How to become a curator on TrackGiant

Becoming a curator on TrackGiant takes about 10 minutes to sign up and about 30 days to get good at. This guide covers both — the mechanical "how do I create the account" part and the judgment calls that actually determine whether your inbox stays empty or stays full.

Who should become a curator

You should sign up as a curator if you can say yes to at least one of these:

• You have strong, specific taste in a genre or scene. Not "I like music" — something closer to "I have opinions about how 2020s shoegaze differs from the 90s version."
• You've worked on the industry side — A&R, label, management, publishing, sync, DSP editorial, publicity, radio.
• You run a playlist, blog, podcast, or radio show that has a consistent point of view.
• You're an artist who's released enough music to have real craft knowledge you can pass along — what we call an Artist-Curator.

You should not sign up as a curator if:

• You just want to make quick money off other people's submissions. Low effort is immediately visible and the platform is built to surface effort over time.
• You're hoping it's a shortcut to industry connections. It's not a networking hack; it's a real service.

Artist vs. Curator: the decision tree

TrackGiant has exactly two account types: Artist and Curator. But within "Curator" there's a category called Artist-Curator that was created specifically for working musicians. Here's the decision tree:

• You're a working artist and your main goal is growth. → Sign up as an Artist. You'll submit tracks, host listening parties, and book services from curators. Perfect.
• You're a working artist and your main goal is monetizing your expertise. → Sign up as a Curator and pick the Artist-Curator category during signup. You'll offer peer reviews, consultations, and services to other artists.
• You're on the industry side. → Sign up as a Curator and pick the category that fits your role: A&R, Artist Manager, Music Executive, Playlist Curator, Music Curator, Songwriter, and so on.
• You're both. Pick Curator. You can still submit tracks to other curators from a Curator account.

The single rule: you can't be both an Artist and a Curator account at the same time. Pick the one that matches your primary goal right now, knowing you can change categories later.

More on the Artist-Curator category

If you make music for a living (or want to) and you've got enough craft knowledge to be useful to other artists, Artist-Curator is built for you. The pitch is simple: you charge for peer feedback at a rate that matches your experience, you build a new income stream that's not dependent on streaming, and you do it all from the same profile that shows off your own music.

Signing up as an Artist-Curator doesn't remove your ability to release music — your profile becomes a hybrid creator/service page that artists can both listen to and hire. We cover the playbook in detail in From zero to first $100 on TrackGiant (Artist-Curator playbook).

Picking your category

When you sign up as a curator, you pick a primary category. This matters more than most people think — it decides which artists find you and it sets the expectation for the kind of feedback you deliver.

The categories include (not exhaustive):

• A&R — talent scouts. Feedback skews toward "is this artist signable?"
• Artist Manager — career advice angle. Feedback skews toward release and positioning.
• Music Executive — senior industry. Feedback skews strategic.
• Music Consultant — broad industry perspective.
• Songwriter — craft feedback. Feedback skews lyric, melody, structure.
• Music Curator / Playlist Curator — placement and fit for existing playlists or shows.
• Artist-Curator — peer review from a working artist.
• Plus more specialized: DJ, Producer, Label Rep, Journalist, Podcaster, Influencer, Music Blogger, Radio Host, Educator, Supervisor.

Pick the one that most matches where your actual expertise comes from. The other categories are still available later through your service offerings — you don't lose access by picking one.

Walking through signup

The curator signup flow has three steps. Budget 10 minutes.

Step 1 — Basic info

• Full name. Use your real name unless you've built a curator brand under a pseudonym. Real names build trust faster.
• Country. For tax and payout purposes later.
• Genres. Pick 2–4. These are the genres you'll be shown to artists browsing for. Don't pick everything; you'll get mis-matched submissions you don't enjoy reviewing.

