Distribution
JPay Music Distribution: How to Get Your Music on JPay
Done Deal Digital LLC · June 5, 2026
JPay is one of the biggest music stores almost no independent artist is using. It's the à-la-carte music download service available on prison tablets across the country — and the people inside buy a lot of music. If you've searched for JPay music distribution trying to figure out how to actually get your songs on it, here's the straight answer. (For the full picture across every network, start with our guide to selling your music in prisons.)
What is JPay?
JPay (owned by Securus / Aventiv Technologies) runs the tablets and kiosks that incarcerated people use inside many U.S. facilities. Music is one of the main things they spend on — buyers download individual tracks and full albums right to their device. It's a real storefront with a real, paying, captive audience, and it sits right alongside GTL/ViaPath and the federal TRULINCS system as the three big prison music networks.
How do you get your music on JPay?
You can't upload to JPay directly — there's no artist portal. JPay's catalog is fed by a specialized behind-the-scenes pipeline — one most artists have never heard of. To get on JPay, you distribute through a service that delivers to that pipeline. Not every distributor does: DistroKid does not reach JPay, for example. Picking the distributor that actually carries the right pipeline — and getting the routing right — is half the battle.
What do you get paid?
Here's what surprises people: on JPay, music is bought, not streamed. A single sells for around $1.99 to the buyer — a real purchase, every download paid for, with no free or ad-supported tier. Streaming pays a fraction of a cent per play; this is a sale. You earn a share of every sale, and your exact terms go in writing before you pay. Reports come on a delay (often a couple of months), so think of it as a steady back-catalog earner rather than a launch-week spike.
The JPay content rules (this is where releases die)
JPay curates its catalog and runs a strict content filter. The key thing to understand: your audio can be explicit, but your metadata can't. Track titles, artist name, and cover art have to be clean — no profanity, no violence/gang/weapon references — and the artwork can't show the Parental Advisory logo. JPay rejects non-compliant releases silently, so if you get it wrong you often won't even know why. Get the metadata clean and the routing right, and you're in.
Want to get on JPay (and GTL) the right way?
Get the step-by-step playbook for $97 — or let Done Deal Digital handle your whole JPay distribution for you.
See How It Works →JPay distribution FAQ
Can you put your music on JPay?
Yes — through a distributor that delivers to the JPay pipeline. You can't upload directly.
Does DistroKid put music on JPay?
DistroKid doesn't. You need a distributor that carries the prison pipeline — exactly which one, and how to route it, is what the guide walks you through.
How much do you make from JPay?
On JPay, music is bought, not streamed — a single sells for around $1.99 to the buyer, a paid download rather than a fraction-of-a-cent stream. You earn a share of every sale, and your exact terms go in writing before you pay.
The prison networks, explained
JPay is one piece of the puzzle. Here's how it fits with the other networks artists ask about most:
- Securus tablets — JPay's sister brand under Aventiv; how releases land in the media store.
- GTL music distribution and ViaPath (the new GTL) — the streaming side of prison music.
- Federal TRULINCS — why the BOP system is harder than state kiosks.
- Why mainstream distributors miss it: DistroKid and TuneCore and prisons.