In October 2020, I released my two newest singles – “Let’s Go Back” & “Stuck”. I was really excited about these two new releases and I wanted to make sure everything was lined up for them to go far. I decided to take this as an opportunity to compare promotion services like Submithub, PlaylistPush, DropTrack, as well as my own DIY Facebook Ads.
In this Submithub Review, I’ll be focusing specifically on that experience but using the above-mentioned alternatives as references and comparisons.
Before releasing these two new tracks, I had used Submithub a decent amount as my main promotion tool for other songs I had previously released. At that time, I didn’t have enough income to spend a lot on promotion so I would usually only spend less than a hundred dollars and send my song to less than fifty playlisters. Typically those songs would only get accepted by a few curators… happy to say these two new singles out-performed my older tracks by quite a bit.
Before getting into the results and how my songs performed, I’ll give you my honest thoughts on the Pros & Cons of using SubmitHub… If you decide to give SubmitHub a try, please consider doing so through the button which I will add below:
What Are The Pros Of Using Submithub?
Flexibility
One thing I love about Submithub is the flexibility and ability to pick which curators, playlisters, or influencers will receive your song for consideration. In contrast, with PlaylistPush it was a bit frustrating only knowing that my song was going to approximately 50 playlisters, and I had no idea who those people were or if they truly had the right audience.
I also made the mistake of submitting through Submithub first and THEN PlaylistPush. Because of that I had several duplicates that received my song twice – playlist curators that work with both platforms. If you’re going to leverage both services, I’d recommend doing PlaylistPush first, and THEN Submithub. That way you’ll have a good idea of who not to include on Submithub if that makes sense.
Transparency
Going hand-in-hand with the idea of flexibility, it’s also very nice having transparency into the data that Submithub provides. This helps with knowing which curators you should be submitting to. I love the data that they provide on the front end, like acceptance rates, # of followers, & influence scores. However, I will say the influencer score seems relatively vague to me and I wish they gave more specific info there. We probably have to take that data point with a grain of salt.
In comparison, PlaylistPush provides less transparency into who will be receiving your songs. Feel free to read my full PlaylistPush Review for more details, but in my mind this becomes less of an issue because they do a great job at monitoring their curators to have high quality results. They also provide a really great results summary on the back end (one month after campaign end), which Submithub does not do as comprehensively.
More Than Just Spotify Playlisters
This one doesn’t need too much detail, but it’s really nice that all on one platform you can send your music to Spotify Playlisters, Instagram Influencers, Bloggers, & Labels. I don’t know anywhere else that exists where you can accomplish all of that in one place.
The Cost Is Relatively Cheap Compared To PlaylistPush & Other Alternatives
The cost per submission is anywhere from 1-3 credits or $1-3 (lower if you purchase your credits in bulk like I prefer to do). That cost is much lower in comparison to alternatives like PlaylistPush where the cost per submission falls closer to $10 or higher. On the flip-side, worth considering whether or not that lower cost per submission isn’t helpful when curators and influencers are listening to our songs. Often times they can be much quicker to pass over a song or spend less time on a truly helpful review if they don’t feel it’s fully worth their time & effort.
What Are The Cons Of Using Submithub?
Time-consuming
With each song release, I spent hours pouring through curators, influencers, and bloggers trying to pick the best ones. And I did it in multiple sessions (sometimes 5 or more), because often times certain curators are offline or backed up with submissions. If you’re a perfectionist like me, I’d recommend being careful with your time because it can start to add up.
Lower acceptance rate compared to PlaylistPush
Average acceptance rate on Submithub is closer to 5-10%, where on PlaylistPush it falls closer to 10-20%. Currently I’ve had more luck on Submithub with my last two releases, so now my overall acceptance rate (for all releases over the years) is sitting right around 10%. On PlaylistPush my average acceptance rate is 48% (40% on “Let’s Go Back” and 54% on “Stuck”!), which is much higher than normal, but taking into account that these two songs are outperforming my other tracks by quite a bit. I’d use 20% as a better benchmark and goal.
Influencers didn’t land results as well as I had hoped
Here’s what I experienced with Instagram & TikTok influencers sharing my songs out to their audiences. Most of the time it seems the influencers are just throwing your song behind a random video of theirs on their instagram story… You’d be surprised at how few of their followers actually notice the song and proactively go search it out.
I had multiple million+ followers profiles (one influencer with more than 5 million) share my song and it amounted to much less than I had hoped for. I saw very small uptick in plays and streams that I could directly translate from the posts. Another thing to keep in mind is that many of their audiences are not the same as your audience… their listening preferences may even be super different from your style of music, so that will also lead to fewer results in those situations.
Results (in comparison to alternatives like PlaylistPush)
Even though my cost per submission to playlist curators, bloggers, & influencers was comparatively less, in the end the results & impact were were also slightly lower. I spent an almost equal amount compared to PlaylistPush and was able to send my music to more individuals… BUT in the end, the acceptance rate was quite a bit lower and I achieved pretty similar results.
Quality of Audiences
One important thing I noticed worth considering was that the quality of playlists & targeted listeners compared to PlaylistPush was potentially a bit lower. This could have just been in my own case, but to me it seemed the playlists that added my tracks had lower monthly listeners, and led to a smaller number of saves, and amounted to less fans converted.
Final thoughts: Would I use Submithub again?
Submithub is a great tool for newer indie artists unsure of how their music will be received and hesitant about spending too much money on promotion. Don’t go straight to PlaylistPush with your first single release to spend hundred or thousands of dollars! First, test the market with something like Reverbnation Crowd Review to get a feel of who your song audience is. Then, submit to the appropriate curators on Submithub that fall within those genres and have your right audience of listeners.
For myself personally, I will continue to do a healthy mix of both Submithub & PlaylistPush when I release new songs – simply because there are great curators on both platforms. (Tip: If you do plan to do both, submit to PlaylistPush first, so that you can avoid sending your song to the same curator twice.)
If you want to give Submithub a try, hit the button below that says “Send us your music”.
Update (1/20/2021): In addition to using Submithub as an independent artist, I’m also now a curator on their platform with 35k+ followers across multiple playlists and genres. If you’re a playlist curator and want to make a small amount of money from artists submitting songs to you, feel free to use my link as well: https://www.submithub.com/by/lancetingey