How to Spot a Good SubmitHub Curator | TAP
Identifying high-quality SubmitHub curators
By TAP Editorial Team
Quick answer
You can tell a good SubmitHub curator from a bad one in about two minutes, and almost none of it happens on SubmitHub. Open the playlist on Spotify and look at when it was last updated, whether the recent additions sound anything like your record, and whether the follower count grew steadily or jumped overnight. Then read the curator's written feedback on the platform. Vague feedback means nobody is listening.
Curators on SubmitHub run from people with a real audience in one specific corner of music to accounts that exist to collect submissions. Since every submission costs you, the question of which is which is the only one that matters, and you can answer it in a couple of minutes per curator. Almost every check worth doing happens on the playlist rather than on the profile.
Start with the playlist, not the profile
The profile is where a curator describes themselves. The playlist is where you find out whether the description holds up, so open the Spotify link before you read anything else. Look first at the date of the most recent addition, because a list that has not changed in two months will not change for you either. Look next at the last ten tracks and ask whether your record would sound out of place beside them. If it would, no follower count fixes that, and you have just saved a credit. Look last at the description. A curator who has written a sentence about what the playlist is for is usually somebody who maintains it, while a blank description on a list of forty thousand followers is a warning rather than a mystery.
Reading follower growth honestly
Follower counts get inflated, and the shape of the growth gives it away faster than the number ever will. Growth that has built steadily across months is what a promoted, tended playlist looks like. A jump from ten thousand to fifty thousand inside a fortnight is a paid growth service or a follow-for-follow arrangement, and neither of those audiences will play your record. Spotify does not show you a follower history, so use what is visible. Does the playlist come up when you search its own genre? Does the curator mention the list anywhere public? Does the size of the audience match the amount of care in the sequencing? Two hundred tracks in no particular order with a large following is a collection somebody has stopped thinking about.
Whether anybody is listening after the add
This is the question the follower count is supposed to answer and does not. A playlist can hold fifty thousand followers and put twenty plays on a new track, at which point every one of those followers is a number rather than a person. From outside you can get close. Look at whether smaller artists added a month or two ago show any sign of movement, and whether the same few larger names keep reappearing while nobody new ever sticks. The definitive version of the check happens after your first placement with that curator. Open Spotify for Artists, find the day the add landed, and see whether anything happened at all. If nothing did, you now know not to pay that curator again, and that alone was worth the credit.
Approval rate, response time and what the feedback says
Three numbers sit on every curator profile and they are far more useful read together than one at a time. A very high approval rate usually means a list that takes almost anything, and being one of two hundred adds nobody plays is not coverage. A very low one can mean real standards, or it can mean the genres they list are not the genres they actually add. Response time tells you whether somebody is working their queue or letting it pile up, and anything inside a couple of days is a good sign. The feedback decides it. A curator who writes that the vocal sits too far back, or that they took three tracks like this last month, has listened to your record. A curator who writes that it is not for them right now has not, whatever guarantee the platform attaches to the credit. Keep the first sort on your list and stop paying the second.
Genre fit is the thing that decides it
Almost every wasted credit is a fit problem rather than a quality problem. A profile listing alternative can sit on top of a playlist that is four-fifths bedroom pop, and a dark techno record has no chance there however good it is. Play the list for ten minutes instead of reading the tags. Listen for tempo, for how finished the productions sound, and for whether the running order suggests somebody choosing tracks or somebody emptying an inbox. Read the description for what the curator says they want, because a good many of them say it plainly, and some are explicit that they take unsigned and unmastered work while others only want records that are done. Match yourself honestly against that. Being the wrong fit says nothing about your music, and pitching anyway is a decision to pay for a no.
Does the curator exist anywhere else
Somebody who cares about their playlist usually talks about it somewhere. Look for a site, a newsletter, a blog, or an account where they post what they added this week. Look for their name in interviews or in other artists' thank-yous. Search their username alongside the word playlist and read what other artists say about submitting to them, because artists are not quiet about a bad experience. A curator with a published email is telling you two things at once: they are willing to be reached, and you can write to them directly next time rather than paying. An anonymous profile with no trace anywhere else is not automatically bad, but it gives you nothing to check, and on a platform where every submission costs, nothing to check is a reason to spend the credit somewhere else.
