Sound campaign vs Playlist Push

Are you strapped for time and need to cut to the chase? Here are the 12 best Spotify promotion services you should go check out immediately:

But if you can spare a few minutes and stick around, I’ve reviewed each Spotify promotion service to give your research a jump-start.

Before we dive in, it’s essential to remember…

Building an Audience on Spotify Requires Ample Patience & Perseverance

There’s no way to hurdle over the grind of slowly building your discography, brand, and following from the ground-up. And while the Spotify promotional services covered in this list offer legitimate stepping stones to creating your musical empire, rave results still aren’t going to show up overnight.

So, I advise you to approach Spotify promotion as a supplemental boost to your other music marketing initiatives. Be wary of leaning on promotional services too heavily because you’re still going to need organic growth to increase alongside paid promotions, especially if you’re looking to sustain your overall development over time.

With that said, you’re still looking for a return from the investments you funnel into Spotify promotions. Keep in mind that no two services are exactly alike, each boasting unique timelines for anticipated results and service-scopes scattered across the map.

Now that we’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, let’s plunge into the deep end of the twelve best Spotify promotion services:

1. Indie Music Academy

Topping our list is Indie Music Academy’s Spotify promotion service, for good reason: It’s dedicated toward providing the kind of actually-legitimate-organic playlist placements that drive healthy growth.

In other words: Real streams from real people.

Fun fact, I think Ryan Waczek (the founder of Indie Music Academy, above-average hair) was the first person to articulate what I’ve since used as a key factor for evaluating playlists. On his YouTube channel, he detailed how to tell the difference between playlists that rely on bot streams and playlists that are built on actual human streams – something I still use when evaluating playlist placements today.

(Long-story-short, bot streams aren’t spread out between desktop, mobile, and other sources. You can read about that here – definitely worthwhile info.)

Anyway, we’ve connected since then, and I trialed a campaign for one of my artists that generated 31,000 real streams in a month, which is the most streams I’ve seen in that span after running similar campaigns with ~12 different agencies. You can read my full review of the experience here, but the moral of the story is that the lists we were placed on had impressively high engagement.

Bottom line: Ryan is one of the people I trust the most when it comes to doing music marketing the right way. He runs personalized campaigns where he’ll pitch your music to playlists that he’s personally verified as legit.

If you’re looking to build streaming numbers via playlisting and want to make sure you really are getting organic numbers, Indie Music Academy is a top option, and Ryan’s a solid guy. The service starts at $297 for 10,000 guaranteed-real streams.

Give Indie Music Academy a try here.

2. Playlist Push

Playlist Push takes an interesting approach, offering Spotify promotion services for both playlist owners/curators and musicians looking for heightened exposure. Focusing on the musician side of their service suite, Playlist Push strategically pinpoints playlist curators that have the strongest chance to pick up your music.

At Two Story, we ran a $325, month-long campaign for a track and had very favorable results – 40,000 streams with continued organic and algorithmic growth. You can read the full review here.

And after combing through their nearly 500 reviews on Trustpilot (the most of any other company reviewed on this list), I found out that artists receive direct feedback from curators whether said curators pick up their music or not. This direct contact offers artists deeper insights into what curators are looking for and illuminates their decision-making process in a way that’ll help those artists land songs on playlists in the future. All in all, Playlist Push is widely-considered one of the legitimate players in the Spotify promotion space with endless positive testimonials and relatively affordable services (they initially ask whether you want to spend less/more than $300). Two thumbs up and worth your consideration.

(And two heads-ups – that link’s an affiliate link, and if you use the code CXUFDQ2 you’ll get 7.5% off your first campaign.)

To try a campaign with Playlist Push, click here.

YouGrow has two main offerings: YouTube promotion and Spotify promotion. I can’t speak directly to their YouTube product (and this is an article on Spotify promo, anyway), but after working with their team on a Spotify streaming campaign, I’m confident to recommend these guys as another good option if you want to boost your streams on the platform. (And I did sign up to be an affiliate with them, so the link up there is an affiliate link.)

