The Real LUFS Targets for Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube

Once your track is finished, every streaming platform normalizes loudness to a different target. Spotify officially targets -14 LUFS integrated loudness with a -1dBTP true peak ceiling. Apple Music and YouTube are commonly cited at around -16 LUFS and -14 LUFS respectively — but those two numbers come from mastering guides and third-party sources, not official documentation.

This post separates what's actually confirmed from what's a widely repeated estimate, so you know what you're working with once you've locked in BPM (Part 1) and mood (Part 2) and are ready to master for release.

What's Spotify's actual LUFS target?

Spotify states this clearly in its own support documentation (source: Spotify official support).

• Integrated loudness target: -14 LUFS
• True peak ceiling: -1dBTP
• Three user-selectable settings: Quiet (-23 LUFS), Normal (-14 LUFS, the default), Loud (-11 LUFS)
• Normalization happens at the album level, so relative loudness differences between tracks on the same album are preserved.
• The web player and third-party devices (TVs, speakers) may not apply normalization at all.

If your master is louder than -14 LUFS, it gets turned down by the excess amount; if it's quieter, it gets turned up.

What about Apple Music and YouTube?

This is where you need to be more careful. Unlike Spotify, our research didn't turn up an official document from Apple or YouTube stating an exact LUFS target. The numbers below are commonly repeated across mastering guides, but they're not officially confirmed.

Platform	Commonly cited target (third-party sources)	Officially confirmed?
Spotify	-14 LUFS, -1dBTP	✓ Confirmed via official docs
Apple Music	-16 LUFS	Not confirmed (widely repeated)
YouTube	-14 LUFS	Not confirmed (widely repeated)

Apple Music reportedly applies per-track normalization by default (Sound Check), and YouTube is said to only turn down loud tracks without boosting quiet ones — but neither claim comes from an official source we could verify.

What if I'm releasing to multiple platforms at once?

There's no single correct answer, but here's a practical approach: master to Spotify's confirmed -14 LUFS target, and you'll likely land close enough to Apple Music (commonly cited around -16) and YouTube (commonly cited around -14) without much extra effort. Rather than producing a separate master for every platform, it's more realistic to work from one solid reference point and let each platform's own normalization handle the rest.

Where this leaves you

Spotify gives you a clear, official number to work from — -14 LUFS. Apple Music and YouTube are in a similar range based on widely repeated (but unconfirmed) figures. When you're not sure a number is official, it's safer to anchor your work to the one that is.

That wraps up the "Prep Your Suno Prompt With Numbers" series. Once you've set tempo (Part 1), mood (Part 2), and now loudness for release, you might run into a track that still sounds off despite doing everything right. If that happens, check out our Suno mastering troubleshooting series.