A Week-by-Week Release Timeline for One Single

A single does not take a week to release. The audio is finished long before the date, and the weeks in between are spent waiting for the review, delivery, the store’s own processing and the moment the release page goes live. What goes wrong is rarely the music. It is a cover that has to be replaced after the date has been announced, a profile mix-up found on release day, or a pitch window that closed a day before anyone looked at it.

This guide is a week-by-week schedule for one single, worked backwards from the release date. It uses two sets of rules: the lead times WBBT publishes, and the timing rules Spotify states on its own help pages. It leaves out the detail covered elsewhere and links to it, so you can follow the schedule without reading six guides first. It is a planning aid, not a promise. Nothing here guarantees a playlist, a number of streams or an earnings figure. Every external page named below was opened on 26 October 2026.

The fixed points the schedule hangs on

Most of a release plan is flexible. These rules are not, so they decide the calendar before anything else does.

Rule	Where it comes from	What it means for your calendar
The Free plan needs a release date at least 14 days after you submit	The WBBT pricing page	This is a minimum for one plan, not a recommended lead time. Other plans can differ, and the Release Wizard shows the earliest date your account can choose.
Allow at least two weeks for a planned campaign, and more for specialist delivery	The WBBT FAQ	Review, corrections and store processing all sit inside this window. WBBT publishes no fixed review time.
Deliver at least seven days before release for editors to listen	Spotify Support, pitching to playlist editors	A late delivery cannot be pitched in time, and the page ties the same seven days to Release Radar.
A song pitched at least seven days ahead goes on followers’ Release Radar	Spotify Support, pitching and Release Radar pages	The pitch deadline is a date on the calendar. Release Radar refreshes on Fridays.
Spotify needs five business days to make new music live	Spotify Support, music not live on release day	Delivery inside that window may not be live on the day.
A release shows in Spotify for Artists Upcoming about 48 hours after the distributor submits it	Spotify Support, unreleased music	You cannot pitch what you cannot see, so the 48 hours come before the pitch.
Delivered does not mean live	The WBBT FAQ	Verify each store page yourself on release day.

Work backwards: the latest dates and the dates to aim for

The example below is invented. “Paper Moons” is a single by a made-up artist, Kestrel Lane, on the Free plan, set for Friday 12 March 2027. The dates are computed from the rules above, and the arithmetic is shown so you can repeat it with your own date.

Constraint	Count	Latest date
Spotify’s seven days before release	12 March minus 7 days	Friday 5 March
Spotify’s five business days to go live	Counting back five business days from the release: 11, 10, 9, 8 and 5 March	Friday 5 March, as the edge and not a target
Free plan’s 14 days	12 March minus 14 days	Friday 26 February

Read the table the wrong way and the plan looks fine: submit on 26 February and the Free plan accepts it. Read it the right way and you see that the release then has seven days (26 February to 5 March) to be reviewed, delivered, mapped and shown in Upcoming, with no room for a single correction. Spotify’s lines are the real deadline, and the 14 days is only the platform’s rule for one plan.

So the schedule below aims much earlier. Kestrel Lane submits on Monday 8 February, which is 32 days out and 25 days before Spotify’s line. That is not a figure from any source. It is a margin chosen so that one returned release and one resubmission still fit.

The schedule at a glance

Week	Dates (example)	The one job
Week −6	25 to 31 January	Lock the master, the credits and the date
Week −5	1 to 7 February	Artwork, metadata, profile and lyrics text, ready to submit
Week −4	8 to 14 February	Submit and read the first feedback
Week −3	15 to 21 February	Buffer for corrections; make the content
Week −2	22 to 28 February	Find it in Upcoming; send the pitch
Week −1	1 to 7 March	Tell people; freeze everything
Release week	8 to 14 March	Check the stores, then announce
Weeks +1 to +4	15 March to 11 April	Follow up, fix, read the numbers, plan the next one

Week −6: lock the master, the credits and the date

• Finish the audio. Export the approved master and run the checks in release-ready audio: checks before you upload: format, clipping, true peak, the start and end of the file and a mono sum. Fix problems now, while changing a file costs minutes.
• Settle the rights. If the track uses a leased beat, a sample, a cover or AI-generated material, resolve it before anything is announced. The music rights checklist lists what to have in writing.
• Write down the credits and splits. Who wrote it, who performed, who produced, and what each person agreed. Changing credits after release goes through a correction request, which is slower than getting them right now.
• Choose the date. Check it against the lead times above and against your own calendar. Decide whether this single stands alone or leads an EP; the waterfall release strategy guide covers how singles and a later EP relate.