Here’s what happened when we tried a campaign with them:

We ran a Bronze-level campaign, which is currently listed as $117 for playlist placements to 100K followers. The result was four placements that drove around 10,000 streams – really solid numbers. The biggest drawback was that a couple of the lists were just objectively strange; like, we got the track placed on a 2000s Throwbacks list alongside Usher and Lady Gaga. Our track was released in 2021 and was definitely not a 2000s throwback.

That said, Matt, who we worked with on the campaign, was upfront in noting the nature of the placements, and we had the option to remove the track from that weird list if we preferred. (We kept it, and it did generate real-person-non-bot streams.)

Last note on these guys: They’re set up with “Buy” buttons, so make sure you pick the package you want before sending your money over. While I generally prefer consultations, Matt told me that YouGrow would never rinse someone of their promo budget if they didn’t feel like they could work with the song in their curator network.

To run a YouGrow campaign, click here.

4. Omari MC

If you’ve ever googled “Spotify promotion”, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see Omari on this list of the top services – the guy is everywhere online, and having used his services personally, I can speak to the fact that it’s not an accident.

We’re an affiliate of Omari because he’s straightforward to work with, sets clear and realistic expectations from the get-go, and offers affordable packages that any musical artist would be comfortable approaching. Oh, and he does a great job of explaining how and why his services work.

Omari’s Spotify promotion service centers around optimal playlist placement to give your track(s) massive exposure jumps. So if getting your new single placed in multiple playlists with tens of thousands of followers sounds like a worthwhile endeavor, Omari might just be the service for you.

This customer review of Omari’s Spotify promotion service says it all:

“If Omari doesn’t think a song will do well with any of his marketing packages, he will tell you so, and he doesn’t build up unrealistic expectations. I haven’t got much money to spend on PR, so as I now go into my second round of Omari promotion, this expenditure shows that I’m convinced it will be worth my investment.”

If you want to read our in-depth review of our own experience running a Spotify campaign with Omari, click here. (It’s honest and detailed.)

To try a campaign with Omari yourself, click here.

5. Playlist Promotion

You’ve got to love the directness of the name Playlist Promotion. As you might expect, these guys focus on playlisting as a service. Their homepage notes that they have a network of over 3,000 playlists and a steadily-growing base of over 20 million followers.

Not too shabby.

And, based on a campaign we ran with them, the results aren’t shabby, either.

I got in touch with Steven Schiller, the PR Manager at the company, and asked him to run a campaign for one of the artists I work with. The results were worthwhile; in about two weeks, our artist’s song was placed on three playlists, totaling around 28,000 followers. That translated to roughly 10,000 plays over the course of the following month.

One note: Our artist was from the US, but a few of the playlist placements we got were international, meaning that we might have a tough time translating those streams into fans who’ll be at shows (although the lists only featured English-language tracks).

But the streams are definitely legit. You can learn more about the Playlist Promotion team’s approach in this video, but the gist of it is that they partner with legitimate playlisters who care about building sustainable lists. Consequently, they don’t feature packages on their site, and they filter submissions to make sure the artists they take fit well with their network.

That means you might be rejected, but it also means you can rest assured these guys won’t take your money and run. And, since I’m an affiliate with them, you can get $20 off your engagement with this code: 20off.

You can run a Playlist Promotion campaign here.

6. Daimoon Media

Daimoon Media is slightly more creatively named; it doesn’t feature the word “playlist”, which, in this space, is a bold move. Don’t worry, though – Daimoon Media does offer playlist pitching (in addition to YouTube promotion and Soundcloud promotion). And, based on my experience trialing a campaign with them, they do playlist pitching well.

Luka, who heads up business development for the company, reached out to me asking if I’d be interested in connecting and trying their service. We had a good conversation, and I ran a mid-level campaign for an electronic track that had been out for several months.

