What Happens to Your Royalties If a Promotion Service Uses Bots?
Written by YouGrow Promo · Published July 20, 2026 · Last updated July 20, 2026
If a promotion service uses bots, you don't earn royalties on those streams, and you may end up owing money instead: Spotify charges distributors roughly $10 per flagged track per month, and that penalty is often passed straight to the artist (FUGA). It's the opposite of what the campaign promised. Instead of extra income, a bot-driven push can leave you with a bill.
What actually happens, step by step
- Spotify's fraud detection flags the streams. Spotify partners with detection vendors Beatdapp and Pex specifically to catch artificial streaming patterns, sudden spikes with no corresponding saves or skips being the clearest tell (Chartlex, 2026).
- The flagged streams are removed from your count. They stop counting toward your public play count, chart eligibility, and royalty calculation entirely. As of 2026, Spotify also requires a 1,000-stream minimum before a track earns any royalties at all (Chartlex, 2026).
- Your distributor gets charged a penalty. Reports put this at roughly $10 (or the euro equivalent) per flagged track, per month (TuneCore). If several of your tracks get flagged in the same period, that's a per-track charge, not a one-time fee.
- The distributor decides how to pass that cost along. Some distributors, including CD Baby, have tightened their terms of service specifically to give themselves clear authority to withhold royalties on flagged tracks or bill the artist directly for the penalty (FUGA).
- Repeated flags can end the relationship entirely. Continued or severe manipulation can get a track removed from Spotify altogether, and distributors increasingly share fraud-history data through industry trust groups, meaning an account terminated by one distributor for fraud can be difficult to re-onboard with another.
Niche questions about the financial fallout
Does the penalty apply per track, or per campaign?
Per track, per month that it remains flagged, so a campaign that touches multiple songs can generate multiple separate penalty charges rather than a single flat fee.
Can I dispute a royalty withholding if I didn't know a service was using bots?
It depends on the distributor's policy, but the safest position is preventing flagged streams in the first place, since disputes aren't guaranteed to succeed even when the artist had no knowledge of the manipulation.
Do all distributors handle this the same way?
No. Policies vary: some pass the penalty directly to the artist, others absorb smaller cases but terminate accounts for repeat or severe violations. Check your specific distributor's terms of service for its stated policy on artificial streaming penalties.
Is there a way to check if a past campaign has already resulted in withheld royalties?
Reviewing your distributor's royalty statements for unexplained deductions or a specific track's earnings dropping to zero after a promotion push is the most direct way to spot this after the fact.
Why this is worse than just "wasted money"
A bad promotion campaign that simply doesn't work costs you the campaign fee and nothing else. A bot-driven campaign can cost you the campaign fee, the royalties you expected, a separate penalty charge, and in the worst cases, your standing with your distributor. The financial risk sits entirely with the artist, even when the artist had no idea bots were involved — see our companion guide on whether promotion services are legit or running bots.
How to avoid this before it happens
Ask any promotion service directly whether curators listen before accepting a pitch, and whether they can show you specific playlist or curator names. A company unwilling to answer either question plainly is the one most likely to put your royalties at risk. Our buyer's checklist covers the specific transparency signals to check before paying anyone.
FAQ
Do I get any warning before royalties are withheld?
Not always. Fraud detection and royalty withholding can happen automatically once Spotify's systems flag a track, without direct notice to the artist beforehand.
Can I get flagged royalties back if I can prove I didn't know about the bots?
It depends on the distributor. Some review disputes case by case, but the safest position is never having flagged streams in the first place.
Is this risk higher with cheaper promotion services?
Generally yes. Services priced well below the normal $80 to $500+ campaign range are the most likely to be running bot traffic, since real curator outreach and ad spend can't be delivered at that cost.
Does this affect all my music, or just the flagged track?
The direct financial penalty applies to the specific flagged track, but a distributor account termination for repeated violations can affect your entire catalog with that distributor.
How does YouGrow avoid this risk?
YouGrow campaigns are built around real curator listens and targeted ad delivery, tracked through the campaigns dashboard, specifically to avoid the fraud-detection risk described here.
Every YouGrow Promo campaign is built around real listener engagement precisely because the financial risk of bot traffic falls on the artist. See how campaigns are run at yougrowpromo.com.