Music release checklist: single, EP and album

A release done right has every piece in place before anyone hears it: the master, the cover, the credits, the pitch, the pre-save and the posts. A checklist turns all of it into things you can see and check off, so every piece is ready when the release needs it.

This one is grouped by phase. It works for a single, an EP or an album, with a section at the end on what an album adds. For a printable version, use our release essentials checklist.

Before you set a date

These are the pieces the stores need. Get them finished first, and the date you pick is one you can keep.

• The final master. A stereo WAV or FLAC at the quality it was mastered in. Spotify asks for music as it was mastered, with no converting or upsampling.
• Cover art. A square image. Spotify accepts 640 to 10,000 px per side, and 3000 × 3000 px is the size most distributors ask for. No URLs, social handles, prices or store logos on it. Check yours with the album cover checker.
• Titles and artist names, spelled the same everywhere, with any featured artists credited the way the stores want.
• Credits. Songwriters, producers, performers and anyone with a share of the song.
• Splits, agreed in writing with everyone who has a share.
• ISRCs and a UPC. One ISRC per recording, one UPC per release. Your distributor creates them. If a song was out before, reuse its ISRC so its streams stay with it. More in who owns your ISRC codes.
• Genre, language and whether the lyrics are explicit.
• Lyrics, if you want them shown in the stores.

The weeks before release

This is where most of a release's work happens, and where it pays to have time. A release delivered well before its date can be pitched, pre-saved and promoted while it's still coming.

• Pick the release date with enough lead time for the stores' editors. Spotify's editors consider unreleased music, and Spotify asks for music to be delivered at least 7 days before release to reach Release Radar in its first week. Earlier is better. Our release date planner shows the landmarks for any date.
• Send the release to your distributor. It goes out to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok and the other stores.
• Claim your artist profiles. Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists and YouTube's official artist channel, with a current photo and bio.
• Pitch the editors. In Spotify for Artists you can pitch one unreleased song. Tell them the genre, mood, instruments and the story behind it.
• Set up the pre-save, so fans can save the song before it's out and find it in their library on the day. See how a Spotify pre-save works.
• Make the Canvas, the short looping video that plays behind your song on Spotify. Check it with the Spotify Canvas checker.
• Get your bio and press photos ready for your profiles, your artist page and press. Our artist bio guide has examples.
• Plan your posts for the weeks before, the day and after, with the pictures and clips each one needs.
• Announce the release with the cover, the date and the pre-save link.

Release day

• Check the release is live on the main stores and that titles, cover and credits look right.
• Share the link everywhere you have an audience: your socials, your artist page, your email list.
• Ask for the save. A save or a playlist add tells the stores' recommendations more than a single play.
• Set it as your artist pick in Spotify for Artists, so it's the first thing on your profile.
• Thank the people who helped, and tag the collaborators so their fans hear it too.

The weeks after

A release keeps growing long after its first day. Release Radar can carry a song to your followers for weeks, and the listening it gets early on feeds Spotify's recommendations, Discover Weekly among them (see how Discover Weekly picks songs).

• Keep posting about the song: clips, the story behind it, the people who made it.
• Watch the playlists it lands on, editorial, algorithmic and listener-made, and thank the curators of listener playlists.
• Read your stats: where listeners are, which posts brought them and what they saved.
• Plan the next release, so the followers this one brought hear the next one in Release Radar.

What an album or EP adds

An album release checklist holds everything above, for every track, plus a few things a single doesn't need:

• The track order, and which song leads.
• Singles before the album, if you release some songs early, each with its own pitch and posts.
• Pre-orders and pre-adds. Apple Music lets fans pre-add an album or EP. On Spotify, artists with at least 3,000 monthly active listeners can make a Countdown Page for an album or EP, where fans pre-save it.
• Credits for every track, collected early on a record with many players.

For a longer plan around a record, read how to release music, our guide to the phases of a release.

Where Audora runs this checklist

In your Audora account the checklist is the release's calendar. Every step has its day, worked back from your release date, and comes up when it's due:

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• Cover art, a bio in three lengths, a Canvas and a logo, made to the stores' spec, with full commercial rights to everything made.
• Every release goes out with a pitch for the people who market it to the stores, written from your answers, and Audora dates the release to give the editors time.
• Your music goes to Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, YouTube and 140+ stores, and into the databases radio stations, cars and song recognition read (Gracenote, Shazam and others).
• Your own moves (your pitch in Spotify for Artists, the pre-save, the Canvas) come up on the calendar on the day they matter, and you check them off as you go.
• A promotion campaign planned around release day, every post written in your voice, which you approve before it goes out.
• After release, every playlist the song is on, shown back to you, with plays and saves from the stores' own reporting.

TikTok, YouTube, Instagram (Stories included) and Facebook Pages post automatically, and nothing goes out until you approve it. Stories carry no link sticker, so your release link goes in your bio.

The full, dated list for your release is in your account. We keep refining it as we learn what works best for our artists, adding steps, dropping some and moving others, so the calendar for your next release reflects the latest of it. See what every track gets for every step of a release, phase by phase.