Does It Cost Money To Post Music On Spotify

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How to Upload Music to Spotify

Let's take a look at how to get your music on Spotify as an artist, from key facts about the platform to technical requirements you should be aware of.

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Summary

Numbers of Spotify

170+ Launched countries

60+ Million Tracks in the library

345 Million/ Month Active listeners

2008 Year established

Getting Music on Spotify

Spotify is the leading music streaming service worldwide, offering both major and independent labels and artists a place to promote their music. Spotify offers two models: Spotify users can either listen to music for free with audio advertisements in between tracks, or pay a subscription to remove the advertisements and access other Spotify premium features such as offline listening.

Either way, you make money every time someone streams your music. So how do you upload and sell your music on Spotify? Unfortunately, Spotify does not have direct deals with independent artists and labels, which is why you need to go through a digital music distributor like iMusician. No setup or yearly fee, no paperwork, we save you time by distributing your music library on all the streaming sites and up to 250 other music platforms.

How to Upload Music to Spotify?

Follow these 6 easy steps to get your music on Spotify

iMusician Music Distribution platform

iMusician upload platform for music and artwork

Be sure to upload your music files in WAV format, and your artwork with the dimensions 3000 x 3000 pixels.

iMusician Release Dashboard

Our QA team will contact you directly if anything needs to be corrected.

iMusician Sales Report

Easily view all of your sales and streaming reports within your iMusician dashboard.

Facts About Spotify

As of February 3, 2021, the Swedish streaming platform reported 345 million monthly active Spotify users: 155 million of those users being paying subscribers of Spotify premium. The library contains over 60 million songs that can be found in four billion different Spotify playlists. The revenue paid to rights holders recently reached €8 billion. You can now get your music on Spotify in over 170 countries including Brazil, Vietnam, Israel, and South Africa. The company made its debut on the New York stock market on April 3rd, 2018, with a share price set at $165.90. The company was then valued at $29.5 billion. In June 2020, the music streaming site's value went up to $44.96 billion.

In 2018, Spotify launched "Spotify for Artists" – an online tool to help artists and record labels to manage and customize their artist profiles with biographies, pictures, social links, and more. Once an artist profile is ready to go, artists can start promoting their music directly and get into Spotify playlists to increase streams and revenue!

Now, time to put your music on Spotify

It's easy to get your music on Spotify. But where do you start? It's pretty simple – all you have to do is create a free account with iMusician and upload your music via your iMusician dashboard. We take care of the rest. There's no catch or hidden costs. There's no startup fee, no yearly fee, and you can cancel at any time.

To get your music online, all you have to do is:

Create your iMusician account.
Upload your album, single, or EP.
That's it – we've got you covered. Your music will be on Spotify soon.

Some things to bear in mind when uploading your music

Spotify has some specific guidelines and technical requirements that independent artists should take into consideration.

For remixes, if the original song is not yours, it will be necessary to obtain the authorization of the copyright owners of the original version (author, composer, publisher), and also the authorization of the owners of the audio recording of the original version (very often the record label that produced the track). Your track will be considered a remix if you have used part or all of the original recording. So if you want to upload your own interpretation of Lady Gaga's "Shallow", or your remix-to-end-all-remixes of "Old Town Road", in principle it's possible. Just make sure you have permission beforehand.

For cover versions, if the songwriters are not from the United States, you can distribute your release freely. However, the holders of the original rights always reserve the right to request the removal of your cover version. The situation is more formalized if the songwriters are from the United States. In this case, you will need to obtain a compulsory license from a collecting society (e.g. Songfile) with payments based on the number of units sold or streams played.

Your track will be considered a cover version if: your track is identical (lyrics, melody, basic arrangement) to the original version — with the difference being that you are the performer of that cover version. As soon as the lyrics, the melody, or the basic arrangement are changed, the song is not considered a cover. Rather, it becomes an adaptation or an edit that needs the clearance of the songwriters.

In a nutshell, these are the specific guidelines to upload your music to Spotify:

You can only upload songs you own the master recording rights to
A song with samples must have approval from its owners
Covers are also allowed, as long as you have permission
Check the specifications for your artwork, and only use those you have the right to
Make sure your name is spelled correctly so it doesn't wind up on different profiles. With iMusician you can directly give your Artist URI or, in case you still don't have one, we create it for you.

