How Much Can you Earn Streaming on Spotify?

The income from Spotify streaming depends on royalty rates, the number of streams, and other factors. 2024 brings changes for music streaming platforms. According to the new rules, tracks must have at least 1000 streams for authors to receive payments. Moreover, there will be a new fee for labels and distributors who generate artificial streams. Clicking farms to raise the number of streams for a specific artist won’t be accessible anymore. Still, the tracks with less than 1000 streams will bring income anyway because distributors take a fixed minimum withdrawal amount.

With these changes on Spotify, it would be appropriate to remind you how much Spotify pays per stream. No matter who you are, an independent artist or the one signed to a label, an experienced performer, or a beginner, you should know how streaming compensation works. How do you calculate an income? What factors are decisive on how much does Spotify pay per stream? These questions must be answered; we are here to give you all the information you need.

Spotify Payment per Stream in Numbers

Streaming music is no longer just an activity to attract people to listen to your music. It’s a serious business where people make a lot of money and become recognized, staying at the top of the chart. Artists also invest in their products by ordering music promotion; it allows them to increase their presence on the platform and get higher engagement. In the past, true music lovers could be recognized by the number of CDs they collected. We can probably see people keeping vinyl LPs while the compact disks almost disappeared. People switched to streaming and digital playlists, and it changed everything.

In 2023, worldwide music streaming is close to reaching $25 billion; experts expect this number to grow and reach $35 billion in 2028. It’s an overall statistic from all streaming platforms, but what about Spotify? According to the latest statistics, Spotify revenue over three quarters of 2023 was €9,5 billion. For example, the overall revenue for 2022 was €11,7 billion. Spotify also surpassed the subscribers' record, reaching 220 million subscribers in 2023 compared with 200 million in 2022.

How to Earn on Spotify Streams?

First of all, we need to define the types of royalties that exist for streamers. There are two basic types of royalties on Spotify, depending on who receives them. Distributors or record labels usually receive recording royalties when they hold the artist’s song rights. Publishing royalties are for compositors and are paid to societies or publishers who get them from the platform according to where the song is played.

The revenue from streaming is paid to right-holders from what was earned through advertisements and premium subscriptions. The final amount is calculated after excluding billing fees, deducting taxes, payment processing, and sales commissions. After that, the monthly streams of the artist are divided into the total number of Spotify streams. The system uses this calculation method instead of an absolute per-play or per-stream rate. The revenue for a single stream will change depending on the region and the songs played.

To better understand Spotify earnings, let’s see how much top artists make on the platform. The hourly earnings of a Spotify artist from the top 50 are around $1.100. The Weekend, Rhianna, and Taylor Swift earn approximately 25 dollars per minute daily. The Weekend is the most streamed artist on Spotify, earning 1.3 billion dollars monthly.

What Is the Price Rate of Spotify Streams?

Now, to the question that disturbed most users: how much per Spotify stream? People want to know what rate to expect and what income they could get. The current rate on the platform varies from $0.003 to $0.005 per single stream, but the total income depends on several factors:

• Total streaming revenue on Spotify
• The global payout is calculated as a percentage of the revenue
• Total number of Spotify streams
• Total number of times your music has been streamed on Spotify
  

It’s almost impossible to calculate how much will be earned per stream. Even if you find some Spotify revenue calculators, don’t think the received number will be 100% accurate. Moreover, it’s essential to know that the platform doesn’t rely on a single revenue pool, as several pools are designed for different countries and local markets.

Below, we gathered information about stream earnings so you can see how much you can earn on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

What Impacts Spotify Royalty Rates?

As we keep talking about pricing rates to explain how much Spotify pays per stream, it’s essential to remember that the final rate could change based on three factors:

• Who is your music distributor?
  

The music royalties for artists are based on their agreements with music distributors or labels. The total amount of received funds is influenced by your music distributor directly. The most popular music distributor is CD Baby. Distrokid, iGroove, Amuse, and TuneCore.

• Where are your listeners based?
  

Where your listeners come from depends on the total payment you receive. For example, in the US, you will receive $0.0039 per stream compared to $0.0018 in Portugal. So, if your audience is worldwide, you will have a solid income boost.

• Spotify account plan of your audience.
  

The platform offers two types of subscription for users: free and premium. Listeners who subscribe to a premium account will bring more money to the platform and, as a result, give better royalties to artists. So, when Premium account owners stream your music, you get more income.

If you want to speed up this process, consider using Spotify promotion services to avoid stagnation at the beginning. The more people will see your songs in their playlists, the more streams you will get. After making such a step, you will feel more confident because your Spotify presence will be on a new level.

How Much Can You Earn per Spotify Stream?

When artists understand how exactly monetization works and how they can get the wanted income, they want to calculate how much they can earn. People share dozens of stories about other musicians, but nobody can prove it was their real income.