Spotify Artist Scout – Monthly Listeners, Play Counts, AI Score

New emerging artists worth signing — scored, explained and pitched — in your inbox every week.

⚡ First 25 artists free · 💵 $0.004 per qualified artist · 🤖 $0.01 with AI assessment · ⏱️ demo in seconds

Try it in 30 seconds. Click Try it — the form runs a free demo on 8 sample artists; your first 25 qualified artists are free. We charge only per qualified artist; the Spotify scan (≈ $0.004 per artist, capped) runs on your Apify account. → Presets per niche · What a run costs · What the AI adds · Run it weekly · A&R tracker sheet Bring your own data: rows in itemsList or a datasetId — no source run, you pay only for the analysis.

⚡ At a glance

What you get	a ranked A&R shortlist: listeners, growth, signing status, socials, a 0–100 scout score, an AI note and pitch line
You provide	1–5 Spotify artists you like — or just your brief ("UK indie, like Wet Leg"), a watchlist or playlists
Output	a ranked sheet — Excel, CSV or Google Sheets — best first, plus an e-mail digest and a report page to forward
Typical run	5 seeds → 100 related artists scanned → ≈ 25 qualified, 1 in 4 (estimate), a few minutes
Cost of that run	$0.60 rules only · $0.79 with the AI ($0.50 source on your account + 25 × $0.004 / 25 × $0.01 here + ≈ $0.04 tokens)
Free tier	first 25 qualified artists per account
Which plan	free demo and your own list (template): any plan · live search: a plan that runs Store Actors
Keys / setup	none where your Apify plan includes model access — otherwise your own key: a free Gemini key gives 1–3 AI verdicts per run, a paid one every artist
Works with	Schedules, e-mail digest, webhooks, Google Sheets, Slack, Discord, Make / n8n / Zapier, MCP & AI agents

🎯 What this Actor does

A Spotify artist scout for A&R scouting at labels, managers, curators and bookers. It runs Spotify Play Count Scraper (beatanalytics/spotify-play-count-scraper) on your account and turns raw counts into a verdict — we charge only for the artists that pass your filters:

• Discovery — seeds become their "Fans also like" artists; playlists, Viral 50, names or just your brief become artist lists (eduair94/spotify-scraper).
• Growth since your last run — listener snapshots per artist; an artist you have returns only as a growth alert.
• A scout score you can read — band, momentum, growth, cadence, socials, with scoreBreakdown and risk flags.
• Signing status with evidence — independent / signed from the label or the bio, plus the decision-makers (label, management) from the bio in bioFacts.
• AI scouting note and pitch line — career stage, fit to your brief, a 2-sentence note and a first DM.

🎧 Emerging artists by Spotify monthly listeners

Free filters: listener band (1,000–500,000), releasedWithinDays (365), targetCountries, requireSocialLink, minGrowthPct, suppressionList, targetFlags.

🔎 Spotify play count, momentum and risks

Spotify artist analytics per artist: top-10 tracks with streams, topTrackShare, releasesLast180d, riskFlags; followReleases adds the recordLabel and the newest release's streams per day.

🚀 How to use it

1. Click Try it — the form runs the free demo on 8 sample artists as is.
2. Paste 1–5 artists you like into seedArtistUrls, pick a niche in preset, or write only scoutBrief (its markets and named artists become the seeds). Keep enableAi on — your first 25 artists show the AI tier free.
3. Press Start — qualified artists land best first; the Outreach view adds a contact route per pitch.
4. Schedule it weekly (open the saved task → Schedule) with notifyEmail — only new artists and growth alerts are delivered and charged.

📚 Learn more: Step-by-step tutorial — how to scout emerging artists on Spotify with this Actor

🆚 Why this instead of Spotify Play Count Scraper?

	Spotify Play Count Scraper (beatanalytics/spotify-play-count-scraper)	Spotify Artist Scout (us)
Price	$0.004 per URL · 166 users / 30 days	$0.004 per qualified artist, first 25 free
Your time per 100 artists	≈ 12 h: open, read and pitch each one by hand (7 min each)	0 h — scored, explained, pitch line written
Same 100 artists, all in	$0.40 for 100 unsorted rows of raw counts	100 scanned → ≈ 25 ranked, explained artists: $0.60 rules only · $0.79 with the AI ($0.10 / $0.25 here + $0.50 source you pay either way)
Finding artists	URLs only	seeds → related artists, playlists, Viral 50, names
Growth between runs	none	listener history, growth %, growth alerts
Verdict	raw counts	scout score, risk flags, signing status, AI note + pitch

