FAQ

Magic Nothing is a music marketplace for independent artists, with two main ways to use it.

Pitch to playlists. Pick playlists, spend tokens, and real curators listen and reply within 72 hours: they accept, pass, or place your song on another playlist of theirs that fits better. You're paying for a guaranteed review from a real person, not a guaranteed placement, and unreviewed pitches send your tokens back automatically.

Hire a marketer. Promotion campaigns pair you with a vetted vendor who runs real ad campaigns for your track, album, or playlist.

The other side of the marketplace is musicians too: curators earn tokens for every review, and vendors earn running campaigns.

Submit a song

Yes. Every review is done by a real human curator, and selling guaranteed placements is banned on the platform: that's the thing that breaks Spotify's rules (and ours). Curators decide freely, passes happen, and any curator caught charging for a spot gets removed.

We also screen playlists for botted or artificial activity and pull flagged ones off the marketplace.

One more thing worth knowing: Magic Nothing has no connection to Spotify's catalog. We can't add, remove, or affect your songs on Spotify itself.

Want the full picture, with live numbers and links to every independent review? It's all on the reviews page.

Tokens are the platform currency: 1 token = $1 USD. They never expire.

Current bundles: 50 tokens for $50, 110 tokens for $100, 250 tokens for $200. Bigger bundles include bonus tokens, and your first purchase adds 5 bonus tokens. If a checkout costs more than your balance, you're only charged the exact difference, no bundle required.

Buy tokens

No. Playlist pitching is pay per submission and never renews. You're only charged when you buy tokens or check out a pitch.

The one exception is Promotion campaigns, which renew monthly and can be canceled anytime. Details are in the Promotion section.

Between 3 and 20 tokens per playlist right now, depending on the playlist's tier. Higher tiers are playlists with stronger reach and verified performance, and top-rated curators add a small premium. The exact price is shown on every playlist before you check out.

You can also add a second song to the same pitch for less than a separate submission: the curator hears both and adds whichever fits.

Paste your song's Spotify link on the submit page (mobile share links like spotify.link work too), pick playlists from your matches or browse everything, and check out.

Adding your genres and similar artists sharpens your matches ✨

When we don't have enough data on your song yet, matches fall back to strong, recently active playlists instead of strict genre fits. Add similar artists and genres on the submit page and your matches get much better.

Always check a playlist's genre and vibe before you spend. Recommendations are a starting point, and you decide where the pitch goes.

Cancel it yourself. Open your submissions, find the pitch, and hit Cancel: the tokens go straight back to your balance and you can pitch the right song right away. That works on anything a curator hasn't reviewed yet, which is most pitches for the first day or so.

A pitch can't be edited in place, so cancelling and re-pitching is the fix. If a curator already reviewed it, or it was an editorial or curator-queue pitch, email us with the song you meant to pitch and we'll sort it out.

Editorial playlists are curated by the Magic Nothing team. A regular editorial submission is 10 tokens. Priority (25 tokens) skips the regular queue, and VIP (35 tokens) puts you next in line (there's one VIP slot at a time).

Reviews can currently take up to 14 days. If we don't review your song in that window, your tokens come back automatically.

Right now 39% of reviewed editorial pitches get placed and reviews are averaging about 6 days.

Editorial is an optional add-on during checkout, so double-check your total before you pay.

No. Tokens pay for the curator's review, not for a placement. When a curator listens and passes, that review happened, and the curator is paid for their time.

Passes are normal: over the last month, 31% of reviewed pitches got placed. The best move is pitching one song to around 10 well-matched playlists instead of putting everything on one.

Tokens only come back automatically when a curator doesn't review your song within 72 hours. Full policy in the terms.

If a curator doesn't review your song within 72 hours, the submission expires and your tokens come back to your balance automatically. You'll get a notification, and you can put those tokens straight into new pitches.

Curators are expected to add your track when they accept it. Give it a day for Spotify to catch up, and if it's still missing, email us with the playlist name. We follow up with the curator directly.

The curator felt your song fit one of their other playlists better than the one you pitched, so they placed it there instead of passing. It counts as a placement, and the curator is paid for the review like any accept.

Want to see where it landed? Under My submissions, tap the track and then the placed elsewhere chip: it opens the playlist. The link is in your placement email too.

