In today’s music landscape, getting your songs added to popular playlists on streaming platforms like Spotify can be a game-changer for artists looking to increase their visibility and reach new listeners. With millions of tracks vying for attention, having your music featured on curated playlists can provide a significant boost in streams, followers, and overall exposure.
However, navigating the world of playlist curators and submission platforms can be a daunting task, especially for independent artists without the backing of a major label. Fortunately, there are numerous services and platforms dedicated to connecting musicians with influential playlist curators, making the process of getting your music heard more accessible than ever before.
In this article, we’ll explore 11 of the best playlist curators and submission platforms that can help you get your music in front of the right audiences.
1. Playlist Curator
Playlist Curator is a prominent online platform that curates and distributes music playlists across major streaming services like Spotify, YouTube Music, and SoundCloud. They offer a diverse range of playlists organized by themes such as love, life, resilience, travel, and adventure, catering to various moods and occasions.
How It Works
Playlist Curator maintains a vast collection of curated playlists featuring a mix of mainstream hits and indie gems. These playlists are carefully crafted to align with specific themes and genres, ensuring a cohesive listening experience for their audience.
Artists and musicians can submit their music to Playlist Curator. The submission process is straightforward – artists need to fill out a form on the website, providing details about their song and the playlists they wish to be considered for.
Playlist Curator’s team meticulously reviews each submission, applying strict criteria to assess the quality and suitability of the song for their playlists. They prioritize songs that align with the theme and vibe of their curated playlists, ensuring a consistent and enjoyable listening experience for their audience.
If a song is selected, it will be added to the relevant playlists, which are distributed across major streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube Music, and SoundCloud. This exposure can potentially lead to increased visibility, streams, and new listeners for the featured artists.
To enhance the user experience, Playlist Curator allows listeners to create accounts and bookmark their favorite playlists, enabling them to easily access and listen to their preferred curated collections whenever they desire.
2. iMusician
iMusician is a comprehensive music distribution and promotion platform that helps independent artists and labels get their music onto various streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer. It also offers tools for promoting music through curated playlists.
How It Works
iMusician provides a user-friendly interface where artists can submit their tracks to a variety of curated playlists. The platform offers a free submission process, allowing artists to pitch their music to playlist curators without any upfront costs. Artists can select their track genre and view appropriate playlists, making it easier to target the right audience.
iMusician also offers additional promotional tools, such as Mailchimp integration for building mailing lists and custom contest landing pages to boost fan engagement. The platform emphasizes the importance of having an attractive artist profile and understanding listener statistics to increase the chances of being featured on playlists.
3. Daily Playlists
Daily Playlists is a music promotion service that connects artists with a vast network of playlist curators. Since its launch in 2018, it has helped over 260,000 artists submit their music to more than 18,000 active playlists.
How It Works
Daily Playlists offers a straightforward submission process where artists can submit their music for free. The platform allows artists to submit up to 25 tracks per week to a wide range of curators. Daily Playlists also provides a premium submission option, which costs $2 per submission and gives access to highly vetted curators with proven engagement metrics. The platform’s automatic submission tool can match tracks to the best-fitting playlists based on genre, mood, and style, making it easier for artists to reach their target audience.
Additionally, Daily Playlists offers a dashboard for tracking submission status and viewing featured playlists, providing valuable insights for artists to optimize their promotional strategies.
4. For the Love of Bands
For the Love of Bands is an indie music blog and Spotify curator based in the Netherlands. Launched in 2016, it focuses on promoting independent and emerging artists across various genres, including alternative rock, indie rock, and singer-songwriter.
How It Works
For the Love of Bands allows artists to submit their music through platforms like Groover. The submission process involves selecting the appropriate genre and providing a finished, professionally produced track. The curators at For the Love of Bands are known for their high answer rate and detailed feedback, making it a valuable resource for artists seeking constructive criticism and exposure.
The platform also offers additional promotional services, such as interviews and detailed advice, to help artists grow their audience. By focusing on authentic and creative music, For the Love of Bands ensures that only high-quality tracks are featured on their playlists.
5. SubmitHub
SubmitHub is a music submission platform founded in 2015 by music blogger Jason Grishkoff. It connects independent artists with a network of playlist curators, bloggers, and influencers to help promote their music.