Which curators deserve a paid credit
Sort the list into three groups before you spend anything. The first group is people you can email directly because they have published an address, and reaching them costs nothing beyond a message worth reading. The second is curators who pass the checks above, meaning an updated playlist, a sound that matches yours, feedback that reads like listening, and no contact published anywhere. That second group is what paid credits are for, and it is usually smaller than artists expect. The third group is everybody else, and the right spend there is nothing. If you catch yourself justifying a submission by how many followers somebody has, the check has already failed. On any given release the number of curators worth paying to reach tends to land between ten and twenty-five. Getting to that shortlist is an evening's work, and it pays for itself on the first release and on every one after it.
Key takeaways
- Almost every check that matters happens on the playlist itself, not on the curator's profile page.
- A playlist with no additions in the last month is dormant, whatever its follower count says.
- A sudden jump in followers means bought growth. Steady growth across months means somebody is promoting the list.
- Specific written feedback is the clearest sign a curator listened. Feedback that would fit any song is the clearest sign they did not.
- A published email means you never need to pay to reach that curator again. Save the credits for the ones who publish nothing.
Pro tips
1. Play ten minutes of the playlist before you read a single number on the profile. Fit decides more submissions than every other factor put together.
2. Check the date of the most recent addition first. It rules out more curators, faster, than any other single check you can make.
3. After a placement, open Spotify for Artists and look at that day. A curator whose add moved nothing is a curator you stop paying to reach.
4. Keep a note of the feedback, not just the yes or the no. Three curators mentioning the same thing about the record is the most useful thing the platform will ever hand you.
5. When a curator publishes an email address, put it straight into your own list. That contact is worth more to you than the placement was.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell whether a curator's followers are real?
Look at how the number arrived rather than at the number. Growth built steadily over months is what a promoted playlist looks like, while tens of thousands appearing in a fortnight points at a paid growth service or a follow-trading circle. Then look at the effect. If tracks added a month ago produced nothing visible for the artists involved, those followers are accounts rather than listeners and the total is worth nothing to you.
Is a curator with a five per cent approval rate better than one at fifty?
Usually, though the rate on its own does not settle it. A low approval rate can mean real standards, or it can mean the genres a curator lists are not the genres they actually add, which is a fit problem you would have caught by playing the playlist. A high rate almost always means a list that takes nearly everything, where your track joins a queue of adds nobody plays. Read the rate, then go and check the list.
How long should I spend checking one curator?
Two minutes for the quick pass, ten if you are about to pay to reach them. The quick pass is the date of the last update, the last ten tracks and the description. The longer version adds playing the list properly, looking at the shape of the follower growth, and searching for the curator elsewhere. Doing that for fifty curators is one evening, and it is the highest-return evening in the whole release.
What does good curator feedback look like?
Something specific enough that it could only have been written about your record. A note about where the vocal sits, about losing interest at the second chorus, or about having taken three tracks like it already this month all mean somebody listened. Anything that would fit any song is a form response. Take the specific notes seriously when several curators say the same thing, and ignore any single opinion, including the flattering ones.
Is it worth paying to reach a curator at all?
It is worth paying to reach a curator you have checked and cannot contact any other way. That is the whole case for it, and it is a decent one. Paying to reach a list of names you have never looked at is how artists get through a pack of credits with nothing to show, and it happens because checking is dull while submitting feels like progress. Do the checking. The submission is the easy part.
From the field
Proof points
- Named contact reply rate vs studio@: 5x higher (Liberty Music PR campaign data, 2024-2026)
- Best UK send window: Tue/Wed 09:00-10:00 UK (Across 60+ campaigns)
- Optimal follow-up cadence: +7 days from initial pitch (Liberty internal data)
- Reply visibility blind spot: Stations add to rotation without replying (WARM monitoring vs email reply rate)
What actually happened
Eyes Glued, BBC Radio 6 Music: 153 plays across 6 weeks, accelerating in week 4. Track-led pitch with a single playable line. (March 2025)
Submithub is useful as a top-up channel for blog and playlist coverage at small budget. The reply rates are honest and the feedback is fast. I treat it as a backstop, not a primary channel. Named-contact direct outreach still outperforms Submithub per pound on coverage that compounds. I run both in parallel for smaller releases and rely on direct outreach for the campaigns that need depth.
Chris Schofield, Radio plugger, Liberty Music PR
Related resources
Further reading
- TAP Blog — In-depth guides, comparisons and advice for independent artists running their own promotion.
- UK Music — The voice of the UK music industry, representing labels, publishers, and collecting societies.
- Music Week — Industry news, charts, and analysis for music professionals.
- The Music Network — Global music business intelligence and networking.
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