Making Offers
The Offer System
The Offer System is where you proactively reach out to artists and offer them coverage. To use it, you need to have your promotions and bundles ready.
With the Offer System, you initiate contact with artists. Every offer must include a free promotion alternative alongside the paid option. The reasoning is simple: you should only contact artists whose music you genuinely want to share. The free alternative ensures that if an artist likes you and your publication but can't afford the paid option, they still get coverage and you still share music you actually enjoy with your audience.
Artist Submissions
The Artist Submissions section is where you discover new artists and releases on Musosoup. It is organised into three tabs, each supporting a different stage of your discovery and outreach workflow.
SEARCH FILTERS
To help you focus on submissions that are the right fit for your publication, you can use filters to refine what you see. Filters allow you to narrow submissions by criteria such as genre, release type, and region, making discovery faster and more relevant.
You can also save your filter combinations as My Filters, allowing you to quickly return to the same set of criteria without rebuilding filters each time.
From here, you can:
- Save a submission to review later
- Decline a submission if it’s not the right fit
How To Make An Offer?
Making an offer is how you proactively reach out to artists whose music you want to support. The process is designed to be efficient while ensuring you've listened to the release and can personalise your approach.
Step 1: Discover Artist Submissions
To begin, click Artist Submissions in the left-hand navigation menu. This takes you to the Explore tab, where you can see all live artist submissions or filter them according to your preferences.
The Explore tab shows submissions from artists actively running campaigns and hoping to connect with curators like you. You can browse all submissions or use filters to focus on specific genres, regions, or release types that match your publication's focus.
Step 2: Review and Save Submissions
Click on any submission card to open the Submission Overview window on the right side of your screen. It provides a clear overview of the information you need to assess whether the release is a good fit, including:
- Genre and key tags
- Artist name and location
- Release date
- Social media links
- Artist pitch and supporting assets (such as images, cover artwork, and press materials)
You’ll also see performance and activity stats for each submission, including:
- The number of offers the artist has received
- How many offers are currently pending
- The percentage of offers the artist has declined
- The artist’s average response time
These signals help you understand how actively the artist is engaging on the platform and give a realistic indication of the likelihood that an offer will be accepted
When you open a submission, a 15-second timer starts. After listening for at least 15 seconds, you can make a decision:
- Save the submission if you're interested in making an offer
- Decline the submission if it's not the right fit
Saved submissions move to the Saved tab, while declined submissions move to the Declined tab. After choosing one of the options, you continue reviewing more submissions, building up a collection of releases you're interested in working with.
Step 3: Review Saved Submissions
Once you've reviewed a satisfactory number of releases, navigate to the Saved tab to review your saved submissions again before making offers.
The process here is similar - click on a submission card to open the Submission Overview window. From here, you can:
- Listen to the release again
- Decline the submission if you've changed your mind
- Make an offer if you want to work with the artist
This two-stage process ensures you're only making offers to releases you genuinely want to support.
Step 4: Initiate The Offer
To make an offer, click the Make Offer button at the bottom of the Submission Overview window.
This opens a new pop-up window showing:
- Release information (title, artist name, release date)
- How many offers you have remaining in the current 7-day period
- Your available bundles
Step 5: Select a Bundle
Select the bundle you want to send to this particular artist and release. Once selected, click Next to proceed.
Alternative options:
- Create custom bundle: Build a tailored bundle specifically for this release if your existing bundles don't quite fit
- Submit already created coverage: Use this option if you've already created coverage for the artist for free and want to submit it directly
For most offers, you'll select from your existing bundles. Custom bundles are useful when you want to provide something unique for a specific artist or release.
Step 6: Review Bundle and Set Parameters
In this step, you can review the bundle you've chosen and configure the offer details.
What you'll see:
- The promos included in the bundle (displayed at the top)
- The total bundle price
- Free alternative options
What you need to configure:
- Free alternative: Select the most appropriate free option for this release. For playlist placements, choose the playlist that best matches the genre and style
- Offer expiry date: Set the deadline for when the artist must accept or decline your offer
The approximate publish date is managed at the bundle level and can be adjusted in your bundle settings if needed.
