After years of paying $3, $5, sometimes $8 per submission to platforms that gave us nothing back, we decided to build the platform we always wished existed. This is that story.

We are our band (This Is Love) — a Folk/Soft Rock band from Ontario. We have been independently releasing music for years, and like most indie artists, we spent a lot of that time trying to figure out how to get our music in front of listeners without a label or a publicist or a marketing budget.

We tried everything. Blog submission services. SoundCloud groups. Reddit threads. And eventually, like most artists trying to grow on Spotify, we landed on playlist submission platforms.

The experience was frustrating.

You pay per submission. If the curator ignores you, you lose the money. If they say no, you lose the money. If they say yes, the playlist has 200 followers and hasn't been updated since 2022 — you still lose the money. There's no accountability on either side. The relationship is purely transactional, and it's weighted heavily against the artist.

We also noticed that the platforms themselves had no skin in the game. They weren't musicians. They weren't building community. They were just building a marketplace and taking a cut of every transaction.

So we asked ourselves a simple question: what would a playlist submission platform look like if it were built by artists, for artists?

The answer is SubmitMusic.ca.

We don't charge per submission. We don't take a percentage. We built real playlists with real curation standards, seeded them with artists we actually admire, and opened them to independent artists who want their music heard.

Every decision we make for this platform comes from a simple question: what do indie artists actually need?

They need fair access. They need transparency. They need a platform that treats them like artists, not like customers.

That's what we're building. We hope you'll be part of it.