So you've made a song and you want people to hear it. Brilliant. But somewhere between finishing the track and it actually appearing on Spotify, there's a bunch of stuff nobody explains properly — and most of it matters more than you'd think.
This isn't about what distributors are hiding from you or how the industry is rigged. It's simpler than that. This is the practical stuff: the steps, the timelines, the accounts you need to set up, the mistakes that delay releases, and the things that'll save you from learning the hard way.
If you're releasing music for the first time in 2026, here's what you actually need to know.
1. You can't upload directly to Spotify or Apple Music
This is the first thing that surprises most new artists. You can't just go to Spotify, create an account, and upload your track. Major streaming platforms don't accept music directly from artists. Instead, you need a distributor to deliver it on your behalf.
A distributor is basically a delivery service. You upload your track, artwork, and metadata to them, and they send it out to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, and dozens of other stores. Some distributors charge a monthly or annual fee. Some take a percentage of your royalties. Some do both. Prices typically range from about $3 to $25 per month depending on the platform and what's included.
This is different from a record label. A label funds your music, handles marketing, and usually owns or co-owns your recordings. A distributor just delivers your music to stores. This means you keep total ownership of everything.
It's worth spending an hour or two comparing options before you commit. Not all distributors offer the same thing, and the cheapest option isn't always the best once you factor in what's actually included versus what costs extra.
2. Get your mastering sorted before you upload
You might already know this, but it's worth saying clearly: streaming platforms expect a professionally mastered audio file. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to spend hundreds of pounds at a mastering studio, but your track does need to be at a competitive loudness level, properly balanced across frequencies, and free of clipping or distortion.
The standard delivery format is a WAV or FLAC file, 16-bit/44.1kHz minimum. Some distributors also accept 24-bit files. Don't upload an MP3! That's a compressed format and you'll lose audio quality. Remember, stores will transcode to their own formats. So you want to provide them with the best sound possible!
If you're on a tight budget, AI mastering tools have got surprisingly good. They typically offer automated mastering for a bucks per track. They won't replace a great human engineer for complex mixes, but for straightforward masters they're pretty good in 2026. A lot of independent artists use them for singles and it sounds perfectly fine on streaming.
If you've mixed the track yourself, get a second pair of ears on it before mastering. It's very hard to be objective about a mix you've been staring at for weeks. Mastering can never make up for bad mixing, so you need to perfect this as much as possible. Mastering is the polish.
3. Your artwork needs to meet specific requirements
Every streaming platform requires cover artwork, and they're surprisingly strict about it. The specs are universal: 3000x3000 pixels, RGB colour mode, JPEG or PNG format. Anything under that resolution will get rejected.
In addition to the raw technical specs, the content matters a lot too. The artist name and release title on your artwork need to match your metadata exactly. This means the same spelling, same capitalisation, same punctuation. If your artwork says "MIDNIGHT" but your metadata says "Midnight," some stores will flag it. Apple Music is particularly strict and will reject releases over minor mismatches.
Things that will also get your artwork rejected: URLs or social media handles anywhere on the image, logos of streaming platforms (no Spotify or Apple Music logos), blurry or pixelated images, and any misleading claims you can't back up.
If you can't afford a designer, Canva has free templates at the right dimensions. It won't look like a major label release, but it'll meet the specs and look clean. Whatever you do, don't use images you find in Google! that's a copyright issue. Use royalty-free stock sites like Unsplash or Pexels, or better yet, make something original. Make it yours!
Don't forget to design for mobile. Most people will see your artwork as a thumbnail smaller than a postage stamp. If the text isn't readable at that size, simplify the design.
4. Give yourself at least four weeks before your release date
This is probably the most important practical tip on this list. Don't finish your track on Monday and try to have it on Spotify by Friday. It doesn't work like that, and even if it did, you'd be throwing away your best opportunities.
Here's a realistic timeline for a first release:
Four to five weeks out: Upload your finished, mastered track to your distributor with all the metadata, artwork, and credits filled in. This gives time for the distributor to process it, deliver it to stores, and handle any issues that come up. Some stores take longer than others, so you need to account for this. We typically find that Spotify often goes live before most others. Specialist stores such as Beatport and Volumo who curate their library will take longer as they have their own human review step.
