How to choose a music marketing agency: the four types, how they charge, and what to check before you pay

The short answer

A music marketing agency is any company you pay to get your release in front of people, and the name covers four quite different businesses: music PR agencies (publicists), digital agencies that run ads, playlist pitching services, and full-service or label-services partners. They do different jobs, charge in different ways and can honestly promise different things. This guide is for artists and managers, and for labels hiring for several artists at once.

Pick the type that matches the job. If you need journalists to write about you, hire a publicist. If you need people to watch your video, pay for ads, run by you or by a team. If you want curators to hear a track, a pitching platform charges per contact or per campaign. If you need someone to run a whole release with money behind it, that is label services, and you usually apply rather than buy.

Whichever you choose, judge it on what you can check: the ad platform's own report, links to coverage you can open, and named curators and outlets. Every price below comes from the company's own site, read on 5 October 2026. Where a company publishes no price, we say so instead of guessing.

The four types of music marketing agency, and what each one does

Most agencies sit mainly in one of these groups, even when their sites list a dozen services. Ask which one is the core of the business, because that is where the experience and the contacts are.

1. Music PR agencies and publicists. A music PR agency pitches your release to journalists, bloggers, podcasts and radio, follows up and reports back. The coverage is earned: an editor chooses to write about you, which is why it carries weight with promoters and bookers, and why an honest publicist won't promise a particular outlet. Some smaller firms do put a number on blog coverage. Obscure Sound sells a single campaign for $530 with a live tracker, and promises five or more features or a 50% refund. For what larger publicists charge, see how much music PR costs.

2. Digital and ads agencies. These run paid campaigns on Instagram and Facebook, YouTube, TikTok or Spotify's own ad tools. You pay for two things: the ad spend, which goes to the platform, and the people who choose audiences, make the ads and move budget each week. Dynamoi, for example, sells a Starter plan at $25 a month and a Plus plan at $300 a month per artist. The plan fee becomes campaign credit, its team runs the ads on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, and spend beyond the credit is billed as the ads deliver. Ads buy reach you can measure. Whether viewers stay depends on the music.

3. Playlist pitching services. Platforms such as Playlist Push, SubmitHub, Groover and Musosoup put your track in front of playlist curators, blogs and radio shows. You pay for a listen and a response, not for a placement. Playlist Push starts at $280 for a Spotify campaign, makes no guarantees about results, and credits you back if a curator doesn't review your track within 14 days. Our comparison of music promotion services covers these platforms in more detail.

4. Full-service agencies and label services. Here one company runs the whole release: strategy, pitching to playlist editors, marketing, radio and sometimes an advance. Distributors sell lighter versions too. Ditto's Promo is a flat $249 for a four-week campaign with playlist pitching, two blog features, a press release written and distributed, an Instagram and TikTok strategy, a graphics package and reporting. Promo Plus, at $399, adds two weeks and a TikTok and Instagram ad campaign with a dedicated ads manager. Full label services are selective: AWAL and Ditto's label services list release planning, playlisting, marketing, funding and radio, publish no fees, and work with artists they choose.

How music marketing companies charge

There is no standard price for a music marketing company, so compare the pricing model before you compare the number. These are the models you will meet, with examples from each company's own pages.

• Monthly retainer. Common with publicists and larger agencies. Music PR Firm's 2026 guide puts traditional music PR at $1,000 to $5,000 a month, with most firms asking for a minimum of two to three months. A retainer suits an act with several releases or a tour in the same year.
• Per campaign. A fixed fee for one release over a set number of weeks: Obscure Sound's $530 single campaign or $850 for two releases, or Ditto's $249 four-week Promo. This is the easiest model to budget for, and to compare, as long as you ask what happens in each week.
• Per placement or per contact. You pay for each pitch or each piece of coverage. Musosoup charges a £42 campaign fee once your submission is approved; curators can then offer paid coverage, which averages £8 to £12 an offer and always comes with a free option, and Musosoup refunds the fee if you get no coverage at all. Small fees add up, so set a total before you start.
• A plan or fee on top of ad spend. Ads agencies either charge a management fee on top of your spend or, like Dynamoi, sell a monthly plan that turns into ad credit. Either way, ask how much of your money reaches the platform.
• A share of revenue. Label-services deals are usually paid out of your royalties rather than upfront. AWAL and Ditto don't publish their splits on these pages, so get the percentage, the length of the deal and what is recouped in writing before you sign.

