- 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.
