What Is a Pre-Save?
Guides & Playbooks

A pre-save lets a fan add your release to their library before it comes out. When release day arrives, it's already there waiting for them. It turns "I'll listen when it's out" into something that happens on its own.

Pre-saves only work before release day, so they're the reason to set your date a few weeks out and start sharing early.

Pre-saves on Spotify

Spotify has its own pre-saves, on Countdown Pages. Fans can pre-save your release, preview the tracklist, watch countdown videos and shop your merch. On release day, Spotify notifies everyone who pre-saved and adds the release to their library.

Not every release can have one. Spotify's rules:

• You need at least 3,000 monthly active listeners
• Only new, original albums and EPs qualify. Singles don't, and neither do deluxe editions, reissues or compilations.
• You create the page yourself, in Spotify for Artists under Music, then Upcoming

Spotify says that on average, nearly 60% of people who pre-save an album stream it in its first week. (Spotify: Countdown Pages)

For everything else, singles included, pre-saves come from a pre-save link like the one in your MOOSYC smartlink.

Pre-adds on Apple Music

Apple calls them pre-adds. Fans add music from an upcoming release to their library or playlists, and Apple notifies them the moment it's available. Apple says releases with pre-adds saw significantly higher listens than those without, with more fans coming back to the album during release week. (Apple Music for Artists: Pre-adds)

Pre-saves with MOOSYC

Every MOOSYC release comes with a smartlink, pre-saves and share cards, included in the plan. Before release day, your smartlink is a pre-save page:

• Pre-save buttons for Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, Deezer, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. Your smartlink shows a Pre-save on button for each of these that's available for your release. A fan taps it and follows the steps to confirm.
• Auto-pre-save. Where it's supported, fans can tick Auto-pre-save this artist's future releases, so what you put out next is covered too.
• Email. Until your release is live, fans who'd rather not use a pre-save button can leave their email address instead.

On release day, the same link takes fans to your music.

Where to find your link and your numbers

Open Insights and choose the Smart Link tab. For each release you'll see:

• Copy Smartlink, to share it anywhere
• Views and unique visitors, and the top territories they came from
• Presave emails: how many fans left their email, and the list itself
• Pre-saves per service, shown once there are some

For Deezer, Amazon Music and YouTube Music, the pre-save happens on a partner's page that doesn't report back to us whether the fan finished. For those, MOOSYC shows pre-save clicks, not completed pre-saves.

Your smartlink numbers come from MOOSYC itself, so they don't wait on a store's report. See Understanding Your MOOSYC Analytics.

Getting more pre-saves

• Give yourself a window. Set your release date 3 to 4 weeks out. See Custom Release Dates and What's the Best Day to Release Music?
• Share the link as soon as the release is scheduled. Not on release day, when the pre-save window has already closed.
• Put it wherever your fans already are. Your bio, your posts and stories, your newsletter, your shows.
• Tell fans why it helps. One tap now, and they don't have to remember the date.
• Share it again close to the date. A reminder in the last few days gives anyone who missed it a second chance.

If you're eligible for a Spotify Countdown Page, that's set up separately, in Spotify for Artists.

Related

• How to Release a Song, Step by Step
• What's Included in the Plan