February 2026 Spotify for Developers update: thread

[ThePodfather]

Hey everyone, I’ve created this thread to provide an open space for discussion, feedback, concerns or ideas on an upcoming update to Spotify for Developers access.

We’ve shared a blog post that explains what’s changing and why. Please use this thread to share any thoughts about the update.

We'll try our best to answer questions but we're not in a position to respond to every reply in this thread. Where appropriate we will add updates in this post to ensure visibility to all commentators (instead of burying the information in the comments). I am not able to reply to individual DM’s but please note that everything shared here will be read and considered. If related questions or discussions pop up elsewhere in the community, we’ll link or merge them back here so everything stays in one place.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Update:
After some review and following feedback we have received from you below, we have decided to postpone endpoint access changes for existing Development Mode integrations. All other changes, including the Spotify Premium requirement, the authorized user cap and one Client ID per developer limit, will take effect for existing Development Mode integrations as planned. Newly created Development Mode Client IDs remain subject to the updated rules introduced on February 11. We will share additional details on revised timelines as they become available.

You can find the full details in the blog post, and we’ll add links to any supporting documentation there as it becomes available.

[1237126424]

Bummer! I just figured out how to use Claude to make the Spotify analytics and music discovery site ive always wanted with your API. Is there any way to request an extended quota now?

[akkinasrikar]

Already migrated most of my stuff from my dev app to YouTube Music. I’ll be cancelling my Spotify subscription soon. There’s honestly no point anymore. With all the API restrictions and those insanely strict rate limits, it’s become practically unusable. technically not even a single user can use it properly now.

It’s wild how a platform built around music discovery managed to lock down its own ecosystem so hard that developers can’t even build simple things on top of it anymore. Spotify basically killed the fun of building with their APIs.

[MattTheHuman]

Genuinely concerned at how this has gone. I was developing a collaborative Playlist website, and wanted to integrate what people are listening to at the time.

This change has completely destroyed that for my website.

My only option now is to switch to something else like YouTube music and potentially try using their systems for this.

Indie development is dead at Spotify now with the absolutely INSANE requirements you have put in place for the Extended Quota. 250k users a month. Absolute joke. How are my <50 users going to affect your API compared to these enormous companies?

[ThePodfather]

After some review and following feedback we have received from you below, we have decided to postpone endpoint access changes for existing Development Mode integrations. All other changes, including the Spotify Premium requirement, the authorized user cap and one Client ID per developer limit, will take effect for existing Development Mode integrations as planned. Newly created Development Mode Client IDs remain subject to the updated rules introduced on February 11. We will share additional details on revised timelines as they become available.

[MattTheHuman]

The question here now is how do we go about getting Extended API access? The current requirements are astronomical and absurd.

Requiring 250k active users alone is insanity, let alone the other requirements being pretty steep.

How are small indie developers meant to reach those heights without having access to a viable Extended API for reach? How are you meant to accrue 250k users, if you're completely blocked off from the start?

[spotify-genius]

Hi Folks, I know there's a lot of noise on this issue. I wanted to ask about one specific question. We have an existing Extended Quota Mode app that we use for our 100M MAU app. But we have separate apps for our staging and development environments, to make sure there's data leakage and that security is high. Are these separate apps going to be impacted by these changes, since they're not in extended quota mode but they're associated with an account that does have an app in extended quota mode? That would be very disruptive to our internal team of testers + developers.

[zNdev]

Restricting the public API access only affects legitimate developers. Those who want to scrape Spotify will do so using fake browsers and proxies. The 250,000 monthly user requirement is a bad joke.

[SA135]

I’m struggling to understand the path from Development Mode to Extended Quota. Development Mode is limited to 5 users, while Extended Quota seems to require organizations with ~250k MAUs, which creates a huge gap for developers.

Is there any way to move beyond the 5-user limit before reaching that scale?

[bdubsw]

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@ThePodfather wrote:

After some review and following feedback we have received from you below, we have decided to postpone endpoint access changes for existing Development Mode integrations. All other changes, including the Spotify Premium requirement, the authorized user cap and one Client ID per developer limit, will take effect for existing Development Mode integrations as planned. Newly created Development Mode Client IDs remain subject to the updated rules introduced on February 11. We will share additional details on revised timelines as they become available.

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Thanks for listening to everyone. Good start to the week.

[iceJockey]

I dont really know what the meaning is now to keep developing apps or web access to Spotify api if you dont already have an existing extended quota for the app? Seems pointless Im afraid, and this will only make developers searching for alternative sources instead of using Spotify. But that may be the main purpose of this actions?

[texjer]

Is it enough to have a trial membership?  I signed up and it pushed me towards the 3-month trial, and yet I'm still seeing errors on my app.

