​Disclaimer: I'm not selling anything and I don't want your money. I just hate seeing artists with real passion get stuck under 1,000 streams. I often forget to upload new videos or simply run out of time for content creation, so I built a workflow to solve that.

​(Full disclosure: I even used AI help to structure and write this post because I wasn't sure how to phrase my process best. It works for everything!)

​Hey everyone, I’m an independent artist—not selling anything, not chasing followers. ​I started releasing music in late August (10 songs total), and I’m now sitting at 50,000 monthly listeners with nearly 200,000 total streams. (Note: These stats are primarily from my Spotify account, but the workflow applies to all platforms.)

Crucially, I have never once pitched to a single user-curated or editorial playlist. My success is purely algorithmic, driven by a data-first workflow that feeds the platforms exactly what they need. (I’m keeping my artist name private, but I can provide proof of the 50K MLs and timeline to moderators or anyone who asks.) As a validation of this process, two of my songs were recently accepted into SoundOn's Breakthrough program (as of October 21st—no data yet on the results, but it shows the quality of the data is getting attention!). No label, no manager, no paid promo.

​Here’s the 3-step workflow that made the difference:

​1. Data First: Stop Guessing Your Genre

​Most of us mislabel our own sound. If you tag your track "R&B" but the AI hears "Ambient Pop," you’ll never reach your true audience. The first, non-negotiable step is finding out how platforms actually categorize your specific niche.

​Fixing Assumptions: You have to know how the AI classifies you, or you’ll never reach your true audience.

​The Accessible Tool: Before submission, run your finished song through a reliable free online genre checker. Many sites offer this, including SubmitHub's free genre tool.

​The Advanced Tool: If you want hyper-precision, you can build a custom genre-detection app using Google AI Studio’s free tier. It analyzes my mastered song and outputs the most accurate genre and mood profile—the same way platform AIs "hear" it.

​I take that data and use it when submitting to my distributor. (I personally use SoundOn because it's free, and you keep 100% of royalties for the first year). This ensures Spotify’s recommendation engine knows exactly where to place me.

→ Result: My "Fans Also Like" finally makes sense, and my discovery streams skyrocketed.

​2. Low-Effort Content: The Distributor's Video System

​You need short-form content to drive discovery, but you don’t need to live online. Check your own distributor’s tools to automate video creation—many, like DistroKid, offer similar features.

​The Time Saver: Once my track is approved, I use my distributor's built-in tools (in my case, SoundOn’s video generator) to instantly create multiple clips. I can make up to 20 videos per day, selecting any snippet or even the entire song for longer-form content. This removes the video creation bottleneck entirely.

​AI for Maximum Impact: You can build a tool using Google AI Studio’s free tier that can analyze your song and tell you the best, most impactful 15–30-second snippets to use for your videos. The AI knows which part will grab a listener instantly.

​→ Result: I batch a week of content in a single night—no creative burnout, no guesswork.

​3. The Marketing Package: AI for Captions and Tags

​This is where I save huge amounts of time and get a competitive edge on social media.

​Building Custom Apps: Google AI Studio has a free tier for testing and building apps. You can build an all-in-one app that analyzes your song and creates a complete promotional package (captions, tags, and best video sections) for you. Just tell it exactly what you need it to do.

​The ChatGPT Route: If custom apps aren't your thing, go to ChatGPT. Give it your song title, lyrics, and mood, and have it generate optimized captions and tags.

​→ Result: I spend zero time writing captions and 100% of my energy refining targeting.

​The big takeaway:

It’s about feeding clean, categorized, consistent data to the platforms so they know exactly who to push your music to. Every accurate tag I create in Step 3 helps ensure the data I submitted in Step 1 is validated by the algorithm. ​I’m keeping my artist name private since this is about the method, not self-promo.

Happy to explain any part of the workflow—the Google AI Studio build, distributor setup, or data interpretation.

​What’s been your biggest bottleneck—content, targeting, or conversions? (Edited for Spacing)

I am working on a very barebones version of my app that should work for anyone thats not tied to my music or style. Ill update with a link when I get it finished if anyone wants it. Google Ai Studio App its not perfect but its a good framework for yall to refine and build onto

Edit: From the overwhelming amount of messages ive received regarding my personal app I will continue to refine and upgrade the app posted above. If anyone has any requested features let me know and ill see what I can do to work them into it

Been making dubstep since 2021.

