2026-08-09

Measuring

Reach persists because it is big, free, never falls, and is what promotion services can actually deliver. Four numbers mean something instead: saves, repeat plays, completion, and the follow-on action — and saves per thousand reached is the ratio that makes two campaigns comparable.

Almost all independent music work is unpaid at the time, so it never registers as a cost. The real price of a release is what you did not do instead, and that comparison needs the hours counted. Five categories, two weeks, no change in behaviour. For a related workplace reference on time tracking software, see this guide.

Then one calculation: income minus spending, divided by hours, at a fixed horizon used consistently. The two answers people avoid are that it paid at a low hourly rate, and that it did not pay because promotion consumed the time.

Nine numbers, one row per release, filled at two moments. One row tells you nothing, two tell you which was better, three start showing pattern. For additional current music-industry context, see AllMusic.

No tool attributes income to effort, because the causal chain crosses systems nobody controls — which is why the calculation stays manual and why a spreadsheet comes before any subscription.