- How much does each streaming platform pay?
- Use our streaming payouts calculator to see how much you can earn.
- What is an ‘album equivalent unit’?
- While we’re on the topic, here are 3 reasons why we switched To Tidal.
The greatest musicians in the world are rarely in it for the money. However, tour vans, broken guitar strings, and studio time do not come free, so it certainly pays to be able to monetize music in some way or another.
Today, the majority of a modern musician’s income is made from paid performances, selling merchandise, and earning streaming royalties. Whereas CDs, tapes, and vinyl are a thing of the past (except for the collectors out there), in 2022, most people listen to their music through a handful of online audio streaming platforms.
As many streaming services are low-priced and even free, this leaves many music lovers wondering how much the artists they listen to actually earn whenever one of their songs is streamed.
To answer this question and more, we’ve compiled this article, which contains everything you need to know about music streaming royalties and payouts in 2022.
Music Streaming Royalty Rates 2022
The latest music streaming royalty rates are as follows.
| Streaming Platform | Royalty Rates (Per Stream) | Streams Required To Make $1 |
|---|---|---|
| Tidal Music | $0.01284 | 78 |
| Apple Music | $0.008 | 125 |
| Amazon Music | $0.00402 | 249 |
| Spotify | $0.00318 | 314 |
| YouTube Music | $0.002 | 500 |
| Pandora | $0.00133 | 752 |
| Deezer | $0.0011 | 909 |
Latest Streaming Statistics
As we’ve mentioned, streaming music is still growing. In 2021, Statista reported that the number of streaming service users reached 487 million, marking a huge increase from 7.9 million in 2014.
Music streaming worldwide accounted for $13.4bn, with the country with the highest share of music subscriptions being Mexico.
In the United States alone, revenue generated by streaming services totaled $4.6bn in 2021, with 82.1 million Americans subscribing to a music streaming platform.
The most streamed genre was reported to be R&B/Hip Hop.
Streaming Royalties Calculator
Feel free to use our free Streaming Royalties Calculator. Simply input the number of streams and the calculator will give you a breakdown and estimate of how much an artist can earn through royalties.
Consider this! Harry Styles’ track ‘As it Was’ was the most-streamed song in 2022 on Spotify, with over 1.5 billion streams. At a rate of 0.00318c per stream, we could estimate its earnings at around $4.7 million USD.
Although this number is fairly accurate, calculating the exact payout from various platforms can be very difficult. This is largely because…
- Rates are rarely paid at a flat rate per stream
- Agreements and figures change often
- Different tiers and subscriptions impact pay rate
- Streams are more valuable in different parts of the world
What Are The Most Popular Streaming Services?
In 2022, the following were the most popular streaming services for listening to music, comedy, and podcasts all around the world:
- Amazon Music
- Spotify
- Apple Music
- Pandora
- Tidal
- Deezer
- YouTube Music
- Soundcloud
- Sirius XM
- iHeartRadio
According to Statista.com, Spotify was the most popular streaming platform, accounting for 32% of streaming service users. Apple Music came second with 16% of the market share.
The same report noted that Amazon brings in an impressive 13% of users, while Google follows with 8%. What is notable here is that SoundCloud is one of the fastest-growing platforms, doubling the number of monthly users from previous years.
Whereas Apple, Spotify, Pandora, and SoundCloud are used exclusively for audio streaming, YouTube (and YouTube Premium) is extremely popular for streaming music videos, songs, podcasts, and more. Amazingly, YouTube can draw as many as 2 billion monthly users listening to music, watching TV, or going down rabbit holes watching video after video on obscure subjects.
Royalty Payouts Per Platform
For a little bit more information about today’s streaming landscape, we will now go into detail about the ins and outs of each of these streaming platforms.
Amazon Music
Lastly, Amazon Music is a digital music streaming service that comes from a corporation that has dipped its toes in just about every industry. Amazon Music is slowly gaining subscribers, as the company boasts 55 million worldwide monthly users in 2020.
To make things confusing, Amazon Music offers five different tiers of listening options. This includes an unlimited version, a high-definition audio version, and individual and family plans. Amazon Prime members are also entitled to a premium version of Amazon Music.
