How Much Do You Get Per Stream on Tidal?

The most important information for those who want to start a career as a musician on any music platform is per-stream payment. Since artists can earn money by listening to their songs, they look for a place with the best per-stream rate. The revenue per music stream on Tidal is between $0.01 and $0.05. On average, it's around $0.01284. If we look at the real numbers, we see that it takes around 80 streams to earn $1. With 1000 streams, you will earn $12,8. Unexpectedly, this makes Tidal one of the highly paid streaming platforms as it offers more than 1 cent per stream. For example, Amazon Music's average payment is $0.004 per stream.

Although Tidal is not on the list of the most popular music streaming platforms, it's considered a popular streaming service. Artists often select it as a starting point for their careers or as an additional option to promote their songs. We don’t see it being compared with another service the same way people compare SoundCloud and Spotify, but it doesn’t make the service worse. Another common comparison is between Spotify and Apple Music.

Still, it's not necessary to limit yourself when it comes to digital promotion. Since the world of digital streaming is rising, people search for new options to make their music heard and use all the available platforms.

Comparison of the payout among the most popular music streaming platforms

Still, the question of revenue is important as musicians want to know how much they will have per stream. They want to understand everything before placing their tracks on the platform to decide whether it makes sense to use this music streaming service or not. In this article, we will provide you with all the needed information about the Tidal per stream payment, what depends on the final calculation, and how to increase your royalties. Keep reading to ensure you get everything.

How Does the Tidal Payout System Works?

The payout system has worked on Tidal since 2014, when the platform was released. Since then, the process of payment calculation has received several changes, and now it works a bit differently compared to the starting years. Tidal pay-per-stream revenues are based on a system called the "Direct-to-Artist Program" aimed to bring fair payouts for every musician. For example, 10% of the income from TIDAL HiFi goes to the artists with the highest number of streams. It was a completely new approach compared to what we saw on Spotify and other platforms, as their payment works differently.  

When purchasing a TIDAL subscription, you can select the best plan. Each one has several advantages.

Still, this system didn't last long; it was replaced, and Tidal now has another approach to per-stream payment. The system calculates a proportion based on your income and makes it your per-stream payment. Also, there is an additional program called "TIDAL Rising," which allows anyone to invest less than $5 million in new musicians. It helps beginners feel more confident by giving them a higher per-stream payment. 

Per Stream Rate on Tidal

The most important information for those who want to start a career as a musician on any music platform is per-stream payment. Since artists can earn money by listening to their songs, they look for a place with the best per-stream rate. The revenue per music stream on TIDAL is between $0.01 and $0.05. On average, it's around $0.01284. If we look at the real numbers, we see that it takes around 80 streams to earn $1. With 1000 streams, you will earn $12,8. Unexpectedly, this makes Tidal one of the highly paid streaming platforms as it offers more than 1 cent per stream. For example, Amazon Music's average payment is $0.004 per stream.

In mid-2022, Tidal was one of the most popular streaming services, with around 616 million subscribers. It also has a solid library of 110 million songs that can be accessed during a free 30-day trial. 

This amount of payment per stream allows artists to get a solid income and achieve their goals in music distribution. Even middle-range musicians can earn thousands of dollars by getting enough streams on the music platform. They just have to make sure their tracks receive enough streams so they will surpass other musicians in their genre and get higher revenue. 

What Impacts the Payout on Tidal?

As we mentioned, the payout on Tidal is between $0.01 and $0.05 per stream. This means that some musicians get paid more while others receive less due to several factors. What factors affect the payment, and how is the revenue calculated? Let's examine what factors make the difference.

Where your listeners are located

The geographical location of your audience is crucial because the platform calculates different royalty rates for each region. Each country has a specific economic situation and the currency ratio changes. For example, if the currency in your country has a lower value compared to others, the payout in this region will be lower compared to other countries.

The user base of Tidal

The payout on Tidal also depends on how many listeners engage with your music and activate your subscription. Since more individuals listen to your music, you generate more listens, and streaming services pay more. Still, there may be an anomaly because profiles with low subscriber counts could receive more than accounts with high subscriber counts. The problem is that you can't access the TIDAL database to uncover the exact number of active users, so it's tough for musicians to understand whether their music streaming revenue is higher than on other platforms.

Your music distributor

Music distributors help musicians share their music and increase the number of streams, but they charge money for their services. As an alternative, they offer their services for free but instead take a part of your revenue. Once you decide to work with music distributors, pay attention to their experience.

Promote Your Music to Get More Streams in 2024

The effective promotion has always been one of the most important methods of boosting music streaming revenue. You can't impact your per-stream payment, but you can increase the number of streams. When you boost one of your tracks, the music service spots it and puts your content in personalized mixes and recommendations so you can get even more listens. How can you achieve that?

Unleash the power of social media and use your platforms to promote content. Create short videos for Instagram and TikTok, make special announcements for YouTube, and share the daily life of a music creator by posting content on Facebook. Use the platform's advantages and create bigger posts. Remember hashtags because they are the main indicators of your content on all platforms.

When people search for songs in a specific genre or style, they use hashtags to narrow down the search. If you add trending tags to the song description, you will immediately take their visibility to a higher level.

Place links to your tracks in the description of your profiles. Once users visit your profile, they see links in description, react to it, and proceed to your profile on Tidal. 

Organize a posting schedule that correlates with your audience's peak activity. Release your music when most of your followers are online so they immediately react and proceed to listen to the track, which is important if you want to increase the stream count. Analyze your listeners' activity to understand what time is the best to release your music. Do the same with social media promotion to select the perfect timing for announcements and get the maximum number of streams. Remember that each platform has various peaks of activity. You have to analyze your audience in each social media to understand when exactly you need to post.

Search for connections to collaborate with musicians from your genre. Consider working with those who have a bigger audience so that you will get a higher reach. For example, if you work in a rap genre, look for rap signers and contact them to be presented to a bigger audience.

TIDAL Collabs offers a great opportunity to find new connections and strengthen your presence on the platform. From the home page, proceed to the "Collabs" section and customize your profile (write a proper bio, choose a proper profile image, and show that you are open to new collaborations).

Use Paid Promotion to Maximize Engagement

You can achieve significant results with free promotion by consistently posting content and keeping your audience updated about new posts. Still, this may not be enough to get high engagement and achieve the wanted numbers. High-quality promotion services based on organic traffic sources will push your tracks to the top to receive higher engagement. By purchasing a TIDAL promotion package from Artist Push, you receive high-quality services focused on increasing the number of plays and adding songs to playlists on the platform. This move increases the overall visibility of your music and brings you more subscribers.

There is no significant difference in how much TIDAL pay per stream compared to other major platforms. Still, the conditions that affect the total payout are changing, and musicians have to monitor changes to understand what's going on and how new changes may impact their income.