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October 7, 2026

How to Get My Music on Spotify Through a Distributor or Direct

Spotify does not accept uploads directly from artists. Every release on the platform, from a major label album to a bedroom-produced single, arrives through an approved distributor that handles licensing, delivery, and royalty payment on Spotify's behalf. That single fact shapes almost every decision below: which distributor to use, what it costs, how fast your release goes live, and, most importantly for your income, which royalties that distributor actually collects for you and which ones it doesn't.

Getting from an unreleased track to a live Spotify page with royalties flowing correctly takes more than distribution alone, because distributors typically leave out several registration steps.

What You Need Before You Start

Before you submit anything, you need a finished master audio file, cover art that meets Spotify's specifications, a release date, and a distributor account. If you're signed, your label likely already works with a distributor who can deliver your music, so check with them before setting anything up yourself. If you're unsigned, you'll choose and set up your own distributor account first, since there's no direct path around this step.

Choose a Distributor to Reach Spotify

Distributors handle music distribution and pay streaming royalties, and working with one is the only way to get your music on Spotify. Most charge a fee or a commission for that service. Four commonly used options are DistroKid, CD Baby, RouteNote, and Amuse, and their pricing structures differ enough that the right choice depends on how often you release music and how much control you want over the process.

Compare Distributor Costs Over Time

DistroKid runs on a subscription model, with plans starting at $2.08 a month. You can upload unlimited songs and keep 100% of your earnings, so the more you release, the lower your cost per track drops over time.

CD Baby charges a one-time fee instead: $9.99 per single or $14.99 per album, with no subscription and no recurring annual cost. CD Baby has paid artists weekly for over 25 years, and this model tends to work out cheaper for artists who release infrequently, since there's nothing to keep paying for between releases.

RouteNote and Amuse take a third approach. Both offer unlimited free distribution to Spotify. RouteNote pays out monthly once your account crosses its earnings threshold, and Amuse lets you cash out once you hit a $10 minimum while keeping 100% of your royalties and rights. Instead of a subscription or flat fee, the cost shows up as a commission taken from your earnings rather than money paid upfront.

The practical difference: a subscription favors artists releasing frequently, a one-time fee favors infrequent releasers who want a predictable cost, and a free commission-based model favors artists who want zero upfront cost and don't mind giving up a cut of streaming revenue.

Weigh Distributor Extras Like Playlist Pitching Support

Pricing alone doesn't tell the whole story. DistroKid gives all members free, instant access to Spotify for Artists, and playlist pitch eligibility is available on its Musician Plus and Ultimate plans, provided your release date is at least three weeks out.

CD Baby is a Spotify Preferred Provider, which the company says helps ensure your music meets requirements, goes live quickly, and gets paid accurately. CD Baby also offers an add-on called CDB Boost, which registers your release with the MLC and SoundExchange so you collect royalty types that standard distribution doesn't automatically cover. That distinction matters when you're comparing base prices: a cheaper distributor plan that only covers streaming payout isn't necessarily cheaper once you account for the royalties it leaves uncollected.

Prepare Your Metadata Cover Art and Audio Before Upload

Spotify normalizes loudness to -14 dB LUFS, so professionally mastered audio will sound more polished next to other tracks on the platform than something mixed at home without mastering. Spotify strongly prefers the FLAC format, with a sample rate of at least 44.1 kHz, 16-bit minimum, and stereo output.

Cover art has its own requirements: TIFF, PNG, or JPG format using lossless encoding at the highest resolution available, a 1:1 aspect ratio, and dimensions between 640 and 10,000 pixels wide and tall.

Every release needs a UPC (a code identifying the release as a whole) and every individual track needs an ISRC (a code identifying that specific recording). Most distributors, including DistroKid, assign both automatically during upload, so this usually isn't something you have to manage yourself. If you're releasing a cover song, you'll need a separate cover song license before you distribute it. That license isn't something your distributor arranges for you by default, so confirm you have it before you submit.

Upload Your Music Through Your Distributor

Once your files and metadata are ready, you submit through your distributor's platform, and that submission triggers a delivery window before your release actually appears on Spotify. DistroKid delivers releases in 2 to 5 days. CD Baby averages 5 to 10 business days.

If something gets rejected at submission, wrong metadata or an unsupported audio format, you'll generally need to fix the issue and resubmit through the same distributor before your scheduled release date. Once a release goes live, corrections get harder to make, so it's worth catching errors during the submission window rather than after launch.

Claim Your Spotify for Artists Profile

Spotify for Artists is free to join and only requires a Spotify account, and it's open to signed and unsigned artists alike. If you want access before your release date, upload through a distributor that supports early access. DistroKid, for instance, allows this if you upload at least 4 weeks in advance of your release date.

Verification is open to every artist, but it requires an application rather than happening automatically. Once your profile is claimed and verified, you get audience stats, control over your artist page, and the ability to pitch unreleased music directly to Spotify's editorial team.

Pitch Your Release to Spotify Playlist Editors

If you want your song considered for an editorial playlist, pitch it through Spotify for Artists at least 7 days before its release date. That's Spotify's own minimum window for editors to review a submission and get your profile ready for launch. DistroKid's paid plans require a release date at least 3 weeks out for pitch eligibility on their end, which is a longer runway than Spotify's own 7-day minimum, so check which timeline applies to the tool you're using.

No one can pay to be added to an editorial playlist. If you see an ad promising guaranteed playlist placement for a fee, it isn't legitimate, and using it won't get your song on an official Spotify playlist.

Register Your Royalties Beyond the Distributor Payout

Your distributor collects and pays streaming royalties for the sound recording itself, the payment tied directly to plays of your track. That's not the only royalty a Spotify stream generates. Publishing royalties, mechanical royalties, and digital performance royalties are collected separately, through PROs (performance rights organizations), the MLC (The Mechanical Licensing Collective), and SoundExchange, and standard distribution does not automatically register your release with any of them.

CD Baby's own CDB Boost add-on exists because of this gap. The company markets it specifically to help artists collect digital performance royalties and mechanical royalties that standard distribution leaves uncollected, on top of unlocking sync licensing opportunities that aren't available otherwise. That's a distributor telling you, in its own product description, that its base distribution fee doesn't cover every royalty type a stream can generate.

This is the gap Mogul exists to help close. Rather than assuming your distributor payout covers everything a Spotify stream produces, it's worth checking whether your release is actually registered with the relevant PROs, the MLC, and SoundExchange for the royalty types that apply to you. Mogul helps artists and songwriters check whether royalties may not have reached them, fix registration gaps across these organizations, and keep more of what they've already earned. If you've never registered outside your distributor, it's worth checking the limits of performance rights organizations and what digital performance royalties actually cover before assuming your existing setup is complete.

Confirm Your Release and Royalty Setup Are Complete

A release is genuinely finished once three things are true: it's live on Spotify, your artist profile is claimed and verified, and you've checked your registration status with any PROs, the MLC, and SoundExchange that apply to your royalty types. Distribution alone only satisfies the first item.

After your first royalty statement arrives, compare what you actually received against what you'd expect based on your registration status. If the numbers don't line up, or if you're not sure whether you're registered everywhere you should be, that's the point to look into how long music royalties typically take to arrive and whether any unclaimed royalties are sitting uncollected under your name.

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