Mdundo, the Africa-focused download and streaming service, still promises artists a 50:50 revenue split, but since 13 January 2026 its terms take a 15 percent platform fee, a 20 percent advertising fee and subscription costs off the top first.
None of those deductions appear in the 14 July 2025 version of the same document. They sit in the current terms as sections 16.2 to 16.5. The 50:50 sentence itself did not change by a word.
The accounts show what the rewrite is worth
Mdundo.com A/S has traded on Nasdaq First North in Copenhagen since 2020, per Music Business Worldwide, so it publishes audited numbers. Its FY2025/26 annual report, dated 28 September 2026, makes the link explicit.
- Revenue fell 24.5 percent to 8.3 million Danish kroner (DKK). Subscriptions were DKK 7.1 million of that, advertising DKK 1.1 million.
- Gross margin rose to 59.1 percent from 47.4 percent, credited to “updated terms and conditions with rights holders” effective January 2026, plus a one-off reversal of old provisions.
- Stripping out that reversal, margin was 48.9 percent. Management expects close to 54 percent in FY2026/27, “a full year impact of T&C changes.”
Gross margin is what the company keeps after paying for content. Five more points of it, from new rights-holder terms, means roughly five fewer points of each krone going to rights holders.
What now comes off before the split
- Platform service fee: 15 percent of revenue attributable to any content.
- Format surcharge: 50 percent instead of 15 for covers, instrumentals, podcasts, karaoke, DJ mixes and “similar non-original or high-administration formats.”
- Advertising operations fee: 20 percent of all advertising revenue.
- Subscription direct costs: marketing to win or keep subscribers, payment-gateway and telecom billing fees, diaspora-billing fees and taxes. No cap is stated.
- Territory floor: if a country brings in under USD 1,000 of advertising revenue in a month, revenue from artists’ content there that month is excluded from the split and never carried forward.
Taxes and telecom billing fees were already netted out under the 2025 definition of revenue. What the new clause adds is Mdundo’s own marketing spend.
What USD 100 of ad revenue now pays
Read literally, both fees are percentages of the same revenue figure, so they stack. On USD 100 of ad revenue attributable to your tracks:
- July 2025 terms: USD 50 to the uploader.
- January 2026 terms, original song: 100 minus 20 minus 15 leaves 65, so USD 32.50.
- January 2026 terms, DJ mix or cover: 100 minus 20 minus 50 leaves 30, so USD 15.
Subscription money loses the 15 percent fee plus marketing costs no artist can see, so its effective rate cannot be calculated from outside.
The payout threshold is the second filter
Earnings are calculated every six months, on downloads and on streams longer than 30 seconds. Nothing is paid below USD 50; smaller balances roll forward, and anything uncollected after three years “shall expire without notice and be forfeited.”
In September 2025 Mdundo said more than 300,000 artists had collectively earned USD 1 million between January and July 2025, per Technext’s Joshua Fagbemi. That averages about USD 3.33 an artist, a fifteenth of the payout line, and that was before the new fees.
What to do with a Mdundo catalogue
Forecast on net, not headline
Model original tracks at roughly a third of attributable ad revenue, not half.
Price your formats separately
A DJ mix now earns less than half what an original does per dollar of ad revenue. If mixes drive your Mdundo audience, that is a release-strategy decision.
Use one uploader account
Payment goes only to the uploader, “regardless of Collective Management Organization (CMO) affiliations.” Spreading a catalogue across accounts multiplies the USD 50 thresholds you must clear.
Read the notices
Changes arrive by account notification and email. January set the precedent: the percentage held, the base underneath it shrank.
The same audit applies to every DSP, meaning digital service provider, in your release plan. Our pieces on Boomplay’s royalty trust gap and on Spotify’s pay line show two more places where the headline rate is not the paid one. If InterSpace Distribution delivers your music, ask us what comes off before your share, platform by platform.