Results-wise, the campaign was relatively successful. We were placed on six playlists totaling an impressive 212,464 followers; that translated into roughly 20,000 streams, and from what I could tell, those were legit. Playlists were primarily mood-based (one’s title was “House Chill Out Music 2021), with a few topical placements thrown in (like “After Soundtrack”), and each list tended to rank well in Spotify search. The song’s algorithmic status didn’t seem to be impacted by the project, for better or for worse.

Maybe the coolest part of the campaign, though, was the user interface for monitoring results. Daimoon Media has a portal that’s kind of similar to Playlist Push, albeit less complex. You can’t see curator feedback, but you do see which lists you’re pitched to, including rejections. It made the campaign very easy to track.

Overall, I’d recommend giving these guys a shot, especially if you’re making any kind of electronic music (they have a bunch of lists for that).

You can run a campaign with Daimoon Media here.

7. Boost Collective

Boost Collective is kind of an up-and-comer in this space. I’d bumped into their site a few times in the past few years and thought their model seemed interesting, so I decided to give their Spotify offering a shot.

The big pitch for Boost Collective is that they offer the tools to do lots of things in one place – like, everything from distribution, to mastering, to press / PR, to cover art creation, to, yeah, you know it, Spotify promotion. The agency works on a unique, credit-based model; basically, artists purchase credits, which can be spent on any of those services. As Ronan and Damian (the company’s co-founders) explained to me, it’s a way to offer bulk-pricing discounts and make things easier for artists.

Cool idea. I didn’t reap the full benefits because I just ran a Spotify promo campaign. But the results in that realm were solid.

I asked the Boost Collective team to run a campaign for a groove-blues track. They were able to garner placements on a range of lists with notable followings, with titles including “Bedroom Jams” and “New School Pop”. In total, placements brought in nearly 2,000 streams for the track – so, my artist isn’t quitting their day job to live on streaming revenue, but they did get a bump.

Also, in fairness, I don’t think my track was Boost’s sweet spot. When I sent it over, Damian noted that they could run with it, but asked if I had anything I wanted to run in the rap or EDM genres. I didn’t at the time. Still, I was satisfied with what we got, and if you are in rap or EDM, you’d likely do even better.

Click here to give Boost Collective a try.

8. SubmitHub

I’ll be honest, I’d rank SubmitHub higher, except that I still can’t quite bring myself to qualify it as a Spotify promotion service, which is what this article is ostensibly reviewing. I view it more as a tool than a service because it’s not done-for-you; it’s do-it-yourself.

But, semantics aside, SubmitHub definitely works, so I’m including it here.

If you haven’t heard of SubmitHub before, here’s the gist. The platform charges a small fee for submitting to curators (including Spotify playlisters, bloggers, and social media influencers). Curators are required to listen to your track and (if you check the right options) provide at least 10 words of feedback. According to platform averages, about 14% of submissions end up getting placed (i.e., added to playlists).

It’s worth noting that SubmitHub gets a bunch of hate, for a few reasons. First, the platform doesn’t guarantee results; they just guarantee your song will be listened to. I don’t have a problem with this (actually this model tends to be less scammy than guaranteeing plays), but it does make your investment a little risky. Second, the feedback you get from playlist curators is often pretty lame. Here’s an example from a campaign I just ran:

“This is a really hard sound to pull off and you guys are so close! I love how the track progressed and built in emotion. The intro itself could have been just a bit stronger to hook the listener in further.”

Uh, okay – next time we’ll make the intro “stronger,” I guess?

Anyway. If you can bear getting rejected (and hearing pretty lame feedback), the bottom line is that SubmitHub definitely works. Here’s our piece reviewing the platform in a lot more detail.

If you want to give it a shot yourself, click here.

9. Burstimo

Okay, now we’re getting down into companies I haven’t used personally – which is another way of saying, tread carefully.

But as far as first impressions go, Burstimo knocks them out of the park. Boasting a glowing Google Business Review of 4.9/5 stars, Burstimo carries an air of professionalism and efficacy that’s noticeable from interaction number one.