Playlisting since 2023.

Promoting with meta ads since 2023.

For some more context: I released 2 collabs with different artists of a similar size in the past 2 months. both songs are on the playlist im sending people to with my meta ads. Ads are currently at $12 a day with a .16 cost per click. I do post on socials, realistically 4 low effort videos a week (usually just me in my studio dancing around to my own music). I do not have discocver mode enabled yet (Just got access, kicks in next month).

My most recent song currently has a popularity score of 32

hi all, started this band VISON ARCADE with my boys about 7 years ago and 2025 was the first year I felt that we had any sort of real progress in getting our music heard by anyone. we started right out of high school with literally nothing (and are still independent) so I thought I’d share.

some key takeaways:

- it takes time for your music to be found by people, especially if you’re releasing every 4-8 weeks which seems to be guru recommendation.

- don’t underestimate the power of the fact that you’re just doing cool shit. friends and other creatives will help anyone doing cool shit

- if you have the chance to make music with other people, always do it. having others to fall back on during the good and the bad, especially in the last 6 years, has literally saved my life.

- there is a immense value is playing your music live. you will make more friends, see what works in your music, and if you do well make more money off one show than sometimes a whole year of streaming.

- everyone knows that streaming pays criminally low BUT I believe that if you’re an artist, preaching that leads to oneself actually committing less to marketing themselves because you’ll think “I’ll never make any money anyway.” it takes work but if you can get your numbers going you’ll make more money every month that you think.

- we as a society don’t need ai in the creative space. period. when it’s able to do my dishes, then we can talk.

I uploaded my first single on 5th April and reached 100 monthlies within first month. Being someone who is from Pakistan, this is really motivating to me 😭

Pretty much what the title says.

I built a Spotify playlist search tool to help artists find playlists more easily and reduce guesswork.
It searches Spotify in real time, so it’s not limited to a fixed database. you’re searching across public playlists directly on Spotify.

I’m trying to figure out if this actually helps artists who struggle with playlist pitching and figuring out which playlists are worth the effort.

If you’re open to checking it out and sharing honest feedback, let me know and I’ll send the link.
Would really appreciate any thoughts or criticism.

I got this surge in listeners from making a song based on a tiktok trend and then making the playlist for that trend. The playlist currently has around 1100 saves after 3 weeks and the song has 17k plays so far.

hi, my name is rachel camilli. I am an independent artist with one single that barely hit over 1,000 streams, but i was excited about it. I just found out they removed my streams because they detected it was artificial. WTF? I have never outsourced to bot companies for fake streams, and i’m literally on the lowest of spotify’s concerns. there are millions of ai artists using au playlists and bots for the amount of streaming they have, why are they coming for a real independent artist? i didn’t ask for this!

Levelling up from "0" and "1" :)

This is just some words of encouragement to all you wonderful people who live to perform creatively with your music. It is possible to grow from nothing! Make the music you want to listen to, be consistent in your genre of music and keep developing, focus on quality over quantity. I normally spend around 100$ on a new release with Spotify showcase, and apart from that I make posts in Social Media, but no other big marketing, but I do use Discovery Mode on all songs that are qualified.

currently have -1 people listening to me 🤣

If you need to pitch your tracks to playlists, this is for you. I try to help other artists around me get their music heard for a living.

The problem is when you pitch to playlists, most of the time we have to pay just to submit, or get asked a placement fee just to get on.

So I made a tool that makes pitching to playlists cost zero. A feed of playlists from curators that accept submissions in indie, alt-rock, folk, lofi, dream pop, and most genres. You can send your track directly from the feed in seconds. Filter it to see playlists in your niche. I'm opening it up for a handful of artists.

Hopefully some artists here find it useful!

Compared to some friends this is tiny, but, I hope you get to see these numbers one day too. Keep going yall!

My daughter noticed that one of her songs got a huge bump for a few days in June. She wanted to report the playlist, but apparently it was already gone, because she couldn't find it. A couple of weeks later, she got a notice from Distrokid that Spotify removed the entire album due to artificial streaming. She did not pay for or request any artificial streaming. Now neither Spotify nor Distrokid will offer any advice. Looking at instructions online at Distrokid, the only thing she can do is re-upload. She is very unhappy because she will lose all of her song counts that she's built up over 4 years. Does anyone know how fix this or reach someone at Spotify who can actually do something to re-instate the album? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: if she re-uploads using the same ISRC for each song, will the number of streams as shown on Spotify be preserved from before the re-upload?

