For curators: a flat fee, the Founding badge, and getting paid 🌿

Everything on the curator side, in one place.

Getting on

Put a playlist forward in four short steps: the link, up to 6 genres you would genuinely add a track in, and the numbers. Ownership is checked through Spotify and a person checks every application. There is no follower minimum while we are starting out. Joining and reviewing never cost anything.

The fee

$0.50 for every credit a review cost — $0.50 on the smallest lists, up to $2.00 on the biggest — and exactly the same whether you add the track or pass. Nothing here pays you to say yes. Pitches paid with an artist's free welcome credits are marked in your queue; their fee is held until that artist buys credits, then paid like any other.

Your settings and your numbers

For each playlist you choose your genres, your pace, whether you take free pitches, and whether you take tracks marked as made with AI. Your insights shows reviews per week, earnings, your on-time rate and how tracks landed, playlist by playlist — including your own add rate, which no artist ever sees.

The Founding Curator badge

The first 50 curators approved get a Founding Curator badge that never comes off, and are listed first in artist searches, permanently. It is a fixed number on purpose.

Getting paid

Ask for a payout from $20.00 in Getting paid, with whatever a person needs to pay you — no bank details. To cash out you need 500+ real followers on an eligible playlist and 100+ monthly listeners, checked by a person. Below that, earnings keep adding up; nothing is lost.

Gum Tree Guardians

A few curators are invited, by hand, to be Gum Tree Guardians: a complimentary Indie plan for their own music and a badge, in return for mentioning KoalaQueue when it fits. Same pay per review, no better place in searches. The terms spell it out.