Guides

How loud should my song be for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube

Updated 2026-09-06

Every streaming service turns your track down or up to its own playback level. Spotify aims for -14 LUFS integrated. Apple Music uses -16. YouTube lands around -14. TIDAL uses -14. That is the level listeners hear, whatever level you upload.

So why master loud at all

Because normalization only turns down. If your master sits at -9 LUFS, Spotify plays it at -14 and it sounds as loud as the song before it. If your master sits at -18, Spotify may not turn it up all the way, and it sounds small next to everything else. Density also survives the turn-down: a master that was compressed to -9 keeps its punch at -14.

Targets by genre, integrated LUFS

• Pop, hip-hop, R&B: -9 to -11
• House, techno, EDM: -7 to -9, the club plays it unnormalized
• Rock, indie: -10 to -12
• Acoustic, folk, jazz: -12 to -16, dynamics are the point
• Classical, ambient: -16 to -20

The number that matters more

True peak. Every service converts your file to a lossy codec, and codecs overshoot peaks by up to a decibel. A master that peaks at 0 dBTP will clip after encoding. Hold true peak at or under -1 dBTP and it survives every platform. This is measured with an oversampled meter, not a sample peak meter.

How to check your own file

Run a free analysis on Burnish. It prints integrated LUFS, true peak in dBTP, loudness range, and how each platform will play the file, before you spend anything.