What about explicit content?

Spotify is a platform for artistic expression. While everyone has the right to make their voice heard, there are certain requirements that must be met. Illegal, explicit, or hateful content has no place on the platform (or any platform for that matter) and can be removed or filtered from Spotify.

This includes:

Content that is protected by copyright or royalties. This means if a copyrighted track is published without the consent of the copyright holders, or if a sample has not been cleared in advance with the owner of the sample.
Hateful content which incites racial hatred, violence against individuals or communities.

Why Use iMusician to Sell Your Music on Spotify

At iMusician, we want to level the music streaming playing field for independent artists and record labels. We believe that everyone should have equal access to all streaming sites and music platforms. We make it easy for musicians and record labels to sell, manage, protect, and monetize their music across the world.

iMusician distributes your music to Spotify plus a wide reach of global music platforms and popular regional shops.
No matter where you are on your musical journey – we have a pricing plan to help ensure your music gets on Spotify.
No annual renewal fees. Pay once, and your music is on Spotify and in other stores forever.
Get help and support in your language from our global Artist & Label Relations Managers.

With iMusician, we also make it easier for independent artists to submit a track for playlist consideration. If it's your first release on Spotify, we allow you to select a release date that's at least two weeks in the future. That should give you enough time to claim your artist profile and get your track submitted.

iMusician Doesn't Stop at Spotify

iMusician allows you to add your music to more than 200 stores worldwide, including electronic music stores like Beatport, Traxsource, and Juno Download. We've got you covered.

musician on stage

Explore for free

Create a free account today and see why more than 200,000 independent artists and labels trust iMusician to sell and monetize their music online. No credit card required.

Reach fans all over the world

Free, quick, and easy set up

Personal support in 6 languages within 1 working day

Sell and stream your music on 200+ online shops, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Beatport, Deezer, Traxsource, and more

Pay only once per release, no recurring fee*

Release with our label for free (or create your own label)

Promote your release with a power suite of tools

*This does not include our Pro Unlimited subscription plan, which is billed annually.

FAQs

How can we help you?

As an independent artist or record label, you can't upload your music directly to Spotify. You need to go through a music distributor like iMusician.

Because you need a digital music distributor to upload your music to Spotify, it isn't free. But regardless of your budget, iMusician has a variety of pricing plans designed to help independent musicians achieve their goals.

You'll need a digital music distributor to get your music on Spotify. With iMusician, you have the choice of multiple pricing plans to fulfill the needs of any size artist or record label.

If you don't have your music on Spotify yet, you'll need to first sign up with a digital music distributor, like iMusician. Then you can easily claim your Spotify for Artists profile. If you've already released your music via a distributor, then it's easy to claim your Spotify for Artists profile.

Once you've chosen your digital music distributor, it can take up to two weeks to see your songs on Spotify. If you need it up sooner, check to see if your music distributor has express delivery. With iMusician, you can pay a little extra for one-week or 48-hour delivery.

Spotify is available to music fans in over 170 countries and territories. When you put your songs on Spotify, you're greatly expanding your reach and potential to be discovered across the world.

The first step is getting a Spotify for Artists profile. You can then add an 8-second visual loop to your tracks. Check out our Guide on Spotify Canvas for a detailed step-by-step.

You can submit your music for consideration to Spotify's editorial team, contact curators of user-generated playlists, or get picked up by Spotify's algorithm.

Before you can add lyrics, you'll need to have your music uploaded to Spotify with a digital music distributor. Once your tracks are up, you have to use Musixmatch to sync your lyrics and connect your music.

If you already have your music on Spotify, all you need to do is follow a few simple steps and claim your Spotify for Artists profile. If you aren't on Spotify yet, you'll first need a digital music distributor before you can claim your Spotify for Artists profile.

Yes, though Spotify doesn't pay artists directly for their streams. Payment is handled by your music distributor. Based on our estimates, Spotify pays about $4000 for every 1 million plays. Check out our guide to learn more about how much Spotify pays artists.