A guide to releasing your music on Spotify as an Artist

Spotify for Artists is a great service for aspiring musicians who desire to reach a large audience. Simplicity, easy accessibility and inclusivity make the platform the best choice for whoever dreams of becoming a true artist. In this article, we’ll explain how you can make your ambition a reality.

The Internet is full of possibilities when it comes to becoming a star. Many artists that today are part of the mainstream got their career started on the Web: we’re talking insanely popular individuals like – for instance – Justin Bieber, who got discovered for the first time through his song covers on YouTube, or the DJ Avicii, who published his music on various blogs, or the MySpace-born singer Adele, or also the band Arctic Monkeys, and the list goes on and on.

You can become a successful, widely recognized artist as well by publishing your creations on a music streaming website such as Spotify, that introduced the Spotify for Artists panel in 2017. Spotify for Artists allows you to get – and sell – your music on Spotify, but there’s a catch: uploading your music to the platform requires you to be signed to a record label or distributor.

What are Digital Service Providers?

This means that if you’re independent you can’t simply upload music on your account yourself, because you’ll first have to look for a Digital Service Provider that will help you distribute your content on Spotify, but also on other streaming platforms, such as SoundCloud, Apple Music, Shazam, Amazon Music, etc.

Working with a Provider means that the company will handle the licensing and distribution to Spotify, and pay you the royalties you earn when listeners stream your music. “What are royalties?”, you might ask; they are the amount of money you receive based on the amount of streams your songs get.

These companies generally demand a commission or a fee that you have to pay whenever you want to post music. By doing so, you’ll get 100% of the royalties from your songs, meaning that all the proceeds go to your wallet, although there are also free options, and we’ll get to that soon.

Artist Distributors

Do your research to choose which Provider works better for you. Know that some distributors act by exclusively sending an invitation to artists that they consider palatable, while others will simply ask you to fill out an application that will be either accepted or denied. Your chances of getting approved are based on how good the quality of your music is.

Spotify itself recommends various Providers (visit this page for the whole list), and we’ll talk about some of them below.

Free options

Among the best free DSP you’ll find RouteNote, Soundrop and Amuse:

RouteNote

• keeps only 15% of royalties from your content, the remaining 85% goes to you
• covers 90% of the digital music market
• distributes your music on 31 streaming platforms
• very good customer care
• offers guides and assistance

Soundrop

• keeps only 15% of royalties from your content, the remaining 85% goes to you
• distributes your music on 12 streaming platforms
• cover song licensing
• collaborator revenue splits
• delivers song and rights info so streaming services know exactly who to pay
• video game covers

Amuse

• keeps only 15% of royalties from your content, the remaining 85% goes to you
• distributes your music on 9 streaming platforms (15 with Amuse PRO)
• your songs release in 28 days
• 7-day guaranteed support

Paid options

These are a couple of the best not-free DSP recommended by us:

TuneCore

• distributes your music on many streaming and social media platforms for a pretty affordable fee
• variety of packages available
• either pay 9.99 USD for a single release or 29.99 USD for 2 or more songs
• the fee renews once per year, per post
• keep all the rights to your music and 100% of your music royalties
• you get access to Apple Music Trend Reports
• receive monthly music sales reports
• custom cover art
• you get a free media player

DistroKid

• you keep 100% of your royalties, get paid monthly
• faster than any other distributor, at a fraction of the price
• pay only $19.99 to upload unlimited albums & songs for a year
• keep all your earnings – or automatically route any percentage of earnings, from any track, to anyone
• distributes cover songs legally
• you get paid when other people use your music in YouTube
• unlimited backups
• instant Spotify verified checkmark
• manages your Apple Music page
• you get your credits & lyrics into stores
• music video generator
• you get a YouTube Official Artist Channel
• Spotify pre-save feature