The Burstimo team will navigate the Artists for Spotify submission process, working closely with playlist curators and taste-makers to ensure the perfect placement of your tunes so you can reach audiences that’ll gobble your music up and ask for seconds.

The three words that bubble up to the surface most frequently when customers reflect on their experience with Burstimo are transparent, creative, and valuable. I highly recommend sifting through some of their recent reviews to catch a glimpse of the high-praise raining down on this remarkable Spotify promotion service. It’s staggering how many positive things people have to say about this company.

In terms of pricing, they’re on the more expensive end of the spectrum, but they’re known to deliver on their promises and steer clear of bot-driven playlists and empty metrics. That’s all you can ask for, given all of the landmines of sketchy services littering the music promotion landscape.

10. PitchPlaylist

As the name suggests, this Spotify promotion service is as straightforward as they come – PitchPlaylist pitches your music to playlist curators. And, based on my experience, it works.

Proof positive: I ran an entry-level campaign for one of my artists. Working with David (you’ll see his name come up often in the overwhelmingly favorable reviews for the service), we got our track placed on six playlists, each of which had thousands of followers. The end result was upwards of 3,000 streams. And a respectable portion of those streams became Spotify followers, too.

That’s pretty good. So, PitchPlaylist works, and works well.

Two notes: First, most of the placements we got weren’t US-based (although they were English-language lists), so if you’re looking to build a Spotify base in the states, you may want to double-check with these guys to align your expectations.

Second, and on a related note, at the time I ran this campaign these guys required a consultation to buy from. I’m in favor of this approach because it reduces the risk of artists throwing money down the drain by clicking a “Buy” button and never hearing back; it’s also a chance to talk through your campaign goals and make sure you’re getting what you want to get. They’ve since switched to “Buy” buttons, which can be fine – I just want to reiterate, make sure you know what you want (and what you’re getting) before buying.

All told, based on my conversations and results working with David, I’m comfortable recommending PitchPlaylist as one of the top Spotify promo options. (Link is an affiliate link.)

Run a campaign with PitchPlaylist here.

Important question to ask, right? Hopefully, this list gives you a solid starting place as you’re looking for Spotify promotion – but before you pull the trigger on working with anyone, you should probably read this guide.

In it, we give directions on how to do due diligence and our opinion on when promo makes sense. (Our take will probably surprise you.)

If you’re on the fence about promo, give it a read:

11. Artist Push

First and foremost, it’s worth mentioning that off-site reviews of Artist Push are virtually non-existent. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t trust them, but sifting through reviews should be a common starting-point when shopping around for Spotify promotion services. There are a few reviews on their site, but they don’t leave any conclusive impressions (especially when compared to services like Burstimo).

With the reviews pushed to the side for a moment, the breadth of service tiers for Spotify plays, followers, and playlist placements are wider than a six-lane freeway. Their services range from $3 (100 followers) up the elevator to $1,800 (one million plays). If you read their detailed description (towards the bottom of this page) of their Spotify services, they appear to offer legitimately holistic solutions for ramping up your Spotify exposure.

I recommend starting small to get a better idea of their effectiveness and ability to deliver. Still, from a first-glimpse, Artist Push looks like a valid player in the Spotify promotion space.

12. Online Music Promotion

Believe it or not, Online Music Promotion promotes your music on the internet!

Name jokes aside, this company specializes in plays and doesn’t offer any other Spotify promotion services. Packages start as low as 5,000 plays for $20 and hike up to 500,000 plays for $1,000. Their check-out process is simple and straightforward, with all of the information you need to make an informed decision sitting neat and tidy on the checkout page.

One notable caveat about Online Music Promotion’s methodology for generating plays has a minimum number of monthly listeners required before you can purchase a particular package. For instance, if you opt to move forward with the default 5,000 play package, there isn’t a minimum number of monthly plays required. But as the play count grows, so does the requirement. Here’s a glimpse: 20,000 plays call for the same number of monthly listeners, whereas 250,000 plays need 100,000 monthly listeners. I suggest you take a closer look at their ratios before proceeding.

