Updating the Criteria for Web API Extended Access

[ThePodfather]

Hey, I created this thread to get your feedback on our blog post around changes to the Web API extended access criteria, which will take place on May 15th.

Please share any of your thoughts on this change in the comments below. All of your feedback will be reviewed and compiled so I can share directly with the S4D team.

Whilst I won’t be replying to individual pieces of feedback in this thread, please know that everything shared here will be read and considered. Any related threads or questions posted elsewhere on this topic will be merged here so everything is in one place.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Update:

• Sharing some clarification that developers with existing quota moda extensions will keep their extension if they are actively using the Web API and remain in compliance with our Developer Terms. This update only applies to new developers in Dev mode seeking extended access
• As outlined in our blog post, if you've submitted your application before May 15th, we are committing to reviewing your submission based on prior criteria, whether you hear from us before that date or not.
• The criteria for the new process can be found HERE.

[YawRate]

UPDATE: We were finally able to get approval. It was time-consuming and frustrating, but I appreciate Spotify making good on their stated process. Onward!

Original post:

We spent several weeks revising our SDA submission and paid scrupulous attention to requirements. We wrote a detailed email description outlining the changes we'd made, with screenshots.

Today we received a form rejection repeating the same language as prior communication. Is there any way to engage with Spotify's SDA review team?

[stuxmirai]

This is the single most anti-developer thing i've ever read. Talk about saying the quiet part out loud not giving a care in the world about anything that isn't some massive company.

[theradr]

Was so excited to complete my app that makes sharing Spotify songs a blast. The app was a total win-win for Spotify, generating more song streams for Spotify and their artists while also helping users discover more artists. I guess I'll just have to try and do this with another service now...so unfortunate. As a developer, Spotify has always been a company to admire, but this one definitely stings.

[kiri12]

Hi! Spotify's audio-features API Is Now Restricted. Is There Any Way Left to Get Access?

[giulio_pimenoff]

Hi, I quite struggle accepting this change and keeping a positive view about Spotify after this.
I'm a huge fan of the platform, I've been a paying user for a while and I think what you did and what you do is amazing.
I'm quite disappointed about this change thought, I get it that you want users to use your app and not rely on 3rd party solutions, but I think that what makes a platform even better is the integration with other tools, which needs to come from 3rd party developers because Spotify itself can't keep up integrating with all the other existing services by itself.

This is a step backwards to me in terms of progress of digital music consumption, it prevents a lot of really nice ideas to take place and shine. If you gave a bit more room to ideas from the outside nothing prevents you from then integrating them first hand into the app directly, and you would have no competition because we all know that the user experience is 10x better when it's from something directly in the app instead of a third party tool.
I made a small app that converts song links between platforms, for example if a Spotify user receives a SoundCloud link, with my app they can convert that SoundCloud link into the corresponding resource link for Spotify. It can of course be used the opposite way. It's just handy and it is not unfair, it will not drive users to / away from your service, and I don't make any money out of it, I built it because it's useful to me and my friends.

I understand that you might wanna limit the amount of dev apps that use your data and service, because APIs cost money too, and I'm totally okay with all the usage restrictions that there are.
It's just insane to me that there is not an in between plan between 25 manually-added test users and 250k MAU.

Please let developers develop and allow their innovative solutions to shine and make consuming music digitally even more pleasant, bring that middle tier plan in please. 

[icfixx]

I am trying to get my app the extended Web quota, and remove the requirement to manually enter the user email the list of 25. The instructions listed on the developer website are inaccurate. There is no method to request the extended web access. This is my first Spotify app, I really appreciate your help. 

[icfixx]

How do i submit my app for review, i really want to get approved for the  Web API Extended Access. 

Here is the app - https://car-karaoke.com/

[practical_hen]

Well, after 6 attempts over the span of a year and a half, Spotify has now declined my quota extension for the final time. The reason? The same reason they gave on my 1st attempt. That is to say, they rejected it for this reason the first time, I explained that this is a misconception and though my app has an AI portion, it is completely separate from the portion of the app that uses the Spotify API. They accepted my explanation, gave me a different reason the second time, I addressed it, they accepted that and gave me a different reason the third time, and on and on and on until we have now come full circle, stating the same reason they gave the first time again. Mind you, every time I re-applied, I addressed all their concerns from previous rejections. So some (**bleep** probably) read my app description, that included something like "Per my previous rejection, the AI does not ingest and is not trained with any Spotify data and upon further clarification, this concern was successfully addressed" and said "Nah", then copy pasted (word for word) the same reason for the first rejection.

Not only is your "Developer Community" a joke, so is your entire platform at this point. You know, the one that was started with the little guy in mind. To be honest, even if I did get accepted for the extension, I would have probably still decided to not move forward with the API. Their recent actions speaks volumes on how they would treat developers that do get accepted in the future. If you are reading this and hoping for a quota extension or thinking of building an app using their API, I suggest you don't waste your time like I did.

[icfixx]

So i finally found the fine print, stating that i need to be a registered legal entity like an LLC to be able to request the extended quota. So even if i register an LLC there is no expected time for app-review. Also I've posted several times my question, and sent private messages, no responses. I'm not sure its worth the effort to even apply for the extended quota, to only find out after months that its rejected. Well, thanks spotify. 

[hryh]

It's un-userfriendly for new developers. I'm a new dev who is a college freshman and wanted to build a project out of my javascript skill from scratch. However, users poured in using my app and there's no way for me to meet those harsh criterias. Business Registration, 200K monthly userbase is UNREALISTIC and not User friendly for newcomers. I suggest spotify to judge on real application use rather than setting harsh requirements or lower the threshold of the current requirements(increase useruse to 500?, increase daily API users limit from 5 to 100?) , which make things easier for new devs and support the spotify ecosystem!!

