Are you strapped for time and need to cut to the chase? Here are the 12 best Spotify promotion services you should go check out immediately:
- Indie Music Academy
- Playlist Push
- YouGrow Promo
- Daimoon Media
- Omari MC
- Moonstrive Media
- Playlist Promotion
- Boost Collective
- SubmitHub
- Burstimo
- SoundCampaign
- Groover
But if you can spare a few minutes and stick around, I’ve reviewed each Spotify promotion service in detail to give your research a jump-start.
Before we dive in, it’s essential to remember…
Building an Audience on Spotify Requires Ample Patience & Perseverance
There’s no way to hurdle over the grind of slowly building your discography, brand, and following from the ground-up. And while the Spotify promotional services covered in this list offer legitimate stepping stones to creating your musical empire, rave results still aren’t going to show up overnight.
So, I advise you to approach Spotify promotion as a supplemental boost to your other music marketing initiatives. Be wary of leaning on promotional services too heavily because you’re still going to need organic growth to increase alongside paid promotions, especially if you’re looking to sustain your overall development over time.
With that said, you’re still looking for a return from the investments you funnel into Spotify promotions. Keep in mind that no two services are exactly alike, each boasting unique timelines for anticipated results and service-scopes scattered across the map.
Now that we’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, let’s plunge into the deep end of the twelve best Spotify promotion services:
1. Indie Music Academy
Topping our list is Indie Music Academy’s Spotify promotion service, for good reason: It’s dedicated toward providing the kind of actually-legitimate-organic playlist placements that drive healthy growth.
In other words: Real streams from real people.
Fun fact, I think Ryan Waczek (the founder of Indie Music Academy, above-average hair) was the first person to articulate what I’ve since used as a key factor for evaluating playlists. On his YouTube channel, he detailed how to tell the difference between playlists that rely on bot streams and playlists that are built on actual human streams – something I still use when evaluating playlist placements today.
(Long-story-short, bot streams aren’t spread out between desktop, mobile, and other sources. You can read about that here – definitely worthwhile info.)
Anyway, we’ve connected since then, and I trialed a campaign for one of my artists that generated 31,000 real streams in a month, which is the most streams I’ve seen in that span after running similar campaigns with ~12 different agencies. You can read my full review of the experience here, but the moral of the story is that the lists we were placed on had impressively high engagement.
Bottom line: Ryan is one of the people I trust the most when it comes to doing music marketing the right way. He runs personalized campaigns where he’ll pitch your music to playlists that he’s personally verified as legit.
If you’re looking to build streaming numbers via playlisting and want to make sure you really are getting organic numbers, Indie Music Academy is a top option, and Ryan’s a solid guy. The service starts at $297 for 10,000 guaranteed-real streams.
Give Indie Music Academy a try here.
2. Playlist Push
Playlist Push takes an interesting approach, offering Spotify promotion services for both playlist owners/curators and musicians looking for heightened exposure. Focusing on the musician side of their service suite, Playlist Push strategically pinpoints playlist curators that have the strongest chance to pick up your music.
At Two Story, we ran a $325, month-long campaign for a track and had very favorable results – 40,000 streams over the course of several months, thanks to continued organic and algorithmic growth. You can read the full review here.
And after combing through their nearly 500 reviews on Trustpilot (the most of any other company reviewed on this list), I found out that artists receive direct feedback from curators whether said curators pick up their music or not. This direct contact offers artists deeper insights into what curators are looking for and illuminates their decision-making process in a way that’ll help those artists land songs on playlists in the future. All in all, Playlist Push is widely-considered one of the legitimate players in the Spotify promotion space with endless positive testimonials and relatively affordable services (they initially ask whether you want to spend less/more than $300). Two thumbs up and worth your consideration.
(And two heads-ups – that link’s an affiliate link, and if you use the code CXUFDQ2 you’ll get 7.5% off your first campaign.)
To try a campaign with Playlist Push, click here.
3. YouGrow Promo
YouGrow has two main offerings: YouTube promotion and Spotify promotion. I can’t speak directly to their YouTube product (and this is an article on Spotify promo, anyway), but after working with their team on a Spotify streaming campaign, I’m confident to recommend these guys as another good option if you want to boost your streams on the platform. (And I did sign up to be an affiliate with them, so the link up there is an affiliate link.)
