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Case Study

Another Hit

Dash Emzed

Still Running AI Artist Budget under $1,000

This release started at zero. Every one of its 12,385 Spotify streams came from someone hearing the song in a clip and going to look for it.

0 to 12,385Spotify Streams
26.10MApproved Views
2,139Clips We Paid For
1,793Clips Rejected, Unpaid

Why this one proves clips drive streams

Dash Emzed is an AI artist. Under Spotify's AI Persona policy, announced on 11 August 2026, AI artist music is excluded by default from Spotify's editorial and algorithmic recommendations. Followers can still be served the music, but there is no algorithmic push behind it.

That makes this the cleanest evidence on the site. Every other campaign has a fair question hanging over it: how much of the lift came from the clips and how much came from Spotify's algorithm picking the song up? Here there was no algorithm to help. A brand new release with no catalogue, no audience and no editorial support went from zero to 12,385 streams, and the only thing driving it was 2,139 clips reaching their own audiences.

What the numbers mean

Approved views are the only ones we pay for. 26.10M of them came from 2,139 clips that cleared bot scoring and a like-to-view check. 1,793 more clips were submitted and rejected, which is 46% of everything sent in, and not one of them cost the artist anything.

Those rejected clips still produced about 28.40M views. We count that separately and never fold it into the headline, because it is reach the artist got for free rather than reach they bought. Any service that merges the two is quietly billing you for views it did not screen.

What ran

Clips posted since August 24, 2026. 3,932 clips in total across TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, each one made by a different creator and posted to that creator's own audience rather than the same followers being shown the same song repeatedly.

Every clip stays up after the campaign ends, so the audio keeps surfacing to new listeners with no further spend. If the release is registered with YouTube Content ID, clips using the audio can also earn royalties back to the rights holder.

⚠️ Before you open the sound page

A public sound page shows every video that has ever used the audio, which is not the same list as the clips we paid for. Once a track gets traction, unrelated accounts pile on and some people try to farm the campaign with bought views.

Those clips earned nothing. Every submission has to clear a 2% to 4% like-to-view ratio and pass bot scoring before any money is released. If you spot a video with 300,000 views and 40 likes, that is a stranger who wasted their own time.

See how the screening works →

What a campaign like this costs

This one ran on a budget under $1,000. Campaigns start at $750 as a test placed on a campaign already running, or $1,000 for a dedicated slot built around only your release. About about $2,000 is where a brand new song's sound typically starts showing trending audio signals, based on what we have seen across our campaigns.

Other campaigns

Start a campaign → Or see how campaign budgets work first.

Figures as of 2026-10-23. Free views come from rejected clips and were never paid for. Stream counts are from the artist's Spotify page on the date shown.