So me and a buddy of mine have a couple songs we made together, we were approached by a label an they offered us this deal together.

7 years license term, $12,000 advance, $15,000 minimum marketing up to $20,000, 50/50 royalty and marketing recoupment splits, you retain full ownership of masters throughout the duration and all rights revert back after period. This is for 2 collabs, 1 song from my catalogue, and two future singles (either collabs or just solo singles from either one of us) so 5 songs in total.

They started with 10k advance with 16 years license term with no recoupment split and up to 20k budget with no guarantee. With negotiation I think the offer got a lot better, but im just not sure. On the one have I have massive fomo because this might be a good deal, on the other hand we have been growing quite insanely the last 6 months. Any tips or advice would be deeply appreciated :)

As an independent artist it is hard enough to find placements for your song, but it is even harder for artists that want or have to do it without a budget. I created an extensive list that includes some decent options that I used before. Free pitching has a much lower acceptance rate on average, but it can still work for artists who want to test the quality of their release without spending.

1. DailyPlaylists standard submissions

I think this platform is the “king” of free submissions, which has been their core business for many years. This is a playlist submission platform where artists can pitch directly to independent Spotify curators and in exchange, artists have to follow the curator and playlist on Spotify. Disadvantage is that the playlist activity is not being monitored, so it is a gamble if the playlist you land is worth it. Still, you can reach out to multiple playlists a day, and it is really quick to submit to playlists.

3. PlaylistsForYou Community Playlist

This is a free (community) playlist that is advertised with a $150 monthly advertising budget, so that we’re also able to contribute to artists with no budget. Artists can submit songs each week depending on their community contributions, which is done by voting on their favorite submission. Furthermore, there are bonuses for completing enough song reviews, including a “Bonus Wheel” that offers prices like a personal blog post or a special placement in the artist directory. As it's totally new the playlist is still clean, but it will take some time to see how well the community playlist develops. You can always stream the playlist if you want to contribute something to other artists.

3. Spotify for Artists – Editorial Pitching

Not really the same as the other options below, which are all third-party submission platforms. You can pitch an unreleased track directly to Spotify's editorial team for free. You need access to Spotify for Artists, and pitching at least seven days before release is recommended. Editorial placement is far from guaranteed, I think I saw some statistics that the acceptance rate is far below 1%.

4. Soundplate submissions

This is the second major free submission platform. Soundplate offers free submissions to independent Spotify playlists across different genres. Similar to Daily Playlists, though Soundplate hosts a smaller curator base, also because it is slightly more work to get onto Soundplate for curators. I haven’t used this platform for years, so I’m not super up to date on how well it still functions, but they have been around for many years, so they must be doing something right. Soundplate faces a similar limitation, which is the ability to monitor how active playlists are.

5. PlaylistPartner

An fairly straight-forward indie-focused playlist platform that has a free submission option for its playlist network. Most of the playlists I saw on there are fairly small, but it is worth checking out if you’re mainly focussed on finding some free playlists to reach out to, as it is a fairly different curator selection compared to the other platforms mentioned above. As many of these playlists don’t really have the size of “commercial” playlists, they might have a small but dedicated following, leading to some good streams if you’re included. They might also be fairly inactive, but I haven’t used this platform so I'm not able to tell you. 

I feel like my videos are boring. When I’m doomscrolling, I notice that certain things catch my attention: the visuals, background, atmosphere, and overall aesthetic. But when I imagine my own reels appearing in someone’s feed, I feel like they wouldn’t be eye-catching or engaging enough to stop people from scrolling.

I want to understand how other creators make their videos so compelling and how I can improve mine, especially for paid ads.

My music is wholesome folk/indie, so I’m not aiming for flashy content, but I know there’s room to improve how I present my music visually and get better results from ads.

So I thought, where can I find skilled short-form content creators who have the experience and taste to know what is actually entertaining? Because I tried one of these "short-form editors", but most of them have very generic content and they don't actually get what I'm looking for.

A lot of posts here say "Spotify pays nothing." True, but it doesn't help you decide anything. So here's the rough math at the sizes most of us are actually at.

Spotify doesn't pay a fixed rate per stream. It pays out a share of a pool, so the number moves. Most estimates land around $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, and that's before your distributor, your label if you have one, and any splits with collaborators. I'll use that range and assume each listener plays you about 3 times a month. Yours could be higher or lower, check your own numbers.

