LUFS Loudness Targets for Spotify, Apple Music & YouTube (2026)
If you distribute music — AI-generated or not — loudness normalization decides how loud your track actually plays for listeners. Here's a practical reference for the targets that matter in 2026, and how to use them without overthinking it.
What each platform normalizes to
Every major streaming service measures your track's integrated loudness and adjusts playback toward its own reference level:
- Spotify — about -14 LUFS.
- Apple Music — about -16 LUFS (via Sound Check).
- YouTube — roughly -14 LUFS.
- Amazon Music — around -14 LUFS.
- Tidal — around -14 LUFS.
These are playback targets, not hard limits on what you upload. The platform turns louder masters down and (in most cases) quieter masters up toward the target.
Why -14 LUFS is the practical default
You can't master a single file to perfectly satisfy every platform at once — they don't all use the same number. But -14 LUFS integrated is the widely used compromise:
- On Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, and Tidal it lands right around the target.
- On Apple Music it plays slightly quieter, which is fine — quieter and clean beats loud and crushed.
Mastering much louder than -14 (say, -8 LUFS) doesn't make you louder on streaming. The platform just turns it back down — and now you're stuck with whatever dynamic damage you did to hit that level.
Don't forget true peak
Loudness is only half the spec. You also need a true-peak ceiling so the file doesn't clip when it's converted to lossy formats (which can push peaks above 0 dBFS).
- Target -1 dBTP (true peak) as a safe ceiling.
- If you're being conservative for lossy encoding, -1.5 dBTP gives extra margin.
Integrated vs. short-term vs. momentary
You'll see three LUFS readings in most meters:
- Integrated — the average across the whole song. This is the one platforms normalize to. Aim for ~-14.
- Short-term — a rolling 3-second window, useful for spotting loud sections.
- Momentary — a 400 ms window, useful for catching transient spikes.
For setting your release level, integrated is the number that counts.
A simple workflow
- Master the track for quality first — EQ, compression, limiting in that order.
- Set your limiter's output ceiling to -1 dBTP.
- Adjust gain into the limiter until the integrated reading sits around -14 LUFS.
- Reference against a commercial track in your genre at matched loudness.
That's it. One master at -14 LUFS / -1 dBTP travels well across every major platform.
If you'd rather not meter by hand
Anti-AI Master targets streaming-ready loudness automatically and exports a 24-bit master in your browser — handy if you want a consistent baseline to compare your manual masters against.
Quick reference
| Platform | Playback target |
|---|---|
| Spotify | ~ -14 LUFS |
| YouTube | ~ -14 LUFS |
| Amazon / Tidal | ~ -14 LUFS |
| Apple Music | ~ -16 LUFS |
Master to -14 LUFS integrated, -1 dBTP true peak, and you've covered the field.