How to Put Your Music on Spotify: Release Timing, Metadata, and Rollout Tips

Start with the release, not the dashboard

Before you upload anything, you will of course need a few things sorted out. You’ll want the final master printed, you’ll want the cover art done, you’ll want the track title and artist name locked, you’ll want the release date picked with enough lead time, and you’ll want to know who owns the composition and who owns the master. These are the details that tend to cause delays, incorrect credits, payout headaches, or a release hitting stores later than you promised your audience.

Spotify’s own onboarding pages point artists toward release-ready files, metadata, cover art, and profile setup before release day. This is also where I would give you one piece of dance music advice that I think is helpful. If the track is aimed at streaming, I have found that a radio edit often yields a stronger Spotify version because it gets to the point faster and better fits how people consume music on streaming services. Spotify tracks listen time and engagement with music, and if a listener skips a track a minute in, it’s simply because it has 32 bars of DJ-friendly drum intro bits that could hurt its chances of picking up in the algorithms.

If the track is also aimed at DJs, I would keep a separate extended version for Beatport and download stores, because DJs still want the longer intro, longer outro, and the full arrangement. That split can help you serve two audiences without asking one version of the record to do two jobs at once.

Why LANDR works well for this kind of release plan

From my perspective, the biggest draw of LANDR is that it can handle many of the pieces you are already working on as you get a release ready. LANDR says its distribution gets your music onto almost all DSPs and also provides instant access to Spotify for Artists, royalty splits, promo links, trends, and earnings data, cover song licensing, and lyrics support through Musixmatch. If you are already using LANDR for mastering, or if you want your distribution, mastering, promo links, and reporting under one roof, there is a big-time convenience that is hard to ignore.

That platform also changes how I think you should evaluate the subscription because if you are looking for distribution alone, price will be your first question, and LANDR’s release pricing starts at $24 per year. If you are looking for a setup where distribution lives next to mastering, plugins, samples, and education, then the value comes from using those tools regularly instead of letting them sit there untouched.

Timing is where a lot of releases help themselves or hurt themselves

This is the part of the process I would take super seriously if your goal is Spotify traction, not just store delivery. Spotify’s own pitching and release pages say you should deliver music early because Spotify for Artists is the only way to pitch unreleased music to editorial teams, and Spotify says pitching at least seven days before release gets the track onto your followers’ Release Radar. Spotify’s release guide also says that two weeks before release gives playlist editors more lead time, which aligns with how I think artists should plan.

In practice, I would tell you to aim even farther out than that. If you pitch one week ahead, you are covering the Release Radar side and keeping the song in the right lane for first-week discovery. If you want to shot your best editorial shot, two weeks is Spotify’s recommendation, but I still like a month when the calendar allows it, because release week gets much easier when your pitch, cover art, pre-save campaign, socials, and direct links are already lined up.

The release details deserve a second pass

I would still tell you to slow down when it comes to ownership and credits, because this is where lawsuits could bite you in the butt. If you wrote the song and recorded it yourself, the composition and the master may list you in both fields. If you worked with writers, singers, producers, or a label, that picture gets different pretty quickly, and that is exactly why I think artists should learn the difference before they start releasing. The same caution applies to revenue splits. LANDR’s royalty split system is designed to help you distribute income cleanly, but it still depends on you entering the right people and percentages in the first place.

If you are releasing a cover, LANDR has a pretty practical feature here, too. Cover song licensing is available for a one-time $15 fee per song through LANDR, which can save you time because you don’t have to leave the release flow to chase licensing elsewhere. My advice is simple, though, on this one: if you are uploading a cover, use the built-in licensing path, because rights shortcuts have a way of turning into headaches later.