What LUFS for Streaming? Loudness Targets for Every Platform

For streaming, master to around -14 LUFS integrated with a true-peak ceiling of -1 dBTP. That covers Spotify, YouTube, Tidal and Amazon Music, which all normalize loud tracks back down to roughly that level anyway. Apple Music sits a little quieter near -16 LUFS. Go far past those numbers and you do not release a louder song - you release a squashed one that gets turned down to match everyone else.

What is LUFS and why does it matter?

LUFS stands for Loudness Units relative to Full Scale. Unlike a peak meter, which only tracks the single highest sample, LUFS is built to match how humans actually hear loudness over time. The number that counts for a full song is integrated LUFS - the average perceived loudness measured across the whole track, quiet intro and loud drop included. When a platform says it targets -14 LUFS, it is reading your integrated value and adjusting playback gain so every song in the queue sits at a similar level.

This is the single most important thing to understand: on modern streaming, the listener does not hear your file at the volume you exported. They hear it after the platform has turned it up or down toward its own target. Your job is to arrive at that target already sounding finished.

LUFS targets for every major platform

Here are the reference points worth memorizing. Treat them as ceilings to aim near, not laws.

• Spotify: around -14 LUFS integrated. Loud tracks are turned down; there is a "loud" listening setting that behaves differently, but -14 is the safe design target.
• YouTube and YouTube Music: around -14 LUFS integrated. YouTube only turns loud content down, it does not turn quiet content up, so do not master too quiet here.
• Tidal: around -14 LUFS integrated.
• Amazon Music: around -14 LUFS integrated.
• Apple Music: around -16 LUFS integrated with Sound Check on.
• Apple Podcasts and spoken word: around -16 LUFS integrated.
• SoundCloud: historically no negative normalization, so a louder, competitive master can genuinely read louder there.

Because most platforms cluster around -14 LUFS, that is the number to build toward for a single master that translates everywhere. If you release primarily on Apple, you can sit a touch quieter without losing anything.

Why is louder not better?

This is where most producers lose punch for nothing. Say you crush your track to -8 LUFS to sound huge on export. Spotify simply turns it down by about 6 dB to hit -14. The artist who mastered to -14 gets no reduction at all. You both play back at the same perceived volume - except your version got there by hammering a limiter, sacrificing transients, depth and stereo width, while theirs kept its life.

The loudness war you think you are fighting against other artists is already over on streaming. The platform levels the field automatically. What is left is a quality contest: how good your track sounds at the target loudness, not how loud you can force it before upload. For a deeper look at that tradeoff, read how loud a master should be.

What is true peak and why -1 dBTP?

Integrated LUFS is your average. True peak is your absolute maximum, measured the way a digital-to-analog converter actually reconstructs the waveform between samples. Regular sample peak metering can miss overshoots that appear between samples, called inter-sample peaks. A true-peak meter catches them.

Set your limiter or output ceiling to -1 dBTP. That 1 dB of headroom does two jobs. First, it stops inter-sample peaks from clipping on consumer converters and phone speakers. Second, and more importantly, it protects you when platforms transcode your WAV into lossy formats like AAC and Ogg Vorbis. Lossy encoding can push peaks slightly higher than your original, and if you mastered right up to 0 dBFS, that added level clips and adds crackle that was never in your file. A -1 dBTP ceiling is cheap insurance. For dense, hot genres, -1 dBTP is the standard; if you want maximum safety, -1.5 dBTP is even kinder to the encoder.

How do you measure LUFS correctly?

You cannot hit a target you are not metering. A few rules keep your readings honest.

• Measure the whole song. Integrated LUFS only means something across the full track. Loop just the drop and you will read a number far hotter than your true average, then master too quiet.
• Use true-peak mode. Enable true-peak metering so you catch inter-sample overs the sample meter hides.
• Level-match your references. When you compare your master to a commercial song, match their loudness first. Louder always sounds better for the first few seconds - that bias is exactly what started the loudness war.
• Check on more than one system. Loudness that feels right on studio headphones can feel crushed in a car. A/B against a reference you love in the same genre.

A practical target to start from

If you want one setting: master to around -14 LUFS integrated with a -1 dBTP ceiling, then let your ears fine-tune. Dense modern genres like trap, drill, pop and EDM often live comfortably between -9 and -12 LUFS because the arrangement is already loud and controlled - and that is fine, because the platform still turns them down to a similar playback level. Dynamic material like folk, jazz, orchestral and singer-songwriter work sounds best quieter, near -14 or -16 LUFS, so the soft moments still breathe.

The number is a starting point, not a rule. The real goal is a master that sounds finished, translates on every device and does not fall apart when a platform normalizes it. If you are still deciding what to fix in the mix before you ever touch a limiter, read mixing vs mastering, and browse the full set of mastering guides when you want the genre-specific numbers.

Free download: keep the streaming loudness targets cheat sheet - the LUFS and true peak for every platform - right next to your DAW. PNG and printable PDF.