How much does Amazon Music pay per stream?
On average, Amazon Music pays roughly $0.00402 per stream on the platform to the recording owners. At nearly half a cent, this is among the highest royalty payments for music streaming services globally.
Spotify
From the other side of the world, Sweden’s Spotify is another industry giant in the music streaming space. Spotify offers a free and paid service that can be used to listen to music on desktop and mobile devices. The free version contains ads between groups of songs, whereas Spotify Premium is completely ad-free.
How much does Spotify pay per stream?
Historically, Spotify has accounted for some of the lowest royalties paid in the industry. In fact, on multiple occasions, artists have been banned together, claiming that platforms like Spotify are not paying nearly enough. Wanting to stay in business, the streaming service has modernized to raise performance royalties for musicians and comedians.
Today, Spotify pays between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream based on the listener’s location, song popularity, song length, and a few other factors. In many ways, the ever-changing rate of pay seems as if it was almost designed entirely to confuse users who are possibly being underpaid for their royalty rates.
Like Apple, Spotify also shares a percentage of its ad revenue with its most popular streaming artists. The platform has also made headlines recently for paying independent producers like Joe Rogan large sums of money in exchange for exclusive streaming rights.
Apple Music
Ah — the company that revolutionized how we listen to music with the invention of the iPod: Apple Music. Today, most Apple Music users stream their favorite tunes from the Apple Music App on iPhones, iPads, and MacBook computers.
Users can begin with Apple Music by utilizing a 3-month free trial. After that, the service costs $10 per month for individual users, $5 per month for students, and $15 per month for families of up to six people.
Interestingly, in 2021, Apple released a ‘voice only’ version of Apple Music for $5 a month which is only compatible with Siri, meaning you need to control it with your voice via an Apple device.
For more information on the different tiers, visit Apple Music’s official website.
How much does Apple Music pay per stream?
Although the number is constantly fluctuating, in 2022, Apple Music pays 0.00783 per stream on its platform. With this in mind, a song will earn $1 after streaming roughly 128 times.
Beyond this, Apple Music also has a pro-rata system that distributes a large percentage of its advertising revenue to streaming artists. However, this bonus payment is usually pennies on the dollar for most artists, as income is divided among all of the musicians on the platform. Significant amounts of money will only be made through ads from artists like Drake and Taylor Swift, whose songs are streamed millions of times each month.
For every dollar earned on Apple Music, artists earn an average of 58 cents. The remaining balance is split between Apple’s commission (28.5 cents), and production, mechanicals, and performance rights (13.5 cents).
Pandora
For many years, Pandora was a name that was fairly synonymous with internet radio. The platform lets users customize their own virtual radio stations based on songs, artists, genres, and more.
Pandora is completely free to use. However, ad-free streaming and on-demand music libraries can be accessed for $4.99 and $9.99 per month, respectively. Pandora can be used in both a browser and an app.
How much does Pandora pay per stream?
Although it is the sixth-largest music streaming platform, Pandora falls far behind other streaming services when it comes to paying artists. In 2022, musicians earn only 0.00133 per stream on Pandora. Compared to services like Spotify and Apple Music, Pandora pays less than half as much as some of its competitors.
At this rate, songs on Pandora must receive roughly 752 streams to earn one dollar on the platform. Compared to other industry leaders, this is one of the lowest royalty rates.
Tidal
Next, let’s take a look at Tidal, a specialized service for high-quality rap, hip-hop, and R&B. Founded by Jay-Z and backed by many independent musicians, Tidal is one of the newest music streaming services, which is offered at a few different paid tiers.
Currently, Tidal offers a one-month free trial with $10/month fees for basic service and $20/month fees for high-quality streaming audio.
How much does Tidal pay per stream?
As an artist-centric streaming service, Tidal has one of the highest royalty payment rates in the music industry. Paying nearly three times as much as other high-volume music streaming services, Tidal pays roughly $0.01284 per stream.
It’s worth noting that Tidal has also had its fair share of controversies, so it may not be the most trustworthy platform for artists seeking streaming services pay.
That said, if we had to pick between Tidal vs Spotify, we’d definitely still go with Tidal (more on that here).