Week −5: artwork, metadata, profile and lyrics text

• Finish the cover. The standard WBBT cover is a square image of 3000 by 3000 pixels. Avoid store logos, URLs and promotional text on it.
• Complete the metadata. Use the metadata and artwork requirements guide as a final read: artist names, roles, language, genre, explicit flag and the copyright lines. A mismatch here is among the common reasons for a return, which is exactly what you cannot afford at week −2.
• Check the artist profile. If you already have a Spotify artist profile, have its link ready, and make sure someone on your team has the right access level. The Spotify for Artists set-up guide explains access, the Upcoming tab and what to send when a release lands on the wrong profile.
• Prepare the identifiers. If this recording has been released before, bring its ISRC and original date. ISRC and UPC codes explained covers when a code stays the same.
• Keep the lyrics as clean text. You will need them for the release form and, later, for the lyrics services; how lyrics reach Spotify and Apple Music shows how the services differ.
• Draft the pitch. Genre, mood, instruments, language and one honest sentence of context. A draft written now is better than a form filled in at the deadline.

Week −4: submit, and read the feedback

Submit on the Monday. In the Release Wizard you can save a draft and return to it, so put everything in the draft first and read the final review as a stranger would. When you submit, look at the status in your account. The FAQ explains the stages: a draft is still being prepared, a review stage means the release is being checked, and delivery means the files have been sent onward. Nothing in that sequence promises a store date.

• Do not announce the date until the release is submitted. A date given to your audience before the review has seen the release is a date you may have to withdraw.
• If a reason comes back, answer that reason. The FAQ’s advice is to correct the specific issue and not to send unchanged files again.
• Plan the content. Decide what the three or four posts will be, and who has to be in the room to film them.

Week −3: the buffer, and the content

This week is deliberately light on deadlines. If the first review found a problem, it was fixed and resubmitted by now; if it did not, the week is spare. Use it for the creative work, because content made the night before release is rarely your best.

• Shoot and edit the clips. A ten-to-fifteen-second hook, one behind-the-scenes clip and one story post are enough. The TikTok and Instagram guide explains how the music reaches those apps.
• Set up the pre-save link, if you use one. The pre-save and release-day guide describes how the link appears on your release page and how to test it.
• Tell your closest listeners the date, now that the release is in the system.
• Ask about anything specialist early. Motion artwork, a profile fix or a Dolby Atmos version needs support, and the FAQ asks for more than two weeks for specialist delivery.

Week −2: find it in Upcoming and send the pitch

Once WBBT has delivered the release, Spotify says it can take about 48 hours to appear in the Upcoming tab of Spotify for Artists. Open it, and check four things before you do anything else: the title, the credits, the cover and the artist profile it sits on. The page notes that the date shown can differ from the one you set, depending on your time zone, for example a worldwide release set for midnight UTC may appear a day early in some western time zones. If the release is missing after the 48 hours, ask support to confirm that it was sent to the correct artist profile.

• Send the pitch the day it appears. The last allowed day in the example is Friday 5 March, but Kestrel Lane pitches in week −2, so that a mistake can be edited. Spotify allows edits up to release day and says there is no guarantee that editors see them. Only one song can be pitched at a time, and a pitch does not guarantee placement. The playlist pitching guide shows what a useful pitch looks like.
• Use the other tools in Upcoming. The page lists a Countdown Page (if eligible), a Canvas, and a Copy URI action that gives a link for pre-saves and marketing. If your plan includes Spotify Canvas, request it from Tools → Spotify Canvas in your WBBT account. The request is reviewed and delivered by the team, so it does not appear instantly.
• Do not change the cover or metadata now. The Upcoming page says changes to the release date, tracklist and cover are requested through the distributor. Treat this week as the freeze.
• Test the pre-save link on two phones, one signed in and one not.

Week −1: tell people, and freeze everything

• Post on a rhythm, not all at once: the clip with the link, the story, a reminder two days before.
• Email your list the date and the link. An email list reaches people without depending on an app’s feed.
• Re-read the pitch, and edit only for errors.
• Write down the release-day checks you will do on Friday (the list is in the next section), so you are not thinking about them under pressure.

Release week

Monday to Thursday are for confirming, not changing. On Thursday, check that your account shows the release as delivered. On the Friday, do the following in order.

1. Confirm that the release has moved from Upcoming to your released music in Spotify for Artists, which Spotify says happens on release day, and that it sits on the right artist profile.
2. Search for it in the other stores you care about. Check the title, version, cover, credits and the © and ℗ lines.
3. Play each track on a phone, the first and last ten seconds in particular.
4. Open the pre-save link and check that it now leads to the live release.
5. If anything is wrong, send support the store link, the correct artist link, the UPC and the ISRCs. Do not upload the music again, because a duplicate release makes a mapping problem harder.
6. Announce only after those checks, and replace the pre-save link with the live link in your bio.