Step 7: Personalise Your Introductory Message
The final step is tailoring your introductory message for the specific artist and release. This is your opportunity to personalise the offer and explain why you'd like to work with them.
Your bundle includes a default introductory message template, but you should customise it for each artist. Mention:
- Why their release stood out to you
- What you liked about the track
- Why it fits your publication or audience
- What made you want to reach out
Tip for quick personalisation: Use dynamic fields in your template to automatically populate artist-specific information:
- {ARTIST} inserts the artist's name
- {TITLE} inserts the release title
This allows you to create a partially personalised template while still adding unique, specific commentary for each artist.
Step 8: Send the Offer
Once you're satisfied with your introductory message, click Send Offer to send the offer to the artist.
The artist will receive a notification and can review your offer, including:
- The bundle details and included promos with examples
- Your personalised message
- The free alternative option
- The offer expiry date
You can then repeat this process to send offers to other artists from your Saved tab.
Tips On Increasing Your Offer Acceptance Rate
How your offer is presented has a direct impact on whether an artist accepts it. The way your promos are structured, how clearly descriptions are written, and how you approach the introductory message all influence acceptance rates for paid offers.
Artists typically receive multiple offers from different curators. Spending time refining how your offers look and read can make a meaningful difference in how they’re perceived.
Personalise Your Introductory Message
While it’s quick and easy to send automated offers at scale, this approach rarely delivers strong results. From an artist’s perspective, it’s important to feel that the curator reaching out is genuinely interested in their music and motivated to share it, not simply sell a service.
At a minimum, this includes:
- Using the artist’s name
- Referencing the release title
Tailoring your introductory message to each artist and release is one of the most effective ways to improve acceptance rates.
You can strengthen the message further by including specific, relevant details, such as:
Mentioning something you enjoyed about the track
For example:
“I really liked the groove of the bassline and how it drives the track forward.”
“The production feels very polished, especially the vocal layering in the chorus.”
Explaining why the release is a good fit for your publication or audience
For example:
“Our audience is mainly hip-hop focused, and your track fits well with the style of releases we regularly feature.”
“We often cover emerging indie artists, and this release aligns well with what our readers respond to.”
Referencing a small but meaningful detail from the artist’s pitch
For example:
“I noticed you mentioned working with producer Jake on this release, the collaboration really comes through in the final track.”
“Your focus on self-producing and releasing independently stood out and fits well with our editorial approach.”
These details show the artist that you’ve listened to the track, read the pitch, and taken time to understand the release. This builds trust and makes your outreach feel personal and considered.
Although personalisation takes more time, sending fewer, higher-quality offers often leads to a higher acceptance rate and stronger long-term results.
To evaluate the impact of personalisation, try running a short test. For a two-week period, send only personalised offers and compare acceptance rates with your usual approach. This can help you clearly see how personalisation affects performance.
Match playlist placements carefully
If your offer includes a playlist placement, always ensure the genre and style of the release genuinely match the playlist you’re offering.
Accurate playlist matching reassures artists that their music will reach the right audience and helps maintain credibility and long-term trust.
Stay responsive after sending an offer
After sending an offer, keep a close eye on messages from artists. They may have questions or need clarification before making a decision.
Prompt, clear, and helpful responses demonstrate professionalism and reliability, and often make the difference between an offer being accepted or declined.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU SEND AN OFFER?
All offers you send to artists can be found in the section, under the Offers tab.
From here, you can track the status of each offer while you’re waiting for the artist’s decision. Over time, offers will automatically move to different tabs depending on the outcome:
- Active - Offers that have been accepted by the artist and are now part of your committed workload
- Declined - Offers the artist has chosen not to accept
- Expired - Offers that were not accepted or declined before their expiry date
This automatic progression helps keep your workflow organised and ensures you are always focused on active and actionable work.
Last updated on February 6, 2026