Buzz
After months of debate over Spotify’s collaboration with Joe Rogan, artists like Neil Young, India Arie, and Crosby, Stills and Nash have removed their music from Spotify, prompting users to explore other options. This shift brings up a critical question: Where should you go if you want a more ethical music streaming service?
While alternatives like Apple Music, Amazon, and YouTube Music offer comparable features and extensive libraries, they still fall short in fairly compensating artists. Despite not endorsing controversial figures, most platforms fail to support musicians adequately.
If you’re leaving Spotify for ethical reasons, the most principled choice is to select a service that ensures fair compensation for artists, ideally paying them more than Spotify currently does.
With this in mind, let’s explore how much artists earn on the most popular music streaming and purchasing platforms. We’ll cover average royalty rates per stream, revenue shares for album and merchandise sales, and additional monetization opportunities like ad partnerships where relevant.
Keep in mind that these are approximate figures based on the latest available data. Payouts can vary depending on factors such as the listener’s location, song length, fees, taxes, and other variables.
What do artists earn from Amazon Music and Amazon Prime?
Average revenue per stream: $0.004
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 250
Additional monetization options: Amazon also offers digital music sales, which are more beneficial for artists as they receive a larger share of the revenue. After Amazon takes its 27% cut, artists earn about $0.73 per $0.99 song sold. To put it another way, it would take 183 streams to match the earnings from a single song purchase.
What do artists earn on Apple Music?
Average revenue per stream: $0.007
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 143
Additional monetization options: Apple Music also provides artists with a small ad-revenue bonus, though this typically amounts to just a few cents.
What do artists earn on Bandcamp?
Average revenue per stream: Bandcamp doesn’t compensate artists for streams, but there’s a twist: Users can only listen to songs or albums for free a limited number of times before they must purchase them. Once bought, users can stream the music on the website, app, or download it DRM-free for use elsewhere.
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: N/A
Additional monetization options: Artists can sell digital tracks, albums, and physical merchandise like shirts, vinyl, and CDs on Bandcamp. The platform takes a 10-15% commission, depending on the sale type. For instance, a $1 song earns the artist $0.85, while a $12 CD nets them around $8.20. Fans can also leave tips at checkout to further support their favorite artists.
What do artists earn on Deezer?
Average revenue per stream: $0.003
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 333
Additional monetization options: Deezer allows subscribers to allocate their monthly payment directly to artists. While Deezer takes a portion, this feature enables listeners to directly support the musicians they love.
What do artists earn on iHeartRadio?
Average revenue per stream: $0.017
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 59
Additional monetization options: Artists on iHeartRadio also receive a portion of the platform’s ad revenue. However, similar to Apple Music, this bonus is typically negligible for most artists.
What do artists earn on Napster?
Average revenue per stream: $0.019
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 53
Additional monetization options: N/A.
What do artists earn on Pandora?
Average revenue per stream: $0.00133
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 752
Additional monetization options: N/A
What do artists earn on Soundcloud?
Average revenue per stream: $0.003
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 305
Additional monetization options: N/A
What do artists earn on Spotify?
Average revenue per stream: $0.004
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 229
Additional monetization options: N/A
What do artists earn on Tidal?
Average revenue per stream: $0.0125
Approximate streams needed to earn $1: 80
Additional monetization options: N/A
What do artists earn on YouTube and YouTube Music?
Average revenue per stream: $0.008 on YouTube Music app or website; $0.00164 per view on YouTube videos.
Approximate streams/views needed to earn $1: 125 on YouTube Music; 610 views on YouTube (artist’s channel).
Additional monetization options: Beyond paying for streams and views, YouTube compensates artists approximately $0.0007 per stream/view when their music is used in other channels’ videos. This requires Content ID matching or a rights holder claim. It takes around 1,500 Content ID-matched streams to earn $1.
Which streaming platform benefits artists the most?
Based on the outlined business models, purchasing music through Bandcamp is the most effective way to support artists. While Bandcamp isn’t ideal for subscription-based streaming, it offers musicians higher earnings per sale and greater creative freedom compared to major streaming platforms, making it arguably the most ethical option on this list (depending on your ethical criteria). The second-best choice is buying music via Amazon, though streaming through Amazon isn’t recommended if you’re concerned about artist compensation.
Streaming is generally a poor method for supporting musicians, but if you’re committed to this approach, Napster offers the highest per-stream payout currently available. Ironically, despite its origins as a piracy platform, Napster now provides artists with better earnings per stream than any other service.
iHeartRadio ranks second in per-stream payments, and while its ad bonuses are modest, these small additional earnings make it one of the better streaming platforms for artist compensation.
Deezer, while offering lower streaming revenue, allows users to allocate a portion of their subscription fee directly to artists, reducing their reliance solely on streaming income.
The downside is that Napster, iHeartRadio, and Deezer have smaller music libraries and user bases compared to Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, or YouTube Music. This is why most users gravitate toward the big four, even though these platforms are the least ethical in terms of artist exploitation.
If you’re committed to using a major streaming platform, Apple Music stands out as the most favorable option. It offers the highest per-stream payout among the leading services, though the difference is marginal. While sharing ad revenue with artists is a positive step, only top-tier musicians benefit significantly from this feature.
It’s important to acknowledge that nearly all music distribution platforms underpay artists for streams. However, the goal here is to highlight which services generally compensate musicians better and to guide you toward more ethical ways to financially support your favorite artists.
