How to Set Up brew.fm and What the Free Plan Includes

Sign in with Spotify, pick a playlist you already have, and brew.fm builds a separate Spotify playlist that collects new releases from the artists in it. The free tier watches the 10 most-represented artists in each source playlist and updates automatically — no card required. If you want every artist in the playlist checked daily, that's the paid Lifetime tier.

What brew.fm actually does

brew.fm turns a playlist you've already built into a release watchlist. Instead of relying on you to follow every artist and check Spotify every Friday, it reads the artists already present in your playlist and watches for their new music.

The output is a new, separate Spotify playlist. You don't manage it — new releases get added as they drop.

This matters because Spotify's Release Radar resets every Friday: the previous week's version is replaced, not saved. Anything you didn't listen to is gone, and it only covers artists you remembered to follow. brew.fm's pitch is that the artists are already in your playlists, so the digging can be automatic while the taste stays yours.

Setting it up

1. Sign in with Spotify. The site's call to action is "Sign in with Spotify," which authorizes brew.fm to read your playlists and write new ones back to your account.
2. Start with your own Fresh Finds playlist. The site offers this as the entry point — brew.fm generates a Fresh Finds playlist for you so you have something working immediately.
3. Point it at a playlist you care about. Any playlist you've spent time collecting can become a source. brew.fm treats the artists in it as your release watchlist.
4. Let it write to Spotify. Releases are gathered into a separate playlist in your Spotify account. You check that playlist instead of checking release dates.

The expected result: a new playlist in your Spotify library that fills itself with new music from artists you already listen to.

What the free plan includes

The free tier is described as starting "with the 10 strongest artists in each source playlist." So if your playlist has 200 artists, free covers the 10 with the most tracks in it — the ones brew.fm judges most representative of that playlist's character.

Lifetime is the upgrade that watches every artist in the source playlist and checks daily. It also unlocks Signature Blend and Drip, which can add matching tracks into the source playlist itself while trying to preserve its character.

Where the free tier is enough — and where it isn't

Free works well if your playlists are tightly curated around a handful of artists, or if you want to test whether the concept fits how you listen before paying. Ten artists per playlist, checked automatically, is already more than Release Radar gives you for artists you never followed.

Free is a weaker fit if your playlists are broad — a 300-artist genre playlist where the interesting new releases come from the long tail, not the top 10. That's the case Lifetime is built for.

Common snags

• You need a Spotify account. Sign-in is via Spotify, so there's no separate brew.fm login to create.
• The output is a new playlist, not an edit to your existing one. On free, your source playlist stays as it is; releases land in a separate playlist. Only Lifetime's Signature Blend and Drip write back into the source playlist.
• "10 strongest artists" is a selection, not a full sweep. If an artist you love isn't among the 10 most-represented in that playlist, free won't watch them — move them into a smaller, more focused source playlist, or upgrade.

The site reports 260 playlists updated and 9,600+ tracks placed into listeners' Spotify in a recent week, and says it has been running since 2021 with 5,000+ users. Pricing details beyond the free/Lifetime split and a promotional "$50 off until the end of September" aren't specified on the page, so check the site for current numbers before deciding.