Three to four weeks out: Once your track appears in your Spotify for Artists dashboard, pitch it to Spotify's editorial team. This is totally free, but can lead to you gaining a huge amount of traction if your track is chosen. All you need to do is fill in details about the genre, mood, instruments, and the story behind the track, and Spotify's editors consider it for playlists.
Do keep in mind, you can only pitch one song per release, and you need at least seven days before the release date to submit. But realistically, three to four weeks gives your pitch the best chance of being heard. Editors receive thousands of pitches every week.
Two to three weeks out: Set up your pre-save link and start sharing it. A pre-save means that when your track goes live on release day, it automatically saves to the listener's library. Pre-saves count as Day 1 engagement, which signals to the algorithm that people are interested in your music.
Release day (Friday): Global release day has been Friday for forever. Spotify's New Music Friday, Release Radar, and other playlist refreshes are timed around it. Releasing on any other day means missing those initial playlist windows.
Rushing this timeline is the single most common mistake new artists make. Give yourself the time.
5. Claim your artist profiles on every platform
This is free, it takes about ten minutes per platform, and not doing it is genuinely costing you opportunities.
Spotify for Artists lets you customise your profile (bio, photos, Artist Pick), access your streaming analytics, and importantly, pitch unreleased music to editorial playlists. You can't pitch without claiming your profile. Go to artists.spotify.com and follow the verification process once your first release is live.
Apple Music for Artists gives you analytics on your Apple Music streams, Shazam data, and listener demographics. Claim it at artists.apple.com.
YouTube for Artists and Amazon Music for Artists offer similar dashboards with audience insights.
Beyond the analytics, claimed profiles look more professional. Spotify shows a blue verification tick next to your name. You can add a proper bio, link your social accounts, and feature content at the top of your page. An unclaimed profile with a grey placeholder image and no bio screams "I don't know what I'm doing." It takes ten minutes to fix.
6. Understand what an ISRC code and UPC are (and why they matter)
When you upload a release, your distributor will either assign these automatically or ask you to provide them. Either way, you need to know what they are.
An ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is a unique 12-character identifier assigned to each individual sound recording. Think of it as a passport number for your track. Every platform, collection society, and royalty tracking system uses ISRCs to identify exactly which recording is being played and who should get paid.
A UPC (Universal Product Code) is the barcode assigned to your release as a whole. This is the single, the EP, or the album. One UPC per release, one ISRC per track.
The main thing you need to know: if you ever switch distributors, take your ISRCs with you. If your new distributor assigns fresh ISRCs instead of carrying over the originals, streaming platforms will treat your tracks as completely new recordings. You'll lose your stream counts, your playlist placements, and any algorithmic momentum you'd built up. Keep a simple spreadsheet of every ISRC for every track you release. You'll thank yourself later.
7. Register with a performing rights organisation
This is the step that catches the most people off guard, and it's genuinely important.
Your distributor collects your recording royalties — the money that streaming platforms pay when someone plays your track. But there's a completely separate set of royalties tied to the composition (the melody, lyrics, and arrangement of the song itself), and those are collected by different organisations entirely.
If you're in the UK, register with PRS for Music as a songwriter. This costs a one-off fee (currently around £100) and means you'll start collecting performance royalties whenever your music is played on streaming platforms, radio, TV, in shops, at live venues — anywhere, basically. Without this registration, those royalties have nowhere to go and just pile up unclaimed.
In the US, the equivalent organisations are ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC.
There are also mechanical royalties from streaming (collected by MCPS in the UK, or the MLC in the US) and neighbouring rights royalties from radio and digital broadcasts (collected by PPL in the UK, or SoundExchange in the US).
This sounds like a lot of acronyms, and it is. But the core message is simple: your distributor only handles one type of royalty. If you don't register with these organisations, you're leaving money on the table from your very first release.
