Can you see your listeners on Spotify?

Whether you are a listener or an artist, you may want to check on a songs total stream or play count in Spotify. Ive looked up the best ways to check this and wrote about it here.

To check Spotify streams, visit the artists Spotify profile and see the songs listed under the Popular section. Artists can check their Spotify streams for any of their songs by signing up and logging into Spotify For Artists.

P.S. If you want to check your own personal Spotify streams [as in how many times youve streamed a song or artist], check out my article called: Spotify Analytics For Listeners: Spotify Stats & Streams Tracker

If you are not the artist, you can only see the total play counts or total streams of songs that are listed in the Popular section. Total play counts can not be found anywhere else unless you are the artist and have access to the Spotify For Artists dashboard.

For a more detailed, step-by-step approach to both methods, simply read on, my friend!

How To See Play Counts On Spotify

There are two main methods to check play counts on Spotify, depending on if you have a listener profile or an artist profile.

• Listener profiles are the either free or paid versions of Spotify you use to listen to and discover music on the Spotify app or web browser.
  
• Artist profiles are the profiles you use to manage your songs and view your stats when you distribute and release music on to Spotify.

First, we will look into the basic way how you can see how many plays a song has on Spotify.

#1 View play counts as a listener

To view play counts for songs on Spotify, simply follow these steps:

#1 Open up the Spotify app or web browser.

#2 Type in the artist you are looking for in the search engine.

#3 Click through to the profile of the artist.

#4 Under the Popular section, you will see play counts to the right of each song.

At the time of writing this, it is only possible to see the play counts of songs that appear in the Popular section of an artists profile.

You are not able to see the play counts for a song that is not listed in the Popular section. Also any songs that have less than 1,000 total play counts will show up as >1000, even if they are listed in the Popular section.

However, if you are an artist and want to see the play counts of your own songs, there is a way!

#2 View play counts as an artist

Artists can view play counts and stream counts of any of their songs by accessing the Spotify For Artists dashboard. In fact, there is a lot of great insights and data the can be found in the Spotify For Artists dashboard.

In addition to being able to simply view stream and play counts, in an interview with Emily White, the Artists Product Manager at Spotify, states that:

The most important thing in Spotify for Artists is access to data that helps you gain an understanding of who and where your audience is and what songs are connecting with listeners the most.

Emily White, Spotify

So how can you get access to the Spotify For Artists dashboard so that you can get access to stats and the ability to make Spotify editorial playlist submissions if you yourself are an artist?

Great question!

Lets take a closer look at this in the section below, my friend!

How To Become A Spotify Artist

To get access to the Spotify For Artists dashboard and become a Spotify artist, you must first actually have music released on Spotify.

So how do you get your music on Spotify?

To get your music on Spotify, you need to work with a distributor, or with a record label who already has a distributor. They handle all the licensing and distribution, and pay your streaming royalties.

Spotify

Once you have your music on Spotify, you can simply claim your artist profile by visiting this page.

However, some distributors [like DistroKid], actually automatically claim your artist profile for you when you distribute music through them.

On top of this, it is actually very easy and surprisingly cheap to do this [I ended up using DistroKid myself because of how easy and cheap it is to use].

For a detailed look into this, check out my article on how to create a Spotify artist account [youll even learn how to get that beautiful blue verified checkmark].

However, for the best and easiest way to get your music on Spotify properly, take a closer look at DistroKid and my big fat DistroKid review to learn everything about them.

There is even a handy How To Choose A Distributor Guide and some info on the nice DistroKid discount.

With that said, it is always a good idea to do some of your own research and see what other distributors are out there on the market.

Some other options to check out

Although I personally use, love, and recommend DistroKid, it is always a good idea to see how they compare to the other guys.

Luckily for you, Ive done just that.

Check out the comparisons of DK to some other popular music distributors:

• DistroKid vs TuneCore
  
• DistroKid vs CD Baby
  
• DistroKid vs Amuse
  
• DistroKid vs Ditto
  
• DistroKid vs UnitedMasters
  
• DistroKid vs SoundCloud

However, if you would like to get your music on Spotify for free, there are some catches but, it is completely do-able!

Lets take a look into how you can get your tunes on Spotify for free, just below.

How To Become An Artist On Spotify For Free

There is a service called RouteNote.com that allows you to upload music to Spotify for free. Definitely check them out if you find that spending $19.99 for unlimited song releases is too much for you at this time.

No judgment, my friend!

However, I did mention that there is a catch

Unlike DistroKid, RouteNote actually takes a 15% cut of any song royalties that you may receive.

What that means is if any of your songs take off and start actually bringing in some cash, RouteNote will always be stripping you away of your hard-earned dollars.

To get a better idea of how much you stand to lose, learn how to find & use the best Spotify stream calculator so you can calculate potential royalty earnings based on the number of streams.

On top of this, RouteNote does have paid plan versions that are weird and complicated. You pay $30 per year in the first few years and then need to start paying $10 per single and $50 per album. WTF?

Obviously, I am a little biased because I use and love DistroKid, but this complicated pricing structure seems fishy to me.

Especially when compared to the much simpler [and better imo] DistroKid pricing.