No link on the chip? A small number of older placements never had a playlist link saved. Email us with the track name and we'll ask the curator where it went.

There's no fixed duration: playlists evolve, and rotation is the curator's call. Some placements last a few weeks, plenty run much longer.

If your track vanishes right after an accept, that's not okay. Email us with the playlist name and we'll look into it.

It's the share of reviewed pitches that landed on that playlist. Reviewed means the curator actually decided: placements, passes, and placed-elsewhere reviews all count, while pending, expired, and refunded pitches don't. Placed elsewhere counts as a review but not a placement on that playlist, since the song went somewhere else.

A playlist needs 10+ reviewed pitches before the number shows, so one early pass can't paint a new playlist as 0%. And placement rates run low across the whole marketplace: curation is selective, and a pass still pays for a real review.

Give a placement a full 28 days before judging it. Spotify's algorithm needs time, and small sample sizes lie.

Also, one pitch is a coin flip: around 10 pitches per song is where results start meaning something. And to be straight with you, nobody can guarantee streams. Anyone who does is selling something broken.

Curators and their feedback: Every time a curator responds to a pitch, you can rate the response from the feedback tab on your dashboard. That rating covers the whole review, the decision, the professionalism, and the written feedback you got.

Placements: If your song got placed, the same feedback tab asks how the placement went, starting 7 days after placement and until up to 28 days after.

Vendors: Hired a marketer? Rate them right from your campaign page. Ratings show on their profile for future buyers.

These ratings feed curator scores and vendor rankings, so they're the fastest way to reward the good ones and keep the marketplace honest.

Every purchase has a Stripe receipt on your purchase history page, and you can export your full history as a CSV for accounting.

Need a formal invoice with your business details on it? Email us with the details you need on it and we'll set you up.

Refunds land in your token balance, ready to spend on your next pitch. Token purchases aren't refundable to your card.

You get tokens back three ways: a curator doesn't review in time, a curator refunds you instead of reviewing, or you cancel a pitch yourself before anyone has reviewed it.

The one card refund on the platform: canceling a Promotion campaign within 72 hours of a renewal charge refunds that charge in full.

That's a rare glitch, and it self-heals: a stuck submission is automatically failed within about an hour, your tokens come back to your balance, and you get an email confirming it. If something still looks off after that, email us with the date and amount and we'll dig in.

Promotion campaigns are monthly ad campaigns run by vetted vendors: real marketers who put the budget into ads for your track, album, or playlist. Campaigns currently run 375 to 1,050 tokens a month depending on tier, and most of that goes directly to the vendor running the work.

You're not buying blind: vendors post written updates during the month, and you can message yours directly from the campaign page. Promoting a playlist also gives it a visibility boost on browse while the campaign runs.

They're separate from playlist pitching, and they're the only thing on the platform that renews.

Start a campaign

Yes, they renew monthly. You can cancel anytime from your promotion dashboard: the current month runs to the end of its period and you won't be charged again.

Changed your mind right after a renewal? Within 72 hours of a renewal charge you can cancel with a full refund. After that the month is non-refundable, since the vendor's work is underway.

Your campaign request goes to every vendor you select, and the first one to accept claims it. Every campaign runs with exactly one vendor.

If nobody accepts within 72 hours, the campaign expires and your tokens come back automatically.

Vendors are marketers who run promotion campaigns for artists on the platform. You can apply here.

Straight with you: the vendor marketplace is still young, so we onboard new vendors slowly and applications can sit for a while. We'll reach out when there's room.

Create an account, head to Manage playlists, and import your playlist. No follower minimums. We take a quick look at new playlists before they go live on the marketplace, and you'll get an email the moment they're up. Occasionally we pass on a playlist that isn't a fit for the marketplace, and we'll tell you that too.

Your playlist needs to be public on Spotify and owned by you: collaborative playlists you don't own can't be imported.

You're paid per review. Accept, pass, or place elsewhere: the work is listening and deciding, so every review pays.

Base earnings run 1 to 12 tokens per review depending on your playlist's tier. High curator scores add a rating bonus on top: +1 per review at Level 4 and +2 at Level 5. Letting a submission expire pays nothing and hurts your score.

Once you've earned 50+ tokens, connect Stripe from your profile and cash out. 1 token = $1 USD, paid out in your local currency, usually landing in 2 to 3 business days.

