How to Spot Fake Spotify Playlists

You spot a fake Spotify playlist by checking whether real people listen to it, and the follower count is the one number that can't tell you. Followers can be bought in an afternoon. What's much harder to fake is a playlist that someone clearly curates, full of artists with real careers, where the recently added tracks have play counts that fit its size. Here's how to check all of that in about ten minutes, before you pitch or pay anyone.

Why a fake playlist is worse than no playlist

A playlist with no real listeners does nothing for your track, and a playlist run by bots can actively hurt it. Spotify defines artificial streaming as streams that don't reflect a real listener choosing to play, including bots and scripts. When it finds them, Spotify's guide to artificial streaming says it can withhold the royalties, correct the public stream counts, and remove the track from playlists. In flagrant or repeated cases, distributors can suspend your account, and Spotify charges labels and distributors a fee per track.

Bots also never save your track, follow you, or come back next week, so even when nobody gets caught, the streams lead nowhere.

Where fake playlist offers come from

Most offers for a spot on a fake playlist arrive the same few ways: a stranger in your Instagram messages offering a guaranteed placement for a flat fee, a reply to your post in a Facebook group selling "submission slots", or a swap group where everyone adds everyone else's tracks and nobody listens.

Spotify is clear on these. The same guide says any service offering guaranteed placement on Spotify playlists in exchange for money breaks Spotify's terms. Independent curators do sometimes reach out to artists, and plenty of them run great playlists, but a real curator listens first and decides for themselves. A guaranteed result at a fixed price is the giveaway.

Eight checks before you pitch or pay

1. The offer guarantees something

A set number of streams, a guaranteed placement, or results promised before anyone has heard your track. Real listeners can't be promised in units, so anyone promising them is either lying or supplying bots.

2. The follower count doesn't match the tracklist

Open the playlist and compare its size with its length. A playlist with 50,000 followers and 15 tracks was built for looks, since a curator who adds tracks regularly ends up with far more than that over time.

3. The newest tracks barely get played

This is the check that tells you the most. Open the five most recently added tracks and look at the play count Spotify shows on each track's release page. A track that has sat on a 50,000-follower playlist for a month and still has a tiny play count tells you almost nobody is listening. Five recent additions show you how the playlist runs today, which matters more than its history.

4. The other artists have no history

Look up a handful of artists on the playlist. Real artists have a profile picture, other releases, and some presence outside Spotify. A playlist stacked with artists who each have one track and nothing else is usually selling positions.

5. The tracks don't belong together

Play six or seven tracks in a row. If they share a mood, a tempo range, or a genre, somebody is curating. If they sound like forty unrelated submissions dropped in the order they were paid for, nobody is.

6. Nothing has been added for months

Check the dates on the most recent additions. A playlist that stopped changing months ago usually means nobody's home, and its listeners left with the curator.

7. The follower count jumped overnight

Spotify doesn't show a playlist's follower history, but several third-party playlist analytics sites do. A big jump with no release, no press, and no obvious reason is a bought batch.

8. The curator never says no

Anyone who will add anything for money has stopped curating. Their listeners left a long time ago, if they were ever there.

When the signals are mixed, trust the ones that are hard to fake. A coherent tracklist built over months takes real work. A follower count or a stream number can be bought in an afternoon.

Running these checks on every playlist that pitches you costs an evening each time, and you still only see what's visible from outside. Every playlist on Soundmango is vetted before it's listed and keeps getting checked for as long as it stays listed, so when you start a campaign, your track only goes to curators whose playlists have real listeners behind them.

A worked example

Say you're choosing between two lo-fi hip hop playlists. The first has 22,000 followers, adds four or five tracks a week, and each of its recent additions has a few thousand plays. The second has 85,000 followers, added nothing in the last two months, and its last ten tracks barely have any plays, from artists with no other releases.

The bigger number belongs to the playlist that's far less likely to do anything for you. The first one has an audience. The second has a number somebody bought once and stopped touching.

How to check a placement after the fact

If your track is already on a playlist and you want to know whether its listeners are real, Spotify for Artists shows you two useful things.

Go to Music, then Playlists, to see the playlists your music is on and how many listeners each one sent. A playlist only appears once it has sent at least 3 listeners, according to Spotify's guide to seeing the playlists you're added to. A playlist with tens of thousands of followers that added you weeks ago and still isn't there has almost nobody listening.

Then open your track and go to Segmentation, then Source of streams. It splits your streams into sources, including "Other listeners' playlists" and "Listener's own playlists and library", and you can switch the view to streams per listener, as Spotify's source of streams guide explains. A real placement brings listeners from other people's playlists, and over the following weeks some of them start playing you from their own library. A bot playlist brings a flat, even spike, an unusually high number of streams per listener, and nothing in your own library sources afterward.

What to do if your track lands on a fake playlist

• Tell your distributor. Spotify's guide asks artists to share how they promoted the track with their distributor or label, so they have the whole picture if the streams get flagged.
• Report the playlist to Spotify. The same guide points to Spotify's tool for reporting suspicious playlists.
• Stop using whatever service or contact put you there, and never buy more streams to cover it up. More artificial activity only gives Spotify a bigger pattern to find.
• Keep the message or listing that got you there. If you paid through a service with buyer protection, you'll need that record to dispute the charge.

Frequently asked questions

How can I tell if a Spotify playlist uses bots?

By the pattern, since no single public number proves it. A guarantee in the offer, a follower count out of line with the tracklist, recent additions with tiny play counts, and artists with no history together make a strong case.

Can a fake playlist get my music removed from Spotify?

Yes, in serious cases. Spotify can withhold royalties, correct stream counts, pull the track from playlists, and remove manipulated content, and distributors can suspend accounts in flagrant or repeated cases.

What if a bot playlist added my track without my asking?

Tell your distributor right away and report the playlist to Spotify. Artificial streams can affect your track whoever caused them, and a record that you acted quickly helps if the streams get flagged.

Are big Spotify playlists more likely to be fake?

No, size tells you nothing either way. Plenty of large playlists are real, built one addition at a time over years, and a big follower count is also the easiest number to buy.

Can a small playlist be better for my track than a big one?

Yes, often. A few thousand engaged listeners in your exact genre are worth far more than a large audience that stopped listening years ago. There's more in do Spotify playlist followers matter.

How long does it take to check a playlist?

About ten minutes: five minutes of listening, and a few more to look at the recent additions and the artists behind them.

Real playlists, already checked

Every playlist on Soundmango has real listeners, checked before it's listed and kept checked after. Your track only goes to curators who run one in your genre, until one of them takes on your campaign, and approved tracks have an estimated 99% chance of landing on at least one playlist. Start a campaign for your next release.