If you work with a distributor, and your arrangement involves placing your music on Spotify, let's say CD Baby or Tunecore, you can expect your cut to decrease even more. Here's the sand in your eyes while you're laying on the ground. And yet, the best-case scenario for streaming revenue is $10k, and the worst-case scenario is $3.3k. There's a lot of sweat, tears, and luck involved in getting one million streams in a year. Yes, you read that correctly, Spotify pays out $.0033 per stream. If you were to get one million streams on Apple Music, the platform would pay out around $10k.įor comparison, on average, YouTube pays $.008 per stream, Amazon Music pays $.004 per stream, and Spotify pays $.0033 per stream. The average artist gets $.01 per stream on Apple Music, which is significantly higher than the other popular platforms in the United States. What Streaming Service Pays the Most per Stream? I'll show you what each major streaming service pays per stream, what other independent artists are currently making, and where your audiences stream music. In this article, I'll help you figure out which platforms to prioritize.

To pick the best platform and get the most out of streaming, there are some other factors outside of revenue per stream that you need keep an eye on. Streaming is essential to building a music career for today's artists, but it's not all rainbows and butterflies, especially if the best paying platform averages $.01 per stream. Although Apple Music has half the subscribers of Spotify, on average, it pays nearly three times the amount per stream compared to Spotify. I decided to research which music streaming service is the best at building income for musicians.Īpple Music pays musicians the most per stream, averaging $.01 per stream. As a musician, I know that streaming services are an important part of promoting my music, but not necessarily the most profitable part of my business.

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