Spotify Marquee vs Showcase (2026): Costs, Who Qualifies and What You See

Last checked: 8 October 2026 · How these guides are checked

Disclosure: MusicPromoLab sells music promotion. Every claim below links to its source at the end.

What are Marquee and Showcase?

They are the two formats of Spotify’s display campaigns, which you book and pay for in the Campaigns tab of Spotify for Artists [1]. Marquee is “A full-screen pop-up on the Spotify mobile app” and is for new releases only. Showcase is “A banner on Spotify’s Home (desktop and mobile) and Browse (mobile)” and works for new and catalog releases [1].

Both reach “the Free and Premium listeners who are most likely to stream your release after seeing the promotion,” in Spotify’s words, and Spotify sells them inside Campaign Kit, next to Discovery Mode and playlist pitching [8]. Spotify’s own average is that “people who see a display campaign are over 3.7x more likely to stream the promoted release” [8].

Who can buy a Marquee or Showcase campaign?

You need at least 1,000 streams over the last 28 days in one of the markets a campaign can target [1]. Your Spotify for Artists team must also be based in one of 23 countries: 14 in Europe, including the UK, Ireland, France and Germany, plus the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The payment card has to be issued in one of them too [1].

The campaign itself can target 44 markets, a longer list that adds countries such as Poland, Switzerland, South Africa, Singapore and Peru. A market drops out if your release isn’t available there, or if earlier campaigns have already reached its likely listeners [9].

Marquee adds two conditions. You need at least 5,000 monthly active listeners in the market you target, meaning people who chose to play your music in the last 28 days from your profile, your release pages or their own library [12]. The release also has to be new: not a remix, more than half its tracks new, and the campaign starting within 21 days of release [2]. Spotify’s target-markets page sets the edge a little earlier, saying Marquee may be unavailable once a release has been live for 18 days or more in a market [9].

For both formats, the release has to be an album, EP or single on which you’re a main artist, with no more than 4 main artists. Compilations, karaoke versions, remasters, re-recordings, spoken word and white noise are excluded [2].

How much do Marquee and Showcase cost?

You choose a budget between $100 and $10,000, or the local-currency equivalent, and you’re charged only for clicks [3]. Spotify’s help page puts it plainly: “Campaigns are priced on a cost per click basis, and clicks – including saves – are billable.” It doesn’t publish a price per click and says prices vary with your audience and target market [3].

The one per-click figure on these Spotify pages comes from the September 2023 launch post for Showcase, which said prices started “at a $0.40 CPC” [11]. Treat it as a historical reference point, not today’s rate.

Each sub-campaign, meaning one market, format, audience or start date within a campaign, needs at least $100, and one campaign can hold up to 15 of them [2]. Booking a Marquee through Spotify’s local representatives raises the minimum to $250 [3].

A campaign never spends more than its budget, and the budget can’t be raised once it starts. Spotify also states: “We can’t guarantee delivery of your full budget.” Since 23 February 2026, campaigns spread their delivery over the full run, about 10 days for Marquee and 14 for Showcase, unless you choose faster delivery [3].

Payment is by card, one per team. Spotify charges it each day you reach a billing threshold, which starts low for teams new to Marquee or Showcase, and charges any leftover spend on the first day of the next month [10]. To see these prices next to other ways of promoting a release, read how much Spotify promotion costs.

Where does each campaign appear, and who sees it?

Marquee appears full-screen in the mobile app, while Showcase appears as a banner on Home and Browse [1]. You pick one of three audience goals, and Spotify chooses the listeners within it [12]:

• Grow audience reaches programmed listeners, who have only heard you through playlists, Radio or Autoplay, and potential listeners who haven’t played you in 2 years but may like the release [12].
• Deepen fan engagement reaches your monthly active listeners, or one tier of them: super listeners (15 or more intentional streams in 28 days), moderate (3 to 14) or light (1 to 2) [12].
• Reactivate listeners reaches people who used to be monthly active listeners but haven’t played you on purpose in the last 28 days [12].

