Can You Pay to Get on a Radio Chart? Not on SpinCounts

Every week an artist asks us some version of the same question: “What does it cost to get on the chart?” On a lot of charts built for independent artists, the honest answer is a number. On SpinCounts the answer is that there is no number, no form and no back door. A chart position here is earned by verified radio spins and nothing else. Here is why we built it that way, why the alternative is wrong, and how to tell the difference before you spend a dollar.

The quiet economy of pay-to-chart

Charts began as measurement: count the plays, rank the songs, publish the list. Somewhere along the way, in the corner of the industry that serves independent artists, a chart position turned into a product. It is sold in several forms, and almost none of them are called what they are:

• Placement for a fee. Artists have told us directly that they were quoted a price to be placed on a chart, or that a “chart package” came bundled into a promotion deal. You will rarely find this on the chart’s website. It happens in emails and DMs, which is the point.
• Submission and “consideration” fees. Pay to be reviewed, and only paying songs are eligible. The result is not a ranking of airplay; it is a ranking of who paid to enter.
• Votes you can buy. Any chart with a vote button has a price on it whether the operator wants one or not. Back in 2015, Vice documented dance-music charts being gamed with votes bought online and download rebates. Nothing about that has aged.
• Guaranteed spins. Some promotion packages openly sell a fixed number of plays per week on a set of “tracked” stations. The chart never takes a dollar, and the position gets bought anyway.
• Plaques for a price. “Certified” plaques sold for hundreds of dollars each, with discounts on bulk orders so promoters can resell them in bundles. The plaque celebrates the chart, and the chart sells the plaque.

Broadcast radio has a law for this. Under Section 317 of the Communications Act, a U.S. station that airs a song in exchange for payment has to tell its listeners; undisclosed payment is payola, and it carries federal penalties. A chart is not a broadcaster. Nothing forces a chart to disclose who paid for a position. The only thing between a reader and a bought ranking is the chart operator’s honesty, which is exactly why we publish ours in writing.

Why selling chart positions is wrong, not just tacky

A chart is a claim about the world: these songs got the most airplay this week. Sell one position and the claim is false for everyone on the list, not only for the artist who paid. Four groups get hurt:

• The artist who paid. They bought a screenshot, not momentum. The money could have gone to promotion that earns real plays, and when they show the position around, the people who matter usually know what it is.
• The artists who didn’t pay. They get pushed down a ranking they earned with actual airplay. The chart quietly becomes a ranking of budgets.
• Everyone reading the chart. Program directors, bookers, blogs, playlist curators and A&R use charts to decide what to play, book and sign. A bought chart misleads all of them.
• Radio itself. Stations play what they believe listeners want, and many look at charts to decide. Feed them a bought ranking and the bad signal goes back on the air.

There is a plain word for charging someone to say something untrue about their success. It is a scam with a nicer font, and we won’t run one.

How a SpinCounts chart position is earned

Here is the whole recipe, with nothing hidden:

1. A station plays your song. SpinCounts monitors the play feeds of 6,700+ stations around the clock, most of them in the U.S.: FM stations streaming online, SiriusXM channels and internet broadcasters.
2. The play is verified. It is matched to the specific recording, anchored to its ISRC, and station-break and advertising strings are filtered out before anything counts. That is a verified spin.
3. Spins are counted, equally. One spin is one spin. No audience weighting, no bonus for a big market, no bonus for being our customer.
4. The week closes. The chart week runs Saturday to Saturday. The chart publishes Sunday at 6 PM ET and then stays frozen for the week.
5. Movement is honest. The ▲▼ arrows compare against the previous week’s frozen snapshot, so a climber climbed against a fixed baseline, not a moving one.
6. Every position links to its proof. Click any entry and the song’s page lists the spins behind it, with station names and air times anyone can check.

Notice what is missing: a submission form, a vote button, a price list. There isn’t one. Every SpinCounts chart, from the all-genre Top Chart to the genre charts and the Independent Artists chart (no Sony, Universal or Warner), runs on the same math. If you want the deeper mechanics, they are on the methodology page and in how radio airplay charts work.

“But you sell Airplay Campaigns”

We do, and the line is bright. An Airplay Campaign is paid promotion: we pitch your record to genre-matched stations and give it on-site placements that are labelled as promoted. That is the whole product, and it has no connection to chart math. If stations play your song, those spins count exactly like anyone else’s. If they don’t, your chart position is the same as if you had never bought anything. We would rather explain that line a thousand times than blur it once, because the moment a paid product can move a chart, the chart stops being worth anything, including to the people who paid.

Plaques you earn, not plaques you buy

Plaques are coming to SpinCounts, and here is the only thing you need to know about them today: they will be earned, and they will be free for the artist who earned them. A SpinCounts plaque will mark a real chart achievement, backed by the public spin data behind it. You will not be able to buy one for a song that didn’t chart, at any price. No “certified” price tag, no bulk discounts for promoters to resell. If a plaque can be bought, it isn’t an award; it’s merchandise. We will share the details when they launch.

How to tell whether a chart can be bought

Before you chase any chart, run it through these questions:

• Is there a submission fee, or a promotion “package” that includes the chart?
• Can you click a position and see the plays behind it, with dates and station names?
• Does the chart publish its methodology: what counts, what doesn’t, and the exact chart period?
• Is the chart period fixed and published on a schedule, and do positions stay put once published?
• Are the movement arrows measured against a frozen previous week?
• Is the plaque for sale to anyone with a card, or earned by the data?
• Do the songs at the top show up on stations you can actually tune into?

A chart that fails half of these isn’t lying to you about your music. It just isn’t about your music at all.

What this means for you

Artists: a SpinCounts chart position is a receipt. Share the link, not a screenshot, because the spins behind it are public and a sceptical booker, blog or label can verify them in one click. Not on the chart yet? Open your genre and read the bottom entry’s spin count. That is the bar this week, visible to you and to everyone else. Claim your artist page so the airplay you earn is yours to show, and pull a free airplay report whenever you need the full record.

Stations: your playlist is the only vote. Every spin you log moves the chart, and nothing else does. Claim your station to see what your plays are doing for the artists you support.

Labels, promoters and DJs: read our charts as data, because that is all they are. A song rising here is rising because stations are playing it more, and you can see which ones.

Why we are making a big deal of this

Because it is the whole point. SpinCounts exists to tell artists exactly where and when their music plays: more than 67 million plays logged as of September 2026, across 6,700+ stations. A chart is that data, ranked. If we sold a single position, every number on this site would deserve an asterisk. So we don’t, we won’t, and we have written it down where anyone can hold us to it: on the charts, on the methodology page, and here.

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