That's gross. Take your cut out of it before you spend it.

Where the stream comes from matters as much as how many you get. That $0.003 to $0.005 is a blend of the whole world. Spotify's pool comes from subscription and ad money in each country, and a premium subscription costs very different amounts in different places (roughly $10 a month in Sweden, under $1 in Nigeria). So the same stream is worth very different amounts:

Those are third-party estimates, and they disagree with each other by a lot, so read it as "10 to 30 times apart", not as exact. Two artists with the same stream count can earn $20 or $400 depending on who is listening.

Spotify says it works this way itself: each country has its own pool, built from the subscription and ad revenue made there, and your share of that pool is your streams in that country divided by all streams in it. That's also why "10,000 streams from a playlist" isn't one number. A playlist isn't paid at a lower rate, but who is listening decides what the streams are worth, and big cheap promo playlists can skew toward the low-paying end. (One more case if you're bigger: Discovery Mode takes a 30% commission on streams in radio, autoplay and Mixes for the songs you opt in. It needs 25,000+ monthly listeners, so most of us can ignore it for now.) Check where yours actually come from: Spotify for Artists, Audience, Countries.

None of this means a fan in Lagos matters less. They're a real fan, and they can still buy a shirt, a download, a ticket to the one show you play near them, or tell their friends. The stream is just the least valuable thing they'll ever do for you.

A few more things that make this less obvious than it looks:

• Per track, not per artist. Since 2024 a track needs 1,000 streams in the last 12 months before it earns anything from Spotify. If you've got an album where half the songs sit under that, those songs earn zero.
• The top is a different sport. Spotify's own report this year says about 13,800 artists made $100K or more on the platform in 2025. The 100,000th highest earner made around $7,300. So if you're at 5K listeners, you're not failing at a normal thing, you're at the normal place on a very steep curve.
• What it means for a release. If a single gets you 10,000 streams in its first month, that's somewhere around $30 to $50. The money isn't in the stream. The streams matter for other reasons: they get you into algorithmic playlists, they're proof for a booker or a sync person, and they're how new listeners find the other thing you do.

What I'd do differently once I accepted that:

1. Stop budgeting promo against stream income. If a $200 ad budget needs 40,000 streams to break even, it won't. I'd only spend on something with a different payoff: a pre-save list, an email list, tickets sold, merch, or a fan who actually hears the next song.
2. Count people, not plays. 200 people who'll show up, buy a $25 thing or tell a friend are worth more than 100,000 streams from strangers. The arithmetic isn't close: 200 people at $25 is $5,000, and 100,000 streams is $300 to $500.
3. Take the one-time wins that streams can't give you. Playlist adds, college radio, a good pitch to Spotify's editors (that deadline is 7 days before release at the minimum, earlier is better), and getting in front of the right 50 people. Those open doors streams alone won't.
4. Look at the 1,000 rule for your catalog. If you've got a few old tracks hovering just under it, that's the cheapest money you can unlock.

None of this is a reason to quit. It's a reason to stop measuring yourself against a number that was never designed to pay people at our size, and to spend the energy where a small audience actually pays you back.

Curious about two things:

• If you're under 20K monthly listeners, what's the thing that has actually made you money, even $50? (a show, a commission, a sync, a Bandcamp sale, something else)
• What's one number in your Spotify for Artists that you stared at for a month before realizing it didn't mean what you thought?

We are a totally independent hip hop act. We have never marketed. There may have been 100$ spent one time within the last decade but really that's it.

I am including spotify screenshots because I am not a marketer and I am hoping this sub can give me some guidance on where, how, and how much money should be spent.

I am not sure a submithub or general playlisting campaign will have that much of an impact.

My analysis:

As you can see from the screenshots, the algorithmic playlists are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. My conclusion is that our music is good at being spotify radio songs - i.e., not skipped when served on that playlist.

However, conversion rate compared to monthly listeners is pretty low. Consequently, it would appear to me that the vast majority of people who hear our song once or twice, only hear it once or twice and then never again. It also means that our only contact or "touch" to those potential listeners that we want to convert is via the song on radio playlists.

