How-To

How to Tell if Spotify Playlists are Fake

By Adam Davidson

Published July 18, 2022

Have you had an offer to pay a fee to add your music to what seems like a popular playlist? Learn how to tell if Spotify playlists are fake.

If you’re a musician, getting your work onto a popular Spotify playlist can be a great way to get our music out there. Unfortunately, scammers are all too aware of this fact. You may receive an invitation to pay a fee to have your track added to what appears like a popular playlist. Before you do so, however, you should be sure that the playlist is genuine and not a fake one where the number of streams and followers has been inflated through the use of bots.

Here’s how to tell if Spotify playlists are fake.

How to Tell if Spotify Playlists are Fake by Comparing the Number of Followers to the Number of Streams

One way to check that a Spotify playlist may be fake is to compare the number of followers to the number of streams. If a playlist has a large number of followers, but the songs on it only have a small number of streams, then it’s likely that the playlist is fake. On the flip side, if the playlist only has a reasonable amount of followers, but the number of streams of songs from smaller artists is unusually high, then they may be fake streams.

To compare the number of followers and number of streams on Spotify:

1. Open the playlist you want to check.
2. Look for the number of likes. This is the number of people who are following this playlist.
   
3. Click Play on one of the songs in the playlist.
   
4. In the Now Playing bar at the bottom of the window, click on the name of the song.
   
   You can now see the number of streams that the song has had.
   
5. Repeat steps 3-5 for some other songs in the playlist if you think the playlist might be fake.

How to Tell if Spotify Playlists are Fake from the Listener Locations

Another way to spot a fake playlist is if the listener locations for the songs in the playlist are focused heavily on one specific location that is unrelated to where the artist is from. This is a sign that the playlist may be using bots to boost the stats.

To check the listener locations for an artist on Spotify:

1. Open your playlist.
2. Select a song in the playlist and click on the artist’s name in the track listing.
   
3. Scroll down and click on the About section for that artist.
   
4. Scroll down again, and you’ll see information about listener locations.
   
5. If the listeners are mostly from one location unrelated to where the artist is from, it may be a fake playlist.

How to Tell if Spotify Playlists are Fake from Spikes in Followers

One of the best ways of confirming a playlist is fake is to look for unusual spikes in the number of followers. Genuine playlists will usually see a gradual increase in followers over time. A fake Spotify playlist will see sudden jumps in followers. It may also see sudden drops as fake bot accounts are kicked from Spotify. You can see the growth of followers using third-party websites.

To see the follower history for a playlist on Spotify:

1. Navigate to the playlist on Spotify.
2. Click the three dots icon.
   
3. Hover over Share and click Copy Link to Playlist.
   
4. Open isitagoodplaylist.com in a browser.
5. Under Start Your Free Analysis paste the playlist link you just copied and click Analyze.
   
6. Wait for the analysis to complete, then scroll down to the Followers chart. You can now see if your playlist contains any suspicious spikes in followers.
   
   A genuine playlist should have a fairly smooth curve.
   

Getting More From Spotify Playlists

Knowing how to tell if Spotify playlists are fake is important. It stops you from paying to be featured on a playlist that isn’t going to get you any genuine exposure. There are plenty of other useful playlist features in Spotify that you should know about.

If you create a killer playlist that you don’t want to share with the world, you can make a playlist private on Spotify. On the other hand, if you want to share your playlist with friends outside of Spotify, you can learn how to play Spotify on Discord. It’s also possible to copy a playlist if you want to make a similar one and don’t want to have to start from scratch. You can even create a collaborative playlist on Spotify with the help of friends and family.