The full release-day checklist is in the pre-save and release-day guide. If a store does not show the release, remember that the FAQ says availability must be confirmed at each store, and that a delivery confirmation is not a promise of simultaneous publication.

The month after

Week +1: follow up

• Thank everyone who shared or commented. The thank-you post is part of the campaign.
• Open the Playlists tab in the song’s stats in Spotify for Artists. Spotify says Release Radar placements show up there. Release Radar shows a song to a listener for up to four weeks if they have not heard it, with one song per artist per listener each week.
• Send the lyrics to the lyrics services, now that the release exists. The lyrics guide explains the verification steps and how long each takes.
• Fix any mapping or metadata fault through support or a correction request. Do not re-upload.

Week +2: the second wave

• Post a different piece of content: a live take, a short story about the lyric, or a stripped-down clip. Repeating the first post teaches people to scroll past it.
• Pitch independent curators if that is part of your plan. Spotify’s editorial form closed to this song on release day, but other routes remain.
• Read the Source of Streams explanation to see where the listening came from, rather than counting totals alone.

Weeks +3 and +4: review and plan the next one

• Write down what you would repeat, drop and start earlier. Three lines are enough, and they are better than a long document nobody reads.
• Set the next release date while the audience is paying attention, and run this schedule again from week −6.
• Expect earnings later than listening. WBBT posts royalties in monthly reporting cycles after store reports are processed, so the first statement will not match the first week’s streams. Royalty splits and payouts explains the cycle.

If you only have three weeks

Sometimes the date is fixed and the lead time is short. This compressed version drops what is optional and protects what is not. It is tight, and it leaves no room for a returned release.

Days before release	Do this
21	Submit with the master, cover, credits and metadata already checked. Skip the pre-save link if it is not ready.
18 to 14	Answer any feedback the same day. Film one hook clip.
13 to 10	Look in Upcoming. Send the pitch as soon as it appears, and treat the seventh day as the hard stop.
9 to 1	Share the date and the link. Change nothing in the release.
0	Run the release-day checks, then announce.

If you are on the Free plan, the release date must be at least 14 days ahead, so a date closer than that cannot be chosen at all. The pricing page compares the plans.

Mistakes that cost the most

• Planning backwards from the Free plan’s 14-day minimum instead of from Spotify’s seven-day and five-business-day lines.
• Announcing a date before the release is submitted.
• Discovering a wrong cover or credit in week −2, when changes go through a request and the date is already public.
• Waiting for the pitch deadline when the song has been visible in Upcoming for a week.
• Sending the same files again after a return.
• Re-uploading a release to fix a store problem.
• Treating “delivered” as “live”.
• Judging the release by the first day alone.

Frequently asked questions

How many weeks before release should I submit?

Aim for four to five weeks. The Free plan requires a release date at least 14 days after submission, Spotify asks for delivery at least seven days before release and says it needs five business days to make music live, and WBBT publishes no fixed review time. Four weeks leaves room for one correction without moving the date.

Does the release have to come out on a Friday?

No rule says so. Spotify’s Release Radar refreshes on Fridays, which is why many artists choose that day, but any date that meets the lead times works. Pick the day that suits your promotion and your audience, not the day of the week alone.

Can I pitch the song to Spotify’s editors after it is out?

Not through Spotify’s editorial pitch form. Spotify says a song that is live is no longer eligible, and that a pitch should be sent at least seven days before release. Independent curators are a separate route and can take songs that are already released.

What if the review sends my release back?

Read the specific reason in your account or the support message, fix that problem and resubmit. Do not send the same files again. If the delay pushes the delivery inside Spotify’s seven-day or five-business-day lines, expect to move the release date and ask support how to change it for your submission.

Is a longer plan always better?

No. Announcing a date six months ahead for a song you have not finished mostly creates pressure. Once the date is fixed and the release is submitted, the useful part of the plan is the final three or four weeks. Start earlier only for work that has real lead times, such as video, artwork or a collaborator’s approval.

Next steps and sources

Sources opened for this article, all accessed on 26 October 2026:

• Pitching music and videos to Spotify playlist editors, Spotify Support for Artists.
• Unreleased music in Spotify for Artists, Spotify Support for Artists.
• Getting music on Release Radar, Spotify Support for Artists.
• Music not live on release day?, Spotify Support for Artists.

Spotify’s timing rules can change, so check the pages before you rely on a figure. To go further, start with how a release goes from files to live, then the pre-save and release-day guide. When your files are ready, submit your music. The music distribution page describes the route to the stores, the Spotify for Artists page covers profile claims and mapping, and the WBBT FAQ answers questions on timing and stages.