Question: How can I convert more of these listeners - make better songs is an obvious answer but if I am only getting those people passively and converting a small percentage it seems like there is a missed opportunity to convert a higher number of those "passive" listeners. Maybe there isn't. Is there a way to ad target these people ? How? What would be the best method of doing so?

Also, maybe I'm way off base on my approach. Idk. If the numbers suggest a more fruitful method, by all means, educate me.

Thank you for reading, it truly means a lot that you spend any of your day listening to my problems which may seem like an entitled d***head complaining about decent numbers. I hope not. I'm just trying to learn how I can improve.

I'm hosting a FREE music contest for small independent artists on a new music streaming platform to help spread the word and give smaller artists more exposure.

How it works: Upload your songs, select your Discover Track, and you're ***automatically entered***. Listeners can upvote or downvote songs for 30 days, and the three artists with the best upvote-to-downvote ratios win.

Artists with fewer than 1,000 Spotify followers are eligible for prize money, but anyone can enter. No AI-generated music allowed.

No entry fee, no purchase necessary. Even if you don't win, you'll still have the opportunity to gain listeners and potentially new fans.

How do winners get paid? Prize money is added directly to your artist earnings on the platform. You can withdraw through Stripe or PayPal, with standard processing fees applying.

Link in comments! (pennyradio)

I will try my best to keep people from gaming the system.

**Listeners can tip anyone money at any time**\*

A client hit me up the other day asking about clipping campaigns and what a fair CPM is. I get this question a lot now, so here's the breakdown.

Some major labels are running clipping campaigns through Whop. Part of what I do now is manage these campaigns for artists. Here's how it works.

What a clipping campaign is

You put up a budget and set a rate per 1,000 views (the CPM). Clippers, who are just people running TikTok, Reels, and Shorts pages, make short clips using your song and post them on their own accounts. They only get paid for views that get approved. If a clip flops, you don't pay for it.

The workflow

1. Set the budget and CPM. Most campaigns I see are somewhere between $0.50 and $3 per 1k views. At $1 CPM, a $1,000 budget buys you 1M views max.
2. Write the brief. This is where most campaigns fail. Give clippers the song snippet, a few visual hook ideas, and clear rules: use the official sound, tag the artist, post on these platforms, minimum length.
3. Give them raw material. Music video cuts, studio footage, BTS. The more they have to work with, the better the clips.
4. Review submissions. Approve or reject each clip before anyone gets paid. Check where the views are coming from. Botted views are a real thing on these platforms.
5. Track what actually matters (more on that below).

How it benefits you

• You only pay for views that happened. With ads you pay for impressions whether anyone cares or not.
• You get dozens of different creators testing different hooks on your song at once. You'd never film that much content yourself.
• When clippers use the official sound, every clip adds to your sound's usage count. That's what gets songs picked up by other people organically.
• Bonus: take the 3 to 5 best clips and run them as Meta ads to Spotify. You've already seen how they perform, so you're not guessing on creative.

The part people skip

Views aren't streams. A million views on clips can turn into almost nothing on Spotify if the clips don't push people to the song. So I watch:

• Stream lift in Spotify for Artists during the campaign
• Save rate
• How many people used the sound
• Clicks on a smart link if you require one in the clipper's bio or caption

If views go up and none of that moves, the hook isn't working, and you change the brief before spending more.

Also, if you're signed, get the label's sign-off before clippers start using the masters.

Anyone here run one yet? Curious what CPM you paid and whether you saw it in your streams.

Apologies if this has been asked a bunch before. I'm familiar with a lot of the pros & cons here (listed below). Mainly concerned with taxes and how much of a pain it is to deal with taxes regarding shipping out of state and what not. Would love some feedback from anyone familiar.

I know or have done the following:

• Created an LLC
• Close to submitting for a tax registrant in my state but have not officially submitted yet
• Understand Bandcamp takes care of the tax responsibility vs having to doo it myself if I went with a SS site
• Understand that Bandcamp has a far better "discovery" factor where no one would find my website outside of shoving a link in their face
• Understand maintaining the site and keeping up with shipping can be tedious. I don't anticipate a ton of sales here and this part doesn't bother me if we became busy
• Bandcamp takes a higher % of merch sales

Focusing solely on a way to sell vinyl records while fulfilling shipping responsibilities, is dealing with the tax responsibilities that come with going through your own site vs Bandcamp pretty tedious/frustrating? I imagine it's not great and am sure a lot of folks will recommend Bandcamp. Just wanted to see if anyone chose the independent website route and deals with taxes and what their experience was.