Plenty of agencies publish no prices. Planetary Group and Burstimo, for instance, ask you to get in touch first. That is normal for custom work; it means you should get the scope and the fee in writing before you pay. If you are weighing up YouTube ads, our free YouTube promotion cost calculator turns published cost-per-view ranges into an estimate of what a budget buys.

What a good music marketing agency report looks like

A report should let you check the work without taking the agency's word for it. What that means depends on the type of agency.

• Ads: the platform's own numbers. If your money went into YouTube ads, there is a Google Ads account behind it. According to Google Ads Help, a skippable ad counts as a view when someone watches 30 seconds, or to the end if the video is shorter, or clicks on the ad. A useful report shows impressions, views, view rate (views divided by impressions), cost per view, watch time and where the views came from. It can also show earned actions: subscribers, likes and playlist additions people make on your channel within seven days of seeing the ad.
• Access, if you want it. Google Ads offers read-only access, which lets you view campaigns and run performance reports without being able to change anything. If an agency runs ads in its own account and won't give access, it should still send the platform's own report, not a screenshot of your channel stats.
• PR: links, not logos. A publicity report should list who was pitched, who replied and a working link to every piece of coverage. A page of outlet logos tells you nothing you can check.
• Playlists: names you can look up. Every curator and playlist named, with a link, so you can see that the playlist exists, has followers who listen and still carries your track.
• Paid features: labelled. If coverage was paid for, it should say so. The FTC's native advertising guide says an ad shouldn't suggest it is anything other than an ad. A labelled sponsored feature is fine. An unlabelled one passed off as earned press is a problem for you as well as the outlet.

Then look at what happened after the first play: saves and follows on Spotify, watch time and subscribers on YouTube, messages from promoters and bookers. The headline view count is the least informative number in any report.

Red flags when hiring a music marketing agency

The platforms draw the line for you. Spotify says paid third-party services that guarantee streams aren't legitimate, and that any service claiming guaranteed placement on Spotify playlists in exchange for money violates its terms. The penalties land on the artist: withheld royalties, corrected stream counts, songs removed from playlists and, for repeated violations, music removed from Spotify. YouTube's fake engagement policy bans anything that artificially increases views, likes or comments, and three strikes within 90 days can end a channel.

Treat any of these as a reason to stop and ask harder questions:

• A set number of streams, followers, views or subscribers, promised in advance.
• Guaranteed Spotify playlist placement in return for a fee.
• A price per 1,000 streams or per follower.
• No ad account and no platform report, only screenshots of your own stats going up.
• A private network of playlists or outlets that can't be named.
• No written scope or refund terms until after you have paid.

A promise about the agency's own work is a different thing, and can be fair: Playlist Push's credit if a curator doesn't review in time, Ditto's guarantee that your track gets pitched, or Obscure Sound's partial refund if fewer blog features appear. Ask whether the promise is about what they will do or about how many people will press play. Our guide to legit music promotion covers the warning signs, and what enforcement looks like, in more depth.

Questions to ask a music marketing company before you hire

1. What is the core of your business: PR, ads, playlist pitching or label services?
2. Which artists in my genre and at my level have you worked with in the last year, and can I see their coverage links or campaign results?
3. What exactly will you do each week, and who will do it?
4. How much of my money is your fee, and how much goes to ad spend, curators or outlets?
5. Which platforms, outlets and playlists will you use, by name?
6. What will the report show, how often, and does it come from the ad platform itself?
7. What can't you promise? A good answer names streams, playlist adds and press coverage.
8. What are the minimum term, the cancellation terms and the refund terms, in writing?
9. Who owns the ad account, the creative and the audience data when we finish?

