This guide covers five gated Spotify tools: editorial pitching, Countdown Pages, Marquee, Showcase, and Discovery Mode, plus Ads Manager and independent playlist pitching. Marquee and Showcase start at $100. Discovery Mode costs nothing upfront, and Spotify takes 30% of recording royalties from all selected-song streams in Discovery Mode contexts. Each tool gates on a different threshold.
Most advice on Spotify promotion is a list of tactics with no price tag and no entry requirement. That is why it fails. The five gated Spotify tools covered in this guide each have an access or eligibility requirement.
Two are free. Two take a card. One takes a percentage of your royalties instead of your money.
This guide covers each tool, the exact threshold it gates on, what it costs, and where it belongs in a release. It also covers the independent pitching that fills the gap when you are below Spotify's thresholds. For promotion across every other channel, see the Music Promotion Guide.
How to Promote Music on Spotify
Start by finding out which tools you actually qualify for. An artist at 800 monthly listeners and an artist at 40,000 are running different playbooks, and most guides write for neither.
Tool | What it does | Gate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
Editorial pitch | Puts one song in front of Spotify's editors and sets which song reaches your followers' Release Radar | Pitch at least 7 days ahead to select the Release Radar song and give editors time; pitching remains available until release. One song at a time | Free |
Countdown Page | Pre-save page surfaced on your profile, in Search, in Home, and in the Upcoming Releases hub | 3,000 monthly active listeners; new albums and EPs only, not singles | Free |
Showcase | Showcase promotes a release to likely listeners, including active, lapsed, programmed, and potential audiences | 1,000 streams in the last 28 days in a target market | $100 to $10,000, cost per click, runs about 14 days |
Marquee | Full-screen new-release recommendation | 5,000 monthly active listeners in the target market, plus the 1,000-stream floor; new releases only | $100 to $10,000, cost per click, runs about 10 days |
Discovery Mode | Adds weight to a track in Radio and Autoplay | Limited beta availability; the artist team and each selected song must meet Spotify's current team- and song-level requirements. These include at least 25,000 monthly listeners, at least 3 eligible songs, a supported team market, an eligible licensor, and a 30-day release age; additional song requirements apply. | No upfront fee. Spotify takes 30% of recording royalties from all selected-song streams in Discovery Mode contexts |
Listener actions such as saves and listen-through are among thousands of signals Spotify uses, alongside popularity, context, and editorial input. The paid tools buy you the chance to be chosen. They do not substitute for being chosen.
Spotify Marketing vs Spotify Promotion
Spotify marketing and Spotify promotion get used as one phrase, and they are two different budgets. Marketing is everything a listener meets once they land on you: profile, Canvas, Countdown Page, and the playlists you build and feature. Promotion is what expands reach through pitches and campaigns: pitching, Marquee, Showcase, Ads Manager, and Discovery Mode.
Marketing costs time, but asset duration varies: Countdown Pages end when the release goes live, and Artist Picks stay live for up to 180 days unless changed sooner. Promotion costs money, royalties, or a pitch, and the reach it buys stops when the campaign or the playlist slot does.
Spotify marketing | Spotify promotion |
|---|---|
The parts of Spotify you own and keep current | Reach you buy or pitch for on surfaces you do not own |
Photo, header, bio, Artist Pick, Canvas, Countdown Page, your own playlists | Editorial pitch, independent curators, Marquee, Showcase, Ads Manager, Discovery Mode |
Costs time | Can be free for editorial pitching; other options use campaign budgets, a 30% royalty commission in Discovery Mode contexts, or variable independent-curator fees |
Duration varies: Countdown Pages end when the release goes live, and Artist Picks stay live for up to 180 days unless changed sooner | Ends with the campaign or when the curator rotates you out |
Done first, on every release | Usually done after the relevant campaign destination and conversion path are ready |
Several promotion tools on this page send listeners to a Spotify profile or track, while Ads Manager can also optimize for website traffic or app installs. A listener arrives on your profile or a track and decides fast whether to save, follow, or leave. A $100 Marquee campaign that lands clicks on a release with no Canvas, under a profile with no bio and no current Artist Pick, is money spent to learn that the marketing was not done. Do the marketing once per release, keep it current, then buy or pitch for the traffic.
The playlists you build are the marketing asset most artists skip. Your track next to the artists you want to be filed with gives a new listener somewhere to go when the song ends, and it costs nothing to keep current.
