Whether you are a listener or an artist, you may want to check on a song’s total stream or play count on Spotify. I’ve looked up and tested the best ways to track Spotify streams and written about it here.
Artists can use the Spotify For Artists dashboard to check their stream stats sorted by time period, location, and even by playlist. Listeners can check a song’s total listens by visiting the artist’s Spotify profile and checking the songs listed under the “Popular” section.
If you want to check your own personal Spotify streams (as in how many times you’ve 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.
4 Steps To ViewIng Spotify 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 artist’s 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.
How To Track Your Spotify Streams As An Artist
If you are an artist on Spotify and want to see the play counts of your own songs, there is an even better way…
Spotify artists can view the listen and stream counts of any of their songs on Spotify by accessing their Spotify For Artists dashboard. Once logged in to your profile, you can easily view your stream stats sorted by time period, location, and even by playlist.
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!
Let’s 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 verified Spotify artist (like me 🤗), 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 (you’ll 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, I’ve 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!
Let’s 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%. It’s 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.
They’ve done this by creating 2 types of playlist:
- Spotify algorithm playlists
- 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!
I’ve 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.
I’ve 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 you’re 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 I’ve 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 you’ve 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 artist’s 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”.