Rivals next to our card (Store cards, 2026-09-27):

Actor	Per artist	100 usable artists (≈ 400 scanned)	Users / 30 d	They charge for · AI · dedupe
Spotify Artist Scout (us)	$0.004 per qualified	$2.40 rules only · $3.16 with the AI, scan + tokens included	new	qualified, scored artists · AI note · across runs
delectable_incubator/spotify-artists-scraper-low-cost	$0.00249 + start	$1.00 + hand sort	1	every keyword hit · no · no
parseforge/spotify-artists-scraper	$0.0035	$1.40 + hand sort	1	every scanned artist · no · no
nifty.codes/spotify-artistdetails-scraper	$0.002 + $0.005 start	$0.81 + hand sort	21	every scanned artist · no · no
khadinakbar/spotify-artist-scraper	$0.005 + start	$2.00 + hand sort	16	every scanned artist · no · no
s-r/free-spotify-artist-analytics	$0.015	$6.00 + hand sort	10	every scanned artist · no · no

Raw rows cost less; the difference buys discovery, growth, the score and the note instead of a 400-row hand sort.

💸 Cheaper than a Chartmetric or Soundcharts seat

	Chartmetric Premium	Soundcharts PRO	This Actor, weekly
Price	$150 / month — chartmetric.com/pricing, 2026-09-27	$129 / month — soundcharts.com/pricing, 2026-09-27	≈ $3.16 / month (4 × $0.79 with the AI)
Covers	Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Shazam, radio	Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, radio	Spotify + the artist's links; Instagram / TikTok counts dated 2026-11-15

💵 Pricing — what a run really costs

Pay per result: one event per qualified artist, nothing else. No start fee.

Event	When it is charged	Price
free-tier	your first 25 qualified artists on this Actor, in any mode	$0.00
qualified-artist-basic	AI off — metrics, flags, scout score, signing status, rule note and pitch	$0.004
qualified-artist-ai	AI on — plus fit score, reasons, career stage, bio facts, AI note and pitch line	$0.01

One free tier: your first 25 qualified artists are free, whatever the tier.

Never charged by us: artists below minScore or failing a filter, excluded or already received artists (unless a growth alert), sample rows; compute is included. Discovery and the scan are the source Actors' charges, capped.

How that compares — the Actors next to our card in the Store charge a median $0.00425 per scanned artist; $0.004 here is 0.94× that, but only per qualified artist — one replaces ≈ 4 scanned: $0.001 per raw-row equivalent.

Worked example — 5 seeds, AI on: discovery 100 rows ($0.10 at eduair94's $0.001 per row) + source scan of 100 artists ($0.40 at $0.004 per artist, your account) → ≈ 25 qualified (1 in 4, estimate): 25 × $0.01 = $0.25 here + ≈ $0.04 tokens = $0.79, ≈ $0.032 per qualified artist. Rules only: $0.50 + 25 × $0.004 = $0.60. Run 1's 25 artists are free, so it costs the $0.50 source (+ tokens).

AI tier, all in: ≈ $0.012 per artist ($0.01 + ≈ $0.0015 tokens for 2 candidates; measured 2026-10-17: 1,890 in / 1,332 out tokens per assessed artist) — 3× the basic price; each AI run reports its tokens in OUTPUT.aiTokens.

🤖 What the AI tier adds

The same sample artist, AI off — metrics, flags, a rule score, a template note and pitch:

{"name": "Maren Holt (sample)", "monthlyListeners": 84200, "listenersGrowthPct": 36.9, "isGrowthAlert": true,
 "signingStatus": "independent", "ruleScore": 89, "score": 89, "tier": "hot",
 "summary": "Maren Holt (sample): 84,200 monthly listeners, 9.25× followers, +36.9 % since the last snapshot, last release 2026-09-12, strongest in London.",
 "generatedText": "Loved “Glasshouse”; your London listeners clearly agree. Open to a quick chat?"}

AI on (qualified-artist-ai, $0.01), against the demo brief "Emerging indie and alt-pop acts with a release in the last 6 months and real momentum in the UK or Ireland, not signed to a major":