Have your assets ready before the first call: a finished master, a video if you want YouTube, photos and a short biography. Our free EPK template and music press release template cover the written parts, and how to promote your music covers what you can do yourself first.

Hiring a record label marketing agency: working across a roster

A label hires a music marketing agency for different reasons than a single artist does. You have several acts at different stages, releases that overlap, and a budget you have to split fairly. A record label marketing agency that works well for you handles each artist as a separate campaign while keeping one view of the whole roster.

• Brief per release, not per year. Give the agency one short brief for each release: the artist, the track or video, the release date, the artists they sound like, the countries that matter and the goal. A brief per release stops one act's plan from bleeding into another's, and it gives you something to judge the result against.
• Price per campaign or on a retainer. A fee per campaign lets you back the releases that earn it and skip the ones that don't. A retainer can work out cheaper when there is a release most months, but check what happens to unused time, and whether one priority act will quietly take most of it. Either way, ask for each campaign's fee and ad spend separately.
• Report per artist. One blended roster report hides which act the spend worked for. Ask for each artist's campaign reported on its own, from the platform: views, cost per view, watch time and countries for ads, and links for press. That is what you need when you decide where next quarter's budget goes, and it is what you can share with each artist and their manager.
• Own the ad accounts and the data. Ask whether campaigns run in an account in the label's name or the agency's. If it is the agency's, ask for read-only access or the platform's own export each week, and agree in writing what you keep when the contract ends: reports, audiences and the creative you paid for.
• Read the rights and money terms. A marketing agency is paid a fee; a label-services partner is often paid from royalties. Check which one you are signing, and make sure nothing in the agreement takes a share of your masters, your publishing or your artists' revenue unless that is the deal you meant to make.

Labels carry one extra risk. Spotify shares monthly reports of confirmed artificial streaming with distributors, and according to Spotify a distributor can then warn you, remove content or suspend the account. For a label, that account holds every artist on the roster, so one agency selling streams for one act can put the whole catalogue at risk. Vet an agency for a label at least as hard as you would for a single release.

Should a label hire an agency or keep marketing in-house?

For a small label, an agency makes sense when the work is occasional or needs a specialist. An in-house person makes sense when the work never stops.

Keep the things that build over time inside the label: the release calendar, the artist relationships, the mailing list and, where you can, the ad accounts. Many labels end up with a mix: planning and relationships in-house, and specialist campaigns bought release by release.

Where Blue Leopard Media fits

We are a music marketing agency of the ads-plus-press kind, for artists and for labels. Our music marketing runs your music video worldwide as a Google Ads campaign on YouTube: skippable ads before other videos and in search results and the home feed, aimed at people who watch similar artists. Every view is someone choosing to watch. You get a Google Ads report every week with views, cost and watch time, and at day 30 a report of views, watch time and top countries with your live feature links.

Each campaign includes one editorial feature about you, written by our editorial team, with your name in the headline and your own digital cover, on one of the publications we work with. You approve every word, and it is live within 24 hours of your approval of the final draft (business days). The feature is sponsored content and labelled as such, as our disclaimer explains.

A worldwide campaign with one feature starts at $249. Targeting specific countries or cities is priced separately, and editorial features on their own also start at $249. Your plan sets the scope and the fee in writing before anything starts. If Google doesn't approve your video for advertising, even after an edit, you can ask for a full refund of the package under our refund policy.

For labels: we run a YouTube campaign plus an editorial feature for any artist on your roster, campaign by campaign, from $249 each, with each campaign's Google Ads report every week. You choose which releases to back. We take no rights in your music and no share of your royalties; you pay a fee per campaign, and for an album, a tour or a run of releases you get a written plan with the scope and the fee first.

For artists: the same campaign for your own release, whether you are independent or working with a manager or producer.

What we don't do: we don't sell or promise streams, playlist placements or chart positions, and we never use bots, view farms or bought likes, subscribers or comments. Our campaigns run on YouTube, and the feature is paid coverage, not earned press. If you need a publicist chasing reviews, hire one alongside us.

To talk through a release, or a label's next few, book a free 15-minute consultation. There is no obligation to buy anything.