Deezer
Although it may be relatively unknown to many music lovers in the world, Deezer is a French streaming platform that is very popular in some circles. The company has the rights to a growing library of over 73 million songs, which is accessed by the platform’s 16 million monthly users (half of which are paid subscribers).
How much do musicians earn per stream on Deezer?
On Deezer’s website, the company has stated that they “want artists to be paid fairly” with their unique user-centric payment system. Deezer’s current model allows paid subscribers to directly support the musicians they love. If a Deezer user listens to only one artist per month, then that artist will receive all of the user’s subscriptions minus the fees taken from the platform.
Whereas this is a really cool model, Deezer’s average pay per stream is still only about $0.0011, which sits on the relatively low end of the streaming services pay spectrum. With the right tweaks, however, Deezer’s model has the potential to change the way streaming services pay artists.
YouTube Music
Speaking of YouTube, the Google-owned company is now pushing for people to enjoy streaming music on the YouTube Music and YouTube Premium streaming services. YouTube Music is free to use, whereas users can upgrade to Premium to enjoy an ad-free experience.
How much does YouTube Music pay per stream?
It is a bit more difficult to calculate an average royalty payment for musicians on YouTube because the platform also offers video and various streaming possibilities. Artists reportedly make a minimum of $0.00069 per stream in Content ID instances. This includes music played on separate creator’s videos.
Beyond this, artists typically make $0.00164 on streams from their own channels and $0.002 per stream on the YouTube Music platform. With this in mind, many artists are hopeful that listeners will tune into YouTube Music, rather than finding their content in a traditional browser.
SoundCloud
Next, SoundCloud is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the music industry today. SoundCloud is designed to make it incredibly easy to upload and share music. For this reason, artists love SoundCloud for exposure and rarely count on it to earn streaming royalties.
Although the user base has been shrinking over the past few years, the website still receives visits from over 175 million users each month. In 2016, the platform released a higher-tier paid version, which grants access to exclusive music content streams.
How much do artists make per stream on SoundCloud?
SoundCloud’s payout rates are similar to those of Spotify, at roughly $0.0025 to $0.004 per stream. The exact rate is a rotating figure that is largely based on the country and continent which the user listens to the music from. On average, SoundCloud artists earn roughly $.003275 per stream.
Comparatively, however, SoundCloud leaves artists with more money in the bank as the platform gives 55% of every dollar directly to the uploader. Although this is only about 10% higher than Spotify and Apple, for every thousand streams, the dollars really do add up.
FAQ
What About Bandcamp?
Bandcamp operates under a different payment model for musicians. Their terms of service state that all music and content uploaded is considered ‘royalty-free’, and, as a result, does not generate royalties for its users.
How Do Royalties Work?
Royalties are fairly simple. Although there are many types of royalties (mineral rights, television appearances, etc.), the music industry pays recording artists small amounts of money per stream for a sound recording. Streaming services pay artists based on the number of times a sound recording is played after taking a small fee for hosting it on the platform.
In most cases, a record label or music publisher will take a fixed percentage of a musician’s royalties on top of the income taken from the music streaming service.
What Constitutes A “Stream” In Music?
Streaming is one of the most popular ways to listen to music today. A stream is completed when a song is played through an online platform rather than on an individual listening device.
Streaming has grown in popularity as it does not require users to download the media they want to enjoy, which saves storage space on computers and mobile devices. Streaming is also popular in video services like YouTube and Netflix.
How Do Streaming Platforms Pay Artists?
Streaming platforms pay artists royalties for songs that are streamed or downloaded. In most cases, the money is directly deposited into an artist’s bank account every month or quarter.
Although it is becoming increasingly rare, some royalties are still paid with a physical check that is mailed to artists. More often than not, low-income checks from low-volume streams are more of a novelty for smaller musicians rather than a serious paycheck.
How Do Streaming Services Make Money?
In most cases, streaming services make money through paid subscriptions and ad revenue. Sometimes, a percentage of the ad revenue made while a musician’s work is streaming is given to the recording artist.
How Much Streaming Income Do Record Labels Make?
Today, record labels make a fixed percentage of streaming royalties for the artist’s work that they produce and market. For major labels, artists typically only receive about 16% of the royalty payments from streaming services.
