If you want guaranteed replies and written feedback, pay for SubmitHub premium or Groover. If you want a single fixed fee and a steady trickle of offers, use Musosoup. If you want relationships you own and no per-pitch cost, pitch directly, but only to outlets that are still publishing. Most artists who get consistent coverage in 2026 use one paid platform plus direct pitching, not three platforms at once.
The short answer
The three big submission platforms charge for access and, in return, force a decision. SubmitHub premium credits cost $1 each, falling to $0.78 in bulk, and require the curator to respond within 72 hours with at least 20 words of feedback if they pass. Groover charges about €2 per standard curator and refunds your credits if nobody replies within 7 days. Musosoup charges a £42 flat campaign fee, then curators make you free or paid offers. Direct pitching costs nothing per email but guarantees nothing, including that anyone is still reading.
Disclosure: Stage is published by Groove Gainer. We make an outreach tool and sell managed promotion campaigns, so we compete with some of the platforms below. The prices here come from each platform's own pages, linked inline, and we have tried to say plainly where each one beats us.
What $100 buys on each
| SubmitHub (premium) | Groover | Musosoup | Direct pitching |
|---|
| Pricing model | Credits: $1 each, down to $0.78 in bulk | €1 per Grooviz; standard curator = 2, top tier 4 to 6 | £42 campaign fee, then optional paid offers (avg £8 to £12) | Free per pitch; your time |
| Roughly what $100 reaches | About 50 to 60 curators at 2 credits each, bulk-priced | About 45 standard curators, more with pack discounts | One campaign plus around 3 paid offers | As many live outlets as you have time to research |
| Reply guaranteed? | Yes, within 72 hours | Yes, within 7 days or credits back | No; curators choose whether to offer | No |
| Written feedback | At least 20 words if declined | Yes, on every reply | Only from curators who make an offer | Rarely |
| Who owns the relationship | Platform-mediated | Platform-mediated | Platform-mediated | You, in your own inbox |
| Best at | Volume, blogs and playlists, fast verdicts | European outlets, radio, industry contacts | Low-effort campaign, one fixed fee | Premieres, features, repeat coverage |
Treat the reach row as arithmetic, not a promise. Curators on every platform set their own price tiers, and the most in-demand ones cost more. What it shows is the order of magnitude: $100 gets you in front of roughly fifty people on the credit platforms, and one campaign plus about three paid placements on Musosoup.
SubmitHub: best for fast, honest verdicts at volume
SubmitHub is the largest of the three and the best at one specific job: telling you quickly whether a song lands. Premium submissions oblige the curator to listen for at least 60 seconds and either approve the song or explain in at least 20 words why not. SubmitHub says the average approval rate across all genres sits around 30%, though rates vary heavily by genre and by curator, and third-party reviews report much lower figures for competitive genres. Standard credits are free, two every four hours, but come with no obligation to respond.
- Where it wins: speed, scale, and feedback you can use to decide which single to push.
- Where it loses: you are one of many in a queue built for fast decisions, and coverage from a 60-second listen is rarely a feature. Premieres and interviews mostly happen outside it.
- Use it for: testing a song before you spend real money promoting it.
Groover: best for European reach and guaranteed replies
Groover charges €1 per Grooviz, with standard curators at 2 Grooviz and top-tier contacts at 4 to 6. If a contact does not reply within 7 days, the credits come back automatically, and Groover reports an average reply rate above 85%, with most answers inside 72 hours. Its network leans European and includes radio, labels and agencies alongside blogs, which makes it stronger than SubmitHub for artists targeting France, Germany or the UK industry.
- Where it wins: the refund guarantee removes the worst outcome of paid pitching, which is paying for silence.
- Where it loses: at about €2 a contact, a campaign wide enough to matter, say 50 contacts, costs around €100 before pack discounts.
- Use it for: a release where European press, radio or label ears matter.
Musosoup: best for a single fixed fee
Musosoup flips the model. You pay a £42 campaign fee, which rose from £36 in January 2026, and your release circulates to its curators, who come back to you with offers. Some are free. Paid offers are set by each curator and average £8 to £12. Coverage labelled #SustainableCurator means the artist chose to tip the curator, which Musosoup says did not influence the decision.
- Where it wins: the least effort of any option. You write one campaign, not fifty pitches.
- Where it loses: you do not choose who hears it, and much of the paid coverage is from smaller outlets.
- Use it for: baseline coverage on every release, especially if you have no time to pitch.
