How to Get on Spotify Release Radar: The 7-Day Pitch Window and What Actually Triggers It

The short answer to how to get on Spotify Release Radar: pitch the song inside Spotify for Artists at least seven days before release day, and spend the three weeks before that turning profile visitors into followers. Release Radar is a playlist of new releases that updates every Friday, and your followers get songs from your new release in their Release Radar. Spotify prints the deadline plainly: pitch at least 7 days before release day to pick the song for Release Radar. Miss it and Spotify still picks a song from your release for your followers, just not the one you chose.

Who actually gets your song

Three groups of listeners can see a new release in Release Radar: artists they follow, artists they listen to, and other artists Spotify thinks they will like. Only the first group is yours to grow. The other two sit inside Spotify's personalization, which reads what a person listens to and when, the songs they add to their own playlists, and the habits of listeners with similar taste.

The playlist is large. Spotify says Release Radar reaches nearly 9 million listeners every single week. Listeners open it from the Fresh New Music shelf on Home every Friday, or from the Made For You hub.

So treat followers as the input you control, and the pitch as the switch that decides which song your followers get.

Release Radar vs Discover Weekly

Artists search for both and then run the same tactics at them. They are not the same playlist.

Release Radar is the one with a deadline on it. For the other side of the table, read our guide to how to get on Spotify Discover Weekly rather than treating the two as one job.

The 21 days before a Friday release

Day -21: deliver the song and lock the focus track

Hand the master to your distributor three weeks out. Spotify publishes two seven-day rules and both bite at the same moment: deliver your music at least 7 days before release to get your music on Release Radar in the first week, and pitch at least 7 days before release day to pick the song. You cannot pitch a song that is not yet in Spotify for Artists, so deliver early enough that the song is there before the 7-day pitch deadline. Three weeks gives you that slack. If the date itself is still open, our guide to planning a music release covers how to choose it.

Lock the focus track the same day. You can only pitch one song at a time, and once your pitched song goes live you can pitch another. On a three-track EP that means deciding which song carries the campaign before you write a single caption.

Day -14: announce, and make the ask follow

Post the announce: cover reveal, the fifteen seconds of the song that sells it, the date. Then change the call to action on every post until Friday. Ask for the follow, not the stream.

Here is the number behind that. Spotify says that on average, after following an artist, listeners are 3 times more likely to stream their music in the next 6 months. Followers also get your new music in various ways, from personalized playlists like Release Radar to the What's New feed. A stream is one play. A follower is a seat in this Friday's Release Radar and in the one after your next release.

Say it out loud on camera, put it in the caption, pin it to the profile. Our list of ways to get followers on Spotify has the asks that convert a visitor.

Day -7: pitch

This is the date artists miss. Use Spotify for Artists to pitch upcoming, unreleased songs and eligible music videos to playlist editors. Log in at artists.spotify.com, open Music, then Upcoming, choose the song and fill in the form. More detail gives your song a better chance.

Two things happen when you submit. Editors consider the song, and if you pitch an unreleased song at least 7 days before release, Spotify adds it to your followers' Release Radar playlists. The second half is not a lottery. The first half is: pitching does not guarantee placement, and if your song or video doesn't get picked, it may still get discovered later. Editors might also pick a different song than the one you pitched.

You can edit your pitch up to release day, though Spotify does not guarantee its editors see the changes. And once a song has gone live, it's no longer eligible for pitching. There is no second window.

Music24 does not send your music to stores. Your distributor does that. It handles the work stacked around this date: add the song once, the audio, the cover and the lyrics, and Music24 makes every post and video for every week of the release. Set the release date and it lays out every post from the first teaser to six weeks after release, then publishes each one at its time on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Threads, and when a platform needs a tap from you the post arrives ready to share on your phone. See what a release gets on the page for promoting a release.

Day -3 and day -1: countdown and pre-save

Countdown posts at three days and one day, each pointing at a pre-save link. Every song gets one link, in the look of the release, and before release day fans pre-save it, so the song lands in their library the moment it is out.