But with that said, if you are just dipping your toes into the water of releasing music on Spotify, this really can be a fantastic way to get started.

Finally, I should mention that if the cost of DistroKid is too high for you, you can actually follow this here link to save 7%. Its not a crazy amount of savings, but hopefully, it can help you out.

Spotify Stream Tracker: The Best Way To Grow Your Spotify Streams

In an article that I previously wrote about what to do if your Spotify stream count is not updating, I discovered the best way to track [and grow] your Spotify streams

Build your own custom Spotify stream tracker using spreadsheets.

But how you ask?

By using spreadsheet software like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel you can basically build your own simple app that you can use to track your growth and key Spotify metrics.

To learn more about this, check out my article on the Spotify Tracker For Artists.

In addition to tracking your Spotify streams, a tracker like this is also a great way to calculate your listeners, save rate, and listen rate [all of which help you in the Spotify algorithm].

Just make sure you know what the difference between streams and listeners on Spotify is first.

And of course, that you have your music up on Spotify and have access to the Spotify For Artists dashboard.

How To Get More Spotify Streams

What makes Spotify so awesome is that they have built a whole bunch of ways for artists to grow their streams [and revenue] naturally right within the Spotify.

Theyve done this by creating 2 types of playlist:

1. Spotify algorithm playlists
   
2. Spotify editorial playlists

Getting on any of these will significantly increase the number of streams your music gets.

So how do you get on these bad boys?

The honest secret is this

Release music often.

This is exactly why I really think it is important to choose a music distributor that provides unlimited song uploads for a small fee, like DistroKid.

Otherwise, releasing lots of music can get real expensive, real quick.

How do I know this?

Simple!

Ive done this myself by releasing my own music on a monthly basis.

At first, I started getting on some Algorithmic playlists and slowly that caught the attention of the Spotify editors.

Ive now gotten my music on over 10 official Spotify editorial playlists and have racked up over 2 million streams.

If you want to know how I did this in detail, I put together a free course called the 6 Secrets To Spotify Success.

In this free course, I cover:

• How to get the most out of your latest release, overnight
  
• The exact step-by-step process of how to build a music marketing strategy required to make you sweet streams
  
• How to grow your Spotify streams, monthly listeners, and fans even if youre totally new

If that sounds neat to you, then check out the 6 Secrets To Spotify Success, for more.

Otherwise, good luck on your next release, my friend!

Related Questions

Can I see how many times Ive played a song on Spotify?

Great question! Spotify does not show you how many times you have played a song on Spotify. However, if a song shows up in your On Repeat playlist, that is a good signal that youve listened to a song quite a few times.

How can I see how much time I have listened to music on Spotify?

Another great question! Spotify does not show you how much time you have listened to music on Spotify. However, you can connect your Spotify account to a service like Last.FM to get this data [starting from the date that you connect the service].

How to see how many times a song has been played on Spotify?

Another great question! To see how many times a song has been played on Spotify, visit the artists Spotify profile and see if it is listed under the Popular section. However, songs not listed in the Popular section will not show play counts and any songs in the Popular section with less than 1,000 streams will show up as >1000.

Some of my favorite music marketing tools

Thank you for reading this article, my friend, and I hope you found it helpful as you build your own successful career in music.

Here is a list of my favorite and most recommended tools and resources that Ive personally used to get my music streamed over 4,000,000 times on Spotify as an artist.

Any of the paid services or tools listed here are most likely affiliate links, so if you do decide to use any of them, Ill earn a small commission.

But in all honesty, these are the exact tools that I personally use, love, and recommend to anyone including my own friends and family.

Music Distribution

To get your music on Spotify on all the other streaming services, I use DistroKid because you get unlimited song uploads for a low annual price.

If you want to learn more about DistroKid and music distribution, check out the in-depth DistroKid review that Ive put together.

Or, if you want to get started with DistroKid right now, you can save on your first year with the DistroKid discount.

Music Publishing Royalties Collection

For collecting all of the publishing, mechanical, and live performance royalties owed to me whenever my music gets streamed or played, my go-to is Songtrust.

Songtrust is a publishing administration company which means that in addition to collecting all of those royalties for me, they do it on a global level.

To learn if Songtrust is right for you, Id recommend checking out this article on Songtrust vs BMI.

And if you want to get started with Songtrust right now, Id recommend learning about the Songtrust discount code so that you can get the best price.

Website & Smart Links

Im personally not a big fan of the link-in-bio and smart links for music pages like ToneDen and Hyppeddit.

Instead, I prefer having a full-blown WordPress website that allows me to have a full website in addition to unlimited music links.

For getting started with this, I really like Bluehost because it is the cheapest and a theme called Thrive Themes because it is the most flexible and easiest to use.

Ive actually created a free Smart Links Course that you can take to learn how to get set up and start getting more streams with custom smart links [Ive even included the templates I am using!].

Want more tools and resources for your music career?

If youd like to see even more of my favorite marketing tools and resources for musicians and music artists, Ive created an even larger list on this page: Best Marketing Tools & Resources For Musicians [& Music Artists].

P.S. There are even some free tools and resources included on that page as well!