Soundcloud vs Spotify: wondering which platform is right for you?
Choosing the right platform can be tricky – both offer unique features for listeners and artists alike.
That’s why we made this guide for you! Whether you’re a consumer or a producer of music, we’ll lay out exactly what sets these two streaming platforms apart, including:
- which platform is the most expensive 💸
- the kind of music you find on each platform 🎶
- features of each platform 🎛️
- user experience 📱
… and a lot more! Feel free to use the table of contents below to jump to the section relevant to you 😊
Part 1: SoundCloud vs Spotify as a Listener
Looking for your next streaming platform? Let’s compare SoundCloud and Spotify in terms of listener experience.
What kind of music is on SoundCloud and Spotify?
The most important question to answer is: “What will I find on Soundcloud and Spotify”?
The content is arguably what sets the two platforms the most apart.
Let’s look at SoundCloud first. Here, you’ll find a ton of user-generated content. This includes things like:
- demos;
- unofficial remixes and bootlegs;
- full mixes (either recorded at home or taken from popular club nights and festivals).
You’ll of course also find official tracks by mainstream artists. But this is not what SoundCloud is known for. Because of the open-upload nature of the platform (more on that later), you’ll find pretty much everything under the sun. So if you enjoy discovering new, experimental, or underground music, this is the platform for you.
On the other hand, if you seek more polished and commercial releases, then Spotify is the go-to.
Spotify offers an ultra-extensive music catalog that spans mainstream, indie, and niche genres. From the Beatles to David Guetta and Mozart, you’ll find virtually any official release from the past 60 years and more on here. But you won’t find any dodgy bootlegs or mashups 😅
Spotify is also home to thousands, if not millions of podcasts. That’s something you will rarely find on Soundcloud.
With the ability to comment and repost tracks, Soundcloud is first and foremost a community-driven platform.
Commenting directly under a track lets you interact with the artist, and makes you feel part of something bigger:
You can also repost a track, which will make it appear on your own feed. This is a great way to support emerging artists and makes SoundCloud feel more like a social network than a streaming platform.
This is not to say that Spotify doesn’t have any community-based features.
But they aren’t as inherently social as with SoundCloud. For example, on Spotify, you can see what your friends are listening to (but this requires connecting through Facebook). But you can’t comment on tracks. You can’t share songs within the platform. And you can’t directly message people, unlike SoundCloud which has its own messaging platform.
However, Spotify does have some neat social features:
- “Start a Jam”: generate a QR code that anybody can scan to start adding tracks to the current playlist being played;
- Invite “collaborators” to a playlist;
- and of course, Spotify’s massively popular “Wrapped” – an end-of-year summary of what you listened to broken down by genres, artists, and more.
Discovery features
While Spotify doesn’t have so many community-driven features, there is one area where it excels: discovery.
While you can discover a lot of amazing music on SoundCloud, you mostly have to do the digging yourself. On Spotify however, you’ve got dozens of ways to discover new music:
- Release Radar: a weekly playlist with the latest releases from the artists you love;
- Daily Mixes: daily playlists curated by genre based on tracks you already like;
- Discover Weekly: a weekly curated playlist based on tracks you’ve been playing the most recently, and what other listeners have added to their playlists around those tracks.
On top of this, you’ve got “Go to song radio”, a feature that automatically creates a playlist based on a single track. Spotify also has a “Smart Shuffle” function, where it will add recommendations while you play one of your playlists on Shuffle.
If you love discovering new music, but in a more passive way, Spotify is a goldmine.
SoundCloud’s algorithm definitely isn’t as good at matching tracks together. When you play a track, you’ll get a few “Related tracks” on the side:
But to be honest, it’s really hit-and-miss if they’ll match what you’re currently listening to.
To be fair, Soundcloud also has custom-made playlists based on your listening habits:
- Daily Drops: a daily playlist with new releases based on your taste;
- Artist Stations: playlists based around artists you love;
- Artists You Should Know: new artists for you to discover.
So SoundCloud is definitely catching up to Spotify on that front.
How much will it cost me?
SoundCloud has 3 different pricing tiers:
- Free;
- SoundCloud Go at USD 4.99/month;
- SoundCloud Go+ at USD 10.99/month.
On the other hand, Spotify only has 2 tiers:
- Free;
- Spotify Premium at USD 11.99/month.
However, Spotify offers 2 different multi-account plans:
- Spotify Duo at USD 16.99/month;
- Spotify Family at USD 19.99/month.
The only requirement for these multi-account plans is that all users reside at the same address.
However, another important aspect is how your subscription supports artists.
This is where the debate over the user-centric royalty model comes in. Here’s the TL;DR:
- Model 1: Pro-Rata. Your subscription money goes into a giant pool. That pool is then split among artists based on the share of streams they got on the platform.
- Model 2: User-Centric. Your subscription money goes directly to the artists you listen to, irrespective of how many streams they have.
In model 1, let’s say 50% of all the streams are Taylor Swift songs. This means 50% of your subscription money goes to Taylor Swift, even if you’ve never listened to a song of hers. This is how Spotify works.
