Buy Shazams

What a Shazam is

Shazam is the app people open when they hear a song they like and want to know what it is. It listens for a few seconds, identifies the track and shows the title, the artist and links to listen. Every time someone does that, it counts as a Shazam, and the total is shown on the song's page in the app and on shazam.com.

A Shazam is a special kind of signal. It means a listener heard your song somewhere they did not choose it, in a shop, a café, a video, a club or on the radio, and cared enough to find out what it was. That is why labels, radio programmers and the music press pay attention to Shazam counts. Shazams raise the count on one song.

Where the Shazam count shows

The song's Shazam page shows how many times it has been Shazamed. Artists with Apple Music for Artists can also see Shazam data alongside their Apple Music stats, including where in the world people are Shazaming their music. Shazam also publishes charts of the most Shazamed songs by country and city, which some in the industry watch for songs that are about to break. Those charts are decided by Shazam, and we do not promise a chart position.

How Shazams work

• Find your song on shazam.com, or in the app, and copy the song page's link.
• Paste the link on the order form, choose the amount and check out.
• Keep the release live while the order runs.

A song link looks like shazam.com/song/1234567890/your-song (or shazam.com/track/…). Shazam recognises releases that are in its catalogue, which normally happens soon after your distributor delivers them to the major services. If you cannot find your song on Shazam yet, wait a little after release.

Who buys Shazams

• Independent artists building a story around a new single.
• Labels and managers showing interest in a track to radio and press.
• DJs and producers whose tracks are played in clubs and mixes.
• Artists whose song is in a video, ad or game, where listeners Shazam it.
• Music marketers running a campaign across several services.

Shazams and real discovery

Real Shazams happen when people hear your music in public. Getting a song into places where that happens is the best way to grow them: radio, including college and community stations; DJs and club nights; cafés and shops that play new music; videos, short-video trends and podcasts; and sync placements in film, TV, ads and games. A Shazam count that is already healthy makes a song look discovered when programmers and DJs look it up.

Get the release ready

• Check your metadata through your distributor: title, artist name and artwork must match across services.
• Claim your artist profile on Apple Music for Artists to see your Shazam data.
• Use the same artist name everywhere, so Shazam links listeners to the right profile.
• Share your Shazam link with DJs and radio when you send them the track.

Shazams alongside streams

Shazam links listeners straight to Apple Music and other services to hear the full song. A song with a strong Shazam count and few streams can look unusual in your reports, so Shazams work best alongside your streaming promotion. Plan them for the weeks when you are sending the song to radio and DJs, or when it appears in a video or campaign.

How many Shazams look natural

Keep Shazams in proportion to your streams and your profile. A new artist with a few hundred monthly listeners and a song with 200,000 Shazams looks odd. A few hundred to a few thousand Shazams on a song that is being promoted looks like a song people are hearing and looking up. Spreading them over a few weeks looks more natural than one burst.

A worked example

An electronic producer releases a club single and sends it to DJs and a few community radio stations. When a well-known DJ plays it in a live-streamed set, the producer orders a modest number of Shazams on the track, so its Shazam page looks like the song is being discovered. They share the Shazam link with the DJs they are pitching to next. Two more DJs add it to their sets, and real Shazams start arriving from the cities where they play.

Keep your artist name consistent

If your releases appear under slightly different names, Shazam may split them between profiles. Use exactly the same artist name with every distributor and on every release.

Before you order

• Make sure the song is live and appears on Shazam.
• Use the link to the song page on shazam.com.
• Keep Shazams in proportion to your streams.

What Shazams do not do

Shazams raise the Shazam count on the song. They do not add streams, followers or playlist placements, and they do not guarantee a place on Shazam's charts. Plays and fans come from your music and your promotion.

No password needed

We only need the public song link. We never ask for your Apple ID, Shazam or distributor login.