They also list the anticipated rate of growth, which depends on the number of plays you purchase. A 5,000 play package will climb at 250 plays per day while a 100,000 package will accrue at 1,000 plays per day. Some reviews advise that service, though reliable, can be time-consuming.

Bonus: Two Free Platforms

Let’s end with a couple of free options, in case you’re not ready to put down money (which is understandable). Note: While you can get placements with the services below, I’ve been told that many of the lists on free services get few if any streams; I think that it’s probably because, for curators, the incentives for building healthy lists aren’t as strong (and some curators may even be trying to use these platforms as stepping stones to paid networks).

Worth being aware of, but doesn’t mean submission isn’t worth it.

Soundplate

Soundplate is a slightly different Spotify promotion opportunity than every other feature on this list. The most glaring difference is it’s free and takes a do-it-yourself approach. With Soundplate, you submit your tracks to playlists and wait for the playlist curators to give you the big thumbs up or down. It’s worth mentioning that your tracks aren’t guaranteed to land on the playlists to which you submit. If you take the bulk-approach and submit to a bunch of viable playlists, chances are your tracks will safely arrive on at least a few well-trafficked playlists.

But be warned: this service is free, and for a few good reasons. Soundplate doesn’t offer any guidance, support, or consultation if you decide to use their platform. The submission process is also known to be clunky at times. But if your goal is to get your tracks placed on playlists to boost your Spotify play and view counts, then you should at least give Soundplate a good ole’ college try.

Daily Playlists

What better way to end our list of the best Spotify promotion services than with another free, easy-to-use playlist submission service? Well, I couldn’t think of a better way, so here we are!

Daily Playlists takes a comparative approach to Soundplate when it comes to putting your tracks in a position to succeed. Simply add your song’s Spotify URL, manually select the multiple playlists you want to submit to, and follow those playlists to finalize your submissions.

It’s free, painless, and may just result in additional plays, followers, and all-around exposure.

A Word of Warning: Be Careful with Spotify Promotion

As we wrap up our list of recommended services, I want to close with a word of warning: The sad truth is that, while we’ve tried to comb through the schtick as best as we can, there are some slimy Spotify promotion companies out there. As you probably know, a subsection of promo companies rely on bots and click farms to drive streams; in early 2021, those services likely contributed to a bunch of songs being de-listed from Spotify. Be careful. Even worse, there are some pages set up that will take your money and deliver nothing.

Here’s a quick recommendation: Don’t pay for a service until you’ve had communication with that service. Make sure you hear back from a person before you send them your money.

With that in mind, I want to offer a few more specific warnings. An initial version of this list included a few additional Spotify promotion services, but based on feedback from artists, we no longer feel comfortable recommending the following services:

SpotiPromo

We initially had SpotiPromo in the sixth spot, based on research we were able to do at the time. If you click over to their site, you’ll see why – they look slick, they offer geo-targeting, and they have a wealth of seemingly-real reviews. But I’ve since gotten a few emails like the one below:

I bought a package from them 3 weeks ago, but it seems to be a fake as still no results and they haven’t replied to my 6 emails to all their emails, fb and insta page.

So, with that said, please be cautious about working with this service.

Artist Sounds

I’ve only gotten one email criticizing Artist Sounds, but that’s still too much for me to recommend them as a service. If you’ve had a similar (or a different and more positive) experience with this company, reach out and let me know.

Final Thoughts

Otherwise, while all twelve services on the list above are worth your time and consideration, a few of them rise above the rest. We personally vouch for these five services – we’ve used them, plus they all have some combination of stellar reviews, proven results, and streamlined user-experiences:

Indie Music Academy
Playlist Push
YouGrow
Omari MC
Playlist Promotion

(You’ll see some overlap here with the general music promotion services we recommend.)

And speaking of the first company on that list, Indie Music Academy, here’s a final shameless plug for them. We’re proudly biased, but that’s only because Ryan’s the real deal.