Spotify artificial streaming check

What this check is, and is not. It reads the numbers you type from Spotify for Artists against the warning signs Spotify, distributors and analysts publish. It is not Spotify's detector, it does not see your account, and it cannot tell you whether a song is flagged. Only your distributor's report can. Nothing you type is uploaded.

What Spotify does about artificial streams

Spotify does not pay royalties on streams it judges artificial and removes them from public counts and charts. It reports confirmed cases to your distributor every month, and since April 2024 it charges distributors per track when artificial streaming on that track is very high. Most distributors pass that charge on to the artist.

• Spotify defines an artificial stream as one that does not reflect a real person choosing to listen.
• Streams Spotify judges artificial earn no royalties, are taken out of public stream counts and charts, and do not help recommendations.
• Depending on how severe it is, Spotify may also remove the song from Spotify playlists, or remove the track from Spotify altogether.
• Spotify sends labels and distributors a monthly report of confirmed artificial streaming. The distributor decides what happens next: a warning, a penalty fee, a takedown or, in flagrant or repeated cases, closing the account.
• Since 1 April 2024 Spotify charges labels and distributors per track when flagrant artificial streaming is detected. Spotify says the charge only applies to very high rates of artificial streaming per track. Spotify does not publish the amount.
• Distributors that publish the figure put it at about €10 per affected track per month (around $10 to $11), and say they pass it on to the artist's account. Trade press reported in 2023 that the trigger is more than 90% of a track's streams being artificial; Spotify has not confirmed that number.
• Spotify forbids paying any service that promises streams, followers or playlist placement in exchange for money, and says using one can get your music removed.
• If your streams were genuine, Spotify says to share how you promoted the release with your distributor or label, who can raise it with Spotify's team for review.
• You can report a suspicious playlist your music was added to straight to Spotify, and Spotify asks artists to discourage fans from looping tracks on repeat.
• Some artificial streams are removed before they reach Spotify for Artists, so your distributor's report can show a problem your dashboard does not.

Official vs reported. Spotify confirms it charges distributors per track for flagrant artificial streaming, live since 1 April 2024, but it does not publish the amount or the trigger. The figure of about €10 per track per month comes from distributors' own help pages and is not confirmed by Spotify. The "more than 90% of streams" trigger comes from 2023 trade press and Ditto's help page; Spotify only says "very high rates".

The warning signs, and how this tool reads them

Spotify lists four signs on its own page: an unexplained spike followed by a drop, a spike from a place your music was not active, most streams from surprising sources, and a short burst of followers. Analysts add save rate and streams per listener. Every threshold below is our judgement call, built from those sources, not a rule Spotify publishes.

Paid promotion is not the problem; some offers are

Paying for real work, like playlist pitching to named curators, ads or press, is normal and allowed. Spotify forbids paying any service that guarantees streams, followers or playlist placement. These are the signs that an offer may be selling streams instead of work:

• It guarantees a number of streams, listeners, followers or saves. Spotify does not allow paying for guaranteed streams.
• It guarantees placement on playlists in exchange for money.
• The price is quoted per 1,000 streams or per listener, rather than for work such as pitching, ads or press.
• It does not name the playlists or curators it will pitch, or cannot show their real listeners.
• It promises results that sound too good to be true, such as going viral or reaching a number by a date.
• It insists the streams are "100% organic" or "bot-free" without explaining how they are made.
• There is no contactable person behind it, only a checkout page or a chat bot.
• It contacted you first, cold, by email or social media.
• It asks for a recurring "donation" or fee to keep your track on a playlist.
• It asks you or your fans to stream your own music on repeat.
• Its playlists have big follower counts but the other songs on them have few plays, or the playlists mix unrelated genres.
• Its own social accounts are followed mostly by accounts with no photos or posts.
• It claims partnerships with famous labels or artists that you cannot check.
• It cannot or will not give you a written description of exactly what it will do and where your streams will come from.

If you already got a notice

Do not panic and do not take the song down yourself. Stop any campaign running on the track, ask unknown playlists to remove it, gather your evidence, and reply to your distributor with facts and dates. Spotify says to share how you genuinely promoted the release with your distributor, who can raise it with Spotify's team. The "I got a notice" tab above shows each distributor's process and builds the reply email for you.

Distributor guides: DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, Amuse, UnitedMasters, Ditto Music, Symphonic, LANDR, Too Lost.

Evidence to gather before you reply

Put everything in one folder before you write back. A calm reply with dates and receipts gets further than an angry one.

• The notice itself: save the full email or dashboard message, with its date, and note any reference or ticket number.
• The affected tracks: title, ISRC and release UPC for each, from your distributor dashboard.
• Every paid promotion for these tracks: company or person, what they promised, what you paid, and invoices or receipts.
• Campaign names and dates: when each promotion started and ended, so they can be matched against the spike.
• Playlist pitching: the names and links of playlists and the curators you contacted, and how (platform, email, DM), with screenshots of the replies.
• Ads you ran: screenshots of each ad, its dates, budget, target countries and results, from Meta, TikTok, Google or Spotify Marquee or Showcase.
• Spotify for Artists screenshots for the period: streams, listeners, saves, top countries and cities, source of streams, and top playlists.
• Your distributor's sales report lines for the same months, including any fee or negative line.
• Anything you did to stop it: messages asking curators to remove the track, cancelled orders, playlist reports sent to Spotify, and their dates.
• Genuine reasons for growth: press, radio, a viral post, a show, a sync, a fan community, with links and dates.
• Any posts where you asked fans to stream, so you can show you did not ask for looping.
• Keep everything in one folder, with dates in the file names, before you reply.