How It Works
SubmitHub operates on a credit-based system, where artists can purchase standard or premium credits to submit their music to curators. Each submission requires 1-3 credits, and premium credits guarantee a response within 48 hours. Curators must listen to at least 20 seconds of a track and provide feedback if they choose not to feature it. The platform allows artists to filter curators based on genre, mood, and other preferences, ensuring that their music reaches the right audience.
SubmitHub also offers a messaging system for direct communication between artists and curators, facilitating collaboration and feedback. The platform’s transparency and detailed statistics help artists make informed decisions about their submissions.
6. Rizing Playlists
Rizing Playlists is an independent playlist brand launched in 2018 that supports unsigned and upcoming musicians. It focuses on promoting new and talented artists across various genres, including indie pop, indie rock, and dance music.
How It Works
Rizing Playlists allows artists to submit their music through platforms like Groover. The submission process involves selecting the appropriate genre and providing a finished, professionally produced track. Rizing Playlists is known for its high answer rate and sharing rate, giving artists a good chance of being featured. The platform emphasizes the importance of high-quality production and professional presentation, ensuring that only the best tracks are included in their playlists. By focusing on authentic and unique music, Rizing Playlists helps artists gain exposure and grow their fan base.
7. Soundplate
Overview: Soundplate is a London-based record label and music technology company that provides tools to help artists promote their music, including a free platform to submit songs to Spotify and Deezer playlists.
How It Works
Soundplate offers a free “playlist submission system” called Play.Soundplate where artists can submit their music to hundreds of Spotify and Deezer playlists curated by independent playlist owners.
After creating an account, artists can browse through the available playlists and submit their tracks to the ones that fit their genre and style. The playlist curators then review the submissions and decide whether to add the songs to their playlists or not.
Soundplate’s system is completely free for artists to use, making it an accessible option for independent musicians looking to get their music on playlists without a significant upfront cost.
8. Indiemono
Overview: Indiemono is a digital music label and distribution platform that also facilitates collaborations between artists and playlist curators.
How It Works
Indiemono has a “Playlist Browse” section on their website where they host playlists curated by their partners and collaborators. Artists can submit their music directly to Indiemono for consideration to be added to these playlists.
The platform operates on a partnership model, where curators and playlist owners can sign up to become Indiemono partners. As partners, their playlists get featured on Indiemono’s website, and they gain access to submit music from Indiemono’s artist roster to their playlists.
This partnership system creates a mutually beneficial relationship, where artists get exposure on the partner playlists, and curators get access to new music from Indiemono’s artists.
9. Playlist Push
Overview: Playlist Push is a paid music promotion service that connects artists with independent Spotify playlist curators.
How It Works
Artists can create a campaign on Playlist Push by submitting their song and setting a budget. Playlist Push then uses an algorithm to match the song with relevant playlist curators based on the genre and other criteria.
The curators receive the song submission and provide feedback on whether they will add it to their playlist or not. Curators are paid by Playlist Push for each song they review, with higher payouts for curators with more engaged followers.
Playlist Push claims to have a rigorous vetting process for accepting curators to ensure the playlists have authentic, organic followers. Artists can track their campaign performance and placements through an analytics dashboard.
10. SongRocket
Overview: SongRocket is a platform that facilitates pitching music to Spotify playlist curators for independent artists, labels, and music promoters.
How It Works
SongRocket has a network of over 170 curators with a combined listener base of over 11 million followers on Spotify. Artists or their representatives can submit songs to SongRocket, which then pitches the music to relevant curators based on the genre and style.
The curators review the submissions and decide whether to add the songs to their playlists or not. SongRocket aims to provide a streamlined process for artists to get their music in front of curators without having to individually pitch to each one.
The platform also offers additional services such as a record label and claims to prioritize quality over quantity by carefully vetting the curators in their network.
11. SoundCampaign
Overview: SoundCampaign is a music promotion platform that connects artists with Spotify playlist curators who can add their music to playlists.
How It Works
Artists can create a campaign on SoundCampaign by submitting their song and selecting the relevant genres. SoundCampaign then sends the song to curators who have playlists in those genres.
The curators listen to the song and provide feedback on whether they will add it to their playlist or not. SoundCampaign claims to have a system in place to ensure the playlists have real, engaged followers rather than bots.
Artists can track the performance of their campaigns through SoundCampaign’s analytics dashboard, which shows details such as the playlists their song was added to and the number of streams generated.
SoundCampaign offers different campaign types, including playlist pitching and feedback campaigns, allowing artists to choose the type of promotion that best suits their needs.