The Free Route: Editorial Pitching and Release Radar
Spotify's editorial pitch lives in Spotify for Artists under Music, then Upcoming. Pick the song, fill in the form, and submit. You can pitch one song at a time, and once it goes live you can pitch the next one.
Spotify's stated requirement is to deliver your music at least 7 days before release. That number is a floor, not a target. Editors work through a queue, and a pitch that lands the day before the cutoff competes with everything else filed that week.
Here is the part most artists miss. Eligible songs from your new release can reach followers through Release Radar, subject to Spotify's personalization and eligibility rules. The pitch does not create that placement, but it does decide which song from a multi-track release gets the slot. Skip the pitch and Spotify picks for you.
Pre-saves do not put you in Release Radar. Follows do. The mechanics behind the rest of the algorithmic surfaces are covered in How Spotify's Algorithmic Playlists Work, and the editorial side in Understanding Spotify Editorial Playlists.
Two more free moves before release day. Update your artist photo, header, bio, and Artist Pick, because a listener who arrives from a playlist lands on your profile before they decide to follow. And add a Canvas: a 3 to 8 second vertical loop, 9:16, between 720px and 1080px tall, as an MP4 or a JPG. See Spotify Canvas: How to Create Looping Visuals for the production side.
Pre-Saves and Countdown Pages
Spotify's own pre-save product is the Countdown Page. Fans can pre-save, see the tracklist, watch countdown videos, and shop merch, and Spotify surfaces the page on your artist profile, in Search, in Home, and in the Upcoming Releases hub. On release day Spotify notifies everyone who pre-saved and adds the release straight to their library.
The eligibility is strict. You need at least 3,000 monthly active listeners, and only new, original albums and EPs qualify. Singles, rereleases, deluxe editions, and compilations do not. The page becomes available within 72 hours of your release metadata being delivered, and you can create or edit it any time before release.
If you are under that threshold or releasing a single, you are on a distributor smart link or a third-party pre-save tool instead. The functional difference is placement: a Countdown Page gets surfaced inside Spotify, a smart link only works where you post it. How to Set Up a Spotify Pre-Save Campaign covers the setup either way.
Paid Promotion: Marquee, Showcase, and Ads Manager
Marquee and Showcase sit inside Spotify for Artists. Marquee is a full-screen recommendation for a new release. Showcase is a mobile banner that works for new and catalog releases alike.
Both are priced on a cost-per-click basis, and clicks include saves. Budgets run from $100 to $10,000 USD or local equivalent. Marquee delivers over about 10 days, Showcase over about 14.
Eligibility starts at 1,000 streams in the last 28 days in a target market, and Marquee adds a 5,000 monthly active listener requirement in the market you select. Availability covers markets across Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America.
Spotify Ads Manager is the separate self-serve platform, renamed from Spotify Ad Studio. It runs self-serve ads against Spotify's ad-supported audience. Ads Manager publishes different minimums by budget type and market; current public documentation lists a roughly $250-equivalent lifetime minimum. Whether that spend beats a social campaign is worked through in this breakdown of Spotify's self-serve ads.
Discovery Mode: Reach You Pay for in Royalties
Discovery Mode lets you flag specific tracks for extra weight in Radio and Autoplay. There is no upfront fee. Instead, Spotify applies a 30% commission to recording royalties from all streams of the selected songs in Discovery Mode contexts. Every other stream stays commission-free.
Discovery Mode is in beta and not available to every artist. Eligibility includes at least 25,000 monthly listeners, at least three eligible songs, and a supported team market. Each song must also be at least 30 days old and satisfy Spotify's other current song and licensor requirements. Setup runs from the 11th of a month to the end of that month, with campaigns launching the following month.
The honest read is that Discovery Mode is a per-stream discount on reach. It works when a track converts, because the listeners it finds go on to stream you at full rate from their own library. It is expensive when a track does not convert, because you are discounting streams that never turn into anything.
Independent Playlist Pitching
Below Spotify's thresholds, independent curators are where reach comes from. Two submission platforms with published, checkable pricing:
Groover. Most contacts cost 2 Grooviz, selected top curators may cost 4 or 6, and 1 Grooviz is €1. Curators have up to 7 days to respond, and you are refunded if they do not.
Musosoup. Submission is free and reviewed first. If your music is approved, you pay a campaign fee starting at £42, and curators come to you with coverage offers.
