💡✍️ADN #178: The PRO Setlist Submission
Apr 12, 2026From the road:
You played a show last night and got paid once.
You should have gotten paid twice.
The gap:
Every licensed venue in America — the bar, the club, the theater, the festival stage — pays a licensing fee to ASCAP or BMI for the right to have live music performed on their property.
That money gets collected.
It gets pooled.
It gets distributed to songwriters who performed original music at those venues.
Most artists never file.
The money sits there.
Unclaimed.
Live performance royalties typically range from $10 to $50 per setlist depending on venue size.
That’s not life-changing per show.
But do the math on a year.
3 shows a month.
$25 average payout.
That’s $900 a year for five minutes of admin work per show.
A record pressing.
A van payment.
A month of studio time.
Money you already earned and left on the table.
Step one: Join a PRO today.
You can only be a member of one.
Pick one and sign up right now.
BMI —
Free for songwriters.
Sign up at bmi.com.
Click “Affiliates” then “Songwriters/Composers.”
ASCAP —
One-time $50 fee.
Sign up at ascap.com.
Click “Join ASCAP.”
Do not wait.
You cannot collect a single dollar for any show until you are a member and your songs are registered.
Step two: Register yourself as your own publisher.
This is the step most artists miss entirely.
ASCAP splits royalties 50/50 between the songwriter and the publisher.
If you don’t have a publisher registered, you only collect the songwriter half.
Register yourself as your own publishing entity and you collect both sides — 100% of what you’re owed.
BMI works the same way.
Publisher sign-up is at the same bmi.com page.
Publisher membership at BMI costs $150.
At ASCAP it’s another $50.
It costs $150 to $200 to set this up once and collect double your royalties for the rest of your career.
Step three: Register every song you perform.
Log into your ASCAP or BMI account and register every original song in your catalog before you submit a single setlist.
ASCAP: Member Access → Works → Register a Work.
BMI: My Account → Register a Work.
Song title.
Splits.
That’s it.
It can take up to seven days to process a new registration ASCAP , so do this now, not the night of the show.
If you perform a cover song, report it too.
The writer of that song gets paid, not you — but you still need to include it in your submission.
Step four: Submit your setlist within 48 hours of every show.
ASCAP:
Log in → Member Access → Works → OnStage.
Enter the date, venue name, city, and every song you performed.
You must have direct deposit set up for this to work — do that first under Profile → Payment Information.
BMI:
Log in → My Account → BMI Live.
Same information.
BMI also has a mobile app if you want to do it from the parking lot.
One person in the band submits.
Every co-writer on every registered song gets their share automatically.
The deadlines. Do not miss these.
ASCAP has hard quarterly cutoffs.
Miss the window and the claim is gone.
- Shows January through March: submit by June 30
- Shows April through June: submit by September 30
- Shows July through September: submit by December 31
- Shows October through December: submit by March 31 of the following year
Set four calendar reminders right now.
One for each deadline.
Label them “ASCAP Setlist Deadline.”
BMI allows up to six months of back submissions.
More flexible, but don’t use that as an excuse to let it pile up.
When does the money arrive:
BMI averages around 5.5 months from performance to payment.
ASCAP runs closer to 7 months.
You’re not getting a check next week.
You’re building a royalty stream that pays you in arrears for work you’ve already done.
File consistently for a year and you’ll have a payment hitting your account every quarter without playing a single additional show.
Do this today. In this order:
- Sign up for BMI (free) or ASCAP ($50) right now
- Register yourself as your own publisher
- Register every original song in your catalog
- Submit every show you’ve played this year that falls inside the deadline window
- Set four recurring calendar reminders for the quarterly deadlines
- Submit within 48 hours of every show from here forward
You played the show.
The venue paid the fee.
The money is waiting.
Go get it.
This is another form of mailbox money.
See you next Sunday,
Neil
PS — Have you joined the DWYM Free Community?