presents...

The Spotify Playlist

Marketing
Gameplan

In this playbook of Spotify

playlist promotion, you’ll
learn everything you need to
know to get your project
started right. Period.
Spotify: Love it or
hate it, you need it.
Spotify has had a love-hate relationship with the
music industry ever since its inception. While it’s
a convenient, inspiring music-streaming service
for its customers, the artist side of it can feel
intimidating. We’re here to help get you started,
and to prove that Spotify is not the big, bad wolf
that many would make it out to be. Despite the
ongoing debate on appropriate payouts to artists,
this powerful platform is still a strong instrument
in your music career toolkit.

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 Why Stream At All?
Whether you like it or not,
streaming is here to stay. Unless
you’re already making your
money by other sources of
revenue, it would be very
difficult to ignore music
streaming altogether. It’s a
convenient (and endless) source
of music for your fans, even
though the payouts to rights
holder are controversial. 
Aside from Spotify, the top
streaming giants are YouTube,
Apple Music, and Google Play
Music with Tidal, and Amazon
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Music right behind them. Lower
in popularity, but still paying
out, are Pandora, Deezer, and
Napster. Spotify is the clear
winner when it comes to the
number of paid users with over
87.5 million listeners. YouTube
is in second place with over 50
million, and Apple Music has 36
million.
So, to answer the question of
why stream at all? Well, to sum
it all up, it’s guaranteed that’s
where your fans will most likely
find you!
Get Your Music
Ready for Spotify

Here’s a list of some of the

Step one: you need a song. Got one
recommended distributors and
already? Awesome! Don’t have a
labels from Spotify:
finished one yet? No worries, it
never hurts to read ahead and see Distrokid
what work you have to prepare for. CD Baby
Step two is getting a distributor to
help license and stream your EmuBands
music.  The Orchard
Why You Need a Distributor FUGA
Spotify doesn’t work directly with Believe
artists, but rather through
distributors and record labels. Absolute Label Services
They handle all the licensing and Danmark
distribution, and will be the
entities that pay your streaming AWAL
royalties. Depending on the National Digital Aggregator
contract you have with your
InnerCat Music Group
distributor, the amounts you
agreed on will be distributed from Uniqueopia GmbH
Spotify’s payments.
Redeye Worldwide
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How Much Does
Spotify Pay Per
Stream? The answer about any streaming platform’s
payout will differ between them. As of now,
Spotify on average pays about $0.006 to $0.0084
per stream to the “rights holder.” If you’re not
sure who that is, the “rights holder” can include
the record label, producer, songwriter, and the
artist. So when you take that tiny sliver per
stream, and split it up between everyone, it seems
like pittance. 

There are quite a few factors that determine

exactly how much you would get per stream:

Using the Spotify numbers for example, at

$0.0084 per stream, a song would need to be
played 120,000 times just to make around
$1,000. On another note, Spotify does payouts on
a quarterly basis, which could mean waiting a few
months to see your royalties.

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 Spotify Curated Playlists
This is the big Daddy, bread and
butter that could launch your
song instantly, but it can be a
gamble. Spotify Playlists are
curated by their staff editors,
usually based on a music genre
(such as New Pop or New
Country), an emotion (Songs for
Sad Days, Songs for Workouts),
or a special event happening
somewhere in the world (like
Christmas or Valentine’s Day).  up and keep submitting for the
It used to be totally random if
Spotify selected your music to
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premiere on one of these
playlists, but they recently
changed the rule so that artists
can submit unreleased tracks
ahead of time to be considered.
That’s a game-changer! The
gamble comes from crossing
your fingers after submission,
and hoping that they pick yours.
If it doesn’t happen, don’t give
future.
A Few Rules on
Playlist Submission

Straight from the Spotify website itself, here are some things to keep
in mind during submission:

• “Submitting a song doesn’t guarantee a playlist

placement, but gives it the best chance.”

• “You can submit one song per artist profile at a time.”

• “If a song has both an explicit and clean version, both

versions are submitted to our editors. Editors will
choose the most appropriate for a playlist.”

• “You can’t submit compilations.”

• “You can’t submit if you’re a featured artist on the

song.”

• “Our editors may choose to feature a different song

from your release on their playlist.”

• “There’s no set amount of time a song will stay on the

playlist - it depends how well it resonates with
listeners. You can’t remove yourself from a playlist.”