r/soundcloud • u/anthonydevine1983 • 21d ago
I need help with/using Soundcloud Is SoundCloud Amplify actually useful for smaller artists?
I’m starting to question whether SoundCloud Amplify is actually much use to smaller artists who are trying to build an audience.
I’m an Artist Pro subscriber. SoundCloud describes Amplify as recommending an eligible track to around 100 listeners matched to your sound, and if those listeners engage, the track can reach up to 1,000 more.
I understand the words “can reach.” I’m not saying SoundCloud guarantees every track another 1,000 listeners.
What frustrates me is what happens after those first ~100 listeners.
My latest track got 177 plays, 9 likes, 11 reposts and 6 comments in its first day. My previous track got around 250 plays, 15 likes and 13 reposts. Both got that initial activity and then seemed to hit a wall rather than progressing into anything resembling the larger Amplify push.
So I contacted SoundCloud support to find out what “if they engage” actually means.
After going around in circles, I was eventually told that SoundCloud doesn’t publish a specific engagement threshold for progressing beyond the initial Amplify stage. I also couldn’t get an answer about whether either of my tracks had actually entered the larger recommendation stage.
That leaves me wondering what I’m actually paying for.
SoundCloud says the top-performing eligible tracks can be recommended more broadly. But who are smaller artists competing against?
If I’m potentially competing against established artists with thousands of followers, large existing audiences and strong repost networks, how is a small account supposed to compete on raw engagement?
And if you’re already an established artist generating hundreds or thousands of plays through your existing audience, you arguably don’t need an initial push to ~100 listeners nearly as much as somebody who’s actually trying to build an audience.
Maybe SoundCloud accounts for this. Maybe it compares the response specifically from those ~100 recommended listeners, normalises engagement according to audience size, or uses other signals that give smaller artists a fair shot.
But that’s exactly the problem — SoundCloud doesn’t tell us.
Amplify sounds particularly attractive to smaller artists because we’re the ones who actually need help getting our music in front of new listeners. But if progression beyond ~100 is determined by an unpublished system where only the “top-performing” tracks move forward, I’d like considerably more transparency about what that actually means.
I work hard on my music and I’m actively trying to build a genuine following. I use RepostExchange, engage with other artists, participate in music communities and promote my tracks myself. Even doing all of that, I still find it incredibly difficult to gain genuine followers.
That’s one of the reasons a feature like Amplify appealed to me in the first place — getting my music in front of new listeners who are actually matched to the kind of music I make.
At the moment, the main Artist Pro feature I feel I’m getting genuine value from is being able to replace the audio on an existing track without losing its stats. If Amplify isn’t meaningfully increasing discovery, I’m struggling to see the value in the subscription for me.
So I’d particularly like to hear from smaller Artist Pro accounts, rather than people who already have massive followings:
Have you actually had Amplify take one of your tracks from the initial ~100-listener stage into the larger ~1,000 recommendation stage?
If so, roughly how many followers did you have at the time and what sort of engagement was the track getting?
And has anyone cancelled or downgraded Artist Pro because Amplify wasn’t providing the reach you expected?