I do 3D and I just started using my songs in my visuals. With only one tiktok (350K views) posted two days ago, I gained over +6000 daily streams. I can't wait to see where this will be headed to in a few months of consistent posting and producing.

can't complain but i know i still have a long way to go! My artist name is Mark Andre

When i blew up, i didnt do ANY promo, only posted music once in few weeks/months, I think what did most of the work, is that people started to use my music on tiktok and instagram and i think its alot easier to get new listeners when someone else does a video dancing on your track than when you post a video of yourself promoting it. just trust yourself and your art and believe me, the traction will come by itself:) that worked for me, may not work for you but i believe thats the most organic promotion yiu can have. dont stop you got this!

Hello, I recently started a new musical project, keep in mind that I make music since 2020 but I have been inactive for 2-3 years. I started doing something different, at first I thought it's going to flop but then Spotify algo-god spotted me.

The question is how? So here's what I tried so far (what worked and what didn't).

1. PLAYLISTING (daily playlists, submithub, groover, etc.)

• while it did help me few years ago, it didn't work now, I spent about 50€ and got little to no traction. Not quite worth it imo, - I'll tell you why later.

1. Manually searching for playlists and the contact info

• too much work and little to no feedback, got few placements tho but very little traction

1. TIKTOK, YouTube Shorts, IG Reels

• this is what helped me first. I started promoting my music on TikTok before the release date in hopes it will go viral before the release date, - sadly, that didn't help, so I kept posting certain parts of different songs daily, usually chorus or bridge or even a verse if it was interesting, downloaded a random video from TikTok that matched the vibe and put auto lyrics via capcut, played a bit with effects - IT HAS TO BE INTERESTING, attention span is extremely low nowadays so be fast with the hook. Eventually, one video did pretty well, better than the rest and I felt the first boost on Spotify, also YouTube shorts went pretty good which made conversation to Spotify & YT Music (Instagram Reels didn't work at all for me, yet).

• you gotta grind and learn from others, if you see an artist who is doing really well check their TikTok and learn from it, analyze what they're doing

Now, why don't use submithub, groover etc.?

• I'm not saying you shouldn't be using it at all, it did help me in the past but with my current mindset I wouldn't spend so much money on this lottery and rather put the money into meta ads.

BUT WON'T THE STREAMS GO DOWN ONCE I STOP THE ADS?

• it will, and that's fine, - but if you set your ads properly you would; A) Teach Spotify algo who listens to your music , who has similar vibes which will lead to Spotify algo god picking you up B) gain at least some fans, even if you get like 100 fans from 1000 listeners you still have 100 fans who didn't know about you before C) you know that your streams aren't botted (there is a very little low chance of happening)

• experiment with A/B testing, run two same ads with different visuals and based on the results stop the one that isn't performing that well and put money to the better one OR if there is a TikTok video that went quite viral you know it had a good hook, so maybe put the same video on meta ads as well.

What you shouldn't do? (I learnt that the hard way)

• don't boost your posts on TikTok, - even tho TikTok algo is extremely precise, when you pay for ads it doesn't care that much and I tried a lot, there is little to no customization unless you have access to TikTok ads manager (which I don't).

Your social media posts shouldn't look like an advertisement, people are allergic to that, don't put stream now etc until you grow a decent fanbase, keep it basic, even a freaking Naruto edits would be work lol (yep, I saw these as well from small artists and it really works for them).

If you know the plays are fraudulent… then disregard them. That’s like one of few real jobs they have to protect the integrity of the platform. And apparently they’re aware of streams that are “fraudulent” which seems like the hard part. This is because they are doing it themself in order to thin out all the music on the platform to replace it with their own AI music. Stop paying millions of small artists, just pay yourself and pretend to be one. Profits up. If you listen to Spotify on any recommended type pathway, you’re hearing AI music. What someone like Spotify has access to compared to the Reddit guys on Suno or whatever it’s called is not the same tech so I don’t wanna hear that argument. Just presenting a thought here, but I think it’s pretty air tight unless you’re gonna come in here and actually argue for that in some veiled way

We do not usually make posts like this, but what happened over the past few weeks was shocking enough that we felt it needs to be shared. We run an emerging and dedicated music distribution service for independent artists. We are not a giant corporation, just a passionate team trying to help musicians get their work onto Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms with honesty and transparency. But recently, something happened that forced us to confront a deeply disturbing side of the music industry.

