How Many Monthly Listeners on Spotify Should You Have?
Spotify stands out as a dominating platform for streaming music. Many musicians prefer this service over others to start their professional careers and gain popularity. Artists prefer Spotify over Apple Music, SoundCloud, or YouTube Music for multiple reasons:
- There are a significant number of genres (around 6,000) and a solid number of tracks (over 100 million).
- Free access to key tools for music release, promotion, editing, and sharing.
- Simple monetization rules and the ability to increase your income by getting more music streams.
When people hear about a new musician from their favorite genre, they start looking for the Spotify profile to see all the songs and check the stats. On the other hand, artists understand the importance of Spotify profiles, so they share them on social media and encourage listeners to proceed and listen to music on the platform. Moreover, they prioritize the stats from Spotify over other platforms. One of the most important metrics is the number of monthly listeners. The main goal is to increase this number every month and get more unique listeners to become recognizable and attract a new audience. Users keep asking why is the monthly listeners rate so important and how increasing your monthly listeners count can help you grow. This article contains all the information you need to find the answers and start making money on Spotify from now on.
Have a look at the most important Spotify metrics and how they impact your music
Metric |
Description |
Importance |
Streams |
Total number of times your tracks have been played for at least 30 seconds. |
Indicates overall popularity and listener engagement. Higher streams can lead to increased revenue and visibility. |
Monthly Listeners |
Unique listeners who have played your music in the past 28 days. |
Reflects the size of your active audience and helps assess the reach of your music. |
Followers |
Users who have chosen to follow your profile to receive updates on new releases. |
Represents your dedicated fan base; more followers can lead to higher engagement and direct communication opportunities. |
Saves |
A number of times listeners have saved your tracks to their libraries. |
Indicates strong listener interest and likelihood of repeat plays, contributing to algorithmic recommendations. |
Playlist Adds |
Number of times your tracks have been added to user-generated or curated playlists. |
Enhances discoverability and can significantly boost streams through playlist exposure. |
Demographics |
Data on listeners' age, gender, and location. |
Helps tailor marketing strategies and tour planning to target audiences effectively. |
Listener-to-Stream Ratio |
Indicates how many unique listeners you have compared to an overall number of streams. |
A higher ratio suggests that listeners are replaying your tracks, indicating strong engagement. |
Source of Streams |
Breakdown of where your streams are coming from (e.g., playlists, direct searches, artist profile). |
Provides insight into how listeners are discovering your music, informing promotional strategies. |
Understanding the "Monthly Listeners" Metrics
The first question to answer is: what exactly is a "monthly listeners" rate? For Spotify, one month is a 28-day window, and all unique users who stream your track are considered "monthly listeners". For example, if one user streams your song multiple times during this period, this person is considered as a single listener. Let's get another example to understand how it works. When you release a track, one user listens to it for two weeks daily, and another listener does it once during the 28-day window. Both will be considered unique monthly listeners.
Why Is the Unique Monthly Listener Count Important?
Understanding the number of unique monthly listeners matters not just as a separate statistic. This number helps musicians understand the overall impact of their tracks, the tendency, and the perspective. If you monitor your Spotify monthly listeners, you should know this number indicated the following stats:
- How relevant is your music? The more unique listeners come, the better.
- What is the current level of engagement? If the tracks are recommended to a bigger number of followers, it means the engagement level is high.
- What is your potential reach? How many potential listeners do you cover per month, and how many of them proceed to listen to your music?
Every point matters because it creates the frame of the artist's overall performance. Since the goal is to popularize your content, you have to identify the gaps and find solutions to close them. How to do that? Use available tools to promote your content, increase engagement, and make your promotion more effective.
Use Other Platforms to Get More Monthly Listeners on Spotify
More listeners means more streams, and more streams means more benefits for you as a musician. You maximize your presence in the genre and become more recognizable on the platform, appearing in various compilations. The appearance in Discover Weekly or Release Radar is the most valuable, but having your track in someone's recommendations also means a lot. So, how to get more monthly listeners? By making your music more visible.
Start by making your profile more recognizable. Customize profile images, and create a brief informative description presenting yourself to the Spotify community. People need to see what kind of artist you are, what you offer, and why they should listen to your music.
Use social media platforms to share your music across the global network. Use the available formats to present your tracks (music videos, stories, creative images with your music in the background, etc.) Spotify now makes it easier to establish a connection with Instagram by putting direct links to the music platform. Users can click the "Play on Spotify" button and proceed directly to the song. Earlier, the only way to share tracks was to post a screenshot, now you can use a direct link. It's a good option to get more Spotify streams and monthly listeners because you provide a direct path to Spotify for those who didn't know about your music activity.
On YouTube, there's an option to release trailers and official music videos, creating more options for users to engage with your music. In the description, mention that the original song as well as the playlist this song belongs to is located on Spotify. Users will proceed to your profile and listen to music on Spotify.
Spotify playlists are another option to get more monthly listeners. When you feature your tracks in various compilations, more listeners spot them because of their genre preferences, recommendation algorithms, and other reasons. Playlist curators responsible for creating and sharing these compilations select the best tracks. Use analytic tools from Spotify for Artists to identify the best-performing tracks and invest in their promotion. You have to push your music to the top to make curators spot it. The best way to push your profile and have better visibility is to buy Spotify Editorial Playlist Plays. A high number of listeners is not just a point in stats but also proof that your music is loved by many. Music published by artists with many listeners will be perceived better, so your tracks will appear in compilations and playlists more often.
How to Keep Listeners Interested?
A problem with big music platforms is that some users have a temporary interest in the content they engage with. Those who were amazed by your music before may become passive users later. The idea is not only to increase Spotify monthly listeners but make them engage with the content and take advantage of every person who follows you on the platform. To achieve that, you have to be consistent and update your tracklist. When users see weekly and monthly updates, they will keep listening to your music and engage with the tracks they like the most. Moreover, feature songs will bring you more income, as the number of streams will rise daily. Use it to your advantage and become one of the most listened-to artists on Spotify.
How many monthly listeners appear on Spotify?
Why it's important to increase your monthly listeners on Spotify?
When do Spotify listeners make the difference for artists?
What number of monthly Spotify listeners is good?