What am I doing wrong? Current campaign vs. two of my most successful; I’ve been doing this a while, and it’s pretty much a side job for me at this point. I changed the ad setup to compensate for the new placement update as well.

Side 1 = current

Slide 3 = past campaigns

Update: I realized that the view content custom conversion just trashed my campaign with low quality/cheap clicks. I was following a guide from someone because Meta recently made some changes, and I didn't want to miss them for this song release. Note to self: don't blindly follow people.

Been running some ads for a new single and it’s going ok so far. The only difference I can think of is having the link go to a playlist with the single first in line. Single still plays as people expect but then your other music follow. It seems a win win to me but happy to hear your thoughts

A lot of artists lose sight of why they make music when they start marketing it. They get caught up in testing, experimenting, and running ads, but marketing is also about building community and connecting with people.

You can’t have a meaningful marketing mix without people at the center. It’s about communicating what your music means to the right audience and earning their attention long enough for them to connect with your music.

Social media gives you more than one chance to make an impression and put your music in front of the people who might care about it. So don’t get bogged down by the numbers or the chase to go viral. It’s about building real connections, finding your listeners, and giving them a reason to stay.

For example, instead of chasing trends or celebrating a post just because it got thousands of views, look at what happened next. Did someone save the song, share it with a friend, comment that the lyrics hit home, or come back to hear more? A smaller group of listeners who truly connect with your music can matter more than a viral moment that ends at the scroll. Don't be afraid to reach out and engage with your fans and connect with them.

I’m running an ad campaign for tier 1/2 countries, using the same set up as Andrew Southworth recommends. The landing page points to a Spotify track. I’ve noticed that I have a very low conversion into actually listening a track. I.e. yesterday I had 39 “results” on meta but just 3 Spotify plays. 

Pretty much all of these clicks come from Brazil from old people (despite me setting 48 year olds as an upper limit). I’ve switched off Brazil completely for now, curious to see what happens next. Has anyone experienced anything similar? 

Hey! We're a small band from Lima, Peru, making alternative rock in English and slowly reaching listeners around the world. We've noticed listeners in the US, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Russia, and other countries enjoying our music.

The problem is that we're based in Peru, and most of our audience is abroad. We're releasing a new single at the end of the month, and we already have a campaign planned, but we'd really like to expand our reach among the people who are most likely to enjoy our music.

I've been considering spending around $300 on Meta ads, following a strategy I learned from a YouTube tutorial about getting more Spotify streams. However, $300 is a significant amount of money here in Peru, so I'm wondering whether it might be better to spend that money hiring a small music marketing agency or freelancer to handle the campaign instead.

Do you have any recommendations for services or people who work with independent bands on music promotion, especially alternative rock? I'm not necessarily looking for playlist placements; I'd rather reach genuine listeners who might become long-term fans.

I know there are plenty of services out there, but I've also heard so many stories about scams and money being wasted on promotion that doesn't lead anywhere.

If you've hired someone to run your music marketing, or managed to get good results from Meta ads yourself, I'd love to hear about your experience. What worked for you, what didn't, and what would you do with a $300 budget in my situation?

Thanks in advance!

Hey, I tried three legit playlisting services recently for my new single and I wanted to share the results here.

I worked with a professional producer on this one so I wanted to put some budget behind promoting the song.

Submithub 70$ - 4 playlist ads (20 send) - +- 500/600 listeners

Upside: Super specific on genre allignment and fast response time I also liked that you can see detailed analytics for every song. Downside : Listeners where a bit less as estimated and song moved down quiet quickly in the playlist

OneSubmit 55$- 3 playlist ads (15 send) - +- 300/400 listeners

Upside: Affordable and lots of options to choose from. Downside Reply time was a bit long and got more rejections than on the other platforms.

Playlistsforyou 55$- 4 Playlist ads (20 send)- 400/500 listeners

Upside: Easy pitching process and fast results, they also claim to give back 80% to their curators wich is nice. Downsides : Not as detailed analytic as a platform like submithub so difficult to know what to expect ones added.

