The market for Spotify promotion is crowded, confusing, and full of services that range from genuinely useful to outright fraudulent. If you're an independent artist looking to invest in promotion, you need a framework for evaluating your options — not just a list of names. Here's how to assess any promotion service before you spend a dollar.
The Evaluation Framework
Every promotion service, regardless of what they claim, should be evaluated on these seven factors. Score each one, and you'll quickly separate the legitimate options from the noise.
1. Delivery Method: Gradual vs Instant
This is the single most important differentiator. How a service delivers plays tells you almost everything about their legitimacy.
- Gradual delivery (days to weeks) — indicates real promotion through playlists, social channels, and listener networks. Real people don't discover music all at once. A service that spreads delivery over time is mimicking (or actually achieving) organic discovery patterns
- Instant delivery (hours) — almost always means bots. No legitimate marketing channel can push 50,000 real listeners to a single track in a few hours. If a service advertises speed as a feature, that's a red flag, not a selling point
Ask the service directly: "What is the typical delivery timeline for [X] plays?" If they say less than 24 hours for anything above a few thousand, be skeptical. If they can't give you a timeline at all, move on.
2. Engagement Quality: Plays Alone vs Full Engagement
Plays are the baseline, but they're not the whole picture. As we explain in our guide to real vs fake Spotify plays, real listeners generate secondary engagement — saves, follows, playlist additions. A quality promotion service should deliver proportional engagement alongside raw streams.
- Good sign — the service offers packages that include saves and followers alongside plays, or their plays naturally generate organic engagement
- Red flag — the service only sells plays with no mention of engagement metrics, or claims 100% play completion with zero other activity
3. Transparency and Communication
A service's willingness to explain how they work is directly correlated with their legitimacy. Legitimate businesses have nothing to hide.
- Good sign — clear pricing displayed on the website, detailed FAQ section, blog content explaining their methods, and responsive customer support
- Red flag — vague descriptions like "we use proprietary methods," no public pricing (you have to DM for quotes), no customer support channel, or a website that's just a single landing page with a payment button
Test their support before buying. Send a question about delivery timelines or their promotion method. If you get a copy-paste response or no response at all, that tells you what post-purchase support will look like.
4. Payment Options and Pricing
How a service handles payments reveals a lot about their business model.
- Credit card only — the most common option, but subject to chargebacks and higher processing fees, which services pass on to you
- Crypto-only or crypto-optional — services that accept cryptocurrency often have lower overhead costs (no payment processor fees, no chargeback insurance) and pass those savings to customers. This is why crypto-only services frequently offer better rates for the same quality of promotion
- PayPal or wire transfer — legitimate but watch for services that only accept "friends and family" PayPal payments (which removes buyer protection)
On pricing itself: be suspicious of extreme outliers in either direction. If a service charges $2 for 10,000 plays, they're running bots. If they charge $500 for the same quantity with no additional value, they're overcharging. Check our pricing page for a benchmark of what quality promotion costs.
5. Refund and Guarantee Policies
Every legitimate service should have a clear policy for what happens when delivery falls short. Look for:
- Delivery guarantee — the service commits to delivering the full quantity ordered, with a timeline. If delivery falls short, they either complete it or refund the difference
- Retention guarantee — some services guarantee that plays will stick (not be removed by Spotify) for a specified period. This is meaningful because it demonstrates confidence that the plays are real
- Refund process — there should be a clear process for requesting a refund, not just a vague promise. How long does it take? What are the conditions?
A service with no refund policy is telling you they know their delivery might not hold up. Treat that as the warning it is.
6. Reviews and Reputation
Social proof matters, but you need to know where to look and what to trust:
- Third-party review sites — Trustpilot, Reddit threads, music production forums (GearSlutz, KVR, r/WeAreTheMusicMakers). Look for detailed reviews that describe the experience, not just star ratings
- Testimonials on the service's own website — take these with a grain of salt. They're curated. Look for specific details (track names, numbers, timelines) rather than generic praise
- Social media presence — a service with an active social media presence and real engagement is more likely to be legitimate than one with a dormant or nonexistent profile
The most useful reviews describe specific outcomes: "I ordered 10,000 plays, they delivered over 5 days, I saw a 6% save rate, and my Discover Weekly placement improved." That's actionable information. "Great service, fast delivery, A+++" tells you nothing.
7. Track Record and Longevity
The promotion industry has high turnover. Bot services launch, collect money, and disappear when Spotify catches on. Legitimate services build reputations over time.
- Domain age — you can check when a website was registered using WHOIS lookups. A service that's been operating for years has more credibility than one that appeared last month
- Consistent presence — regular blog updates, active social accounts, and evolving service offerings suggest a real business, not a fly-by-night operation
- Adaptation — Spotify regularly updates their detection systems. Services that have survived multiple Spotify updates have proven their methods work within the platform's rules
Common Traps to Avoid
Even with the framework above, there are specific traps that catch artists off guard:
- "Guaranteed editorial playlist placement" — Spotify's editorial playlists are curated by internal employees. No external service can guarantee placement. If they claim to, they either have a fake playlist with a misleading name or they're lying
- "Organic growth" with specific numbers — a service that promises "10,000 organic plays guaranteed" is contradicting itself. Organic means unpaid. If you're paying for it, it's promotion. Honest services call it what it is
- Bundled services with no breakdown — some services sell "promotion packages" without specifying what's included. If they can't tell you exactly how many plays, followers, or saves you're getting, they're being deliberately vague
- Free trial offers that require payment info — a classic bait-and-switch. They charge you after the "trial" ends, often for a subscription you didn't knowingly sign up for
- Services that need your Spotify login — no legitimate promotion service needs access to your Spotify account. They need your public track link and nothing else
The Smart Approach: Test Before You Commit
Regardless of how good a service looks on paper, always start with a small test order. Here's a practical testing protocol:
- Order a small package (1,000-5,000 plays) for a track you can monitor closely
- Note the delivery timeline — how many days did it take?
- Check Spotify for Artists for save ratio, geographic distribution, and source breakdown
- Wait 2-4 weeks and see if plays stick or get removed in an audit
- Monitor for any algorithmic benefit — new Discover Weekly appearances, increased organic streams, Radio placements
Only after a small order proves out should you commit to larger quantities. The cost of testing is trivial compared to the cost of putting your account at risk with an unverified service.
Why Crypto-Only Services Often Offer Better Value
This deserves its own section because it surprises many artists. Services that accept only cryptocurrency can operate with significantly lower overhead:
- No payment processor fees (credit card processors charge 2.9% + per-transaction fees)
- No chargeback risk or fraud insurance costs
- Lower operational overhead without payment gateway integration and compliance requirements
Those savings get passed directly to customers. A crypto-only service can offer the same quality of promotion at 15-30% lower prices than a service burdened by traditional payment processing. That's not a gimmick — it's straightforward economics.
Making Your Decision
The best promotion service isn't the cheapest, the fastest, or the one with the most Instagram followers. It's the one that delivers real engagement from real listeners on a timeline that looks natural, with transparent pricing, responsive support, and a track record that holds up under scrutiny. Use the framework above, test with a small order, and let the results speak for themselves.