What LUFS Should I Master To?
Master to about -14 LUFS integrated with true peaks under -1 dBTP if your track is headed for streaming — that is the safe default, and you can measure and hit it with our free volume normalizer. But there is no single universal LUFS target: the right number depends on where the track is going and how dynamic the material is. This guide gives you the number for each destination, then shows you how to choose when the "correct" answer is a range.
LUFS (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale) is the standard way to measure perceived loudness — if you need the definition, see what LUFS means and why peak isn't loudness. Here we skip straight to the decision.
The short answer, by destination
| Destination | Target (integrated LUFS) | True peak | Published or convention? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spotify | -14 LUFS | below -1 dBTP (-2 if louder than -14) | Published |
| Apple Music (Sound Check) | ~-16 LUFS | leave ≥1 dB headroom | Convention (measured, not published) |
| YouTube | ~-14 LUFS (only turns down) | -1 dBTP | Convention |
| Amazon Music | ~-14 LUFS | ~-2 dBTP | Convention |
| Tidal | ~-14 LUFS (album-normalized on mobile) | -1 dBTP | Convention |
| SoundCloud | reportedly ~-14, but no firm published target | -1 dBTP | Uncertain |
| Podcast / spoken word | ~-16 LUFS | -1 dBTP | Semi-published (Apple guidance) |
| Broadcast — EBU R128 (EU) | -23 LUFS | -1 dBTP | Published standard |
| Broadcast — ATSC A/85 (US) | -24 LKFS | -2 dBTP | Published standard |
| CD | ~-9 to -12 LUFS | your call | Engineer's choice |
| Club / DJ | ~-8 to -6 LUFS | your call | Convention |
A word on that last column, because it matters more than any single number. Only three rows are actually published specs: Spotify's -14 LUFS, EBU R128's -23 LUFS, and the US broadcast standard ATSC A/85 at -24 LKFS (LKFS is the same measurement as LUFS, just a different name). Apple's podcast guidance around -16 is close to official. Everything else in the music rows — YouTube, Amazon, Tidal, SoundCloud — is measured community convention, not a figure the platform prints anywhere. They cluster near -14 in practice, which is why -14 works as a default, but do not treat them as guarantees.
Why -14 isn't a universal target
The -14 LUFS number gets repeated everywhere as if it were a law of physics. It isn't. It is Spotify's published figure, and because most other streaming services landed near it, the industry adopted -14 as shorthand for "streaming loudness." Apple Music actually sits quieter, measured at roughly -16 LUFS through Sound Check, and it will even boost quiet tracks upward rather than only turning loud ones down.
The reason the exact number matters less than you'd think is loudness normalization. Streaming platforms measure your track's integrated loudness and apply a gain offset so every song plays at a consistent level — the mechanism is explained in full here. The practical upshot: if you master to -8 LUFS to sound loud, Spotify simply turns it down by 6 dB to reach -14. Your track ends up exactly as loud as a -14 master would have — except you've squashed your dynamics and gained nothing. This is the core lesson of the loudness war on streaming: louder stopped winning.
Normalized vs non-normalized destinations
This is the single mental model that makes every target above make sense. Destinations fall into two camps.
Normalized destinations — Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal, Amazon — adjust every track toward a house loudness. Here, mastering louder than the target is pointless at best and destructive at worst. Aim near the target, protect your true peak, and keep your dynamic range intact. A punchy -14 master with real transients will out-perform a flat, over-limited -14 master every time, because after normalization they sit at the same level but only one still breathes.
One nuance worth knowing: YouTube only ever turns tracks down, never up. So a quiet master (say -20 LUFS) won't be boosted — it just plays quiet next to everything else. That's an argument for not going too far under the target either.
Non-normalized destinations — CD, club/DJ playback, and direct downloads (Bandcamp, your own files) — play your file as-is. Nothing measures it, nothing adjusts it. This is the one place the old "louder is better" instinct still holds: a louder master genuinely sounds louder to the listener, so loudness becomes a deliberate aesthetic choice. CDs are commonly cut anywhere from -9 to -12 LUFS, and club/DJ material often pushes to -8 or even -6, because it plays back at high volume on big systems and isn't competing inside a normalized playlist. Even here, "within reason" applies — over-limiting still costs you punch.