The first time I tried YouGrow, I ran a Bronze-level campaign (which is no longer an option) and the result was four placements that drove around 10,000 streams – really solid numbers. The biggest drawback was that a couple of the lists were just objectively strange; like, we got the track placed on a 2000s Throwbacks list alongside Usher and Lady Gaga. Our track was released in 2021 and was definitely not a 2000s throwback.
That said, Matt, who we worked with on the campaign, was upfront in noting the nature of the placements, and we had the option to remove the track from that weird list if we preferred. (We kept it, and it did generate real-person-non-bot streams.)
Most recently when I ran a campaign with YouGrow, I was even more impressed. I did this one from the front side of their site (so their team wasn’t hand-holding), and it ended up generating around 15,000 streams from two playlists for about $217. Both of our placements were broad fits, but I’d say they were both fits, and both of the playlists were healthy, too. You can read my full review of my YouGrow experience here. Overall, I was impressed.
Last note on these guys: They’re set up with “Buy” buttons, so make sure you pick the package you want before sending your money over. While I generally prefer consultations, Matt told me that YouGrow would never rinse someone of their promo budget if they didn’t feel like they could work with the song in their curator network.
To run a YouGrow campaign, click here.
4. Daimoon Media
Daimoon Media is a company that doesn’t feature the words “grow” or “playlist” in their name, which, in this space, is a bold move. Don’t worry, though – Daimoon Media does offer playlist pitching (in addition to YouTube promotion and Soundcloud promotion).
And, based on my experience trialing a campaign with them, they do playlist pitching very well.
Luka, who heads up business development for the company, reached out to me asking if I’d be interested in connecting and trying their service. We had a good conversation, and I ran a mid-level campaign for an electronic track that had been out for several months.
You can read the full review of the campaign here if you’d like.
Results-wise, the campaign was relatively successful. We were placed on six playlists totaling an impressive 212,464 followers; that translated into roughly 20,000 streams, and from what I could tell, those were legit. Playlists were primarily mood-based (one’s title was “House Chill Out Music 2021), with a few topical placements thrown in (like “After Soundtrack”), and each list tended to rank well in Spotify search. The song’s algorithmic status didn’t seem to be impacted by the project, for better or for worse.
Maybe the coolest part of the campaign, though, was the user interface for monitoring results. Daimoon Media has a portal that’s kind of similar to Playlist Push, albeit less complex. You can’t see curator feedback, but you do see which lists you’re pitched to, including rejections. It made the campaign very easy to track.
Overall, I’d recommend giving these guys a shot, especially if you’re making any kind of electronic music (they have a bunch of lists for that).
You can run a campaign with Daimoon Media here.
5. Omari MC
If you’ve ever googled “Spotify promotion”, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see Omari on this list of the top services – the guy is everywhere online, and having used his services personally, I can speak to the fact that it’s not an accident.
We’re an affiliate of Omari because he’s straightforward to work with, sets clear and realistic expectations from the get-go, and offers affordable packages that any musical artist would be comfortable approaching. Oh, and he does a great job of explaining how and why his services work.
Omari’s Spotify promotion service centers around optimal playlist placement to give your track(s) massive exposure jumps. So if getting your new single placed in multiple playlists with tens of thousands of followers sounds like a worthwhile endeavor, Omari might just be the service for you.
This customer review of Omari’s Spotify promotion service says it all:
“If Omari doesn’t think a song will do well with any of his marketing packages, he will tell you so, and he doesn’t build up unrealistic expectations. I haven’t got much money to spend on PR, so as I now go into my second round of Omari promotion, this expenditure shows that I’m convinced it will be worth my investment.”
If you want to read our in-depth review of our own experience running a Spotify campaign with Omari, click here. (It’s honest and detailed.)
To try a campaign with Omari yourself, click here.
6. Moonstrive Media
Moonstrive Media is one of the newer players in the Spotify promotion space (they’ve only been offering their service under this brandname for a couple of years), but that fact belies their experience. As Janik from the company notes, the team at Moonstrive has actually been resold by other playlisting companies for a while, thanks to the strength of their SEO-based playlist network.
And that’s the key value these guys offer: Moonstrive exclusively offers placement on SEO-built playlists.
