco.ac?
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Not exactly. Disco is built for private A&R workflows where labels and managers share unreleased music inside a closed group. BetterGate is built for public-facing promotion, where artists share released or pre-release music with fans through smart links and download gates. The two tools solve adjacent problems.
Is BetterGate really free?
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Yes. BetterGate is free to use with no credit card, no trial period, and no feature paywall. Smart links, download gates, pre-save, and real-time analytics are all included at zero cost.
Can I send private demos to industry contacts on BetterGate?
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BetterGate supports password-protected download gates, so you can share a private file with a specific contact. However, BetterGate does not replace dedicated A&R workflow features like comment threads, group folders, or pitch tracking. If your primary need is private label-to-label sharing, Disco may be a better fit.
Does BetterGate have analytics like Disco?
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Yes. BetterGate shows real-time visit counts, platform clicks, download counts, referrer sources, and geographic data. Stats appear instantly in your dashboard with no waiting period or report generation.
Can I use BetterGate and Disco together?
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Absolutely. Many artists use Disco for private industry sharing and BetterGate for public fan-facing promotion. They cover different parts of a release cycle and work well side by side.
Promote your music to fans for free
Keep Disco for industry pitches. Use BetterGate for everything facing the public. Smart links, gates, pre-save, and real-time analytics. No card, no trial timer.