Pitching directly: best for coverage that compounds
Direct pitching is the only route where the editor learns your name rather than a platform's. It is how premieres, interviews and repeat coverage happen, because an editor who covered your last single can say yes to the next one without a middleman. It is also the route with the worst failure mode: when we checked 5,000+ music outlets in September 2026, only about a third had published anything in the previous 90 days. Pitching from an old list mostly means writing to empty inboxes.
- Where it wins: no per-pitch cost, relationships you keep, and access to premieres and features that platforms rarely deliver.
- Where it loses: research time, no guaranteed reply, and a real risk of pitching dead or irrelevant outlets.
- Use it for: premieres four to six weeks before release, and features for singles you are genuinely pushing.
Where Stage fits
Stage's Outreach tool is built for the direct route, and specifically for its failure mode. It only shows outlets whose feeds show a recent post, matched to your genre, with separate tabs for premieres, radio stations and labels. It drafts each pitch for you to edit and opens it in your own email, so the relationship is yours. It also keeps a list of follow-ups that are due, and when you mark a pitch Covered the article goes straight into your press kit. Free accounts get 10 new live outlets a week; Pro opens the whole network for $9.99 a month, the founder price for everyone who joins before December 1 (then $19.99). See pricing for the full comparison.
What Stage does not do: it does not guarantee a reply, and it does not give you SubmitHub-style feedback from a curator. If you want a verdict on a song within three days, a paid platform is the better tool. If you would rather hand the whole thing to someone else, Groove Gainer's managed campaigns (our parent company) handle curator outreach for a flat fee; the same site compares that approach with Groover, One Submit and PlaylistPush.
How to combine them without paying twice
- Six weeks out: test. Spend $20 to $30 of SubmitHub premium credits on the two songs you are choosing between. Release the one with the better approval rate and feedback.
- Five weeks out: premieres, direct. Pitch three to five live outlets that run premieres, by name, with a private link and a clear exclusivity offer.
- Three weeks out: one paid platform. Pick Groover if Europe matters to you, Musosoup if you want a fixed cost. Check you are not paying to reach curators you already pitched directly.
- Release week: features, direct. Pitch reviews and features to 15 to 30 live outlets with a reason to care now.
- After release: follow up once and bank the coverage. One follow-up a week later. Put every piece of coverage into your EPK, and pitch those editors first next time.
The most common way to waste money is double-paying: pitching a curator on SubmitHub who also sits on Groover, or buying access to an outlet you could have emailed for free. Keep one list of everyone you have pitched, across every platform.
Frequently asked
Is SubmitHub worth it in 2026?
SubmitHub is worth it for fast, honest feedback at scale. Premium credits cost $1 each, falling to $0.78 in bulk, and oblige curators to respond within 72 hours and explain a pass in at least 20 words. SubmitHub says its average approval rate is around 30% across genres. It is less useful for premieres and in-depth features, which usually come from pitching editors directly.
Is Groover better than SubmitHub?
Groover is better if you want a guaranteed reply and European reach: it charges about €2 per standard curator and refunds credits if there is no reply within 7 days. SubmitHub is better for volume and faster verdicts on blogs and playlists. Many artists use one, not both, to avoid paying twice for curators who sit on both platforms.
How much does Musosoup cost?
Musosoup charges a £42 campaign fee from January 2026, up from £36. Curators then make free or paid offers; paid offers are set by each curator and average £8 to £12.
Can I get on music blogs without paying?
Yes. Most music blogs still accept direct pitches for free by email or form, and direct pitching is how most premieres and features happen. The catch is that many listed blogs have stopped publishing: in a September 2026 check of 5,000+ outlets, only about a third had posted in the previous 90 days. Check the date of each blog's latest post before pitching.
What is the best SubmitHub alternative?
It depends on what you want from SubmitHub. For guaranteed replies, Groover. For a fixed fee with little effort, Musosoup. For owned relationships and no per-pitch cost, pitching directly to live outlets, which tools like Stage Outreach make faster by filtering out inactive blogs and drafting pitches.
How much should I spend on blog submissions for one single?
For most independent singles, $50 to $150 on one paid platform is enough to learn whether the song resonates, combined with free direct pitching to 15 to 30 live outlets. Spending more on paid submissions has diminishing returns compared with spending it on ads or content once you know the song works. See our guide to promotion at $0, $100 and $1,000 a month.
The honest summary
The paid platforms sell a guaranteed decision, and that is worth money when you need an answer quickly. Direct pitching sells nothing, and gets you the only thing that compounds: editors who know your name. Use a paid platform to test and fill gaps, and pitch the outlets that matter directly, as long as they are still publishing. For budgeting across all channels, see music promotion on $0, $100 and $1,000 a month.