The benefit of this approach is that it’s pretty much bot-proof. Plug in any of the playlists these guys work with and you’ll see that that’s the case – growth curves, without variance, are smooth slopes upward, and there’s absolutely no questionable data. It makes sense. Listeners search for something to listen to and find the top playlist results; it’s real, human activity, and it leads to lists that tend to be very healthy. The drawback is that high-volume keywords tend to be pretty broad, which makes genre relevance more difficult to nail down.
That said, the streams that Moonstrive Media drives are definitely legit.
I ran a 250k-follower campaign (meaning that the company guaranteed placements to playlists with a total of at least 250k followers), and found that the process was very straightforward. Placements started coming in immediately, and over a month, the promotion generated upwards of 25,000 streams. You can read the full review of the campaign here and see a detailed breakdown of our results.
If you’re interested in trying these guys, give it a shot at the link below, and use code “twostorymedia” to get 5% off of your campaign. (Heads-up, it’s an affiliate link.)
Try SEO-based playlist promotion with Moonstrive Media here.
7. Playlist Promotion
You’ve got to love the directness of the name Playlist Promotion. As you might expect, these guys focus on playlisting as a service. Their homepage notes that they have a network of over 3,000 playlists and a steadily-growing base of over 20 million followers.
Not too shabby.
And, based on the most recent campaign we ran with them, the results aren’t shabby, either.
Steven Schiller, the PR Manager at the company, asked if I’d trial their offering. I said yes and ran a campaign for a rock-pop track – and the results were really good. You can read the full review here. The high-level numbers: Our artist’s song was placed on 23 playlists totaling an incredible 1.5M+ followers. That translated to just short of 50,000 plays over the course of the following month, including some algorithmic growth.
One note: Our artist was from the US, but a few of the playlist placements we got were international, meaning that we might have a tough time translating those streams into fans who’ll be at shows (although the lists only featured English-language tracks).
But the streams are definitely legit. You can learn more about the Playlist Promotion team’s approach in this video, but the gist of it is that they partner with legitimate playlisters who care about building sustainable lists. They also review your music before running a campaign. That means you might be rejected, but it also means you can rest assured these guys won’t take your money and run. And, since I’m an affiliate with them, you can get $20 off your engagement with this code: 20off.
You can run a Playlist Promotion campaign here.
8. Boost Collective
Boost Collective is kind of an up-and-comer in this space. I’d bumped into their site a few times in the past few years and thought their model seemed interesting, so I decided to give their Spotify offering a shot.
The big pitch for Boost Collective is that they offer the tools to do lots of things in one place – like, everything from distribution, to mastering, to press / PR, to cover art creation, to, yeah, you know it, Spotify promotion. The agency works on a unique, credit-based model; basically, artists purchase credits, which can be spent on any of those services. As Ronan and Damian (the company’s co-founders) explained to me, it’s a way to offer bulk-pricing discounts and make things easier for artists.
Cool idea, and you can read my full review of it based on conversations with the co-founders here.
I didn’t reap the full benefits of the platform, because I just ran a Spotify promo campaign. But the results in that realm were solid.
I asked the Boost Collective team to run a campaign for a groove-blues track. They were able to garner placements on a range of lists with notable followings, with titles including “Bedroom Jams” and “New School Pop”. In total, placements brought in nearly 2,000 streams for the track – so, my artist isn’t quitting their day job to live on streaming revenue, but they did get a bump.
Also, in fairness, I don’t think my track was Boost’s sweet spot. When I sent it over, Damian noted that they could run with it, but asked if I had anything I wanted to run in the rap or EDM genres. I didn’t at the time. Still, I was satisfied with what we got, and if you are in rap or EDM, you’d likely do even better.
Click here to give Boost Collective a try.
9. SubmitHub
I’ll be honest, I’d rank SubmitHub higher, except that I still can’t quite bring myself to qualify it as a Spotify promotion service, which is what this article is ostensibly reviewing. I view it more as a tool than a service because it’s not done-for-you; it’s do-it-yourself.
But, semantics aside, SubmitHub definitely works, so I’m including it here.
If you haven’t heard of SubmitHub before, here’s the gist. The platform charges a small fee for submitting to curators (including Spotify playlisters, bloggers, and social media influencers). Curators are required to listen to your track and (if you check the right options) provide at least 10 words of feedback. According to platform averages, about 14% of submissions end up getting placed (i.e., added to playlists).