Step 2 — Profile

This is the most important step. Three fields matter most:

• Short bio (50–500 characters). See the next section — this is what artists read before submitting.
• Price per track review. The pre-set options start at a small fixed rate and scale up through mid and premium tiers. More on pricing below.
• Typical turnaround. Pick one of: 24 hours, 2–3 days, 1 week. Pick the one you'll actually hit 90% of the time. Setting "24 hours" and regularly missing it is worse than setting "1 week" and always being early.
• Profile picture. Not optional in practice. Artists won't submit to an avatar with no face.

Step 3 — Account

Email, password, account created. You're live.

Writing a curator bio that actually works

A good curator bio answers three questions in under 300 characters:

1. Who are you? One line. "Former A&R at X, now running Y playlist."
2. What do you listen to? Two or three specific genres or scenes. Not "everything from indie to hip-hop" — that signals no taste.
3. What kind of feedback do you give? Arrangement? Structure? Commercial positioning? Playlist fit?

Here's a template:

I'm [name], [role/context]. I spend most of my time listening to [genre/scene 1], [genre/scene 2], and [adjacent scene]. When I review tracks I focus on [feedback type] — I care about [specific thing].

Rewrite it in your own voice; don't paste the template. And skip:

• Long lists of credits nobody recognizes
• "Passionate about music" (everyone is)
• "Open to all genres" (you're not, and it's bad for you to say it)

Setting your price for your first 30 days

For your first month, price on the lower end of the range. Not rock-bottom — which signals low quality — but the lower-mid tier. Your goal in the first 30 days is:

• Build a review history (ratings and completed-review counts)
• Figure out what kinds of tracks you actually enjoy reviewing
• Get your first responses from artists you'd want to work with again

You will raise your price after that. Don't start at the top and wait for demand; demand comes from reviews, and reviews come from accessible prices plus a tight profile.

We've got a data-backed pricing guide that covers what to do after your first month.

The first week after signup

Three things to do in week one:

1. Turn on notifications. Submissions have a 7-day review window. Missing one hurts your response rate, which hurts your ranking, which hurts your inbox. See the 7-day review window explained.
2. Create one additional service. Track reviews are your entry product. A service is how you scale earnings per artist. A short consultation or a playlist-fit screener, priced above a review, is a great first service. More: Creating your first curator service.
3. Share your profile. Post your TrackGiant profile link everywhere you'd post a new release. Your profile is also your link-in-bio — instead of a static page, artists who click through can actually hire you.

Getting your first submissions

The ugly truth: your first submission doesn't come from the algorithm. It comes from you telling the right three artists you're available.

Start here:

• Message two peers you've given notes to before outside of TrackGiant. Tell them you're live, send them the link, and ask for a submission if they've got a track coming. Reviews from artists you already know are the foundation; they also give you ratings, which unlock better ranking for strangers.
• Post on your main channel. Twitter, Instagram, or wherever your audience actually lives. Keep it honest: "I'm offering paid track reviews — here's my profile."
• Review-swap once with another curator. Swap one review each for each other's tracks (if you're also an artist) or swap a review for theirs if you're both curators in different categories. Builds ratings and builds the network.

Past the first three or four submissions, the platform starts working for you — rating and response rate drive visibility for artists browsing your category.

Getting paid

TrackGiant handles payouts via Stripe Connect. You'll need to set up your Connect account once (takes about 5 minutes of ID + banking info). After that, earnings accumulate in your wallet and you can withdraw once you hit the minimum payout threshold.

TrackGiant uses a single-sided platform fee — you receive the majority of each listed price, with a small platform fee deducted automatically. Processing fees are absorbed on the platform side, so what you see in your earnings is clean. More: Understanding curator earnings and payouts.

What to do next

• Read how to write a curator profile that gets submissions if your inbox is quiet after a week.
• Read the 7-day review window explained before you accept your first submission.
• If you're an Artist-Curator specifically, jump to the Artist-Curator monetization playbook.

Being a good curator is a craft. The ten-minute signup is not the hard part. Doing thoughtful reviews for the right prices, week after week, is — and it's exactly what the artists on the other side are paying for.