Stripe payouts currently cover the US, UK, EEA, Canada, and Switzerland. If your country isn't on that list, email us and we'll figure out a route together.

You can also convert earned tokens into platform tokens with a 20% bonus and spend them on your own music.

One more gate worth knowing: if your placement or feedback rate drops below our quality floor, cashouts pause until it recovers. The cashout page shows exactly why.

Playlists are hidden automatically when too many submissions expire unreviewed. Every pitch has a 72 hour review window, and expired reviews drag your response rate down.

Separately, if you go more than 14 days without reviewing while submissions are waiting or expiring, we pause your playlists and refund the waiting artists. That one is self-serve: flip any playlist back to accepting on your Manage playlists page and you are live again.

Email us with the playlist name to get reinstated, then review your next 5 submissions on time and you're back in good standing. Going quiet for a while? Turn on vacation mode first.

Vacation mode pauses new submissions and instantly refunds anything pending, with no penalty to your score. Toggle it on Manage playlists before you go quiet: it's the difference between a clean pause and a hidden playlist.

Submission flow depends on your playlist's tier, your curator score, your genres, and what artists are pitching right now, so quiet stretches happen.

The levers you control: keep your genres accurate, review on time, and upload Spotify for Artists data on Manage playlists to raise your playlist's tier. Higher tiers tend to see more pitches.

We screen every playlist for sudden, unusual growth patterns, and flagged playlists come off the marketplace while we look. This protects every artist paying for reviews, so we can't make exceptions to the screening itself.

Think it's a false positive? Email us with context, like a legit ad campaign you ran, and we'll take a look.

Your score is built from reviewing on time (the single biggest factor), plus response speed, placement rate, how often you leave written feedback, and review volume. Artists also rate the reviews they get, and consistently rough reception on passes can pull a score down.

Higher scores unlock levels that add a rating bonus to every review payout. Quality metrics run on a rolling window, so one rough review won't sink you and recent work counts most.

Your score kicks in after your first 10 reviews. Until then, your queue holds up to 3 songs at a time: review what's waiting and the next submissions flow in. Hit 10 total reviews and the cap lifts for good.

This is rare, but curators are occasionally removed for breaking the rules that keep the marketplace legitimate. Reasons for removal include running multiple accounts to game submissions, artificial or botted playlist activity, selling guaranteed placements, or abusive behavior toward artists or the team. The full list is in our Terms.

Removals are based on our platform records, like payout details, playlist data, and review history. We do not remove accounts purely based on disagreements, low acceptance rates, or anything anyone says about us.

You can see how many playlists and accounts we've removed, updated live, on The Numbers.

Earned tokens above the 50-token cashout minimum get paid out within 30 days of removal. That's the default, and it has nothing to do with why the account was removed.

The one exception: tokens earned through the violation itself may be forfeited. If someone earns review fees by running accounts that break the rules, those specific earnings aren't owed. The decision is based on how the tokens were earned. Full policy in our Terms, section 14.4.

Every removal can be appealed within 30 days by emailing info@magicnothing.com. Artists with unused purchased tokens on a removed account get those refunded, unless the removal was for fraud or illegal activity (the full policy is in our Terms, section 14.4).

There's no self-serve email change right now. Email us from your current address and tell us the new one.

Ended up with two accounts? We can't merge them, but we'll deactivate the one you don't want.

Email us from the account's address and we'll delete it, including your personal data. We'll confirm by email when it's done.

Anything pending gets resolved first: pending submissions are refunded to artists, and if you're a curator, cash out your earnings before you ask. Running a Promotion campaign, as the artist or the vendor? Cancel it first: we can't delete an account with one active.

Share your referral link and earn tokens when the people you bring in succeed: a cut of a referred artist's purchases in their first months, plus bonuses as a referred curator hits review milestones.

Referrals unlock once you've made a purchase, or as a curator with 20+ reviews or a curator score of 50+. Your link, exact rates, and earnings live on your referrals dashboard.

Courses live right here in the app now, no separate site or login: hit Courses in the nav. The Conversion Campaign course and Instagram Doesn't Have to Suck are both included with your account. The first lesson of each plays right away, no account needed, and signing up unlocks the rest.

Bought a course on magicnothing.xyz before this moved? You don't need that purchase anymore. Sign in here with any account (or make a new one) and everything's already unlocked, same as everyone else.