A 360 deal is a record contract that gives the label a percentage of multiple revenue streams beyond just recordings: touring, merchandise, sync licensing, sponsorship, brand deals, sometimes publishing.
The name comes from the label taking a slice of the “full 360 degrees” of the artist’s career, not just the records. The structure became standard in the late 2000s when labels realised that recording revenue alone could no longer subsidise the deals they wanted to sign.
This guide is for any artist considering a label offer that includes touring or merch percentages and trying to understand the actual trade.
What is a 360 deal?
A traditional record deal covered records only. The label paid an advance against recording royalties, kept the masters, and earned from sales and streaming of the recordings. Touring, merchandise, publishing, sync, and endorsements remained with the artist or were licensed separately.
A 360 deal extends the label’s economic interest to those other streams. The most common 360 structures share:
- Recording royalties — the traditional record-deal income, with the artist receiving a contractual percentage net of recoupment.
- Touring — the label takes 10-25% of net tour income.
- Merchandise — the label takes 10-30% of merch revenue.
- Sync licensing — the label takes a share of sync fees on the master side, sometimes also on publishing.
- Sponsorship and endorsement — the label takes a share of brand deals.
- Publishing — in some 360s the label or its publishing affiliate also takes publishing.
Not every 360 includes every stream. Variants exist. A “partial 360” might cover touring and merch but not publishing or sync. A “full 360” can include everything down to NFT and creator-economy revenue.
Why do 360 deals exist?
Because by 2008, recording revenue had collapsed and labels could no longer justify the size of the advances they were paying with recording-side income alone. The math broke.
Live Nation’s 2008 360 deal with Madonna ($120 million for a multi-year all-rights agreement) is often cited as the moment the structure went mainstream. By 2012 most major-label new-artist deals included some form of 360 component.
From the label’s perspective, the logic is straightforward. The label invests in the artist’s career through marketing, A&R, brand-building, and distribution. The career’s value is realised across multiple income streams, not just records. If the label cannot share in tour and merch, the most expensive part of building the artist (the public exposure work) generates returns only on the smallest revenue stream.
From the artist’s perspective, the trade is conditional. If the label genuinely contributes to building the touring base, the brand-deal pipeline, and the merch story, sharing economics is fair. If the label takes a cut without contributing to those streams, it is a tax on growth that the artist drove themselves.
How does a 360 deal work in practice?
Typical economics of a major-label 360 deal in 2026:
- Advance: $250,000 to multi-million for a new artist with momentum.
- Recording royalty rate: 15-20% of net revenue.
- Touring share: 15-20% of net tour income (net of tour costs, agent commission, manager commission).
- Merch share: 20-30% of merch gross or 10-20% of merch net.
- Sync share on master: usually 50% to the label (standard master-side sync split).
- Sync share on publishing: 25-50% if publishing is included.
- Brand deal share: 15-25%.
- Term: three to five albums, often with options the label controls.
The label-services version of a 360 is less aggressive. A modern indie label-services deal might take 50% of net recording revenue, no touring share, no merch share, sync handled on a case-by-case basis. The artist keeps ownership of masters and controls career direction.
The all-in cost of a major-label 360 across a successful career frequently lands at 40-60% of total career income flowing to the label, depending on which streams are included.
What 360 deals mean for indie artists
Three working rules.
Add up every stream before you compare deals. A 15% recording royalty in a 360 with 20% touring and 25% merch is a fundamentally different deal from a 50% recording royalty in a deal that touches nothing else. The headline royalty rate alone is meaningless.
Ask what the label actually does on each stream. A label with a serious tour-marketing team and a real brand-partnerships division earns its 360 share. A label that takes the share but contributes nothing operationally is taxing your other businesses without value.
Negotiate carve-outs for territories or activities the label cannot serve. If the label is US-focused, your African touring should be carved out. If the label has no merch operations, your direct-to-fan merch should not be 360’d.
Common 360 deal mistakes and gotchas
- Treating the advance as the entire deal evaluation. A $1m advance in a deep 360 can be a worse deal than a $200k advance in a record-only structure if the 360 takes 20% of a touring career that becomes the artist’s main income.
- No definition of “net” for touring or merch. “Net” is a moving target. Make sure the contract defines what costs are subtracted before the label’s share is calculated, and that those costs include manager and agent commissions.
- No exit clauses tied to underperformance. If the label fails to deliver on agreed marketing spend or release support, the artist should have a defined trigger to renegotiate or exit.
- Cross-collateralisation with recording recoupment. A clean 360 keeps touring and merch outside the recording recoupment pool. A bad 360 lets the label apply unrecouped recording balance against touring income.
- Sync and publishing share locked at the higher rate. A 360 that takes 50% of publishing on top of the record deal is double-dipping. Negotiate the publishing share separately.
- Forgetting the term. Five-album 360 deals can lock an artist for a decade. Option periods favour the label by default.
- Confusing label-services 360 with major-label 360. Modern indie label-services deals are far less aggressive than major-label 360s, but the marketing copy sometimes obscures the difference.
How InterSpace Distribution handles this
InterSpace Distribution is a global distributor in the same category as DistroKid, TuneCore, ONErpm, Symphonic, EMPIRE, and Believe. We offer distribution and label-services structures that do not include touring or merchandise shares. Sync revenue is split on a defined, transparent basis. Artists keep ownership of masters and the deal scope stays inside recording and adjacent rights. Get started at cms.interspacemusic.com/signup.