How to Release Music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music

Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music together account for the overwhelming majority of global streaming revenue. Getting a release onto these platforms is not complicated — but doing it correctly, with optimised metadata, proper asset preparation, and strategic timing, is the difference between a release that performs and one that disappears. This guide walks through every step.

Before You Upload: Asset Requirements

Every platform has minimum technical specifications. Submitting files that fail these specifications causes automatic rejection and delayed releases. Meeting them from the start avoids unnecessary back-and-forth with your distributor's QC team.

Audio Format

The universally accepted lossless format for distribution submissions is WAV at 44.1 kHz / 16-bit stereo. This is the minimum. For platforms supporting hi-res audio — Apple Music Lossless, TIDAL HiFi, Amazon Music HD — you can submit 24-bit / 48 kHz or higher. Never submit MP3 files as source audio. The conversion artefacts introduced during MP3 encoding are permanent and platforms will not accept them regardless of bitrate.

Ensure your audio is properly mastered for streaming. Streaming platforms apply loudness normalisation (Spotify targets -14 LUFS integrated, Apple Music targets -16 LUFS). If your master is excessively loud — above -8 LUFS — normalisation will attenuate the signal and potentially introduce pumping artefacts. A streaming-optimised master avoids these problems.

Cover Artwork

Cover art specifications are consistent across all three platforms: 3000 × 3000 pixels, JPEG or PNG, RGB color space, maximum 10MB file size. Images must not contain:

• URLs, website addresses, or contact information
• Platform logos (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.) or social media icons
• Explicit content imagery (separate from the explicit content flag in metadata)
• Blurry, pixelated, or stretched images
• Third-party copyright material used without clearance

Design for small sizes. Cover art appears at thumbnail scale across most listening surfaces — even the most intricate artwork needs to be legible and visually impactful at 50 × 50 pixels.

Metadata

Metadata accuracy is critical not only for search and discovery but for correct royalty attribution. The minimum required fields are: release title, track title(s), primary artist name(s), featuring artist name(s), composer/songwriter credits, ISRC codes, UPC/EAN for the release, genre, language, release date, and explicit content flag. For a detailed guide to every field and common errors, see our article on music metadata best practices.

How Releases Are Delivered to Each Platform

Artists do not upload files directly to Spotify or Apple Music. Access to these platforms is gated — only approved distribution partners have direct delivery relationships with the DSPs. Your distributor packages your audio, artwork, and metadata and delivers it electronically via a standardised data feed (typically DDEX ERN format) to each platform's ingestion system. Learn more about how this pipeline works in our DDEX explainer.

Once delivered, platforms run their own internal QC and encoding pipeline. This typically takes 24–72 hours for major platforms. Zing MP3 and some regional DSPs can take 3–5 business days.

Timing Your Release

Friday is the universal new music release day, aligned with the global chart reporting week. Releasing on a Friday means your track is eligible for week-one chart positions and coincides with platform-wide new music promotion. Releasing mid-week or on a weekend sacrifices this infrastructure.

For Spotify editorial playlist pitching, you must submit your release to your distributor and pitch through Spotify for Artists no later than seven days before your release date. Pitching with three to four weeks lead time significantly improves consideration for key playlists. Include genre, mood, instrumentation, and a brief description of the track's story — the editorial team uses this context.

For Apple Music editorial, pitching works similarly through Apple Music for Artists. Apple Music editors respond positively to localised pitches — if your track has cultural or geographic relevance, make that explicit.

For YouTube Music, ensure your release includes a YouTube Music-linked ISRC so your official audio appears in YouTube search results rather than only in the Music app. Distributing through an SMG partner also enables Content ID registration, which automatically monetises any YouTube video using your recordings.

Pre-Save Campaigns

A pre-save campaign lets listeners save your upcoming release to their Spotify or Apple Music library before it goes live. When the release date hits, it appears automatically in their library and on their Release Radar playlist. Pre-saves signal listener intent to platform algorithms, which use this data as an input for algorithmic playlist consideration (Discover Weekly, Release Radar, Daily Mix). Even a modest pre-save campaign — a few hundred saves — is meaningfully better than none.

Post-Release: What to Watch

Once live, monitor your first 48 hours through Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists analytics. Track-level data, including saves, playlist adds, and listener geography, appears within 24 hours of release. Unusually strong performance in a specific city or country often signals an organic discovery opportunity that targeted marketing can amplify.