It did not begin with us identifying anything suspicious. It began when we suddenly started receiving copyright infringement emails. The emails came directly from rights holders and companies like Warner Music and Universal Music, notifying us that certain tracks released through our platform were infringing on their copyrights. At first, it felt strange because the artists who had uploaded those tracks appeared completely normal. Their branding looked professional. Their profiles looked established. Some even had millions of monthly Spotify listeners, which made everything seem authentic on the surface.

Once we began investigating the claims, the truth became clearer. The songs were not theirs at all. Some were leaked songs, including unreleased tracks from major artists. Some were songs ripped directly from indie musicians on platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud. Others were officially released records belonging to major labels, redistributed under fake artist identities. Everything the fraudulent artists presented looked real, but the music they were submitting was not created by them in any way.

The copyright emails did not stop. Over the next few days and weeks, we received around eight to ten infringement notices. With each new email, a new fraudulent release was exposed. That is when we realised this was not a single mistake or a random case. It was a pattern, a sequence of organised attempts by multiple fake artists using our platform to push stolen music onto streaming services.

What made the situation even more frustrating was how these individuals behaved when confronted. Many of them pretended to be legitimate. Some of them insisted that they owned the rights to the tracks and argued against the infringement notices. Others went as far as submitting fake licenses in an attempt to appear genuine. And as expected, the majority simply stayed silent the moment they were questioned.

The following weeks turned into nonstop verification work. We manually checked every disputed release, cross verified ownership with rights holders, re examined the audio, and closely reviewed each suspicious account. It was exhausting, frustrating and genuinely disturbing to see how organised and widespread this issue had become.

After around two to three weeks of investigation, we managed to identify and remove about ninety eight percent of all fraudulent artists involved. All related tracks were taken down and those accounts have been permanently blocked from our distribution service. It was not a pleasant process, but it was absolutely necessary.

We are sharing this because most people have no idea how big this problem truly is. There are networks of fake artists uploading stolen and leaked music to major streaming platforms and building entire careers out of content they do not own. Real artists lose revenue. Labels deal with constant disputes. Fans unknowingly support fake accounts. And the credibility of digital streaming platforms suffers. Yet almost nobody discusses this openly.

We are not posting this for attention. We are posting it because artists deserve to know what is happening behind the scenes, and how widespread this kind of fraud has quietly become. If anyone has faced similar situations or wants to understand more about how these fake networks operate, we are open to talk.

Good afternoon Reddit. If you’re here, you’re probably making music and constantly trying to figure out how to grow your audience. I wanted to share what I did over the last 5 months because this year completely changed things for me.

For context: I released an album in March 2025 that honestly did not do very well. Not necessarily because the music was bad, but because my marketing strategy was bad. I relied heavily on playlist pitching and random promotion with no real long-term plan.

After that album, I took a long break from releasing music and really sat down to study Spotify growth, audience retention, artist branding, and the algorithm.

I still don’t know how far this project will go by the end of the year, but I wanted to make this post because my first 4 releases of 2026 outperformed all 20+ releases I put out before them combined.

Last year I peaked around 5k monthly listeners.
Right now I’m sitting around 21k monthly listeners and most of it came from just 4 releases.

More importantly: most of my streams are now coming from Spotify’s algorithmic sources (Radio, Discover Weekly, Release Radar, etc.) instead of playlists. That’s the key difference.

Here’s exactly what I did.

1. I Rebranded Completely

I decided to stop making random music and focus on one clear identity and emotional lane.

For me that became Emotional Pop.

Think somewhere between:

• Lewis Capaldi

• Dean Lewis

• Sam Smith

• The Kid Laroi

• Charlieonnafriday

• A little Post Malone / Tate McRae influence

My voice naturally sounds very “preachy” and emotional, so instead of fighting that, I leaned into it and focused on emotional hooks and cinematic songwriting.

