Why Uploading Lyrics Matters
Lyrics are one of the most powerful ways listeners connect with your music. When your lyrics are live on streaming platforms, fans can follow along in real time as your track plays — and on platforms like Spotify and Amazon Music, that means animated, line-by-line lyrics synced to the audio. Beyond the listening experience, having your lyrics published also improves your visibility in search results, making it easier for new fans to discover your music by searching a line or phrase. It also ensures your words are attributed correctly to you, rather than left missing or filled in inaccurately by a third party. In short, if you've written lyrics, it's well worth taking the time to get them live — and this guide will show you exactly how.
Why You Need Musixmatch (and When You Don't)
When you distribute a release with us, we automatically deliver your lyrics to Apple Music — no extra steps needed on your end.
However, for every other platform — including Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Tidal, Facebook, Instagram, and Google — lyrics are not delivered through us. These platforms source their lyrics directly from Musixmatch, the world's largest lyrics catalogue. To get your lyrics showing up on these platforms, you'll need to submit them yourself via Musixmatch.
The good news: It's self-serve, and once approved, your lyrics can appear across all of those platforms from a single submission.
What Is Musixmatch?
Musixmatch is the lyrics provider that powers real-time synced lyrics across the majority of major streaming and social platforms. Once your lyrics are submitted and approved through their platform, they are distributed to partners including:
Spotify
Amazon Music & Amazon Alexa
YouTube
Tidal
Facebook & Instagram
Step-by-Step: How to Submit Your Lyrics on Musixmatch
Step 1 — Create a Musixmatch Account
Go to musixmatch.com
Click Sign Up in the top right corner
Register using your email address, Google account, or Facebook account
Complete the sign-up prompts to create your account
Step 2 — Claim or Create Your Artist Profile
Once logged in, you'll need to connect your account to your artist identity:
Navigate to the Musixmatch for Artists page (available from the main menu or at musixmatch.com/artist)
Click Claim Your Profile and search for your artist name
If your name appears: Select it and follow the steps to request ownership of the profile
If your name doesn't appear: Click to add yourself as a new artist, providing details such as your social media links and streaming profile URLs
Once submitted, Musixmatch will verify your identity. This typically takes 24–72 hours on a free account. If you're on a paid Musixmatch Pro plan, verification can be completed in as little as one business day.
Step 3 — Prepare Your Lyrics
Before uploading, make sure your lyrics are clean and correctly formatted. Musixmatch has specific guidelines:
Write out every line in full — do not use shortcuts like "Repeat chorus x2" or labels like "[Chorus]". Write the chorus out in full each time it appears.
No annotations or notes — upload lyrics only, without personal commentary or descriptions.
Use correct formatting — proper capitalisation, punctuation, and line breaks between sections.
Double-check accuracy — your lyrics should match the recorded version of the song exactly.
Step 4 — Upload Your Lyrics
Log in and go to your Artist Dashboard
Find the song you want to add lyrics to. If it isn't listed yet, click + Add Lyrics or Add Song
Enter your song details if prompted (title, album name, release date)
Copy and paste your lyrics into the provided field, following the formatting guidelines above
Click Submit to send your lyrics for review
Musixmatch will review your submission before it goes live. This process typically takes a few days, though verified artists may see faster approval times.
Step 5 — Sync Your Lyrics (Optional but Recommended)
Synced lyrics display line-by-line in real time as a song plays — this is the animated lyrics feature you'll have seen on Spotify and Apple Music. Adding sync significantly improves the listener experience and is well worth doing.
To sync your lyrics:
Open the Musixmatch app on your mobile device (or use the web tool)
Play your song within the app
Use the sync tool to tap along and align each lyric line to the correct moment in the track
Save and submit your synced lyrics for review
A Note on Timing
Once your lyrics are submitted and approved by Musixmatch, they are typically distributed to partner platforms within 24 hours — but the individual platforms decide when they display them, so it may take a little longer for lyrics to appear on each service.
Summary
Platform | How Lyrics Are Delivered |
Apple Music | Delivered automatically by us |
Spotify | Submit via Musixmatch |
Amazon Music | Submit via Musixmatch |
YouTube | Submit via Musixmatch |
Tidal | Submit via Musixmatch |
Facebook / Instagram | Submit via Musixmatch |
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our support team.