Furthermore, smaller indie labels usually split the net income from every penny earned per stream 50/50. For self-releasing artists, every penny earned goes right into your pocket. With that said, an association with a record label generally leads to higher exposure and better-quality recordings from a professional music publisher.
What is an Album Equivalent Unit?
Before streaming services, album sales were used to measure the popularity of a musician’s work. In the 2010s, the Album Equivalent Unit was introduced to help quantify the success of a music release.
Simply put, one album sale is equivalent to 10 song downloads or 1,500 streams, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. With this in mind, it is easier to label an artist’s work if they reach a “platinum” or “gold” level of equivalent albums sold.
Final Thoughts
While music listening habits have dramatically changed over the past ten years, the platforms and methods used to accommodate the internet age are an ever-changing landscape. After many illegal software programs paid nothing at all to artists, today’s top music streaming platforms are finding ways to pay artists through musical royalties.
Although a fraction of a penny may not seem like much, popular artists can still make passive income from music royalties while their recordings are played across many different platforms. As royalty collections are now one of the largest financial streams in the music business, artists and consumers continue to utilize and test different streaming services pay models so that everyone involved is fairly compensated.
Next up, check out How A Recession Could Affect The Music Industry In 2022.
I have a song in a hit Netflix movie from last year. Was #1 movie worldwide for 4 days and in the Top 20 for weeks. Any idea on what kind of money that will make me? I’m a month away from my Ascap check. Might have gotten 30 to 50 million streams. Thanks-
Massive congrats on that success, we wouldn’t have a clue unfortunately! It would really depend on the contract you signed and its terms. Keep us updated on how much comes in if you like, we are curious to know ourselves! 🙂
In the faq section of this article you mention Spotify paying $0.03 to $0.04 per stream- I think you left out a 0 in there, when looking at the chart higher up? I’d like to forward this article to many musicians’ groups but I want to be careful about data consistency. Thank you for putting this together BTW! It’s very helpful.
Nice catch! Yeah that was a typo for that section down below, missed out a 0! Whoops! Thanks for letting me know. 🙂
No problem! This is an issue I’m passionate about as well so I really appreciate you taking the time to compile the relevant data and parse it out succinctly. Been forwarding it around various pages today. Thanks again!
I’m confused – as far as I can see, iheartradio is a podcast-only platform?
Also, it would be great if you could add a date to the image at the top that lets people know when that data was collected.
Hello, i have a doubts regarding how Amazon Music pay the royalties , because i use the Amazon Music for artist app and in the app show around 40000 plays of my overall music in May, but in CD baby showed only 10000, i don’t know what happened.
As a Napster (Rhapsody) user, I wish you would have highlighted their having the highest according to your chart. I love the service, but I am an old school consumer of music and like to download albums primarily and play my whole collection on shuffle…
Hey Bryan, thanks for the insightful comment. Do you know how much Napster/Rhapsody pay out to artists? I can take a deeper look and see if I can do a refresh of the chart.
$0.019/stream
Thank you for asking!
I have found many of these articles are missing Napster, I’m assuming because user numbers are lower…
BUT…
Neglecting to add the service even as a listing for smaller services that pay higher or whatever, removes the potential to increase users! Also, it does not help artists get more royalties. As in, if these articles are written with at least some goal to inform consumers how they contribute and/or help artists decide the best platforms to focus on, well, you would think adding strong platforms (or well-established) that payout at high rates would benefit the artists.
Looking up some info regarding Napster, as of February 2022, according to Routenote.com, the payout on average is .019 per stream. This should workout to approximately 53 plays to earn $1 or approximately 52,630 streams for $1000.
Napster, coupled with Tidal, are two of the only streamers paying more than one cent per play. Compare that with Spotify, where you need 229 streams at an average .004 per stream (varies by location) to earn $1 and 229,000 streams to earn $1000. That’s a huge difference.
That is 176,370 more streams!
-OR-
For every 229,000 streams on Spotify, an artist can make approximately $1000.
For every 229,000 streams on Napster, an artist can make approximately $4,351.
A few dollars difference for the same amount of streams is competitive. $3,351 difference can be lifchanging!
