How much does Spotify pay per streamDo you make money as an artist from Spotify? 😃

I’ll focus on Spotify here because they were the ones that started the music streaming service revolution, but I’ll include the top platforms and how much they pay.

Hello, Mike here again from Masters of Music, and today I will break down how much music streaming services pay you as an artist. Let’s go! 😃

Music Streaming – Pay per Stream

Let’s start with a quick overview chart of how much (in average) the main music streaming services pay per stream.

  1. Spotify = $3.48 per 1000 streams
  2. Apple Music = $6.75 per 1000 streams
  3. YouTube Music = $7.35 per 1000 streams
  4. Amazon Music = $4.26 per 1000 streams

These are the major streaming platforms, but if you release your music using a distributor, you will get income from every streaming service (there are a lot of them). So in the end it all adds up, as you will collect money from all the streams on all the music platforms your music is on. Pretty cool, right?! 😃

My Spotify Story

I used to think that music streaming services like Spotify was a big scam. Because I was still stuck in my mind about the “old days” when people bought albums, and you did not need that many fans to make a decent living as an artist.

Well, it is true that you need a lot of streams to make any decent money, but one thing is for sure: you don’t need a greedy record label that sucks out almost all the income you earn as an artist (the bad side of the “old days”).

Now something I learned along the way is that the main drawback of being an independent artist (no record label) is that YOU have to do all the promotion, marketing and driving traffic to your Spotify profile etc. by yourself. 

The greatest thing about releasing your music yourself as an independent, is that you don’t have to share the revenue with a greedy record label (like in the “old days”). For example: DistroKid only charges you a monthly subscription, you can publish as many tracks you want, and then all the streaming income from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music etc. goes directly to you. Awesome, right! 😎

Now even if your distributor does not take a percentage of your income, obviously Spotify and the other streaming services will take a cut, usually 30%, which means that if you own all the rights of your music yourself you will get 70% of the income of every stream.

However, you can compare that to the tiny single digit % you got from album sales in the old days of record labels. Plus the record labels only paid you after they subtracted all the production, marketing, promotion costs etc.

Now let me share you the number one “secret” to get more streams of your music! 😃

Streaming is all about Playlists

Music streaming gives the users the freedom to search for any artist and song in the world, and listen as much as they want for a monthly subscription. However, as it turns out, people are lazy! 😂

It turns out that most streams does not come from people going into an album or single from an artist to listen to it, but rather, people listen to playlists and radio on Spotify, Apple Music or whichever streaming service they use.

This means that it’s all about getting your music into playlists these days, or you will never really grow your streams.

Check out my Music Playlists here

How to get into Music Playlists?

Create your own Playlists
Make sure to include both your own music, as well as similar artists. Then share your playlists on all your social media channels, videos and content online etc.

Reach out to Playlist Curators
Find playlists on the streaming service in the genre and style of your music. Check the profile of the playlist creator, and see if you can find any social media links. Then try to reach out to that playlist curator, and humbly and briefly ask him/her to consider adding your music to the playlist.

Pay to Submit to Your Music 
There are also services you can use (sadly the cost money) where you can send playlist curators your music for potential inclusion in their playlists. There is no guarantee you will get added (since this goes against the terms), but at least you’ll have a chance. Common services like this are: SubmitHub and PlaylistPush. I have to say I never been a fan of this “pay to win” model, but if it suits you, go ahead and try.

In the end the “natural way” is the best way. Meaning to get your music added to playlist organically by people on their profiles on Spotify, Apple Music etc. How? You simply need to make great music in high production quality that people love so much that they add it to one or more of their own playlists! 😃

✅ More Resources for You

👍 Thank you for Reading

More tips & tricks to level up your music success are on the way. 😊

Sincerely
Mikael “Mike” Baggström
Composer, Musician, Artist