[its__daniel]

I have a tiny Spring Boot application that only I use and have been using for now more than 7 years, that heavily relies on the get-audio-features endpoint. I use it to create playlists to my liking, while respecting e.g. BPM flows etc.

Using the "AI features" Spotify has added like the "Mix" feature does not really satisfy my needs nor really is good. It would be a shame to have the endpoint removed with no replacement.

Also not having the "popularity" rating anymore is quite bad. We already don't get a stream count estimate, so I thought the popularity approximation is a quite good tradeoff, but apparently Spotify does not think so anymore?

If this will be removed there's very little holding me at Spotify anymore, considering the high amount of negative press Spotify has gotten in lately (both from political side as well as AI).

[zackfischmann]

Appreciate the team postponing the endpoint changes, thanks for hearing us out!

We spent the last two weeks migrating our entire codebase to handle the restricted endpoints and deployed our fallbacks the night before the postponement was announced. So we're in good shape either way.

I know the 250K MAU threshold has been raised many times in this thread and others. I won't repeat those arguments. I'll just add that MAU as a metric doesn't capture Spotify ecosystem contribution. Our platform is a B2B marketplace focused on quality curation, discovery, and advertising -- literally driving people to Spotify.

Is there a path being considered for apps that meet the Extended Quota criteria but don't fit the consumer app model?

A tiered review or manual submission path would go a long way.

Happy to provide any additional detail.

[GB122]

I wasted a lot of time on this, in retrospect. Choosing good partners is not easy - and Spotify was just a bad choice. Expensive, time-consuming lesson. I should have realized the bad direction they were taking by limiting the number of users to 25 but maintaining grandfathered apps (ie my potential competitors). 25 is ridiculously low and I have way more people interested in the Youtube version now. Dropping my spotify premium account this month, and not looking back. Endpoints? That was NEVER the problem. You didn't listen. Goodbye

[djmajortom]

Please reconsider and not remove the label endpoint.
I host a site that follows a genre/format. All song links point to Spotify, so it drives listeners. As a genre site, my users are familiar with specific labels, almost as much as they're familiar with their fav artists. It's a legit piece of info that sends users from my site to Spotify. One that doesn't seem like a security risk. 

[zackfischmann]

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@djmajortom wrote:

Please reconsider and not remove the label endpoint.
I host a site that follows a genre/format. All song links point to Spotify, so it drives listeners. As a genre site, my users are familiar with specific labels, almost as much as they're familiar with their fav artists. It's a legit piece of info that sends users from my site to Spotify. One that doesn't seem like a security risk. 

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this sounds rad, what's the site?

[JoaoAranha]

Thanks for the postpone, even not necessary anymore since most developers were able to change the mess of "this is out, no... now is back" parts of the things... But a stand still with no real reply, and i'm saying real, because i'm used to work with corporations and i know when they are just stalling with replies like: " we hear you but cant provide a timeline or a expected time frame to see anything about it" and this is stall pure and simple. So my concern remain the same:
I really dont get the part that a simple switch at Spotify 4 Developers to indie developers cant be done, even we wanting to provide the same informations and documentations but in a personals instance, since we are not companies, to enable us to apply to even a half or half of a half extended quota that probably will cover all our uses to at least dream with an full extended quota someday... We are not asking for a special treatment, with not providing documentation, personal docs, access to review the apps claiming to this "indie quota", checking a form with "i agree", we are not the bad guys, we are the ones wanting to keep it fair, and the actual point is not... Let's be honest, it's 2 changes in the internal DB and 4 words in the legal papers to create an Indie Quota, so for heaven sakes, why not ? Best regards

[Ovaller]

Hi Novy,

This is my first time using Spotify. I'm not sure if this is the right place. I got a Premium account because I need access to the Spotify for Developers dashboard. It's strange, though, because a message appeared: 'You have reached your limit of development mode apps. Please delete an existing development..." It's crazy — it's my first time using this kind of tool! Thanks!

[jamesfolkestad]

Really appreciate the postpone y'all!!

[Dosimo]

I am deeply disappointed by these latest updates. As a hobbyist developer who has spent a significant amount of time building a game integrated with Spotify, these changes feel like another major barrier for independent creators.

The current system creates a "Catch-22" situation: to obtain public API access and reach a wider audience, it appears an app must already be backed by an established company or possess a large existing user base. However, as a solo developer, I can never reach that scale if I am restricted from publishing the app to the public in the first place. These new restrictions only further stifle innovation at the grassroots level.

While I understand that maintaining the platform and providing API access involves costs, the requirement for developers (and in many cases, end-users) to hold a Premium account is a logical and fair way to address this. This subscription model should, in theory, cover infrastructure costs and provide a sustainable framework without the need for additional, growth-limiting restrictions on smaller projects.

I really hope Spotify will reconsider its stance on independent developers. We bring unique ideas and passion projects to the ecosystem that larger, corporate entities might never explore.