There, you go asking yourself how much streaming really pays musicians. This is one of the questions that many people keep to themselves. Notably, this is a big question for musicians who rely on music as their source of income especially in the era of digitalization where streaming has taken over from tangible album sales. On one hand, this change has made music more accessible but on the other hand there are concerns about fairness in terms of payment.
Music Streaming Services Work
Music services Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music depend upon subscriptions and advertising for revenue generation. Some portion of this money is then distributed between those with rights to the songs such as record labels or publishers or even the artists themselves. However, it’s not only due to several determinants that end up being minimal amounts actually received by artists. Artists tend to buy Spotify plays or use another promo tools to boost popularity on the platform.
Such compensation system tends to favor high profile artists with big fan bases since they take the largest chunk from revenue sharing pie. However, upcoming artists find it hard pushing their brands and make next-to-nothing from streams. Thus we need a more fair payment system.
Understanding the Payment Per Stream Model
However, the cost per stream varies greatly across various platforms. Here is a rough idea of what different streaming services pay per stream:
- Spotify: Approximately between $0.003 and $0.005 for each play.
- Apple Music: Around between $0.007 and $0.01 per play.
- Amazon Music: Between $0.004 – $0.005 per play.
- Tidal: Mostly higher at around $0.012 to $0.015 for every play
- YouTube Music: Roughly about 69 cents per play.
- Deezer: 6/10 of a cent per play.
- Pandora: Pandora Premium – .00133/play
- Qobuz: About 4 cents for each stream
These are average rates as they could be influenced by the platform’s subscriber base, content size, and billing model. For example, premium subscribers usually produce more valuable streams than free users themselves do on average in terms of payment receipts as well as location affects the rates charged through licensing agreements.
Major Labels vs Independent Artists
Streaming platforms distribute revenues among rights holders depending on how frequently their songs are played on airwaves or via internet transmission networks directly or indirectly related thereto like cable networks in no case less often than every thirty minutes if it is radio broadcasting (or less often than once an hour if it is television transmission). In many cases the artist who might earn only about 15-20% from all this money becomes victim of such practices since large majority part of that revenue goes to music labels signed by them. Apart from reduced artist income, there is also the issue of independent artists using distribution services who can retain a larger share of their streaming revenue depending on the distributor’s model. In some cases, distributors may take a percentage of royalties while others would charge an upfront fee so that artists get to keep more of what they earn.
Other Ways Artists Can Generate Income by Themselves
However, this does not mean that independent artists can depend solely on streaming income as the per-stream rates are very low. For one, digital download platforms such as iTunes offer higher revenues per sale. Additionally, licensing music for media like film and television shows and performing live are also alternative sources of income. Live performances generate revenues and additionally build loyal fan bases.
Artists interested in expanding their presence may want to purchase Spotify plays in order to boost visibility and potentially increase streaming earnings.