Genre fit beats follower count every time. A placement on a 5,000-follower playlist built around your exact sound produces more saves than a 50,000-follower playlist where you are the odd track out. Independent Playlist Curators covers how to find and approach them directly, which costs nothing but time.
Spotify Music Promotion in Release Order
Spotify music promotion has an order, and the gates set it. The table below sequences the profile, Countdown Page, editorial-pitching, independent-curator, Marquee, Showcase, and Discovery Mode moves against a release date and tags each as marketing or promotion.
When | Lane | Move |
|---|---|---|
As early as your distributor allows | Marketing | Deliver the release so the metadata is in Spotify's system, then update photo, header, bio, and Artist Pick, and build the Canvas |
Once the Countdown Page appears, within 72 hours of metadata delivery | Marketing | Set up the Countdown Page if you clear 3,000 monthly active listeners and it is an album or EP. Otherwise build a distributor pre-save link |
As soon as the release appears in Spotify for Artists, and at least 7 days before release | Promotion, free | Submit the editorial pitch and choose the song that goes to followers' Release Radar |
1 to 2 weeks out | Promotion | Pitch independent curators so they can plan an add around release day |
Release day through about day 10 | Promotion, paid | Marquee, if you clear 5,000 monthly active listeners and 1,000 streams in the target market |
Release week or any time after | Promotion, paid | Showcase, which takes new and catalog releases, for about 14 days. Read Source of Streams before booking a second run |
30 days after release | Promotion, royalty cut | After 30 days, the track meets one Discovery Mode requirement; eligibility still depends on Spotify's current artist-team and song requirements. Setup runs from the 11th through the end of the month, and the campaign starts the following month |
Curator timing varies by platform and goal: Groover supports campaigns both before and after release, and Musosoup accepts music that is already out or about to be released. Playlist Pitching: Strategy, Timing, and Follow-Up covers the timing, the pitch itself, and the follow-up that turns one add into a relationship. The lane column is the check: if a step is promotion and the marketing rows above it are not done, the money is early.
What Spotify Penalizes
Spotify's position on paid services that guarantee streams is not ambiguous. They violate its terms and conditions. The stated consequences include your music being removed from Spotify, removal from playlists, withholding of associated royalties, and correction of your public stream counts. Spotify also levies artificial streaming charges on labels and distributors, per track, when flagrant artificial streaming is detected.
That last point matters more than artists realize. Your distributor carries the cost, which is why distributors suspend accounts over it. A cheap stream package can end your ability to release anywhere.
Legitimate curators sell consideration, never placement. Any service quoting you a stream number or promising a specific playlist is selling something Spotify will act on. Music Promotion Scams to Avoid covers the rest of the pattern.
Posting a link is the other failure mode, and it is quieter. A link with no story and no reason to click is not promotion. Promoting a song means giving someone a reason to listen, which is the same work whether you are an artist running your own campaigns or a team running several.
Reading What Worked
Spotify for Artists breaks your streams into two buckets under Segmentation, then Source of streams, on the Audience, Song, or Release pages.
Active sources are listeners who went looking: your artist profile and catalog, their own playlists and library, and their queue. Programmed sources are streams Spotify or another listener selected for them: editorial and personalized editorial playlists, personalized playlists, autoplay and mixes, and other listeners' playlists.
Watch the ratio, not the total. A campaign that lifts Programmed streams and leaves Active flat bought you attention you do not keep. A campaign that lifts Active streams built audience, even if the raw number looks smaller. Understanding Spotify's Source of Streams goes deeper on reading the split.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I promote my music on Spotify for free?
Pitch the editorial tool, add a Canvas, keep your profile and Artist Pick current, ask directly for saves and follows, approach independent curators yourself, and post short-form video using your song as original audio.
How far before release should I pitch Spotify?
Pitch at least 7 days ahead to select the Release Radar song and give editors time; pitching remains available until release. Earlier is better: it gives editors more room, and the pitch also decides which song from your release reaches followers' Release Radar in week one.
Does Spotify have a minimum ad budget?
Marquee and Showcase campaigns run from $100 to $10,000. Spotify Ads Manager, the separate self-serve platform, tells advertisers to set their own budget, so confirm the minimum for your market inside the tool.
Is paying for playlist placement against Spotify's rules?
Yes. Spotify states that paid services guaranteeing streams violate its terms, and consequences include your music being removed, royalties withheld, and public stream counts corrected.
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