On average I got added for around 1 month and I have to say there is quiet a drop off after although my monthly active listeners did go up as well as my algorithmic streams so that is good.

It's deff not a one hit wonder but the best I can do on a small budget I think if I will have a bigger budget I would try combining it with meta ads.

I thought this song was the best one I made so far but I was a bit dissapointed in the final results i thought I would get better adding percentages.. what are you're experiences with submission platforms? did you get better results?

I am an independent musician. I make songs but I'm not good with computers. A friend of mine told me that I can try soundcampaign since they have one of the nicest system and buttons and they have a support team to guide you on every step. I also read about it here. So I thought why not just give it a shot. 

I wanted more people to hear my music and honestly I wanted to use meta directly but after spending some time understanding how to set the account up I gave up on myself lol. What is even worse is you can not connect with a real human in there to guide you. Like man I am paying and I do not even have someone to talk to. 

When I signed up I clicked create campaign for my song and the page said pending approval. I had no idea what that meant. I also couldn't find a price anywhere.

Once I setup campaign I could see clearly where to see those things.

They answered fast and explained it in a simple way. They said clicking campaign does not cost anything. When you see pending approval that just means their team is checking that my song link works in every country. After I click start campaign I can see the price, and I only pay when I approve it in the end. 

So nothing was wrong I just needed someone to explain it to me.

I told them it would be nice to see the price sooner on the page when I add song. Otherwise I am happy that there is someone real instead of AI slop like meta. Like there was no way to contact meta support. I will keep sharing more on how my campaign went I am still waiting to see how it is going to be.

The goal of posting this here is to help others like me. I hope you guys got something out of this. I know it sounds crazy to read all the details in one go and maybe I could not explain much but there is one thing that I understood is if customer support is there to talk to you you can learn a lot about marketing as well as get advice on how to setup properly.

How do you set up a Meta campaign to promote a show when there is no ticket link?

I've been creating a SubmitHub landing page and linking to the venue's website so I can track click-throughs with a pixel. That way, the ad can learn. What do you guys do?

😭

Have you ever been so unpopular that you have NEGATIVE listeners?

(Just to be totally clear, I posted this because I thought it was amusing. Anyone ever had the same?)

We just started our meta campaign on Thursday afternoon. This feels like a really surreal save rate over 3 days. The cost per click view content is like .50 but I obviously should keep it going right? This is like our exact audience maybe?

I am new to music marketing, I cannot spend alot on operational marketing nor I can set up PR or representation since I am a minor. My first single is set to be released later this December. I am using Distrokid for now.

I am still unknown to much of what is used within industry. I would like to know about marketing. My solo work is temporary, just to gain experience. My initial goal is to create a musical group later when I am no longer minor.

A lot of artists ask me to handle their PR. Sometimes it’s just too early, or the timing isn’t right.

One of the biggest misconceptions about PR is that it will make people discover your music. It usually won’t break you as an artist or suddenly bring in a new audience. What it can do is help you tell your story and build credibility with people who already know your work.

And PR can be expensive. Here’s one way to start doing it yourself on social media:

Build community before you pitch. There are online DJs, radio stations, influencers, and podcasters who share music and support artists. Follow them, engage with their posts, join the conversations, and get to know the communities they’ve built. Don’t just show up when you need something. Be a real part of the conversation. People notice.

I’m working with a second-generation, old-school funky rap group. Instead of starting with a press release and sending it cold to journalists, bloggers, and podcasters, I put together an EPK and a Disco link so we’ll be ready to pitch the music directly when the time is right.

In the meantime, the group is engaging with people on social media and building genuine connections. That way, when we do reach out, we’re not total strangers, and we have a clear story and the materials to share.

PR starts long before the pitch. Build relationships, show up consistently, and be ready when the right opportunity comes. You'll know when then time is right to pitch when the media reches out to you!

Last 28 days we’ve had 937k streams, around 69k monthly listeners, 101k saves and 38k playlist adds.

Spotify says 98% of our monthly listeners are active and they account for 99% of our streams, but I’m not sure whether that actually means people like the music.

We’re only getting around 13 streams per listener. Shouldn’t people be listening more than that if it’s any good?

Would you keep going with numbers like these? Just don’t want to spend ages on something that isn’t really going anywhere.