My band has ~ 13,000 total streams on our music and that has earned us $50 USD Answer from Jsyourboy91 on reddit.com
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/spotify › how much do artists make on spotify (case studies)
r/spotify on Reddit: How much do artists make on Spotify (case studies)
May 11, 2023 -

We all know that the payout rate per stream is low, but just how low is it really?

I was intrigued by the statistic that the average payout on Spotify is only $0.004 per stream. So, I investigated this topic and found out artists who were willing to share their real revenue numbers.

I was curious to see just how many are able to hit that elusive $0.004 per stream mark. You can read the full article here.

If you're an artist and you're willing to share your Spotify numbers, I would love to include you. Just comment with a link to your Spotify and I'll add you to the list.

CASE 1: L.DRE

Streams: 1.5 million (album)

Paid: $4345

Rate: $0.002896 per stream or $2.896 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

CASE 2: GENERATION LOST

Streams: 2 million (total)

Paid: $5086

Rate: $0.002543 per stream or $2.543 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

CASE 3: HARRY SEATON

Streams: 250 000 (total)

Paid: $1194

Rate: $0.004776 per stream or $4.776 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

CASE 4: THIJS NIJENHUIS

Streams: 80,000 (total)

Paid: $170

Rate: $0.002125 per stream or $2.125 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

CASE 5: BORN HUMAN

Streams: 2 million (total)

Paid: $4000

Rate: $0.002 per stream or $2 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

CASE 6: ADAMEANT

Streams: 1.4 million (song)

Paid: $4040

Rate: $0.002885 per stream or $2.885 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

CASE 7: RYAN HARRIS

Streams: 400,000

Paid: $1400

Rate: $0,0035 per stream or $3.5 per 1000 streams

Link to Spotify

Source of data

Edit:

How much you can earn on Spotify depends on a few factors: listeners' location, type of their subscription (premium vs free), your distribution deal.

You may notice that despite having the same number of streams (2M), Born Human earned $1K less than Generation Lost.

As it turns out, Born Human's listeners are mostly from Turkey and Poland, where the payout rates are lower.

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SoundCampaign
soundcamps.com › blog › spotify royalties calculator
Spotify Royalties Calculator: Most Accurate (December 2025)
July 25, 2025 - If you’re wondering how much does Spotify pay for 1 million streams, at $0.004 per stream you’d earn about $4,000, give or take.
Discussions

How much are you getting paid per spotify stream?
Yes, the average for Spotify is 0.0025 per stream. This is why I have commented many times here that I don’t know why people obsess over not making money from Spotify. It’s a well known fact they just don’t pay a decent rate. This isn’t DistroKid scamming you (the tax thing is the law, and you only get taxed when you process a pay out). More on reddit.com
🌐 r/DistroKidHelpDesk
6
2
June 28, 2021
How much does Spotify pay per stream for artists based in India?
They pay approximately .10 cents per stream. So 10 streams is 1 cent. 1,000 streams is $1. So you would need to average 50,000 listeners a month to make your $500. I assume there is more to this, but these are the numbers on average More on reddit.com
🌐 r/spotify
1
0
November 12, 2020
Do you really earn $0.003 per play from Spotify?
Yes, each stream for me is about $0.003 on average. I've not checked this last year, when it could well have gone up due to subscription prices rises, but the few years before that, $0.003 was about right. Spotify has about 40% paid subscribers and 60% ad-supported/free, so what you tend to see is that the plays from paid subscribers come in at a little over $0.005 and those from free users are tiny like $0.0003, and they average to somewhere above $0.0025. And obviously it varies per country as well - US subscribers tend to pay me about $0.004, Scandinavians pay more like $0.006. My music does well in high paying countries so I do tend to see a bit over $0.003 per stream. (Which is still atrocious and abusive, don't get me wrong.) More on reddit.com
🌐 r/truespotify
30
183
January 5, 2025
Does 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify make good money?
In here before everyone piles on with all of the useless "just do it for the love man" / "if you're doing music for money you got it all wrong" comments lol (sorry guys, fair points as always but kinda unhelpful ultimately) It depends more on how many streams you're raking in per month. And beyond that, it depends on so many more factors such as what country are those streams coming from and are they coming from discovery mode etc. In general though, 1 million streams on Spotify might pay out on average about $3k-$4k. If you have 1 million monthly's, ideally you'd earn much more than just 1 million streams per month. For example, I've got about 8k monthly, I've got about 300 songs on spotify, and I get around 40k streams. That's about 5× streams to monthly's. So let's say I've got about 1 million monthly's and stay on track with streams. That'd be about 5 million streams, or $15k-20k per month. Not bad. Keep in mind though, it varies per artist, per country, per discography, etc, and only if you own 100% of your masters as I do. Know what you're giving up before you sign to any labels.. Also keep in mind that royalty's are just one income out of many that come with having a fanbase. It can stack. And it can be a lot of fun if you're putting out music that inspires you AND it's landing with people, and saving you from a boring office job. I mean err.... money bad, art good. Just do it for fun man. If you're doing music for money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons, cause how dare you earn a living and enjoy what you do /s More on reddit.com
🌐 r/makinghiphop
197
131
November 21, 2023
People also ask

