Music is everywhere around us. You hear it in shops, the gym, on your phone, your TV, and everywhere else in between. However, did you know that it’s possible to get paid by making playlists on Spotify?
If you’ve ever experienced followers rolling in after you’ve carefully created an awesome playlist on Spotify, we’re here to tell you that you can make this a source of income.
What Is a Music Curator?
To put it simply, a music curator is a person that spends their time listening to music and gets paid for it. Even though it might seem like a piece of cake, the responsibilities of a music curator are more complicated than you think.
After getting thousands of song applications daily, a music curator will listen to the music and put it into different categories. For example, this person will categorize the songs by female or male vocals, feel, genre, instruments, and more. Then, depending on the type of music curator, they will use the music for different purposes.
In this article, we’ll talk about streaming curators, more specifically, streaming curators on Spotify. The job of a streaming curator on Spotify involves creating fun music playlists that fans would want to listen to on repeat and will encourage them to subscribe to the platform. The playlists need to be updated by the curators on a regular basis in order to keep the listeners engaged, and they need to make the song selection relevant to the theme of the playlist.
In-house curators are flooded by artists and labels who are trying to get a spot in popular playlists. A few curators who are new in this field use streaming platforms like Spotify to practice their skills and build a portfolio. However, if you’re looking to make money from creating playlists on Spotify, you need to know that Spotify isn’t going to send you money directly since they don’t have a program for this yet.
Playlists on Spotify
It is essential to mention that there are three types of playlists on Spotify, and they include following:
- Editorial Playlists: These playlists are made by employees at Spotify, more precisely by the Editorial team, and they aim to provide ease to Spotify listeners.
- Algorithmic Playlists: When an end-user specifies their choice, Spotify auto-generates algorithmic playlists.
- User Playlists: User playlists, as the name implies, are created by Spotify users for their own needs. However, if you want to, you can promote it in order to monetize from it.
Ways to Make Money from Spotify Playlists
Three ways to earn cash from Spotify playlists are by selling your playlist to someone else, reviewing song submissions and getting paid for considering a song placement, and getting paid from artists for song placements. One thing that all of these three options have in common is that you need to raise the follower count of your playlist with active, genuine, and real listeners.
Selling Your Playlist
You can build your playlist and then sell it to someone who wants to take it over. Before you find a buyer, you need to have a big following in order to prove that your followers are real. Even though you won’t have to think about updating the playlist and you will get a big payout, the downside to this method is that it won’t bring income every month.
Reviewing Song Submissions
A great way to make money from your Spotify playlists that we would recommend is by reviewing song submissions. There are a few platforms you can use to do this, which we’ve outlined for you below.
SubmitHub
To earn money from SubmitHub, you need to meet the following criteria:
- Get 1000 real followers
- If you want to add a song, you need to open and listen to at least 20 seconds of it. If you decide to add it, you will need to explain your decision in at least ten words.
- If you add a song by an artist into your playlist and review it, the artist will advertise your playlist on social media, so both sides will benefit from the situation. Regardless of whether you put the song on your playlist or not, you will get paid for your work.
PlaylistPush
Playlist owners on PlaylistPush get to review tracks sent to them by talented artists from all over the world. The best thing about this platform is that when you’re registering, you can select the genres that you like, and you get tracks according to the genres you choose. In this platform, there are a couple of requirements you will need to comply with. The requirements are:
- Have a minimum of 30 new listeners monthly
- Have a minimum of 400 real followers
- Have not less than 1% of those followers listening to your playlist
If you comply with all of the requirements, you can visit PlaylistPush and register to open an account. However, if you’re not sure that you meet the criteria, PlaylistPush can help you through the process. PlaylistPush will send you songs every day, and you will have 14 days to write a review in English.
You need to write if you like or dislike the song. If you like the song, explain the reasons for liking it, and the same goes for if you dislike the song. After this, you get to decide whether to add the song to your playlist or not. You will get internal points if you decide to add the song to your playlist. The more points you earn, PlaylistPush will pay you more money.
DailyPlaylister
Just as with SubmitHub and PlaylistPush, you will also need to meet certain criteria in order to make money from this platform. The criteria are you need to have at least 200 active listeners and 1000 followers. The requirements are a bit higher because this is a platform that collaborates with some high-level artists.
With DailyPlaylister, you will get a playlist on Spotify that you need to add songs to on a daily basis. Then, they will create a page where you need to enter data about the songs on the playlist and classify every song from 1 to 10. Depending on the language you’re fluent in, you have to write a review in either English or Spanish.
It’s your decision whether you want to feature a song on your playlist. In the case that you decide to do it, the artist will advertise your playlist on their social media accounts. PayPal is the payment method used at DailyPlaylister.
Song Placements
One of the simplest ways of making money from a Spotify playlist is by selling song placements on your playlists directly to artist managers, labels, or artists. An easy way to do this is to put your email in the description of the playlists so people can contact you.
Once you have been contacted, all you need to do is make a deal. However, you might have some issues with the ethicality of this method. Moreover, you can also provide a bad experience to the listeners by selling placements on your playlist.
Your playlist might end up being filled with songs from artists that paid to be featured instead of artists you actually recommend and like. In case the above-mentioned scenario happens, listeners will abandon your playlist and artists won’t be willing to pay in order to be featured.
How Can I Gain More Followers?
One of the best ways to increase the number of your Spotify playlist followers is to run Instagram and Facebook ads. You can also promote your playlists on forums and social media, but this might be less effective.
Whichever way you choose to promote your playlists, it is crucial that you focus on real users that will actively engage and use your playlist. The reason for this is that Spotify is detecting artificial streams from click farms and bots, and if Spotify is suspicious, your playlist might end up being completely removed.
Moreover, playlist submission companies prioritize playlists with engaged and active listeners due to the fact that artists will only pay to be on playlists that get more streams.
Final Thoughts
To make money from Spotify, all you need is to be creative and make exciting playlists for several listener categories and various situations. If you want to earn money consistently, make sure that you focus on the quality of the songs you include in your playlist.
In order to seek payment from the artist for the reviews, your playlists need to be popular and you need to have a good number of followers. Lastly, don’t forget to promote your playlist on social media platforms where you can find your target audience.
