Spotify now allows artists and label accounts to pitch upcoming music releases directly to Spotify’s team of playlist editors. This service is completely free, and has the opportunity of landing your song placement on one of Spotify’s several curated playlists, as well as large aggregated playlists that feature on the platform. To get your music release submitted to Spotify Editors, follow these steps:

Use Spotify for Artists to pitch an upcoming, unreleased song to our playlist editors. Spotify will also add your pitched song to your followers’ Release Radar playlists.

• Log in to Spotify for Artists.
• Find unreleased music to pitch:
• At the top of Home, select PITCH FROM NEXT RELEASE.
• On web, you can also pitch from the Music tab under UPCOMING.

Important info about pitching music:

• Get your music in early so our editors have time to listen
• See the status Available Soon? We’re still processing your release (it can take a few days until it’s ready to pitch)
• You can’t pitch compilations
• You can’t pitch if you’re a featured artist on the song
• Our editors might pick a different song from your release on their playlist
• Anyone with Admin or Editor access can see and edit the pitch
• You can edit your pitch up to release day, but there’s no guarantee our editors will see the changes

How to know if your song gets picked

We’ll email you if your song gets picked. You can also check the Playlists tab in Spotify for Artists when your release goes live and explore detailed stats about it.

Pitching doesn’t guarantee playlist placement. If your song doesn’t get picked, it may still get discovered later. Stay on our editors’ radar by building your fanbase and engaging with your audience on Spotify and beyond.

SubmitHub is a website which allows independent music creators and curators to be connected with new music, and in turn gain traction around their promoted releases. SubmitHub features a list of over 2000 registered blogs, playlists, radio-hosts, and social media influencers. Via this network, users are able to pitch their release to specifically targeted curators based on factors such as genre, mood, sub-genre, platform, etc. Submit Hub features both a free-to-use and premium functionality, in the form of “standard” or “premium” credits which are used to pay for submissions. This accessibility for the site does mean that for the best results, users are encouraged to buy premium credits: Premium credits ensure at-least 20seconds of your track will be heard, and ten words minimum feedback will be given as well. There is also the option to change the listening time to 90 seconds and forego the feedback, however, current insights suggest that the former option is more successful.

For a quick guide to pitching to Submit Hub follow the steps below:

1.      Create Account and upload song via either a streaming link or an MP3.

2.      Select whether to use standard or premium credits

3.      Select who you want to submit to: blogs, radio, Twitch, playlists, or influencers

4.      Sort by Genre, amount of listeners, response rate.

5.      Analyse the results. Await feedback/responses

3. Pitch via Streaming Distributors

Most streaming distributors will offer playlist pitching in their services when it comes to uploading your music to streaming platforms. International distributors such as DistroKid and TuneCore offer this service, as well as some local services such as GYROstream (based out of Brisbane, Australia) and Ditto, which is a worldwide company but has an office in Melbourne. This method of pitching doesn’t give artists the same level of control over who they are pitching to, and what their pitch contains in terms of descriptions, key-words, and etc., however, it is highly advised that users pitch via their distribution services as well as the above two options.

Pitching via your distribution service means that your particular service will have their own network of curators and platforms, and it is guaranteed that they will have their own criteria for what will be selected. To give yourself the best chance of being selected for playlist pitching, it is recommended that users customize their Spotify for Artists profile, as well as their other relevant online accounts. Creating an ecosystem between streaming services and social media accounts is vital to building an audience in today’s streaming landscape, and having an active and engaged fanbase is one of the first things that any playlist aggregator/editor will search for.

4. Don’t submit to paid playlist services

There has been a boom in online services offering playlisting submission, as well as “pay-for-plays” services for artists online streaming platforms. Spotify itself has publicly disparaged all artists from using these services, as almost all of them feature “bot” accounts, which artificially boost your streams for a short period of time, but rarely yield any organic results, or anything that will contribute positively to your project. In fact, it is possible to have your Spotify account locked or banned if your account is flagged for having used third-party services to artificially enhance your streaming results. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to success, and the most recurring advice is to build your profile organically with engaging content, and content that is targeted towards a specific group that is likely to engage with your music/product.