How Much Do You Get Paid Per Every Monthly Listener?

Spotify is the biggest streaming platform in the world and has absolutely changed the way listeners enjoy music. But how much do artists get paid per monthly listener?

Spotify has brought a revolution in the streaming industry and is now the biggest audio streaming platform in the world. With a 30.5% global market share, it has become an absolute must-use platform for every artist out there. It allows musicians to reach a much wider and larger audience base. At the same time, artists also get the opportunity to reach every corner of the world and a way to earn revenues.

Spotify has changed the way we enjoy music in today’s digital world. So, many have queries regarding how artists get payment. Especially how much artists get paid per monthly listener. The platform’s payment method changes with different factors. This includes where the listener is, or what the user type is. So, let’s get into it.

What is Spotify’s Royalty System?

For songwriters and artists, the key to earning payments is through music royalties. They make money through their creative work in the field. Before you get into Spotify as a budding artist, let's see how Spotify's royalty system actually works so that you can estimate how much you can earn from the platform.

What are music royalties?

Music artists have rights to the creative work they put behind creating a song. Music royalties are known as the rights that musicians get for their own copyrighted work. These include singers, songwriters, and even publishers. Streaming services such as Spotify, there are mainly two types of royalties, mechanical and performance. Mechanical royalties are for the times when a song is reproduced in physical sales or digital downloads. On the other hand, performance royalties are paid when the song is played publicly.

How does Spotify's royalty system work?

A pro-rata system is used for royalties on Spotify. This is how it works -

    • Spotify ads up the money from subscriptions and platform advertisements. 

    • Then the platform calculates the share for royalty payments. 

    • Royalty holders get their portion based on how many times their songs were played or streamed on the platform.

So, the more times the song gets played, artists get to earn more money.

How much does Spotify pay per monthly listener?

Knowing how Spotify works and how much they can earn from the platform will help artists figure out what their financial potential will be on the platform. To understand how much the biggest audio streaming platforms pay artists, you need to understand that it depends on various factors.

For example, the [platform pays according to how many times the song is being played on Spotify. It also decides according to how many listeners are listening to the song every month. So looking after your listener count is a big part of earning on Spotify. It is the key to predicting how much you will be earning from the platform.

Spotify pays for every song played. This means the more the song gets played, the more you get to earn. On average, the platform pays between $0.003 and $0.005 per track. So, when an artist has a lot of listeners, they get to make more than artists with fewer listeners. This is also because more listeners mean more plays, hence, more earnings.

Let’s get a breakdown-

    • For 1,000 monthly listeners - artists get an estimated $3 – $5 

    • For 10,000 monthly listeners - artists get an estimated $30 – $50

    • For 100,000 monthly listeners - artists get an estimated $300 – $500 

    • For 1,000,000 monthly listeners - artists get an estimated $3,000 – $5,000

How to maximize your earnings on Spotify?

To make even more money from Spotify, you need to get serious about your promotions and start to treat yourself as a brand. Your focus should only be on building a bigger fan base. You can do this by creating quality music and then making sure that this content reaches as many people as possible.

Building a strong fan base:

Having a bigger and solid fan base is the key to maximizing your earnings on Spotify. Here is how you can get started - 

    • Create high-quality music.

    • Stay true to your genre, yet don’t forget to experiment and bring something new to your listeners.

    • Engage with fans on social media platforms and encourage them to follow you on Spotify.

    • Use promotional tools on Spotify, such as Canvas, and Spotify for Artists. These make connecting with your audience easier.

    • Utilize the power of playlists on Spotify. Approach playlist curators and Spotify’s own editorial team.

To earn big money, you don't have to be signed with a big record label, independent artists can also increase their streams on Spotify and earn more. You just need to focus on your music quality and increasing your streams.