{"name": "Maren Holt (sample)", "fitScore": 88, "score": 88, "tier": "hot", "careerStage": "developing",
 "scoreReasons": ["listenersGrowthPct +36.9 shows strong recent growth", "signingStatus independent with DistroKid label"],
 "bioFacts": {"pressOrAwards": [{"value": "BBC Radio 1's Future Artists", "quote": "Her single Glasshouse was picked for BBC Radio 1's Future Artists in 2026."}]},
 "summary": "Maren Holt is an independent London alt-pop act with strong UK/Ireland momentum, rapid growth, and recent BBC radio recognition.",
 "generatedText": "Loved Glasshouse and your momentum in London. We're an indie label in London that signs and develops alt-pop acts - we fund recording and radio plugging. Let’s talk.",
 "aiModel": "google:gemini-3.5-flash-lite"}

A fictional demo artist (isSample: true), fields cut from a run of the AI example on 2026-10-17 with the own-key default model (aiModel as the run wrote it); with Apify's model access they come from google/gemini-2.5-flash-lite. Reading the bio and writing a first DM takes a scout ≈ 7 minutes per artist — ≈ 3 h for 25; each run's digest says so.

Try the AI on any plan: without model access the demo shows labelled sample verdicts (aiModel: "sample") and your first real search gets 5 live AI verdicts on us; then your own key (llmProvider: byok) — a free Gemini key (aistudio.google.com/apikey) assesses a few artists per run, a paid one every artist.

⚙️ Input

{"seedArtistUrls": ["https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Ln80lUS6He07XvHI8qqHH"], "scoutBrief": "Unsigned UK indie acts",
 "yourOffer": "Indie label in London", "targetCountries": ["GB", "IE"], "maxDiscoveryChargeUsd": 0.5}

Flags

Put a flag name into targetFlags (growthAlert works too); an unknown name stops the run with the valid list.

📤 Output

One dataset item per qualified artist — JSON, CSV, Excel or a webhook. Views: Shortlist (best first), Outreach (contact route + pitch line), Momentum & risks (listeners, ratio, growth, cadence, one-hit share).

Output fields

Upsert key for a CRM or Sheet: dedupeKey (id: + the Spotify artist ID, also the cross-run memory key); itemId is its hash.

Two scales: sort a run on score; trend across runs on ruleScore (score follows assessedBy).

Which record to read: OUTPUT (= RUN_SUMMARY) — funnel, charges, aiCoverage, aiTokens, sourceError / aiError; next to it the DIGEST ("vs last run") and the REPORT page.

⭐ Found it useful? A review on the Store helps others find it — it takes a minute on the Actor's page.

🔁 Run it weekly

1. Open the saved task and click Schedule after your first real run (OUTPUT.scheduleTaskUrl), with notifyEmail — every run with new artists e-mails you the digest and the trend.
2. Keep dedupeAcrossRuns: true — the next run delivers only new artists and growth alerts (one dedupeStoreName per client).
3. Slack / Discord get the digest; a webhook or Google Sheets the rows — start from the A&R tracker sheet (upserted on dedupeKey).
4. From run 2, OUTPUT.history and the REPORT show each run's qualified, hot, alerts and median listeners.
5. A scheduled run doubles maxArtistsToScan (unless you set it) and adds up to 5 of the last run's best artists as seeds (OUTPUT.seedsRolled); artists you already have are dropped before the paid scan.

Weekly cost: week 1 of the 5-seed scout ≈ 25 qualified (1 in 4, estimate) = $0.79 with the AI; from week 2 known artists are skipped, rolled seeds bring new ones — ≈ $3.16 a month.

🎯 Try it for your niche

One click: pick it in preset and press Start — your own values win.

Niche	What it looks for	Input
Indie label, UK / Ireland	related artists of a seed + UK / IE Viral 50, 2k–200k listeners, released in 180 days	preset-indie-label-uk.json
Playlist curator	the artists of a new-music playlist, 1k–150k listeners, with socials	preset-playlist-curator.json
Booking agent / promoter	a watchlist + GB Viral 50, audience in GB, 5k–300k listeners	preset-booking-agent.json

🔌 Integrations, automation and API

• Webhook — webhookUrl (auth in webhookHeaders) POSTs {"event": "artist.qualified", "artist": {…}, "runId": "…"} per artist, or one artists.qualified batch per webhookBatchSize artists; failures never fail the run (OUTPUT.webhook.failed).
• Google Sheets / Slack — one click from the Integrations tab.
• HubSpot / Pipedrive — a Make / Zapier "create or update" step on dedupeKey: contact = name + contactRoute, note = summary + generatedText (native push dated 2026-11-30).
• AI agents / MCP — plain typed inputs; the first call {} (or list mode) is free.