It’s worth noting that SubmitHub gets a bunch of hate, for a few reasons. First, the platform doesn’t guarantee results; they just guarantee your song will be listened to. I don’t have a problem with this (actually this model tends to be less scammy than guaranteeing plays), but it does make your investment a little risky. Second, the feedback you get from playlist curators is often pretty lame. Here’s an example from a campaign I just ran:
“This is a really hard sound to pull off and you guys are so close! I love how the track progressed and built in emotion. The intro itself could have been just a bit stronger to hook the listener in further.”
Uh, okay – next time we’ll make the intro “stronger,” I guess?
Anyway. If you can bear getting rejected (and hearing pretty lame feedback), the bottom line is that SubmitHub definitely works. Here’s our piece reviewing the platform in a lot more detail.
If you want to give it a shot yourself, click here (where you’ll get a 10%-off coupon on us).
10. Burstimo
Okay, now we’re getting down into companies I haven’t used personally – which is another way of saying, tread carefully.
But as far as first impressions go, Burstimo knocks them out of the park. Boasting a glowing Google Business Review of 4.9/5 stars, Burstimo carries an air of professionalism and efficacy that’s noticeable from interaction number one.
The Burstimo team will navigate the Artists for Spotify submission process, working closely with playlist curators and taste-makers to ensure the perfect placement of your tunes so you can reach audiences that’ll gobble your music up and ask for seconds.
The three words that bubble up to the surface most frequently when customers reflect on their experience with Burstimo are transparent, creative, and valuable. I highly recommend sifting through some of their recent reviews to catch a glimpse of the high-praise raining down on this remarkable Spotify promotion service. It’s staggering how many positive things people have to say about this company.
In terms of pricing, they’re on the more expensive end of the spectrum, but they’re known to deliver on their promises and steer clear of bot-driven playlists and empty metrics. That’s all you can ask for, given all of the landmines of sketchy services littering the music promotion landscape.
11. SoundCampaign
As the name suggests, this Spotify promotion service runs campaigns for sounds. Straightforward, right?
I’d heard about this company over the past few years; at one point their founder even reached out to me (although my email inbox is a black hole so it slipped through the cracks – sorry, Nadav).
But until very recently, I’d never tried them. As of May 2023, have – and while my campaign results were subpar, I can verify that SoundCampaign is a legitimate platform.
Their model is very similar to PlaylistPush: You submit your campaign via a portal, and your budget determines the number of playlist curators to which your song is sent. Personally, I spent about $150 to send a track to 18 curators, and ended up with placements on two playlists that drove around 200 streams.
Honestly, those numbers are fairly disappointing, especially on a cost-per-stream basis. But I’ve run enough campaigns on similarly-modeled platforms to know that results can vary greatly, so I think it’s possible that you could have a ton of success with these guys. At the very least, their process is streamlined and their playlists seem healthy.
You can read my full review of my campaign here. And if you want to take a shot at (what I think is) a high-ceiling playlisting model for yourself…
You can give SoundCampaign a try here.
12. Groover
Groover’s a newer player in the Spotify promotion space. The company was founded in 2018, but since then, they’ve made a name for themselves as one of the premier music-submission platforms, with an especially impressive presence in Europe.
As with SubmitHub, I was initially hesitant to qualify Groover as a service, seeing as they operate on a similar credit-based model. But, as before, I’ve decided to screw the semantics, because Groover just works.
Here’s how it works: Artists can directly choose which Spotify curators they want to submit to. Submissions cost two credits (called Grooviz), which is equal to €2 (roughly $2 as of 2023). There are plenty of Spotify curators on the platform, and if they approve your submission, they’ll put you in their playlist(s).
My personal experiences running Groover campaigns have been pretty solid. For the first one I tried, I spent about $75 to pitch a rock track to 40 curators. We ended up with 14 playlist placements. None of the playlists were huge individually – but, taken together, it was a respectable streaming boost, and totally lined up with their claims. Plus we got press coverage from our efforts, too. You can read my full review of that campaign here.
For my most recent campaign, I spent $288 to submit to about 130 curators. We ended up getting 20 placements, which so far have translated to a little short of 1,000 streams. As you can kind of tell by the numbers, none of these lists were huge, but most of them were decent genre fits.
If you’re interested in giving Groover a shot, you can do that here.
(And you can use the code TWOSTORYMELODYVIP to get a 10% discount.)