[lynmaew]

Yet another would-be developer here. I started an app a couple years ago, and recently came back to it now that I have more time to work on it. Unfortunately, I see this API change, and I have to wonder, why shouldn't I just switch to another platform because of this? I love Spotify and have used it most days for years, so I'd love to use it for my app, but now I see two tiers: <25 users and >250k users. Apparently no in-between. So what is the pathway here? Either you have an app that was successful but didn't rely on Spotify and you are just tacking on some side functionality, or you have to use another platform for your app until you hit that magic number of 250k. The former seems implausible, given the other heavy restrictions of developer terms regarding integrations with other services and content. You need to develop an app without Spotify while meeting all the restrictive developer terms. The latter seems like you have no incentive to switch to Spotify at that point. You build up a user base around other music services, why would you turn around and try to build a new user base after that? Please Spotify, consider another option that allows small projects to grow and be useful to more than just a handful of friends.

[dariosky]

Hi everyone,

I’d like to raise again an issue that many independent developers are facing with the current Spotify API policy.

Right now, apps in “Development Mode” are limited to 25 pre-approved users, which makes it practically impossible to test a public app or grow a small project before applying for quota extension.

In my case, I built LYKD — an open-source, non-profit project that lets users connect their Spotify account, manage friends, and share their listening history and likes. The goal is simply to promote music discovery and sharing within Spotify’s ecosystem, not to monetize.

But with the 25-user restriction, I can’t meaningfully allow people to use it or test it in real conditions. At the same time, Spotify no longer accepts quota extension requests for individuals or small apps without 250k active users — creating a catch-22 for projects like mine and many others here.

This restriction risks discouraging independent developers and open-source innovation that ultimately benefits Spotify and its users.

👉 I kindly ask Spotify to reconsider these limits, or at least provide a path for small, safe, community projects to move beyond the 25-user cap. Even allowing a modestly higher number (100, 500, or more - but without pre-approval) would make a big difference for indie devs.

Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear if others feel the same way.

[techkodainya]

Thanks for sharing the update and inviting feedback.

As someone building with the Spotify Web API, my main concern is how the new extended access criteria (250K MAUs, being a registered business, showing commercial viability, etc.) impacts indie developers, students, and small startups.

Right now, the model feels like a chicken-and-egg problem: we need extended access to create products that could attract users, but we can’t get access until we already have users at scale. This effectively shuts out experimentation and innovation from smaller developers who historically built many of the community tools that made Spotify more engaging.

A few thoughts and questions:

Could Spotify consider a tiered access system where developers can unlock extended access in stages as they grow instead of facing a 250K MAU cliff?
Will there be a sandbox or staging environment with near-real endpoints so indie developers can prototype without violating quotas or hitting walls?
Is Spotify open to introducing research or academic exemptions for students, researchers, and hackathon projects where scale is not the immediate goal?
Can you share more detail on how commercial viability will be measured—are there specific metrics, revenue signals, or partner pathways?
I understand Spotify’s need to ensure compliance, security, and sustainability, but many in the developer community worry that these new barriers will reduce innovation and cut off the next generation of tools and use cases.

Thanks for gathering feedback and passing it to the S4D team. I hope these points help frame where many developers are struggling.

[junovega]

I'll start: 

Spotify’s API lockdown is a gift-wrapped win for its competitors. If I were running Apple Music, I’d be popping champagne. Spotify became huge because an open ecosystem of developers built tools, apps, and communities around it. Slamming that door now is an own goal. It kills innovation, burns goodwill, and pushes power users elsewhere. Short-term control, long-term damage. Awful move—for users, devs, and yes, Spotify itself.

What do you think? 

[telengard]

Totally dejected as I just discovered this policy change.  I had started working on an app a couple of months ago (Shuflit), based on seeing other simple apps out there by indie devs.  My app just does random shuffling of playlists.  There's no way I could ever get 250k people on board with my app.  And with the 25 user limit in dev mode, how could I grow it?

So disappointed...

[ismamz]

I sent a quota extension request before May 15, it was under review and now I no longer have the option to track it and haven't received any further response. I've been waiting for a long time, also invested a lot of time in the application. How can I follow up on the case now?

[balOS]

@spotify - can you please outline how i might go from 25 users in development to >250k MAUs without being able to expand beyond 25 users? this requirement is fundamentally blocking growth. i am open to being very wrong here! please advise.

[acorn221]

I would really appreciate some kind of startup access here, if you want to limit sensitive endpoints and make sure platforms are secure then there has to be a better solution than this 😞

[stuxmirai]

@balOS

I believe their intention is to only alow large organizations with applications that already exist with high MAU to integrate with spotify. Likely so they can do some sort of b2b sales process for api access or to prevent them from having to maintain an open developer community while still being able to say they have one.

[TimothyLuedtke]

This is devastating. We found out about this after a year of working on a project. I have spent so much time and money getting to this point and find myself stuck. This impacts my project, my personal savings, my career aspirations, and so much more. I have lost trust in Spotify. All our app did was "like" a song in Spotify when a button was clicked in another app. We aren't scraping AI data or whatever else led to this disastrous decision.

I see only a few ways to move forward.

1. Spend more time and money developing a solution that's only compatible with Apple Music. We chose to launch with Spotify due to market share so I'm not thrilled about this...
2. Create a worse experience for Spotify users by deep-linking, which still requires additional infrastructure since you can't deeplinks to an ISRC code or anything standard.
3. Give up on my hopes and dreams. This is the easiest option.

I don't know what to do at this point. I might put the project on ice until this blows over. Unfortunately for tax purposes, you can't realize a loss on a software product that is still in development. This is a literal worst case scenario for my company (of two), my savings, my job prospects and more. Truly hoping for an update that brings some compromise to the table.