How to Compare Spotify Playlist Promotion Services

Compare Spotify playlist promotion services on what you get back for your money. The price comes second. Seven questions sort almost every service in a few minutes, and the first two do most of the work: what exactly am I paying for, and what happens if nothing comes of it? Most services on the market run the old pay-to-pitch model, and these questions show that quickly.

1. What exactly am I paying for?

Playlist promotion gets sold under one name as several different products. Ask which one is on the invoice:

• Sends. Your track gets delivered to a list of curators, and the service has done its job at that moment. This is what most pitching and submission platforms sell, and around $150 typically buys about 15 of them.
• Listens and replies. A curator hears your track and writes back, whatever they decide. Useful when the reply is thoughtful, and often it's two generic lines.
• Promotion around the track. Written coverage, posts, or other content that puts your track in front of an audience.
• The placement itself. Your track goes on a playlist in exchange for the payment. Spotify says services offering guaranteed placement for money break its terms, so this one is a risk to your release.
• Manufactured numbers. Streams or followers generated by software, often sold as "organic promotion" with a promised count. This one can get your release pulled.

Artists who feel burned by promotion almost always bought sends and expected a placement. The risks of buying Spotify playlist placements covers the last two in detail.

2. What happens if nothing comes of it?

This is the question that sorts the market. On pay-to-pitch platforms the answer is nothing: the curators keep the money whatever they decide, and a campaign that produced no playlists costs exactly as much as one that did.

A good answer puts some of the risk on the service. Your money comes back when they can't deliver what they sold.

3. Who hears my track, and are their playlists real?

Ask how the service decides which curators hear your track, and whether it checks that the playlists have real listeners. A service that can't say is sending your track to whoever is on its list.

Then check a few playlists yourself. Recent updates, tracks that sound like they belong together, and growth that looks natural are good signs. How to spot fake Spotify playlists walks through the checks.

4. Do you promise any numbers?

The right answer is no. Nobody honest can promise a stream count or a follower count, because real listeners decide what they play. A promised number usually means the numbers are manufactured.

5. Do curators decide freely?

They should. A curator adding your track has to be their own choice, and adding it should never change what they're paid. That's part of what keeps a campaign within Spotify's rules and what keeps the playlist worth being on.

6. How much of the work is still mine?

Many services leave the hard part with you: picking the playlists, writing the pitch, following up, and doing it all again next release. Count those hours as part of the price. For most independent artists, the time costs more than the fee.

7. What will I be able to see afterward?

You should be able to check the result yourself. In Spotify for Artists, under Music and then Playlists, you can see the playlists your track is on and how many listeners each one sent. A service whose results you can't see there is asking you to take its word for it.

Score them side by side

Write the seven questions down the side of a page and each service across the top. Mark each answer as clear, vague, or bad. A service with a vague answer to question 1 or a bad answer to question 2 is off the list, whatever the price.

When you run the pay-to-pitch model through this, it falls at the first two questions. You're paying for sends, and when nothing comes of it, you've still paid. It isn't compliant with Spotify's rules either: they don't allow charging for placements, or even for considering a track for placement, and you're the one who carries that risk.

How Soundmango answers them

1. What you pay for: a campaign, at one price, taken on by a curator who runs a playlist in your genre.
2. If nothing comes of it: if no curator takes on your campaign, you get every cent back.
3. Who hears it: only curators whose playlists fit the genres and minimum follower count you chose, and every playlist on Soundmango is vetted.
4. Numbers: none promised. Approved tracks have an estimated 99% chance of landing on at least one playlist, and we always call it an estimate.
5. Curators decide: always. What goes on their playlist is their call, and it never changes what they're paid.
6. Your work: you start a campaign, see one price, and pay once. Your track keeps going to the next fitting curator until one takes on your campaign.
7. What you see: any playlist that adds your track shows up in your Spotify for Artists.

Frequently asked questions

Are reviews of promotion services reliable?

Partly. Reviews tell you whether a service delivered what it sold, which is useful, but most were written by artists who bought sends. Use the seven questions to work out what the service actually sells.

Should I try several services at once?

No. Running two at once on the same release makes it impossible to tell which one did anything. Try one per release and compare them on the same numbers.

Is a more expensive service better?

Not by itself. A higher price is worth paying only when it buys something the cheaper one doesn't, such as real results or your money back. How much Spotify playlist promotion should cost has the numbers.

What's the single most useful question to ask?

"What happens if nothing comes of it?" The answer tells you who carries the risk, and on the old model it's always you.

Pick the one that carries the risk

Stop paying for sends. On Soundmango you pay one price, your track reaches curators who run real playlists in your genre until one takes on your campaign, with an estimated 99% chance of landing on a playlist. If no curator takes it on, your money comes back. Start your first campaign.