Bonus: Two Story Media
Okay, full disclosure – this is our own offering, so take what I’m about to write with a grain of salt (because the writer is probably biased). We run an agency called Two Story Media where we offer Spotify promotion, and I think we do it pretty well.
Our primary offering is different from the ones described above in that, instead of focusing on playlist pitching, we’re running targeted ad campaigns on Instagram and Facebook. The upside of this approach is that we’re able to generate engaged streams from people who have actually demonstrated an interest in your music.
Ads aren’t necessarily for everyone; I actually think playlisting can be more cost-efficient, but I also think it’s inherently more risky (and I break why both of those things are true on the sales page).
You can click here to see how it works and apply to run a campaign.
Double Bonus: Two Free Platforms
Let’s end with a couple of free options, in case you’re not ready to put down money (which is understandable). Note: While you can get placements with the services below, I’ve been told that many of the lists on free services get few if any streams; I think that it’s probably because, for curators, the incentives for building healthy lists aren’t as strong (and some curators may even be trying to use these platforms as stepping stones to paid networks).
Worth being aware of, but doesn’t mean submission isn’t worth it.
Soundplate
Soundplate is a slightly different Spotify promotion opportunity than every other feature on this list. The most glaring difference is it’s free and takes a do-it-yourself approach. With Soundplate, you submit your tracks to playlists and wait for the playlist curators to give you the big thumbs up or down. It’s worth mentioning that your tracks aren’t guaranteed to land on the playlists to which you submit. If you take the bulk-approach and submit to a bunch of viable playlists, chances are your tracks will safely arrive on at least a few well-trafficked playlists.
But be warned: this service is free, and for a few good reasons. Soundplate doesn’t offer any guidance, support, or consultation if you decide to use their platform. The submission process is also known to be clunky at times. But if your goal is to get your tracks placed on playlists to boost your Spotify play and view counts, then you should at least give Soundplate a good ole’ college try.
Daily Playlists
What better way to end our list of the best Spotify promotion services than with another free, easy-to-use playlist submission service? Well, I couldn’t think of a better way, so here we are!
Daily Playlists takes a comparative approach to Soundplate when it comes to putting your tracks in a position to succeed. Simply add your song’s Spotify URL, manually select the multiple playlists you want to submit to, and follow those playlists to finalize your submissions.
It’s free, painless, and may just result in additional plays, followers, and all-around exposure.
A Word of Warning: Be Careful with Spotify Promotion
As we wrap up our list of recommended services, I want to close with a word of warning: The sad truth is that, while we’ve tried to comb through the schtick as best as we can, there are some slimy Spotify promotion companies out there. As you probably know, a subsection of promo companies rely on bots and click farms to drive streams; in early 2021, those services likely contributed to a bunch of songs being de-listed from Spotify. Be careful. Even worse, there are some pages set up that will take your money and deliver nothing.
Here’s a quick recommendation: Don’t pay for a service until you’ve had communication with that service. Make sure you hear back from a person before you send them your money.
With that in mind, I want to offer a few more specific warnings. An initial version of this list included a few additional Spotify promotion services, but based on feedback from artists, we no longer feel comfortable recommending the following services:
SpotiPromo
We initially had SpotiPromo in the sixth spot, based on research we were able to do at the time. If you click over to their site, you’ll see why – they look slick, they offer geo-targeting, and they have a wealth of seemingly-real reviews. But I’ve since gotten a few emails like the one below:
I bought a package from them 3 weeks ago, but it seems to be a fake as still no results and they haven’t replied to my 6 emails to all their emails, fb and insta page.
So, with that said, please be cautious about working with this service.
Artist Push
An earlier version of this article also listed Artist Push, but I’ve gotten multiple comments suggesting that they’ve failed to deliver on campaigns (see below ha). I haven’t had personal experience with this company, but based on what I’ve heard, I’d say proceed with caution – probably get in touch with someone before paying, at least.
Artist Sounds
I’ve only gotten one email criticizing Artist Sounds, but that’s still too much for me to recommend them as a service. If you’ve had a similar (or a different and more positive) experience with this company, reach out and let me know.
Final Thoughts
Otherwise, while all twelve services on the list above are worth your time and consideration, a few of them rise above the rest. We personally vouch for these five services – we’ve used them, plus they all have some combination of stellar reviews, proven results, and streamlined user-experiences:
(You’ll see some overlap here with the general music promotion services we recommend.)
