What Top Artists Earned On Spotify Last Year
Between multiple middlemen and unknowable contract details, projecting what any artist “earned” on Spotify is a a tricky business. But that does make it any less interesting. Here Bobby Owsinski takes data from ChartMasters and RouteNote for an educated guess at what the 10 top earned on Spotify last year.
What Top Artists Earned On Spotify Last Year
by Bobby Owsinski via Music 3.0
Most artists find the meager payout that they get from Spotify to be a source of dismay over the state of streaming music. They’re not wrong, and one of the big problems is that a big portion of the money that the platform earns every month is siphoned off by the biggest artists.
The real problem lies with misunderstanding the scale of their streams, as most artists expect a big payday to come when they hit a few hundred thousand or even a million streams. The fact of the matter is that the top 10 artists are reveling in billions (yes, with a B) of streams, and that’s where the big money really comes from.
Let’s take a look at what the Top 10 Spotify artists made on the platform last year, along with their streaming numbers.
ARTIST / STREAMS / REVENUE
1-Taylor Swift 106.6 billion $426.6 million
2-Bad Bunny 92.4 billion $369.6 million
3-Drake 89.7 billion $359 million
4-The Weeknd 71.4 billion $285.7 million
5-Arianna Grande 55.9 billion $223.6 mllion
6-Ed Sheeran 54.5 billion $218.2 million
7-Eminem 51.6 billion $206.4 million
8-Justen Bieber 50.5 billion $202.2 million
9-Billie Eilish 50 billion $200.3 million
10-Kanye West 48.1 billion $193.5 million
Here are some things to ponder about these numbers:
- This is the revenue from Spotify only, and doesn’t count the other 28 other major music streaming services worldwide.
- The revenue is only an estimate based on a $.003 per stream payout. In actuality, this is going to vary for every artist since the streams may come from different tiers and different countries, both of which have different payouts. Royalties are not calculated on streams anyway, as they’re distributed based on the total revenue Spotify takes in per month, divided by the number of streams per artist, so it varies quite a lot.
- The numbers are the estimated total revenue generated by the artist from the platform, but it’s not what the artist actually receives. That depends upon their deal with the label, then whatever split with management, attorneys, business managers, etc. But it’s still a big number that they end up seeing.
- Remember that these revenue numbers for the Spotify Top 10 artists are all based around BILLIONS of streams. The scale at which these artists operate is far beyond where most artists are at, even the ones considered “successful.”
If you’re depressed now, I can’t say I blame you.
Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on music production, music, the music business, music AI, and social media.
