As digital music slowly replaced CDs in the aughts, iTunes became the dominant platform for legally purchasing music. In 2008, however, Spotify emerged with a model through which users paid for access to a library of music rather than to download individual songs or albums.
Just eight years later, in 2016, music streaming revenue surpassed digital download revenue for the first time — and the financial landscape of the music industry changed forever.
With the largest market share of any music streaming service — 31.7% as of late 2023, according to Statista — and over 600 million active users as of early 2024, Spotify is the global leader in modern music consumption. Competitors like Apple, Amazon, and YouTube are also vying for their share of the streaming pie, but Spotify is the undisputed industry behemoth.
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Do musicians make a lot of money off Spotify?
Lesser-known artists with small followings don’t tend to make very much through the platform, but popular, multinational artists whose annual streams number in the billions can take home tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars per year in Spotify royalties, which vary between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream.
It's important to note, however, that most artists whose streams number in the millions are on major record labels, so how much of their Spotify revenue translates into take-home pay varies based on their individual contracts and distribution deals.
Here's what Spotify's top 12 artists have earned in royalties from the platform:
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The 12 artists with the highest Spotify earnings
The list below reflects all-time Spotify streaming data as of late 2024. Streaming numbers come from ChartMasters.org and do not include featured streams (when an artist is “featured” on another artist’s track).
Monthly listener data comes from Spotify. Estimated royalty amounts are based on a theoretical average payout of $.004 per stream.
1. Taylor Swift
- Total streams: 92.27 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $369.07 million
- Monthly listeners: 91.78 million
- Songs on Spotify: 442
2. Drake
- Total streams: 80.25 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $321 million
- Monthly listeners: 75.32 million
- Songs on Spotify: 331
3. Bad Bunny
- Total streams: 76.19 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $304.77 million
- Monthly listeners: 63.2 million
- Songs on Spotify: 193
4. The Weeknd
- Total streams: 62.42 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $249.69 million
- Monthly listeners: 120.25 million
- Songs on Spotify: 235
5. Ed Sheeran
- Total streams: 50.11 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $200.44 million
- Monthly listeners: 76.98 million
- Songs on Spotify: 296
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6. Ariana Grande
- Total streams: 48.21 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $192.84 million
- Monthly listeners: 82 million
- Songs on Spotify: 243
7. Eminem
- Total streams: 46.22 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $184.9 million
- Monthly listeners: 79.87 million
- Songs on Spotify: 334
8. Justin Bieber
- Total streams: 44.73 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $178.9 billion
- Monthly listeners: 82.23 million
- Songs on Spotify: 226
9. Kanye West
- Total streams: 42.34 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $169.33 million
- Monthly listeners: 68.24 million
- Songs on Spotify: 289
10. Post Malone
- Total streams: 42.26 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $169.04 million
- Monthly listeners: 76.2 million
- Songs on Spotify: 149
11. Billie Eilish
- Total streams: 40.61 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $162.44 million
- Monthly listeners: 107.67 million
- Songs on Spotify: 80
12. BTS
- Total streams: 40.25 billion
- Total estimated royalties: $160.98 million
- Monthly listeners: 26.17 million
- Songs on Spotify: 274
How does Spotify make money?
Spotify has two primary revenue streams — advertising and subscriptions. Advertisers pay the streaming platform to deliver visual and audio ads to its users, and Spotify Premium users pay the platform a monthly fee for ad-free listening and the ability to download music for offline listening.
Spotify uses the revenue from these two sources to pay royalties to the musicians on its platform.
How does Spotify pay musicians?
Spotify shares streaming revenue with music rights holders (artists, record labels, etc.) based on how many times its users stream their songs. This revenue is reportedly shared at a rate of 70% (artists/rights holders) to 30% (Spotify).
While the above share model isn’t confirmed on Spotify’s website, what we do know for sure is that artists (or whoever holds the rights to their music) receive between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream, and only streams that last 30 seconds or longer count. How much they receive within that range depends on factors like where the stream came from geographically and whether the streamer was a Premium subscriber or not.
One caveat to this model is that any given song must have had at least 1,000 streams within the last 12 months to be eligible for revenue share. The artists listed above, however, have no need to worry about this 1,000-stream quota, as their songs are streamed in the millions.
Spotify streaming quick facts
- Music streaming market share: 31.7%
- Royalties paid out in 2023: About $9 billion
- Active users: Over 615 million
- Premium (paying) subscribers: Over 239 million
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