And speaking of the first company on that list, Indie Music Academy, here’s a final shameless plug for them. We’re proudly biased, but that’s only because Ryan’s the real deal.
33 Responses
Thank you great information
Thank you, we were trying to sort out spotify and this helped.
I find it funny that you claim Playlist Push and Indie Music Academy are legit, meanwhile Indie Music Academy specifically points to Playlist Push being no good/bot streams.
Hey Andrew, where have you heard Ryan say Playlist Push uses bot streams? On his landing page he writes Playlist Push and SubmitHub “fall short”, but that’s a long way from saying the streams aren’t real. In my experience, they are.
Based on campaigns I’ve run, their playlist curator network is legitimate, but their submission process is really automated, so there’s a good bit of variance to the results. Wouldn’t be surprised if he ran a disappointing campaign, but I would be surprised if he got bot streams from them.
Thanks for all this info.
Lost of these look really great – your top 5 in particular.
Indiefy, Online Music Promotion, Songlifty and Artist Push look dodgy to me. Literally using the language “buy plays”. I’d avoid these.
Yeah, fair call! Definitely dig into the service (and ideally communicate expectations with the owner) for yourself before putting money in.
Thanks Jon, this helped me a lot to finde the best spotify promotion service for my niche!
Thanks for this list. Been seeking reputable services and have tried Playlist Push in the past with some success. Their prices skyrocketed, so I haven’t used in over a year.
I just ran campaigns through 9 and 11 on your list (Artist Push and Online Music Promotion). They’re still in motion, but based on early returns, I highly recommend OMP and discourage anyone from hiring Artist Push.
Why? OMP has delivered close to 1100 streams in 48 hours, from close to 1100 people. AP has delivered about the same number of streams….all from less than 50 listeners. Really hoping Spotify doesn’t flag my account for that one. It looks suspicious to me, so it will to them.
Thanks for sharing, Aronim. I’m going to note that in the article.
Thanks for making a list. It would be better if you also talked about the pricing. For example playlist-promotion.com doesn’t list their price on their site. Your review would be more interesting adding these notes. Most prices seam to start around $250. That might be too much for someone who wants to start testing these services. I found omarimc.com rather rude. It looks like he wants people to serve him. It is confusing with him selling his own coins. Surreal. The price is 77$ for 500 plays which is too much.
Fair point on pricing – I’ll make a note to add that in soon.
Yeah, Omari got into the crypto scene last year. I kind of agree that the push for paying in crypto is a little disconcerting (I find the sales page a little distracting). But he’s betting it’ll pay off over the next few years. Definitely on the cutting edge.
Here is another one that I found but still haven’t used. It costs 65$ and has good 50+ reviews on trustpilot https://artistrack.com/spotify-playlist-promotion/ Any opinions on them?
Hey Dario, haven’t heard of them (there are so many companies in this space), but open to trying them out and seeing what results are like.
I just wanted to ask folks if they had any experience with Musicvertising.com? I’ve used them for 3 months. The results seemed very promising. 25k stream, 120 playlist adds, 3K plus followers. Once I receive my royalty data from CDBaby who do my distribution and collection I saw that I was being paid zero for all the plays. How come? Surely some of the plays would be legit. I’m waiting to hear back from them to see what they say. Do I ask Spotify about this? Any help much appreciated. Markus from Tenderhooks
No, I haven’t used them. Streaming thing is weird, but it could be on CD Baby’s end.
I’d try plugging the playlists they placed you on into Chartmetric and seeing if the lists had any weird follower spikes. A sharp dip in followers, IMO, is the #1 sign that a playlist is botted – it’s basically Spotify removing a bunch of accounts at once.
So, what Musicvertising.com said?
I consider Musicvertising.com and your review is useful.
I’m actually going to try musicvertising.com in the next month or two, and I’ll be updating the post based on the results.
I’ve used Submit hub a few times and I have to agree that yes, your song will get heard by real people and they will respond to you since they are required to do so. But don’t expect anything more than just getting feedback from a non-musician about what they did or (in most likely cases) didn’t like about your song. These people are mostly bloggers- despite calling themselves “Labels” or “Magazines”, and they have their own little fiefdoms that they are proud of. And definitely don’t think that because someone says your song doesn’t have a strong enough hook or compelling lyrics, that you should take it as serious critical critique. Before submitting to anyone, try and find their website or social media pages first, and see what they are actually up to and if their own numbers are actually legit. Submit HUB is pretty cheap, but for my money, it’s not cheap enough for what you get in return.