When does Spotify pay artists?
Short answer: Once a month. Here’s the rough timeline: 1. End of Month: Spotify tallies all the streams and calculates royalties. 2. Next 30 Days: Spotify sends the cash to your distributor/label. 3. After That: Your distributor/label pays you (timing varies—could be another few weeks). Bottom Line: From stream to your bank, expect around 2–3 months. (Yes, you’ll need a bit of patience—Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is streaming revenue!)
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soundcamps.com
soundcamps.com › blog › spotify royalties calculator
Spotify Royalties Calculator: Most Accurate (December 2025)
How many streams equal one dollar on Spotify?
Here’s a quick cheat sheet: • $0.004 per stream → 250 streams = $1 • $0.005 per stream → 200 streams = $1 • $0.003 per stream → 333 streams = $1 So if you ever ask “how much does Spotify pay per 1,000 stream,” just multiply: • 1,000 × $0.004 = $4 • 1,000 × $0.005 = $5 • 1,000 × $0.003 = $3 Quick Reality Check: Those pennies add up—think of each stream like a tiny drop in a bucket. Get enough drops, and you’ve got some serious cash.
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soundcamps.com
soundcamps.com › blog › spotify royalties calculator
Spotify Royalties Calculator: Most Accurate (December 2025)
How many streams do you need to make $1,000 on Spotify?
Quick math: • Average payout: $0.004 per streamStreams for $1,000: $1,000 ÷ $0.004 ≈ 250,000 streams If you want to know how much money is 100 million streams on Spotify, multiply 100,000,000 × $0.004 = $400,000 (before distributor or label fees). If your payout drops to $0.003, you’d need about 333,333 streams to hit $1,000. If it’s closer to $0.005, it’s 200,000 streams. Pro Tip: Treat these as ballpark figures. Your real numbers might be a smidge higher or lower depending on various factors.
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soundcamps.com
soundcamps.com › blog › spotify royalties calculator
Spotify Royalties Calculator: Most Accurate (December 2025)
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Spotify Support
support.spotify.com › us › artists › article › understanding-spotify-royalties
Understanding Spotify royalties - Spotify
Contrary to what you might have heard, Spotify does not pay artist royalties according to a per-play or per-stream rate; the royalty payments that artists receive might vary according to differences in how their music is streamed or the agreements ...
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TuneCore
tunecore.com › guides › how-much-does-spotify-pay
How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream in 2025
Simply put: a Spotify “pay per stream” is the amount you get paid when your song is streamed for at least 30 seconds on Spotify.
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Ditto Music
dittomusic.com › en › blog › how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream
How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream in 2025
Streaming is one of the main music revenue streams for artists in 2025. But how many bucks are you making for your streams? Let’s find out. Spotify pays artists between $0.003 - $0.005 per stream on average.
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Artist Push
artistpush.me › artist push › news › how much can you earn streaming on spotify?
How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream in 2024?
January 19, 2024 - The final amount is calculated after excluding billing fees, deducting taxes, payment processing, and sales commissions. After that, the monthly streams of the artist are divided into the total number of Spotify streams. The system uses this calculation method instead of an absolute per-play or per-stream rate.
Find elsewhere
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TechCrunch
techcrunch.com › home › spotify says its payouts are getting better, but artists still disagree
Spotify says its payouts are getting better, but artists still disagree | TechCrunch