8. Metadata is a big reason that many artists lose money
Your metadata is everything attached to your release beyond the audio: artist name, track title, songwriter credits, genre tags, featured artists, ISRC codes, and more. It's how the entire industry identifies your music and figures out who to pay.
The most common metadata mistakes for first-time releases:
Inconsistent artist name
If your Spotify profile says "Pascal Sauvage" but your next release goes out as "Pascal Sauvagé," platforms will create two separate artist profiles. Your streams get split, your algorithmic recommendations get diluted, and collection societies can't match your royalties. Pick one exact spelling and use it everywhere.
Wrong songwriter credits
Your songwriter credits should use your legal name, not your stage name because that's what your PRO registration is under. If the names don't match, the automated systems that match compositions to writers won't connect them, and your composition royalties go unmatched.
Missing or incorrect genre tags
Genre metadata directly affects which algorithmic playlists your music gets served to. If you tag your acoustic folk track as "Hip Hop," the algorithm will push it to the wrong listeners. Those listeners will skip it, which is a negative signal that tells the algorithm to stop recommending it.
None of this is glamorous, but getting your metadata right is probably the highest-value ten minutes you'll spend on any release.
9. Singles first, albums later
If you're releasing music for the first time, start with singles. The instinct is to make an album and drop it all at once, but from a strategic standpoint, singles are more effective for building an audience from scratch.
Every time you release a new track, it triggers Spotify's Release Radar for your followers. It gives you a reason to post on social media and reach out to playlist curators. It gives the algorithm fresh engagement data. And it means that if one track connects with an audience, you've got more music for them to discover immediately.
The waterfall release strategy is worth understanding here. The idea is: release Single 1, then a few weeks later release Single 2 as a two-track release that includes Single 1. Then release Single 3 as a three-track release that includes Singles 1 and 2. Each "new" release refreshes the older tracks, giving them another shot at algorithmic playlists and keeping your stream counts compounding rather than starting from zero each time.
A single every four to eight weeks is a sustainable pace for most independent artists. You don't need to churn out music constantly. You just need to be consistent. One track per year makes it very hard to build any momentum.
10. Set realistic expectations about what happens next
Here's the honest bit that most guides skip, probably because it doesn't sell distribution subscriptions.
Your first release probably won't get thousands of streams. That's completely normal. The vast majority of tracks on Spotify never reach 1,000 streams, and Spotify's threshold for generating any royalties at all is 1,000 streams within a 12-month window. So even if your track gets some plays, you might not see any actual money from it for a while.
That doesn't mean it's a failure. Your first release is about learning the process, building your profile, and having something out there for people to find. It's the foundation everything else gets built on.
A few things to expect:
Royalty payments take two to three months
Streaming platforms calculate royalties at the end of each month, then send payment data to your distributor, who then processes it and pays you. From the day someone streams your track to the day you see the money, expect roughly 60 to 90 days. Some platforms take even longer, so please be patient.
Spotify pays roughly $0.003 to $0.005 per stream on average
That means 1,000 streams earns you about $3 to $5 before your distributor's cut. At those rates, streaming alone won't pay your rent, sure. But it's one piece of a bigger picture that includes live performance, merchandise, sync licensing, direct fan support, and publishing royalties.
The algorithm rewards consistency, not one-off releases
Your second and third releases will perform better than your first, because you'll have followers, you'll have learned what works in promotion, and the algorithm will have more data to work with.
Check your Spotify for Artists analytics after the first month
Look at where your listeners are geographically, how they're finding your music (playlists, search, social media), and what your save rate looks like. This data tells you what's working and what to adjust for your next release.
The artists who build sustainable careers aren't the ones who go viral once. They're the ones who release consistently, learn from each cycle, and gradually build an audience that shows up every time. Your first release is step one. It's supposed to be small.
At Kinjari, every release is human-checked before delivery. Thanks to this, we catch metadata errors, artwork issues, and formatting problems before they reach stores. Real people, real support, and answers when you need them. $3/month, 90% royalty split, music stays live if you cancel. Start releasing with Kinjari →
