Curator Help & FAQ
This covers how curator earnings work, what the dashboard states mean, how auto-managed playlists behave, how hold and removal timing works, and what is and isn’t allowed with artists.
Every completed review starts at $1.50, and your score tier bonus can raise that to $4.00 per review.
New assignments should usually be reviewed within about 3 days before we may start expanding the campaign to additional curators.
Listener reach, review quality, ratings, retention, and balance in your acceptance rate all influence what you earn next.
Working with other platforms is fine. What is not allowed is taking money for playlist placements.
How much do curators get paid?
Curators earn between $1.50 and $4.00 per completed review. The base rate is $1.50, and higher score tiers add bonuses on top.
If you accept a track before it is live on Spotify, that review stays pending until the placement is confirmed after release. The dashboard shows this under Earnings On Hold.
Once a track is shared and verified, that money is already earned and appears in your Available Balance until you withdraw it.
Withdrawals are requested from your curator dashboard and processed within a few business days.
What do the dashboard tabs mean?
Pending tracks are waiting for your review decision.
Approved tracks are the ones you accepted but that are not fully shared yet. For manual playlists, this is where you confirm the placement. For pre-releases, this is where they wait for release. For auto-managed playlists, this is where the system waits to place them or confirms that automation is ready.
Declined tracks are the ones you rejected.
Shared tracks are already verified in your playlist, with retention, position, and auto-removal timing tracked over time.
What is auto management?
Auto management is available on playlists where you have enabled collaborator access from the Spotify & Playlists page.
We require collaborator access for this instead of asking you to connect your own Spotify account directly for playlist control. That reduces the risk to your main Spotify account if any platform handling playlist tools is ever compromised.
If you accept a track using only auto-managed playlists, Intonality can place the song for you, keep it in each selected playlist for the hold time you chose, and then remove it automatically on schedule if you want. You can also mark a playlist to keep the track there indefinitely.
Auto-managed and manual playlists cannot be mixed inside the same acceptance. You choose one mode or the other for that review.
Can I choose the hold time and placement position?
Yes. Every auto-managed playlist has its own settings when you accept a track.
You can set a hold time per playlist, choose to keep a placement there forever, and, if you want, add a target placement position. For example, one playlist can hold the track for 14 days at the top, while another keeps it in place indefinitely near the end.
After the track reaches the Shared tab, you can still update the hold time for each auto-managed playlist. The scheduled auto-removal date updates with it, or disappears entirely if you switch that playlist to forever.
What counts as pending vs earned?
A track is pending when you approved it but it still has follow-through left. That could mean it is waiting for release, waiting for you to confirm a manual share, or waiting for automation to complete placement.
Once the track is shared and verified, that money is already earned and shows in your Available Balance until you withdraw it.
The dashboard uses Earnings On Hold for pre-release approvals that cannot be paid yet because the song is not live on Spotify.
How does my curator score affect earnings?
Your score decides the bonus added on top of the $1.50 base rate. Better score tiers unlock higher pay per review.
The main inputs are listener reach, artist ratings, review quality, acceptance-rate balance, how long accepted tracks stay in your playlists, and how quickly you follow through on pre-release shares.
Some factors only become meaningful after you have enough completed reviews, so new curators should focus on consistent feedback quality and reasonable accept/decline decisions first.
How long do I have to review a track?
Internally, assigned slots are given a 72-hour response window before we may start expanding the campaign to additional curators.
So in practice, you should treat new assignments as time-sensitive and aim to respond within about 3 days. That said, this is not a hard cut-off currently enforced in the review form - it is mainly used to decide when we start filling overdue slots with more curators.
If you accept a pre-release track, the placement confirmation happens later once the song is live on Spotify.
Can I work with other platforms or get paid for reviews elsewhere?
Yes. You can work with other platforms, take direct submissions, and get paid for reviews elsewhere.
The issue is not outside review work. The issue is taking money in exchange for playlist placement or guaranteed adds.
Can artists message me directly outside the platform?
Yes. That happens naturally for many curators. Direct outreach by itself is not a problem.
What matters is that you must not take money in exchange for playlist placement or a guaranteed add. If an artist wants to work with you through Intonality, the review flow and platform payout should stay inside Intonality.
Why are direct paid placements a problem?
Because they break the trust model of the platform. Artists are paying for access to honest review, not for guaranteed placement behind the scenes.
If a curator is taking money from artists for playlist placements or guaranteed adds, that creates a conflict of interest and undermines the integrity of the network. Curators doing that can be removed.
Is placement guaranteed if an artist pays Intonality?
No. Artists are paying for review access and real written feedback. A placement only happens if you genuinely think the track fits your playlist.
How does Spotify verification work?
We do not ask for Spotify OAuth access on your curator account. Standard verification is done through playlist checks.
If you enable auto management on a playlist, that works through playlist collaborator access rather than through your personal Spotify login inside Intonality. This is intentional: there have been cases across the industry where third-party platform access was compromised and playlists were altered or deleted.
Using collaborator access keeps the blast radius much smaller, because you are not handing over broad control of your Spotify account just to automate one playlist.
That setup is explained in the curator Spotify area, and you can enable or disable auto management playlist by playlist. As a general safety practice, if you no longer trust another playlist platform or do not actively use it, we recommend removing its Spotify access.
What happens when I accept a track?
Accepting means you are committing to place the track in the playlist or playlists you selected if it fits your audience.
If you chose manual playlists, you add the track yourself and confirm the share. If you chose auto-managed playlists, Intonality can place it automatically using the settings you saved for each playlist.
If the track is pre-release, it waits in Approved until the Spotify link exists and the share can actually happen. Once verified, it appears in your Shared tab.
For auto-managed playlists, the shared view also shows the scheduled auto-removal date and lets you adjust the hold time per playlist.
What is my invite link for?
Inside My Profile & Earnings, you can generate a personal invite link for artists.
If an artist submits through that link, you are automatically included as one of their curators and you also earn a referral bonus on the campaign value.
It is a simple way to bring in artists you already know while still keeping the review and payout flow on-platform.
What kind of feedback am I expected to leave?
Real written feedback. Not one-line filler. Artists should come away understanding why the track fit, didn’t fit, or what could be improved. That quality bar is part of what keeps the platform credible.