Use it from Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client:

{"mcpServers": {"apify": {"url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=rich_minds/spotify-artist-scout-ai"}}}

Ask: "Run spotify-artist-scout-ai with {} first (free), then scout artists like

Minimal agent input: {"seedArtistUrls": ["https://open.spotify.com/artist/…"], "scoutBrief": "…", "maxQualified": 25, "maxDiscoveryChargeUsd": 0.5} — the rest at its default.

List-mode rows — what a pasted record needs

sourceMode: "list" runs on any Apify plan: paste Spotify Play Count Scraper artist rows (or automation-lab / eduair94 artist_play_counts rows) into itemsList, or start from the list template. A row needs name and monthlyListeners.

Run outcomes — what your integration sees

👥 Who is it for?

You are…	You run it to…	Start with
A&R scout at a label, publisher or management	each Monday, the unsigned artists that grew fastest, with why	seeds + targetFlags: ["independent"]
Playlist curator, blog or radio	rising artists like the ones you play	playlistUrls, requireSocialLink
Booking agent or promoter	emerging artists with an audience in your city	viralChartCountries, targetCountries
Music marketing, PR or sync agency	independent artists with momentum to DM	recent_release flag, one dedupeStoreName per client

🧠 How the AI works

• Grounded. Bio facts need a verbatim bio quote; a sentence with a number the input lacks is removed; cold artists get no pitch.
• Your brief. fitScore moves the rule score for your scoutBrief; the pitch names yourOffer only as written.
• Tokens where they matter. The best rule-scored candidates, up to aiCandidateMultiplier × maxQualified.
• Model and fallback. google/gemini-2.5-flash-lite via Apify's model access, or your own key; on a failure the artist keeps its rule score, note and pitch.

🔒 Data, compliance and limits

• Public artist pages only; no login, no fan data, no e-mail guessing. Not affiliated with Spotify.
• Top 10 tracks and top 5 cities only; play counts read 0 below 1,000 streams; growth needs a previous snapshot. Use it within Spotify's terms and the law (GDPR, CCPA).

❓ FAQ

What will my first real search cost? One seed: ≈ 20 related artists = $0.02 discovery + $0.08 scan on your account, capped by maxDiscoveryChargeUsd ($0.50 — five seeds reach it). The qualified artists are free up to 25.

Is this a Spotify Play Count Scraper? It runs beatanalytics/spotify-play-count-scraper ($0.004 per scanned artist, billed by it) and eduair94/spotify-scraper for discovery on your account, then adds filters, history, scoring and AI.

How do I find unsigned artists? targetFlags: ["independent"] keeps artists on a distributor or their own label, or whose bio says they self-release; signingEvidence shows why. Its precision on 50 artists with known deals (half signed) is dated 2026-10-15; without a label the status is unknown — followReleases reads it.

🧩 More Actors from the same developer

• Instagram Influencer Finder — Check an artist's Instagram engagement and real audience before you DM them.
• YouTube Outlier Videos Finder — Spot the music videos and covers breaking out on YouTube before the charts do.
• Instagram Competitor Content — See which Instagram posts break out for the artists and labels you watch, and why.

🆘 Support

Something missing or wrong? Open an issue on the Actor's page or message the developer in the Apify Console — buyers' requests ship first.

📝 Changelog

Newest build first — what changed for you: output, status messages, prices.

• 0.3.4 (2026-10-17) — Adding a seed artist, playlist or chart to a scheduled scout keeps its memory, so artists you already have are not delivered again; each set of country or flag filters keeps its own list; Your own Gemini key now works out of the box for the AI verdicts, which are cheaper in tokens, and a run on a rate-limited own key stops waiting after a minute and says so; New optional settings: deliver an artist again after a number of days, keep a running log of every delivered artist in one named dataset, and keep API calls on the free demo unless you ask for the live scout.
• 0.3.3 (2026-10-04) — bring your own data: rows in itemsList or a datasetId pick their mode, start no source Actor and are charged only for the analysis; unread fields are logged.
• 0.3.2 (2026-09-27) — 2026-09-27.md — M-01.
• 0.3.1 (2026-09-27) — tier field tier (label = same value until 0.4); rolling seeds; preset; time saved.
• 0.2.2 (2026-09-27) — OUTPUT.aiTokens: tokens per AI-assessed artist.
• 0.2.1 (2026-09-27) — your brief alone starts the live scout (OUTPUT.seedsFromBrief); ruleScore in the Shortlist; A&R tracker sheet.
• 0.1.1 (2026-09-27) — first release: discovery, growth alerts, scout score, signing status, AI note and pitch.