I would love to see this extensive research (btw fantastic depth!) coupled with an extensive look at and comparison with players, catalog, user price breakout, and extras (especially like lyrics, facts like songwriters, history, sounds like, etc).
Thank you for doing the research!
Stace
Would it help artists if they could use streaming to drive traffic directly to their own website, for building a following, promoting albums and downloads. Instead of just a like perhaps the streaming services could add a hyperlink to take listeners to the artists website.
Do artists have a collective advocate to propose “fair” changes to the streaming business model?
Hello, I am a longtime Performance Musician/ Singer-Songwriter. Due to lockdowns, venues closed. So, recently I dipped my toes into this ocean by uploading a dozen various demo works of very mediocre sound recording quality, onto a streaming platform. Instantly my 1st track hit their top 40 in two of it’s category, now, 4 of the tracks are top 40 with one of those #1. The platform was initially more of a sharing platform that seems to be tipping towards, or evolving it’s new deal. It’s Admin has adopted disrespectful, “Corporate Presence Style” , commercialization and poised to sell streaming rights outside of any agreements or disclosures. The Admin has demonstrated unilateral, terse response to my supportive inquiry with it’s simple ultimatum, that if I don’t like it I can remove my tracks and account. Obviating they feel grown to a stage large enough to start embedding advertisement. This is beyond the platform disclosed policy.
Can you share some guidance from your experience of how I might re-begin anew?
Hey Gordon, that sucks to hear. Given the situation I’d recommend sticking to the classic platforms for uploading your music. I’m not sure what the platform is that you’re referring to, but I’d stick with Bandcamp, SoundCloud, YouTube, Spotify and some of the bigger ones that have proven themselves. There is a new decentralized streaming platform called Audius, which I also recommend checking out. All that being said, I don’t think you’re starting from scratch. If those tracks did well on the platform you’re talking about, there’s no reason why they can’t do well on others. All the best!
I don’t understand your figures: Apple has the most users in the world with Spotify coming in second… I can’t find one single website that confirms that data except, well, yours.
Thank you for this! Next time you update, please order lists from highest-to-lowest paying, so it’s easier to gleam & memorize the best/worst few at a glance.
Great information! I own a music publishing company representing mostly indie artists. If you write a future article, perhaps take a look into the following music apps?
1. Resso music app (India & Indonesia)
2. Hungama
3. Gaana
Potentially, you can also include estimated payouts if artists have songs on platforms like Shazam, Mood Media, Tune Global and AMI Entertainment. We try to include music on these B2B platforms and sometimes there is a surprise larger payout, particularly for digital jukebox or background music services.
Overall, great article! 🙂
Nice to know the corporations who own these store are making squillions of dollars in profits, while the actual musicians aren’t making even a CENT per stream. Way to keep the little guy down. No WONDER less and less people are interested into getting into the music industry, knowing that it won’t pay their bills.
I’m completely new to this music sharing stuff. (3months after over a decade of making music) And I’m glad I found this article – thanks. Right now I only post to youtube on my channel (Wolf Kier), bandcamp, and Soundcloud. I’m sure I need to build up some real followers before I move on to spotify etc. But in the case of say Soundcloud or Youtube is it enough to add in the soundcloud metadata and inbed in the WAV my ISRC info? and on youtube to imbed ISRCs to the videos uploaded? Or do I need more to even qualify for 0.000000001 penny per play…. I see you mention Content ID re youtube. Is that necessary for royalty calculations and if so, how do I get that for each track, and can I add them after I’ve uploaded?
Lots of questions I know but I read your article kinda hoping some of that would come up as even an aside….
Thx.
I think this list needs major updating.
I get 1/4 to 1/2 a penny per steam from Tidal, not over a penny.
A commenter above mentions Napster, but I don’t get anywhere near what they said.
Spotify number is close though.
I understant very well here yet they are not classified all
Hello, great info on the page. I was curious if you have the payout dates for these streaming services. Thats been the trickeist part is figuring out when they actually pay artists because its very inconsistent and some skip payments. so far theres no way to actually reach out to find out why they havent paid or when it will pay out
Yeah I understand it’s fine I just want to release my music