Featured Artist Agreements: Bringing a Feature Onto Your Track

The short version

A featured artist agreement covers the deal when one artist appears on another's track: the "feat." on the title. It clarifies the fee, whether the featured artist gets royalties, how they are credited, and the rights to use their name and image to promote the release. It is how a collaboration stays a good memory instead of becoming a dispute.

Why features need their own agreement

A feature is more involved than a session performance. The featured artist is a named part of the release: their fans matter, their brand is attached, and their name is on the track. That raises questions a simple performance deal does not:

• Do they get paid a flat fee, a royalty, or both?
• How exactly are they credited? ("feat." billing is contractual, not casual)
• Can you use their name and photo to promote the track, and where?
• Do they have approval over how their part is mixed?
• If they are signed to a label, is a courtesy credit or clearance needed?

The agreement answers these before the release, when it is collaborative, rather than after, when it is contentious.

The key terms

Fee and/or royalty. The featured artist might get a one-time fee, a percentage of the track's earnings, or both. Feature royalties vary widely, often in the 10 to 25 percent range of the master when a royalty is given, but there is no fixed rule, and plenty of features are fee-only.

Credit. How the feature is billed, as in Primary Artist feat. Featured Artist, and that it appears consistently across platforms and metadata. Credit is central to a feature's value, because it is how their audience finds the track.

Name, image, and promotion. Whether and how the primary artist can use the featured artist's name, likeness, and bio to promote the track, including cover art, streaming, and social media. Standard track promotion is usually fine, while uses beyond that typically need the feature's consent.

Mix approval. Whether the featured artist gets a say in how their performance sounds in the final mix. Some features want approval over their own part, and some do not care.

Clearance and courtesy credit. If the featured artist is signed to a label, that label may need to approve the appearance, and may require a courtesy credit such as "appears courtesy of [Label]." The agreement should surface this so it does not blow up the release later.

Ownership stays clear. The master is typically owned by the primary artist. The feature is rendering a performance, not acquiring ownership, beyond any royalty stated. And if the feature also wrote part of the song, that is a separate songwriting split.

How keysig helps

keysig's featured artist agreement flow covers the fee, royalty, credit billing, name, likeness and promotion rights, mix approval, and clearance in plain language, so both artists know exactly what the deal is, and the release goes out clean.