March 12, 2025 - It found that Spotify paid artists $3 per 1,000 streams, while other platforms like Amazon Music, Apple Music, and YouTube paid $8.80, $6.20, and $4.80, respectively, per 1,000 streams in 2024.
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One Submit
one-submit.com › post › how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream
How much does Spotify pay per stream?
May 24, 2025 - This article was made to shed some light on streaming royalty payments on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming platforms, how much revenue you will be able to make using Spotify and the different digital streaming platforms, a comparison between the different streaming platforms, and who pays the most and who pays less. How much do you get paid per stream on spotify has an important effect on your earnings has an artist.
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artist.tools
artist.tools › spotify-royalties-calculator
Spotify Royalties Calculator 2025: Streams to Money
... As for how much Spotify pays per stream, they pay roughly $0.00238 per stream. This is based on the Worldwide Average (all the countries added up, divided by number of countries).
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Indie Music Academy
indiemusicacademy.com › spotify-royalties-calculator
Spotify Royalty Calculator - Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, +
Non-interactive platforms (Radio-based streaming platforms such as Sirius XM) follow a different set of rules for generating music streaming royalties. Spotify has an average payout per-stream between $0.003 and $0.005.
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Songtrust
help.songtrust.com › help center › music industry 101 › general publishing questions
What Is the Pay Rate for Spotify Streams?
According to this Hypebot piece, as of August 2020, Spotify was paying rightsholders a total of about $0.003 to $0.005 a stream - that’s about ⅓ to ½ a penny. To be clear, this is the total paid to all rights holders on the song - that includes the master recording owners, whether a label ...
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Disc Makers
blog.discmakers.com › 2025 › 06 › why-does-spotify-pay-the-lowest-royaltie
Why does Spotify pay the lowest streaming royalties? | Disc Makers
September 9, 2025 - Apple Music is also near the top, paying close to a penny per stream. Deezer pays roughly six-tenths of a penny, Amazon Music pays about four-tenths of a penny, and Spotify comes in just slightly above three-tenths of a penny per stream.
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iMusician
imusician.pro › sell your music online › resources — music business resources › music blog — music business blog › how much does spotify pay per stream
How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream | iMusician
February 14, 2025 - Spotify, specifically, pays artists an average of $0.003–$0.005 per stream, with a revenue split of approximately 70/30—meaning 70% of the per-stream revenue goes to the artists and respective rights holders, while Spotify keeps 30%.
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Quora
quora.com › For-every-dollar-you-make-on-Spotify-how-much-does-Spotify-make
For every dollar you make on Spotify, how much does Spotify make? - Quora
Answer (1 of 4): It really doesn't work like that for Spotify. Before anyone complains, this isn't me bootlicking Spotify, a service I actively avoid. This is me explaining a simplified version of their business model. Spotify has two main sources of income: advertisers and subscribers. Deals w...
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Produce Like A Pro
producelikeapro.com › audio engineering › how much does spotify pay per stream in 2024?
How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream in 2024? - Produce Like A Pro
June 17, 2024 - Spotify pays less per stream than both Tidal and Apple Music. However, based on 2020 reports, Apple Music has 72 million active subscribers compared to Spotify’s 144 million.