(Film and TV delivery is its own world: Netflix, for example, specifies -27 LKFS. But that's dialog-gated — a different measurement that weights spoken dialogue — so it is not comparable to a -14 music target on the same scale. If you're delivering to a broadcaster or streamer's film spec, follow their document, not this table.)
How to pick your target
Work through it in this order:
Destination first. Where will people actually hear this? Streaming playlist, club set, CD pressing, podcast feed, download? That single fact narrows your target more than anything else. Use the table above.
Then judge how dynamic your material is. A sparse acoustic ballad and a wall-of-sound EDM drop can both land at -14 LUFS integrated, but they get there differently. Dynamic material naturally reads quieter on the LUFS meter for the same peak level; dense material reads louder. Don't force a genre into a number that fights its nature — a jazz trio mastered to -8 LUFS is a crushed jazz trio.
Aim slightly under the target and leave headroom. Landing at -14.5 or -15 LUFS for a streaming release is completely fine — normalization sorts out the last half-decibel, and you keep margin for true-peak safety. Which brings us to the other half of the spec.
True peak is not optional. Loudness (LUFS) and peak level are two different measurements, and you have to control both. Keep true peaks at or below -1 dBTP (some engineers use -2 dBTP for extra margin, especially if the master runs hot) to avoid inter-sample clipping — distortion that appears when your audio is converted to a lossy format like MP3 or AAC and reconstructed peaks overshoot 0 dBFS. If you're fuzzy on why that headroom exists, see what audio headroom is and why you leave it.
Hitting your target in your browser
Once you know your number, two free tools on this site get you there — both run 100% in your browser, and your audio never leaves your device (no upload, no account, no limits).
Volume normalizer — the direct route when loudness is all you need to fix. It measures your file's integrated LUFS, then applies the exact gain to hit a target you choose (-14, -16, -23, whatever your destination calls for). If you'd rather follow it step by step, here's the how-to for normalizing audio volume.
Audio mastering — when loudness is one part of a bigger polish. Our in-browser DSP mastering chain handles EQ, compression, stereo width and limiting together, with live LUFS metering and a level-matched A/B so you can hear whether a change actually improved the track rather than just made it louder. If you're mastering from scratch, start with the free online mastering walkthrough.
The short version: pick your destination, aim near its target (a touch under is fine), protect your true peak at -1 dBTP, and stop reaching for loudness that a normalized platform is only going to give back. For more background on the ideas behind all of this, browse the rest of our explainers.
Frequently asked questions
What LUFS should I master to for Spotify?
Master to -14 LUFS integrated, with true peaks below -1 dBTP (Spotify recommends -2 dBTP if your master is louder than -14 LUFS). This is Spotify's own published figure. Going louder is pointless because Spotify's loudness normalization turns any master hotter than -14 back down to -14, so you'd lose dynamics for no gain in playback loudness.
Should I master to -14 LUFS for everything?
No. -14 LUFS is a sensible default for streaming music because most platforms cluster near it, but it isn't universal. Podcasts target around -16 LUFS, European broadcast is -23 LUFS, and non-normalized destinations like CD (-9 to -12) or club playback (-8 to -6) are genuinely louder by choice. Pick your target from the destination first.
Is a lower LUFS number quieter?
Yes. LUFS is measured in negative numbers, and a lower (more negative) value means quieter. -23 LUFS is considerably quieter than -14 LUFS, which is quieter than -8 LUFS. Because the scale is negative, "lower LUFS" and "smaller number" mean the same thing: less perceived loudness.
What LUFS should I master a podcast to?
Aim for about -16 LUFS integrated with a true peak of -1 dBTP for stereo spoken word, in line with Apple's podcast audio guidance. Spoken-word content benefits from a consistent, intelligible level more than raw loudness, so -16 gives a comfortable listening level with enough headroom to stay clean across playback apps.
Does mastering louder than -14 LUFS help on streaming?
No. On normalized platforms like Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music, mastering louder than the target just means the platform lowers your track's playback gain to match everyone else. You end up at the same loudness as a -14 master would have, but with squashed dynamics and less punch. Aim near the target and keep your transients instead.