Reporting sales and streaming: Become a data provider

Reporting sales and streaming: Become a data provider

Luminate receives verified music consumption data directly from thousands of reporting partners across the industry and around the world. Our data partners help us maintain CONNECT as a source of trusted, essential information for the entertainment ecosystem. 

We accept music sales and streaming data from providers that register with us and meet our minimum reporting requirements. Read on to learn how to become an official Luminate data provider. 




Back to How it Works


Report sales data 


Want your store’s sales to contribute to the Billboard charts? Apply now to become an official Luminate Sales Provider. To become a sales data provider, your data must meet Billboard and Luminate minimum criteria and be approved by Luminate Content Services.


We accept the following data from approved retailers:

  • Physical product sales purchased and sold within the U.S. and Canada

  • Digital album sales in the U.S. and Canada

  • Digital song sales in the U.S. and Canada from U.S. and Canada providers

  • Digital song sales worldwide from global providers


 

Minimum qualifications

  • Must be prepared to provide weekly sales data from an electronic point of sale system/POS (i.e. Square, Stripe, Lightspeed, Shopify, Clover, Toast) in a plain text file format that is pipe delimited or via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Transfer details and credentials will be provided upon approval.

  • Must be prepared to submit no less than four weeks of consecutive sales data for initial evaluation.

  • Must be capable of recurring reporting on multiple artists.

  • Must be capable of consistently reporting at least weekly. Failure to submit reports for more than two weeks without notice will render a reporter Inactive; applicant would need to repeat the four week trial period before being reintroduced as a data provider.

  • Mail Order applicants must be capable of screening for bulk purchases across customer email, shipping address, billing address, and IP customer variables.



New Sales Provider registration

If you meet the above requirements and want to apply to become a sales data provider, here’s what to do. 


  1. Fill out and submit the New Provider Form for retailers.

Be sure to complete all required fields.


  1. Have an onboarding session with Luminate Content Services.

Our Content Services team will reach out to the email provided after reviewing your submission for eligibility. If you meet initial requirements, we’ll set up an onboarding session with Content Services and Data Partners to share credentials, technical specifications and instructions for reporting your data. 


  1. Perform a test data share.

Once you’re set up and onboarded, we ask that you perform a test data submission of at least four consecutive weeks of data. Don’t worry—we’ll walk you through it.


  1. Execute a Sales Provider agreement.

Content Services will review your test submission to ensure that it meets our requirements. If it does, you’ll be approved as an official provider and asked to execute a Sales Provider agreement.


  1. Start sharing daily or weekly data. 

Official Sales Providers must continue providing daily and weekly data shares according to the requirements given during onboarding.




Venue sales

Our partner atVenu automatically submits all venue sales recorded in the atVenu app directly to Luminate on a daily basis. Venue sales are included in sales data for that chart week (Friday-Thursday). Visit atVenu for more information.





Report streaming data 


Apply to report music streaming data using the New Provider Form for streamers. Luminate Content Services will reply with next steps via email within one week of submission. 


We accept streaming data from established DSPs that have contracts with the 3 major labels in all worldwide territories. Streamers must register with us and meet our minimum qualifications in order to report data. 



Minimum qualifications

  • Must be prepared to provide weekly streaming data in a plain text file format that is pipe delimited or via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Transfer details and credentials will be provided upon approval.

  • Must have licensing agreements in place with the 3 major label groups (UMG, Warner and Sony).

  • Must be capable of recurring reporting on multiple artists.

  • Must encode music and report activity using ISRC and ICPN information. 

  • Must require users to log in. All reported activity must be generated by users logged into your service with a user ID and password. 

  • Must report streams within the following parameters:

    • All reported streams must last at least 30 seconds in consumption duration per stream.

    • Streams must be capped at 50 ISRCs per day per user. If a user streams an ISRC 200 times in 24 hours, only the first 50 may be reported. 



New Streaming Provider registration

If you meet the above requirements and want to apply to report streaming data, here’s what to do. 


  1. Fill out and submit the New Provider Form for streamers.

Scroll down to the Streaming section and complete all required fields. Some fields are pre-filled. 


The top of the form applies mainly to Sales providers; select “No” or enter “n/a” for any required field that does not apply to you as a streamer (ex. physical location and sales information). 


  1. Have an onboarding session with Luminate Content Services.

Our Content Services team will reach out to the email provided after reviewing your submission for eligibility. If you meet initial requirements, we’ll set up an onboarding session with Content Services and Data Partners to share further instructions.


  1. Perform a test data share.

Once you’re set up and onboarded, we ask that you perform a test data submission (details provided during onboarding). Don’t worry—we’ll walk you through it.


  1. Execute a Provider agreement.

Content Services will review your test submission to ensure that it meets our requirements. If it does, you’ll be approved as an official provider and asked to execute a Provider agreement.


  1. Start sharing daily or weekly data. 

Official Streaming Providers must continue providing data shares according to the requirements given during onboarding.






Registration troubleshooting

Not sure if your application went through? Getting form submission errors? Review our guide to troubleshooting music registration and reporting. 


Go to: Troubleshooting music registration and reporting





More to know

Data sources article

Music registration: Add entries to our database


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