Does the Spotify algorithm give playlists made by premium and free users equal exposure?

[Hardcoreboogie]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Netherlands

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

When it comes to playlist discoverability through search or discovered on, does the Spotify algorithm give playlists made by premium and free users equal exposure?

I have two accounts: one premium and a free one. The latter is the oldest, and this is the one I actually use for "engagement", like following users and publicizing playlists. When I log in to my premium, I notice my free account's playlists are virtually unfindable on Spotify, even through targeted searches. They hardly ever show on artist pages' discovered on section.

Now, I assume this can be largely explained by the low follower count on my playlists, but still, I regularly encounter playlists with zero followers here and there.

So it appears "a lack of popularity" doesn't seem to be a determining factor. But what else could it be? If anything...

To be clear, this is not an accusation of any sort. I basically just want to be sure if there's no disadvantage in using a free account for the above purpose. If it's worth continuing creating playlists with it, or if I should migrate everything to my premium one.

[Alex · Accepted solution]

Hey @Hardcoreboogie,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

We can confirm the subscription type of an account that creates a playlist is not factored in any way when it comes to search results.

The main factors that the search uses to determine indexing and listing position are:

• Follower count
• Search Term Relevance
• Creation Date.

There're some other variables included as well, but subscription type isn't any of them.

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[Hardcoreboogie]

Thanks for the clear and reassuring answer!