How to get verified on SoundCloud

Where SoundCloud verification stands in October 2026

SoundCloud launched verified profiles in November 2020 and gave the blue check to eight of its top artists on the first day. Today its Help Center article on profile verification holds only a short notice: SoundCloud is "working on updates to the verification process," new applications are paused, and pending ones are on hold. The notice has no dates.

The steps below come from the verification guide SoundCloud publishes on its own site. They describe the request as it worked before the pause. SoundCloud says the process is changing, so the form may look different when it reopens.

1. Sign in to SoundCloud on a desktop browser.
2. Open Settings and choose Request Verification.
3. Enter the artist, band or DJ name the account represents.
4. Add links to your social profiles, YouTube channel or website.
5. Submit the request.

The guide puts the review at up to 30 days. Leave your profile name, URL, bio and photo alone during that time, because changing any of them can cancel the request. If you are turned down, the guide says to wait at least 30 days before you apply again.

According to SoundCloud's guide, a verified account must:

• represent a well-known or highly searched-for artist, collective, DJ, label, curator or podcaster
• be owned by the person or group it represents, which rules out fan accounts and impersonators
• contain no misleading information and follow SoundCloud's terms of use
• have a profile photo, a bio and at least one uploaded track

You control the last three. The first is the hard one, and SoundCloud has never said how it measures it. It publishes no minimum follower count, play count or search volume. Its help pages and its guide describe no invitation route either, and none of them say that distributing your music through SoundCloud for Artists adds a badge. If a guide gives you a minimum number of followers, that number did not come from SoundCloud.

The guide does say what helps show that people look for you by name: press coverage, playlist placements on other streaming services and social profiles that use the same artist name. It also says an artist who is anonymous outside SoundCloud is unlikely to meet the "highly searched-for" condition, however good the music is.

Once you have the badge, think twice before renaming the account. SoundCloud's guide warns that changing your display name after verification may cost you the badge and mean applying again.

Verification and SoundCloud's paid plans

Some older guides say that upgrading to a paid plan gets you verified. The mix-up dates back to before 2020, when paying Pro subscribers had an orange star on their profiles. SoundCloud said at the time that people misused or misread that star as verification, and it introduced the blue check partly to end the confusion. At launch, requests from Pro Unlimited subscribers were reviewed first.

SoundCloud's artist plans today are Basic, Artist and Artist Pro. The feature lists for Artist and Artist Pro in the Help Center include no badge, and SoundCloud's verification guide says Artist Pro neither comes with the blue check nor speeds up a request.

• Use one artist name everywhere: display name, profile URL, artwork and your other platforms. SoundCloud says a consistent name across platforms helps fans find you in search.
• Write the display name the way people would type it into search, with spaces in the right places.
• Upload a profile image and header that stay recognizable at small sizes.
• Write a bio that says who you are and what you make, and link your website and social profiles from your SoundCloud profile.
• Keep uploading, so a new visitor finds recent tracks.

If you release music through a label or distributor, check whether they already made an account for you. SoundCloud lets labels, distributors and other rightsholders create accounts on an artist's behalf. If an account carries your tracks, has no photo of you and has "official" or "music" in its URL, SoundCloud asks you to take it up with your label or distributor, who can remove the account or manage it.

SoundCloud Insights shows which cities your plays come from, which apps and websites send listeners, and which listeners engage with your tracks. If you wonder how much it reveals about individual people, we cover that in what SoundCloud artists can see about their listeners.

How to report an account that pretends to be you

SoundCloud counts an account as impersonation when it was set up only to pass itself off as another person or group. Sharing a display name is not enough on its own, since plenty of artists have the same name. SoundCloud looks at the whole account: URL, display name, description and artwork.

To report impersonation, send SoundCloud these details through its Help Center:

1. your own profile URL, if you have an account
2. the URL of the account you are reporting
3. a short explanation of how it is impersonating you

There are other routes when the problem is more specific. If the account uses your registered trademark, email trademarks@soundcloud.com with proof of registration, and SoundCloud can ask the owner to change the URL or display name. If it hosts tracks you own, use SoundCloud's copyright infringement form. For a fake or spam account, the Report button on its profile sends it to SoundCloud and also blocks it from interacting with you.

If you already paid someone or gave out your login details, change your password and report it through the chat in SoundCloud's Help Center.

Followers, plays and SoundCloud's rules

A follower count will not get a profile verified. SoundCloud's conditions contain no follower number, and the review looks for a name people already search for.

SoundCloud is also clear about paid growth. Its community guidelines list paying for promotion services not affiliated with SoundCloud, and using services that claim to boost followers, plays, likes or reposts, among the things not to do. Its help pages say these services go against the terms of use and that accounts caught faking their popularity risk permanent suspension. Since a verified account has to follow the terms, bought followers can count against a request. SoundCloud does not say how it detects bought activity or how often it acts, and no seller, SMM-World included, can promise what it will do with your account.

Bought followers change the number a visitor sees on your profile. Bought SoundCloud plays change the count on a track, and you can send them to more than one track link. Neither adds the badge. Whether a visitor stays for your next release still depends on the music.

Part of the risk is in your hands. Never give a seller your password or a login code. At SMM-World an order needs only the public link to your profile or track. Orders start within minutes of payment and arrive gradually, and completion can take longer. If an order fails or only part of it arrives, you get a free retry or a refund for the part that was not delivered. Refill and refund rules are in our terms.

If you want listeners who find you through the music itself, Amplify is SoundCloud's own tool. For Artist and Artist Pro subscribers it recommends a new upload to around 100 listeners whose taste matches the track, though it cannot make them listen to the end.