Keep the two actions apart in your head. A pre-save puts this song in a library on Friday. A follow puts the next one in Release Radar. Ask for both, in that order, and read our walkthrough of Spotify pre-save campaigns if you have never run one. Thursday is your last full day of pre-release posting, so put the strongest teaser there, not the weakest.

Day 0: release Friday

Out now on every channel, a Canvas loop on the track, a lyric video on YouTube, stories that link straight to the song. Every Friday, Release Radar delivers the latest drops from artists listeners love alongside new singles picked for them, so your song is competing for attention inside a playlist they already opened.

Two rules shape the week after. Each listener only gets one song per artist per week, so do not split attention across two tracks. And Spotify will include a song for up to 4 weeks if a listener hasn't heard it, which means the following Friday is still live Release Radar time. Keep posting through it. If you have never made a loop, here is how to create a Spotify Canvas.

What keeps a release out of Release Radar

Check this list before you set the date, not after.

• Spotify only includes songs where you're a main or featured artist, not remixer.
• Songs credited to Various Artists are out.
• Re-releases of songs already on Spotify are out.
• Some alternative versions, like acoustic, karaoke or live, are out. Remixes are in.
• A listener who already heard the song does not get it, though Spotify might include another song from the release.
• You can't pitch compilations or songs you're a featured artist on, so a feature spot needs the lead artist to pitch.

The week after: read the Playlists tab

Check the Playlists tab of your song's stats in Spotify for Artists. Go to Music then Playlists to see the playlists your music's added to. Spotify shows the top 100 playlists ordered by the number of your music's listeners, and your music needs at least 3 listeners on a playlist for the playlist to show, so a tiny Release Radar week can simply not appear. The data covers the last 12 months only, and stats are recorded in Coordinated Universal Time, so a Friday number is a Friday in UTC and not in your bedroom.

Then work out which input did the job. Overall profile stats sit in the Audience tab, and stats for one song or release sit in the Music tab. Line up follower growth across your 21 days against the Release engagement tab, which shows how many of your monthly active listeners streamed your new music each day during the first 28 days after release. A big Release Radar line next to a flat follower chart points at Spotify's taste matching. A line that tracks your follower growth means the posts did it, and you can run the same posts again.

Our walkthrough of how to read Spotify for Artists stats covers the rest of the panels. On the posting side, Music24 puts every post next to your streams on the day it went out, so you can find the reel that worked and make more like it for the next song. Connect the accounts you already have and it reads them every day into one view. That is what the analytics page does.

Start 21 days before the next Friday

Release Radar rewards two habits: deliver early enough to pitch, and grow followers every week instead of every release week. The calendar above is the cheap version of both.

Signing up needs no card and starts seven days of the Pro plan, and after that the account stays on the Free plan for as long as you want. Trial and Free renders are previews with a watermark, so you see the whole campaign before you pay rather than posting all of it for free. Add one song and see the whole campaign in minutes. Start free.

FAQ

What happens if my distributor misses the seven-day window?

You give up two things. Spotify says to deliver your music at least 7 days before release to get your music on Release Radar in the first week, and without a pitch, Spotify picks which songs from your release go to your followers' Release Radar. You keep the followers, you lose the choice of track and you risk week one. Moving the release date back a week usually costs less than both.

Can I pitch the music video too?

Yes, and it is a separate submission. Song and video pitches are separate, and if you're releasing a song and a video, pitch each one for maximum editorial consideration. The form sits under Video & Visuals in Spotify for Artists. A video is eligible if it is an official music video or performance, delivered by your label or distributor or uploaded through Spotify for Artists, and unreleased or released within the past 7 days. Video pitching is gradually rolling out, so the option may not be in your account yet.

Does pinning to my This Is playlist do anything?

It is a second lever on the same pitch. If you are eligible, you can pin the song that you pitched to your This Is playlist. Once the song is available to listeners, pinning takes around 3 days, and songs stay pinned for up to 28 days after release in the order they were requested. That keeps the track in front of people already searching for you after Release Radar week ends.

Why does my song sit near the bottom of someone's Release Radar?

Order is personal, not a ranking of artists. The order of songs in a listener's Release Radar is based on factors like release date and how much Spotify thinks that listener will like the song. Two fans of yours can get the same release in different positions on the same Friday.