In model 2, let’s say you only listen to a teenage singer-songwriter for Arkansas named Lazy Bob. All your subscription money would directly go to him – even if he only represents .0000001% of streams. This is what Soundcloud adopted with its Go+ model.
The pros and cons of these 2 models are still hotly debated. In the end, it will depend on how much you value listening to and supporting emerging artists. There’s nothing wrong with listening to music on Spotify – but you just need to be aware that your subscription money is unlikely to make a difference for the indie artists you listen to.
Part 2: Soundcloud vs Spotify as an Artist
If you’re an artist and you found your way to this article, you’ve likely jumped directly to this section. So welcome! 😊
You’re probably asking yourself one of the following questions:
- which platform is better to promote my music?
- how can I upload music to Spotify?
- which platform will pay me more?
- how do I get on popular playlists?
Before getting into these questions, let me point you to a few guides we’ve written on these topics:
So if you want to dive into the nitty-gritty of SoundCloud vs Spotify promotion, I recommend reading them. In this guide, we’ll keep it to a brief overview.
How can I upload my music on SoundCloud vs Spotify?
As an artist, this is arguably the biggest difference between Soundcloud vs Spotify.
Here’s the super-quick TL;DR:
- SoundCloud: anybody can upload music. All you need to do is create an account. However, if you’re on a free plan, you’ll be limited to 180 minutes of total upload.
- Spotify: you’ll need a “distributor” who will upload the music for you. This is just a fancy way of saying that you need another (paid) account on a platform like TuneCore or Distrokid. You submit your music to them, and they’ll upload it to Spotify.
SoundCloud is definitely a quicker and smoother process. All you need to do is click “Upload”, select your file and you’re done. Uploading a track to Spotify is a much lengthier process, with multiple fields and forms to fill in.
SoundCloud: an essential tool for collabs and demos
However, there’s a reason why SoundCloud’s upload process is so simple.
In my mind, SoundCloud and Spotify are complementary.
For me, SoundCloud plays much more of a “work-in-progress” role, as well as a networking tool. For example, as soon as I finish a version of a track, I’ll immediately upload it to SoundCloud in private mode. This way, I can listen to it on my morning commute. I’ll then get back to the studio with a list of ideas on how to improve it. This also works when you collaborate with someone.
SoundCloud is also an essential tool to pitch tracks to labels.
Labels absolutely hate Dropbox or WeTransfer links that don’t work half of the time. All they want is a SoundCloud link with the “Download” feature enabled:
On the other hand, Spotify acts more as a platform for the finished product. This is where you (or the label) will upload the song to reach the widest audience possible.
Growing your audience on SoundCloud vs Spotify
SoundCloud is a platform geared toward supporting emerging producers.
That’s why you’ll find several tools dedicated to growing your fanbase:
- Free downloads: if you’ve self-release a track, or uploaded a bootleg, you can set it as a free download. This means anybody can download it directly from your profile and play it out.
- Download gates: ideally, you should combine a free download with a “download gate”. This is a mandatory step (such as liking or commenting) before being able to download the track.
- The ability to upload bootlegs is a great way to go viral on the back of popular tracks.
Don’t worry, we explore these techniques and more in detail in our SoundCloud Promotion guide 😉
On the other hand, growing your audience through Spotify is quite limited. You can ask people to follow you, and that’s pretty much it 😅
Now it might seem like I’m bashing on Spotify. But far from it. I think being on Spotify is essential.
They just play two very different roles. SoundCloud is crucial to grow your initial audience and build connections. Spotify then allows you to build on that initial fanbase and reach virtually anybody in the world.
How much will it cost me?
For artists, pricing takes on a different angle—SoundCloud’s and Spotify’s models diverge significantly.
SoundCloud allows artists to upload music for free, though this is limited to a three-hour cap on uploads.
If you’re serious about music production, this quickly won’t be enough. Especially if you upload hour-long mixes. Therefore, you’ll quickly need the Next Pro subscription, which costs USD 8.25 / month. You also get deeper insights into audience analytics and scheduling tools for releases.
On Spotify, the pricing will depend on the distributor you choose. Here are some of the most popular ones and their pricing:
- Distrokid: the cheapest plan starts at USD 1.92 / month and allows for unlimited uploads;
- Tunecore: also USD 1.92 / month;
- Ditto: USD 1.6 / month for unlimited music.
As you can see, there isn’t much difference between distributors in terms of pricing. And it might seem like choosing Spotify here is a no-brainer. It is after all a lot cheaper than uploading music to Spotify.
However, I come back to what I mentioned earlier: SoundCloud and Spotify are complementary platforms.
Sure, Spotify is a lot cheaper to upload. But you can’t upload your latest 4-hour mix. Or that cheeky Britney Spears bootleg. In the end, if you’re serious about your music production career, you’ll need both.
SoundCloud vs Spotify: Final Thoughts
That’s it for this guide on SoundCloud vs Spotify. Hopefully, we were able to clear out some of the questions you had, whether a listener or a producer.
From a listening perspective, you can get away with using only one or the other. But from an artist’s perspective, you really need both platforms to grow your audience and reach new people.
Did we miss out on anything? Any other questions you had? Feel free to drop us a line at [email protected]
