How Many Spotify Playlists Should You Submit Your Song To?

As many as genuinely fit your track, which for most releases is somewhere between a handful and about twenty. Past that point every extra submission costs you money or time and lowers your odds per pitch. The bigger problem is the question itself: when you're counting submissions, you're paying for attempts, and there's a better way to spend the same money.

Why the real list is short

A playlist fits your track when its listeners would enjoy your track sitting between the ones already there. Genre is only the start. Subgenre, mood, energy, tempo, production style, and the music already on the playlist decide the rest, and so does whether the playlist is active and has real listeners.

Filter a genre down that far and the pool shrinks fast. A broadly accessible pop track fits a lot of playlists. A specific subgenre might have a dozen real candidates. If twelve playlists genuinely fit your track, sending it to two hundred just adds a hundred and eighty-eight submissions that were never going to land.

What each extra submission costs

Most submission platforms charge per curator or spend credits per pitch, so the model quietly rewards volume. That model isn't compliant with Spotify's rules either: they don't allow charging for placements, or even for considering a track for one, and it's the artist who carries the risk. Every badly targeted submission still costs something: money, credits, or the hour you spent picking the playlist.

On a typical pitching platform, $150 buys submissions to about fifteen curators, so each one costs around $10. Send your track to forty playlists and that's $400. If fifteen of those playlists genuinely fit, $250 went on submissions that were never realistic, before you count the evenings spent building the list. And a list of genuine fits has to be rebuilt for every release, because every track fits a slightly different set of playlists.

Why a longer list lowers your odds

Your first twenty playlists are usually the ones that genuinely suit you. The next eighty come from broader searches, and curators decline a track they liked when it doesn't suit their playlist. Mass submissions also read as mass submissions, and they get shorter listens.

So the acceptance rate drops as the list grows, and two hundred silent declines tell you what twenty would have, at ten times the cost. Why your playlist pitches aren't getting placements goes through where submissions get stopped.

Several fitting playlists beat one big one

Artists fixate on landing one large playlist, but discovery doesn't need a single source. Several fitting playlists put your track in front of different pockets of real listeners, and none of the outcome rides on one curator's week.

Follower count is a weak guide to size, too. A playlist with a few thousand engaged listeners in your exact genre does more for a track than a huge general one that sends almost nobody. Are small Spotify playlists worth it covers why.

The curator's side of mass submission

Mass submission fills curators' inboxes with music that was never going to fit their playlists. On pay-per-pitch platforms they get a few dollars per review, and they spend whole afternoons deleting tracks that were never going to suit their listeners. That's a big part of why good curators get slower to answer, and why so many declines read as rushed.

One campaign, no submission list

On Soundmango there's no number to pick. You start a campaign, set the genres and minimum follower count you want, see the price, and pay once. Your track only goes to curators who run vetted playlists that fit. When one passes, it goes to the next fitting curator, and that keeps happening until one takes on your campaign.

Approved tracks have an estimated 99% chance of landing on at least one playlist. If no curator takes it on, you get every cent back. Curators hear only tracks that suit their playlists, so their time goes on music worth their attention, and you skip building the list altogether.

Frequently asked questions

Should I submit my track to as many Spotify playlists as possible?

No. Past the playlists that genuinely fit, every submission costs money or time and lowers your acceptance rate. Curators also learn to skip artists who send them music that doesn't fit.

Is there an ideal number of playlists to submit to?

No, there's no universal number. It depends on your genre and how specific your sound is. For most releases the genuine fits run from a handful to about twenty.

Is it better to target one big playlist or several smaller ones?

Several smaller ones, usually. A few fitting playlists with real listeners reach more of the right people than one large mismatch, whatever the follower counts suggest.

How many placements should I expect from submitting to playlists?

Nobody knows a reliable number, because no one publishes one and results swing a lot by genre. Work out your own acceptance rate from your last release instead: placements divided by submissions.

Do I have to choose playlists myself on Soundmango?

No. You set the genres and minimum follower count you want, and your track only goes to curators whose vetted playlists fit.

Skip the list

Set the kind of playlist you want once, pay once, and your track goes to curators who run real playlists in your genre until one of them takes on your campaign. Approved tracks have an estimated 99% chance of landing on at least one playlist. Start your campaign.