Recent updates

[Changelog] September 25, 2026

I've been a busy boy! Two big things in September: a new policy on AI music, and a lot of work on getting songs in front of the right people.

Oh, I also did a couple interviews: one with the Racket Club and I've got one that'll be published soon with Andrew Southworth.

AI music policy

Okay, the big one - you probably saw this - is that we're no longer allowing pure AI submissions on SubmitHub. Controversial, I know!

As of September 9, songs that our detector rates 85%+ likely AI (or that the artist declares as fully AI) can no longer be sent to curators.

  • Songs below 85% (including hybrids) are still allowed, and curators' own AI preferences still apply on top of that
  • The AI Song Checker now shows the actual confidence number the policy is checked against, with a link to the policy when a song is at 85%+
  • The checker breakdown now includes separate vocal and instrumental stem scores (where available). This required training a new model, but it means I'm better at picking up hybrid results

Better targeting

This is the stuff I'm most excited about. Last update I mentioned we were fingerprinting songs with MAEST to power "similar songs" and "similar curators". That scan is finished, and those fingerprints now feed straight into how curators get matched to your music. Getting the right songs to the right people is the whole point of SubmitHub, and this is the biggest improvement I've made there in a long time.

Some other cool knock-on features this allows:

  • Playlist Finder got a revamp
    • It was previously based on artist look ups, but now uses the aforementioned fingerprints
    • There's an easy way for you to select the curators who show up - and you can submit without having to leave the page
  • The "add a similar artist" step is gone from the submit flow. Instead we compare your song's fingerprint against the songs in each curator's playlists, and boost the curators who share music that actually sounds like yours. Genre match is still the primary driver here, but this additional level of targeting means results are even more accurate
  • What's My Genre got a few extra levels:
    • Similar songs, based on audio fingerprints, with an easy "Make a playlist" button that hooks up to Spotify
    • Similar artists, built from those same song matches. There are two lists: Closest and Popular (artists with 50k+ monthly listeners), with photos and links to Spotify

SubmitHub Direct

We were beta testing this feature last update. Since then we've opened it up to the all curators - 500 submissions and counting!

A few tweaks:

  • Curators can now style their page: light, dark or auto, plus an accent color and page background
  • You can show your approval rate on your page (opt-in), alongside or instead of your response rate
  • Eligibility is no longer tied to your credit price. It's now 50+ responses and being active
  • Submit Direct is its own button on curator profiles, next to the regular submit button

Packages

  • The packages page got a cleaner layout
  • Leftover curator credits that can't find a fitting match now resolve themselves: first to playlists, then to your Meta ad if you have one, otherwise they're refunded - previously these were simply refunded

Ads & Links

  • Ads Studio got three new features: caption effect (None, Typewriter or Word pop), artwork pulse and artwork timing
    • New "player" template for Links that leads with a 29-second preview (example)Previously we've steered away from audio in Links, but I'm optimistic about this design actually resulting in more meaningful clicks
  • Pasting a Spotify album that only has one track now builds a proper track link instead of a one song album
  • We're running a few experiments around cost cap vs bid cap and no interests vs interests - monitoring that closely to see if we can get better results. It's possible our cost per conversion is going to go up because we're shifting our focus to Instagram more than Facebook, but I think the actual quality of those conversions is going to be way better

Miscellaneous

  • Engagement cutoffs for pricing moved from 3/5/7/9 to 2/4/6/8
  • You can hide songs you've passed on in the Popular chart so they stop resurfacing
  • Changing a shared song's Spotify link now goes through a review, and the new version replaces the old one in the same position on the playlist
  • Playlist listener estimates now move gradually week to week instead of jumping around
  • Marketplace alerts moved to a count on the sidebar link instead of a box that piled up at the top of your campaigns
  • Copyright agreement PDFs handle non-Latin characters properly
  • Wise cashout errors now show the real message instead of a loader that never ends
  • The player's repeat button now cycles through autoplay, repeat, and stop after this song
  • Sidebar items renamed to "Packages" and "Choose curators", since the old labels read as the same thing
  • Cleaner page headers across all the tools

What's next

I want to keep simplifying the submit flow and tuning What's my Genre now that it's live.

But first... a holiday! The kids are out of school, so I'm going to take some time off and sip piña coladas next to a pool 💜