Oh man, definitely agree on the fact that you shouldn’t take SubmitHub feedback as worth anything. It’s not worth anything. (And I’m on SubmitHub as a curator ha.)
As far as whether or not SH is worth it – I’ve had a really wide range of results. Had a campaign the other month that got 30k+ streams for like $20; we got on an alexrainbird playlist and it was great. I’ve had plenty of other campaigns where I’ve paid $100 and gotten virtually nothing. Definitely hit or miss.
I discovered SongLifty in this list, and I’m quite surprised you took them out… I’ve been using it for over a year on my new releases, and results have been fantastic. Customer support is great, and I even get pushed by Spotify’s Algorithmic Playlists every time I order.
Yeah, we had them on there for awhile, but I had multiple people reaching out to say they weren’t getting good results. I’d be up for revisiting them in the future, though. One thing we’re learning is that this field is hugely variable – results / companies are changing all the time.
Thanks, Jon . . . I appreciate the insight and recommendations. Will save me a lot of time in trying to figure this out myself! One question – is there overlap between these services as to the playlists they approach? Is it worth sending the same song to two or three of these services, or will the costs and efforts be redundant?
Hey Ron! Yeah, there definitely is some overlap. I’d say, if you’re going to run campaigns with multiple companies, ask to see which playlists you’ll be pitched to. If the same playlists turn up multiple times, pick the company you feel best about. It’s probably not worth it to pay to double-pitch.
Hi John,
I used your research and tried out some of the services listed. Indie Music Academy is legit, however they couldn’t help me with my style of music (RnB/Pop), but I was refunded in full. YouGrow Promo is legit and was able to playlist one of my songs, but the other didn’t make it and they refunded me promptly. I started with the lowest plan just to try it out and the playlist they put me on was really good. I got quiet a bit of streams, some saves and playlist adds. I also tried out their YouTube promo, but I wasn’t as impressed with that and I would say for me stick with the Spotify promo. Further down the list I tried Artist Push and I highly recommend you remove them from this article. I paid for a Spotify playlist placement. They delivered…but, it was completely BOTTED traffic. I got 2000 plays only from one person in Finland! Then I looked at the person’s profile that owned that playlist and it was full of bots. It caused my “other” category to spike really high also. I asked them twice to remove my song, they refused and gave me the runaround. Of course they refused to give me my money back also. So please do not recommend them at all. Burstimo seemed cool but out of my price range (around 5k). I haven’t tried anyone else, but that’s my take on these playlisters. I think I will stick with YouGrow promo and my fb/ig ads to continue my growth. I appreciate this article though. Wanted to show others who is good and who to avoid.
Thanks, Nycole! Updating the post with that info.
Jon, what can you tell us about Playlist Radar? Thank you!
Not a bad option for finding curators yourself! I’d consider them a tool more than a service, though. I actually wrote a post on this: https://twostorymelody.com/find-spotify-playlist-curator-tools/
I’m not sure about all reviews. I tried a lot and I can day a few of them deliver bots only.
I will keep the respect for everybody not to call out names. But 5 of the names on this website are not Legit.
Others I am using as well + I’m using the Spotify pitch services of HB Agency.
They are in the game since 2010 and do also work for major artists and labels and are very open in results.
I found them dedicated Legit and Organic in results.
For me one of the best to work with and affordable offers.
Hey Fiso, feel free to share the companies you think provide bots. I’ve tried all of these services personally, which is why they’re on the list. But I know things can change quickly in the Spotify world.
Where is Partnered Projects? I thought they were like the go-to for playlist promo. We’ve been using them a long time now. Are we the only ones who knows about this hidden gem? lol
I’m actually about to add them ha. Just tried a campaign with them for the first time and was really impressed.
Some of these won’t allow you submit “Explicit” songs. I just don’t exactly know where the line between clean and explicit is. If my song uses the word “Damn” once and talks briefly about “drinking hard”, is that considered explicit?
I think if all you’re just saying “damn” and referencing “drinking hard,” you’re probably okay. Google “Parental Advisory Standards” – it’s kind of blurry, but basically, you get to determine if your song is explicit or not.
As far as playlisting, I’d just try submitting to the company you’d most like to work with – they can determine if it meets their standards or not.