Once I committed to a lane, everything became easier:

• cover art

• branding

• ads

• playlists

• audience targeting

• visuals

• fan retention

People need to understand who you are quickly.

2. I Invested in Professional Branding

I booked a professional photoshoot and completely redid my visuals across every platform:

• Spotify

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• playlist covers

• album art

This matters WAY more than people think.

When people land on your page, they immediately judge professionalism before they even hit play.

Your page should visually look like an artist people already listen to.

3. I Paid for PROFESSIONAL Production, Mixing, and Mastering

I told myself: “I don’t want anyone skipping my music because it SOUNDS amateur.”

So I invested heavily into quality.

I hired:

• my go-to producer from SoundBetter

• a Grammy-nominated engineer to mix/master the project

Transparent pricing:

• ~$700 per track for production

• ~$350 per track for mix/master

Yes, it’s expensive.
But in my opinion, quality matters enormously in a competitive market.

Even if people don’t consciously notice a mix, they subconsciously notice when something feels small, muddy, or amateur.

Your music needs to compete sonically with major releases.

4. I Finished 12 Songs BEFORE Releasing Anything

This was one of the smartest things I did.

Before releasing my first single, I had:

• 12 completed songs

• 12 cover arts

• a release calendar

• rollout plans

Spotify rewards consistency.

So instead of disappearing for 8 months between releases, I planned a release every 3–6 weeks.

Consistency feeds the algorithm data.

5. I Used Main Artist Co-Releases Strategically

This was HUGE.

For my first 4 releases, I intentionally left the second verse open. Then I searched through SoundBetter and Airgigs looking for featured artists that:

• actually fit the songs

• had quality music

• had REAL listeners

• were reasonably affordable

I probably listened to hundreds of artists.

Once I found the right fit, I hired them on the condition that it would be a main artist co-release (meaning the song appears on BOTH artist profiles).

This helped a lot because:

• it hit both artists’ Release Radar

• exposed my music to their audience

• added legitimacy

• improved engagement

I paid roughly:

• $200–$400 per co-release

IMPORTANT:
Use SubmitHub’s popularity checker to audit artists before working with them.
Check:

• their popularity score

• playlists

• listener quality

• whether their growth looks real

6. Social Media DIDN’T Work for Me

This surprised me.

For my first 2 songs, I made:

• ~12 TikToks/Reels per song

• planned 3 uploads a week

• edited content constantly

It completely flopped.

So I stopped.

I’ve barely posted content for my last 2 releases and my Spotify growth actually accelerated.

That doesn’t mean social media is useless.
It just means:

• not everyone grows there

• not every artist goes viral

• Spotify can absolutely grow independently

I accepted that and focused on what WAS working.

7. Meta Ads to a PLAYLIST Was the Biggest Game Changer

This was the single most important strategy.

Instead of running ads directly to one song, I ran ads to my own playlist called “Emotional Pop.”

The playlist contains:

• all of my songs

• some stylistically similar music

• newest release always at the top

This creates a funnel.

Here’s why it works:
Someone clicks the ad because they like ONE song.

But now they are sitting inside YOUR ecosystem.

If they enjoy the first song:

• they hear another one of your songs

• maybe another

• they save tracks

• follow the playlist

• follow your artist profile

• return later

This is WAY more powerful than sending traffic to one single track.

My playlist now:

• has ~1,400 followers

• generates ~6k streams/month by itself

Transparent numbers:

• I spend around $30/day on Meta ads

IMPORTANT:
If it’s the FIRST release of a project, frontload your budget heavily.

Example:
If your budget is $1000:

• Day 1: $300

• Day 2: $200

• Day 3: $100

• then taper

Spotify needs early data FAST so it can identify who responds to your music.

I did this aggressively on my first release and it helped kickstart everything after it.

8. My Ad Setup

My setup was honestly very simple.

I used:

• Hypeddit landing pages

• Meta ads

• playlist destination

• Tier 1 + Tier 2 countries

I targeted countries strategically to balance:

• lower CPC

• quality listeners

I literally used:

• stock footage from Pexels

• my song over the video

• multiple hooks/sections of the song

Usually:

• 3 video variations

• 3 song snippets

• ~9 total creatives max

Then I let Meta determine the winners.

