We tried every major paid submission platform out there. Here is what we learned, what worked, what did not, and why we think the whole model is broken for independent artists.
The most common model: you buy credits and spend them submitting to blogs and playlist curators. Curators are expected to respond within a set window.
What works: the feedback requirement. Curators who reject your track have to leave a reason. That's useful data, even when the feedback is vague.
What doesn't: the economics. Premium submissions cost more. Standard submissions often go unanswered — you may get credits back, but you've still lost time. And many of the most popular curators have long queues or are closed to submissions entirely.
A variation on the model: you pay a fixed amount per curator pitch. The pool often skews toward blogs, radio, and press rather than Spotify playlists.
What works: the curators can be more engaged. We received real feedback from several.
What doesn't: it's expensive, and the ROI for playlist placement specifically is hard to measure. Most of the curators we reached through these platforms were blogs. Blog coverage matters, but it doesn't drive Spotify streams the way playlists do.
A different approach: you pay a flat campaign fee and your track is distributed to a network of playlist owners. You get feedback from each one. It's more like an ad buy than individual submissions.
What works: the scale. You reach many curators at once.
What doesn't: the cost is high, and the playlists in their network vary wildly in quality and engagement. We've heard from artists who ran full campaigns and saw no meaningful streaming uptick.
The model itself is the problem. Every platform charges the artist for access. Curators face no real accountability for quality. And there's no incentive for the platform to care whether your music actually succeeds.
We built SubmitMusic.ca because we believe the relationship between artist and platform should be different. We're not charging per submission. We're curating properly. And we're building something we would have actually wanted to use.