Music Business

Just 7500 artists make $100K or more a year on Spotify worldwide

7500 artists earn $100,000 or more a year on Spotify, the streamer announced yesterday, despite being available in 93 markets worldwide.

The last time that Spotify shared how many musicians have music on the platform it was 3 million. Soundcloud claims 25 million creators. Even using the old 3 million stat, that means that just .0025% of the musicians and groups on Spotify earn $100,000 a year or more.

That’s a long way from the “1 million creators making a living” goal set several years ago by Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek.

These sobering statistics – which seemed intended to be encouraging to musicians and podcasters – came alongside the launch of HiFi streaming, the addition of 85 new markets, and much more during Spotify’s Stream On online event Monday.

Spotify’s Plan To Make It Better

“How you monetize an average consumer the first time you have them listen to you is going to be very different than how you monetize one of your super fans,” Ek told The Verge. “And in that future, I think Spotify will recognize all of those different abilities and allow the creator to find the best ways to monetize their fan base based on both their ability and how they think about sustaining their creative endeavors.

“It’s really a long, long-term goal”

“It’s really a long, long-term goal, but the way I think about the world is really, if you think over the next 10 years for certain, what’s now radio is going to collapse and move from a linear space to an on-demand space,:” said EK. “And all of those minutes spent, and we’re talking two to three hours a day of the average American, just to name one example, is now going to move online.”‘

MORE: Spotify adds 85 markets, 36 languages – a full list

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3 Comments

  1. The best pay scale for streaming music is Apple Music at $0.007 per play. Spotify’s payments to artists pals in comparison to Apple Music. Apple Music helps enable Apple to sell billions and billions of dollars with of iPhones (the iPhone originating from the iPod for music). And yet at this pay rate, it would take a 1,000,000 plays to earn $7000.00, which is hardly a living and few musicians realize.
    The pay scale needs to be a mandatory $0.10 per play against all platforms, adjusted with inflation. If the streaming services complain about the rate, then it should be noted that they probably do not have a business model that is feasible. Artists MUST be paid, and it is not going to come voluntary from streaming companies. Until consumers start understanding that their $9.99 per month subscription is killing off the musicians as the game current stands, there will be no change. It starts by getting off of platforms known for not paying artists well, and moving to those that do. Vote with your pocket book please.

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