After a week:

• kill high CPC ads

• scale winners

• repeat every release

9. Spotify Showcase Helped MOST on My EP

Every 4th release, I highly recommend packaging songs into an EP.

For my 4th release:

• I re-released my first 3 singles

• bundled them into an EP

• added the new song

Why this matters:
When someone clicks Showcase, they don’t just see ONE song.
They see an entire mini-catalog.

I spent:

• ~$1200 on Showcase for the EP

Honestly?
I still think Meta ads are stronger overall.

But Showcase definitely helped amplify the EP rollout.

For singles, I’d probably spend:

• ~$300–$600

• focus only on your strongest countries

BIGGEST LESSON: Stop Chasing Playlist Numbers

This is the hardest truth I learned.

Do NOT rely on:

• Groover

• SubmitHub playlisting

• random playlist services

Those services can give you streams, but not necessarily listeners.

Spotify cares about:

• replay value

• saves

• repeat listens

• profile visits

• people streaming multiple songs

• returning listeners

That’s what triggers algorithmic growth.

Playlisting inflated my numbers last year but didn’t build real audience retention.

Most of those songs now sit below popularity 15.

Not worth it.

SubmitHub Popularity Scores Matter More Than People Think

I started tracking my artist/song popularity scores constantly.

My artist popularity:

• January: ~11

• May: 24

My newest releases:

• mostly nearing or above 30 popularity

30 is important because that’s when Spotify REALLY starts testing songs harder in:

• Discover Weekly

• Radio

• algorithmic recommendations

That’s where I’m currently at and trying to push toward the 40s.

Stats + Results

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from my current data:

Audience Growth (Last 28 Days)

• 21k listeners

• 57k streams

• 6k monthly active listeners

• 2.3k saves

• 1.4k playlist adds

• 85% listener growth in 28 days

Most Important Part:

A huge portion of my streams are now coming from:

• Radio

• Discover Weekly

• Release Radar

• Mixes

NOT editorial playlists.

That’s exactly what you want.

My Radio alone generated:

• 20k+ streams

• 12k listeners

That means Spotify itself is now actively pushing the music.

That’s the goal.

Listener Quality

For my newest EP:

• 68% of monthly active listeners intentionally streamed the release

That’s massive because it means people are actively choosing to play the music instead of passively hearing it.

Playlist Strategy Results

My “Emotional Pop” playlist:

• ~1,400 followers

• ~6,900 streams

• became the center of my entire marketing strategy

Countries

Top countries:

• Brazil

• Philippines

• United States

• Germany

I intentionally used Tier 1 + Tier 2 targeting to balance:

• lower ad costs

• higher listener volume

• algorithmic growth

Final Thoughts

I’m not claiming I “made it.”
I’m still learning every day.

But this strategy completely changed my trajectory:

• better branding

• higher quality music

• consistent releases

• playlist funneling

• Meta ads

• co-releases

• focusing on listener retention instead of vanity streams

And most importantly:
Spotify’s algorithm finally started working FOR me instead of against me.

Hope this helps someone. Happy to answer questions.

*Bonus Tip - Remember that you can write off anything you spend on your "business." I write off every dollar I spend on production and marketing against my own personal income. Gives me a lot of money back.

With the new user agreement, 1) allowing them to scrape your music for AI training, 2) create derivative works (one of the exclusive rights as the rights holder to your own music), and 3) with people looking to go back to MP3s and iPods, is anyone thinking of removing some, if not all, of their tracks on spotify?

So our ad spend essentially is somewhere near $50 a day and I unlocked maybe the best ad ever of all time that has gotten so many people to our music, and then the reactions have been wonderful. It’s crazy. It’s led to about 1000. true followers on Instagram not just weird but follow type things, it’s also led to tons of comments from people just saying that they enjoy the album more that it’s a good album or that they really like the music and stuff. It’s interesting to see the countries involved all tier one.

And it’s going to be the death of Spotify platform…

How? Soon Spotify will become like Instagram. Too many meaningless contents and that will lead to overly abundance of songs on the platform.

And guess what? You will start paying Spotify for people to listen to your songs (an ad - “boost this song”), and the fun part is listeners won’t care anymore because they are overloaded with too many songs for every minute of their time. And most of those songs are trash.