Does Spotify Pay Playlist Curators?

No. Spotify pays for streams, and that money goes to the people who own the music: the label or distributor behind the recording, and the publisher behind the composition. A playlist owner gets none of it, however many people follow the playlist and however long they listen. A curator's income has to come from somewhere else, and there's a right way and a wrong way to get it.

Where the money from a stream goes

When someone plays a track on your playlist, Spotify counts a stream for that track. The money from that stream goes to the rights holders behind the recording and the composition.

The playlist that brought the listener there isn't part of that calculation at all. Spotify pays for the music, and your playlist is the route listeners took to reach it.

What about Spotify's own editorial playlists?

The big genre and mood playlists are built by Spotify's in-house editors, who are Spotify employees on a salary. That's a job at a music company, and it has nothing to do with how user playlists work. Algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly and Release Radar are built by Spotify's systems, so there's nobody to pay there either.

Where a curator's income comes from

Since Spotify pays nothing, every dollar a curator earns comes from outside Spotify:

• Artists paying for marketing around their track. A feature or a promotional post. The marketing is what gets paid for, and the playlist decision stays yours.
• Sponsorship, once you have an audience you can show a brand.
• Your own products, such as a newsletter, a Patreon, or merch.

The one thing you can't sell is a spot on the tracklist. Spotify's User Guidelines ban accepting any compensation to influence what goes on a playlist, and a playlist that sells its spots soon loses the listeners who made it worth anything. How to monetize your playlist within Spotify's rules covers exactly where that line sits.

The old way: a few dollars per review

The route most curators find first is a submission platform. Artists pay to send you their track, you listen and write a response, and you get a few dollars for each one. It pays, technically. It also runs on something Spotify's rules don't allow, charging artists to have a track considered for a playlist, which puts the playlists taking part at risk. And it means whole afternoons spent on tracks that mostly don't fit your playlist, for a rate that barely covers the listening, and most curators burn out on it within months.

What this means for how you build your playlist

Because Spotify pays nothing, your playlist's value is the audience you built and the trust behind it. Two things follow from that.

Bought followers buy you nothing. There's no stream payout to inflate, and artists can see in Spotify for Artists exactly how many listeners your playlist sent them. A padded count gets found out fast.

A small, real playlist beats a big, empty one. A focused playlist with a few thousand people who listen every week is worth far more to artists than a general one with a hundred thousand followers who forgot it exists.

Getting paid for the playlist you already run

On Soundmango, artists in your genre come to you. Each campaign opportunity is a track that already fits your playlist, with the earnings shown up front. You listen first, and when you like what you hear, you take on the campaign. It takes a few minutes: you rate the track and publish a post we've already drafted. What goes on your playlist stays your call, and adding a track pays nothing either way. One campaign earns you more than an afternoon of per-review listening, and your earnings are paid out automatically every month. Start earning from your playlist.

Frequently asked questions

Does Spotify pay you for having a popular playlist?

No, at any size. There's no follower count that starts a payment, because there's no payment to start.

Do playlist owners get royalties?

No. Royalties go to the rights holders: the label or distributor behind the recording, and the publisher behind the composition.

How do big playlist curators make money, then?

From artists and brands. They're paid for promotion work and sponsorship, and the large independent playlist networks run on exactly that. How much Spotify playlist curators make covers what moves the number.

Is Spotify likely to start paying curators?

There's no sign of it. Nothing has been announced, so build on what exists today: an audience you own and artists who trust your taste.

Get paid by the people who benefit

Spotify pays you nothing for the audience you built, but the artists you put in front of it are glad to. On Soundmango, tracks that fit your playlist come to you, you're paid for the campaigns you take on, and the playlist stays entirely yours. Join Soundmango as a curator.