Some limits are built in. Campaigns skip anyone who has intentionally streamed the release in the last 21 days, a listener sees only one Marquee per release, and “You can’t choose individual listeners to target.” Premium listeners can choose not to see campaigns [12].

The formats also differ in what you can change. Showcase offers a choice of headlines, and its colour comes from your cover art. Marquee lets you pick the background colour and, for a single, send listeners to your This Is playlist instead of the release page [13].

What does the campaign report show?

It shows what listeners did in the 14 days after seeing your campaign, from 24 hours after launch until the final results 2 weeks after it ends [4]. The report has three parts:

• Campaign delivery: reach and clicks [4].
• Audience development: how many listeners joined, rejoined or went deeper into your monthly active listeners [4].
• Performance details: converted listeners, conversion rate, active streams per listener and intent rate, the share of converted listeners who saved or playlisted the release [4].

Spotify explains why the last number matters: “saves and playlist adds are linked to a 2.5x increase in streaming of an artist 6 months later.” You can download results as a CSV file, for one campaign or for all of an artist’s campaigns [4].

Where does Discovery Mode fit?

Discovery Mode isn’t a display campaign: it helps chosen songs get heard in Spotify Radio, Autoplay and Mixes, with no upfront cost [6] [16]. Instead of a budget, “a 30% commission is applied” to what those songs earn from streams in those places, and every other stream stays commission-free [5].

Access is narrower than for display campaigns. Discovery Mode is still in beta, and your team needs at least 25,000 monthly listeners and 3 eligible songs. Each song must have been on Spotify for 30 days, have 20 streams in those places over the last 28 days, have met Spotify’s monetization criteria the month before, and come from a distributor on Spotify’s list [5].

Campaigns follow the calendar: set-up opens on the 11th of the month and campaigns start on the 1st [5]. From day 11 of a campaign, a performance report shows audience growth, saves, playlist adds and streams [7]. The full comparison with paid playlist promotion, with worked numbers, is in Discovery Mode vs playlist promotion.

What happened to Spotify Ad Studio?

Ad Studio was renamed Spotify Ads Manager in July 2024, so guides that describe Ad Studio use the old name [14]. Spotify announced “a full rebrand, now called Spotify Ads Manager,” on 24 July 2024, aimed at “advertisers of all sizes” [14].

Spotify’s artist help page lists it beside display campaigns in one line: “Use Spotify Ads Manager to create audio and video ads for free listeners — no matter your budget.” [15] The difference is where each lives. Ads Manager is Spotify’s platform for advertisers of every kind [14], while display campaigns are booked in Spotify for Artists and aimed at listener segments built from “their actual streaming behavior” [8].

Which Spotify tool fits where you are now?

It depends on your streams in the last 28 days, your monthly listeners and the age of the release [1] [5]:

• Under 1,000 streams in 28 days: playlist pitching, which Spotify calls “100% free” [16]. A song pitched at least 7 days before release also goes to your followers’ Release Radar [17].
• 1,000+ streams in 28 days in a target market: Showcase, for any release [1].
• 5,000+ monthly active listeners in that market and a release under 3 weeks old: Marquee as well [2].
• 25,000+ monthly listeners and songs at least 30 days old: Discovery Mode, if your distributor is on Spotify’s list [5].

The dates matter as much as the numbers: a pitch needs to be in 7 days before release, and Marquee has to start within 21 days after. The free music release planner lays out a dated plan from your release day, the Spotify pitch writer turns your answers into a pitch, and how to pitch Spotify editorial playlists covers the rules.

Spotify’s paid tools open up as listening grows: display campaigns at 1,000 streams in 28 days, Discovery Mode at 25,000 monthly listeners. Before that point, the work is getting the song in front of its first listeners.

Keep reading: Discovery Mode vs playlist promotion · How much Spotify promotion costs · All guides · Free artist tools