How to Get Your Music on Pandora

The Secret: Digital Distributors

Pandora is different because it operates both as a personalized internet radio service (powered by the Music Genome Project) and as an on-demand streaming service (Pandora Premium). To get on either, you need to use a digital distribution service that explicitly supports delivering tracks to Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and dozens of other platforms worldwide simultaneously.

What they do:

• Deliver high-quality audio files to Pandora
• Put your music into Pandora's internal review queue
• Collect streaming royalties (SoundExchange also pays radio performance royalties)

Pandora is Different:

• Uploading doesn't guarantee radio play
• Premium streams pay differently than Radio streams
• Your music has to be analyzed by the Music Genome Project

Why We Use DistroKid for Pandora

After looking at the options, we went with DistroKid. Pandora has its own in-house review process for the music it receives. DistroKid delivers your music to Pandora at no extra charge, and once it is delivered you can claim your Pandora AMP (Artist Marketing Platform) account.

What They Do Best

• Delivery to Pandora, which then reviews each release
• Unlimited uploads (flat yearly fee)
• You keep 100% of your royalties
• Pandora delivery at no additional charge

When to look elsewhere

• You only plan to release 1 song ever
• You want heavy A&R or playlist pitching
• You prefer lifetime one-time payments

Ready to start building your catalog?

Use our referral link to get 7% off your first year (DistroKid may pay us a referral credit).

Join DistroKid Today

The Reality Check: Pandora AMP

Pandora is curated. You have to submit your tracks.

Unlike Spotify or Apple Music, uploading your song to DistroKid does NOT guarantee it will play on Pandora Radio immediately. The distributor delivers your song to Pandora, which reviews it; to get it onto radio stations, claim your Pandora AMP profile so Pandora's team can make sure your music is analyzed by the Music Genome Project.

Ask yourself:

• Am I building a diverse listener base outside of just Spotify?
• Am I willing to claim my Pandora AMP profile?
• Is my music finished and ready for Pandora's review?

Our advice? Claim your AMP profile.

Don't rely just on automated distribution. Get your music delivered via DistroKid, then claim your Pandora AMP account. Once your music is analyzed, use Artist Audio Messages and Featured Tracks to promote it.

After upload, the real work begins.

How Does Music Get Onto Pandora Stations?

Pandora's help page for artists sets out two steps:

• Send your music through a distributor. Select Pandora when you release and grant Pandora U.S. streaming rights. Pandora's list of supported aggregators includes AWAL, Believe, CD Baby, DistroKid, Ditto, Symphonic and TuneCore, and it points self-releasing artists to CD Baby, DistroKid and TuneCore.
• Claim your Pandora AMP account. Pandora's Creator support team then makes sure your music is analyzed by the Music Genome Project team so it can play on Pandora radio stations.

Analysts describe each track with up to 450 musicological attributes. After that, fans can start a station from your artist name or one of your tracks, and the Music Genome Project begins matching your music with similar artists and tracks on listeners' stations.

DistroKid can deliver to all three Pandora services: the free ad-supported radio service, Pandora Plus (paid radio without ads) and Pandora Premium (paid, on demand). Pandora reviews music before adding it. DistroKid says there is no guarantee a release will enter Pandora's catalog, and it cannot say how long Pandora takes to add releases to stations.

Your listeners also need to be in the United States: Pandora's terms say its services are available only in the US and its territories. Pandora has been owned by SiriusXM since February 2019 and had about 41.1 million monthly active users and 5.6 million subscribers at the end of 2025.

What Does Pandora AMP Do for Artists?

AMP stands for Artist Marketing Platform. Once Pandora verifies your claim, you get access to AMP's analytics, customization and content creation tools. You can use the full suite even if you live outside the US.

Getting your music analyzed by the Music Genome Project also unlocks two promotional campaign tools in AMP: Artist Audio Messages and Featured Tracks.

Radio plays can also earn digital performance royalties. Services such as Pandora are required by law to pay them, and SoundExchange collects them and pays them out: 45% directly to featured artists, 50% to the rights owner of the recording and 5% to a fund for non-featured artists. SoundExchange runs its own registration, separate from your distributor.

Can You Put AI-Generated Music on Pandora?

Pandora has not published a specific policy on AI-made music. A March 2026 Digital Music News overview found that Pandora "has not released a concise public rule set around AI music" and has focused on broader concerns about "AI slop" and recommendation quality. In practice, the overview said, Pandora appears to allow AI-assisted music from distributors as long as rights are cleared and the content is not deceptive.

Pandora reviews music before adding it, so a release made with AI tools, like any other, has no guaranteed place on its stations.

The rules you meet first are your distributor's. DistroKid accepts music made with AI tools on four conditions:

• You own 100% of the rights, including the right to distribute anything made with AI tools.
• No impersonation of anyone's voice, likeness or identity without permission.
• No mass-generated spam made to game streaming algorithms or flood platforms with generic content.
• No infringement of anyone else's rights.

When you upload, DistroKid asks whether AI generated any of the lyrics, music or audio, and records your answers as AI Credits. As of November 2026 it names Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube as the services that show these credits to listeners; Pandora is not on that list.