The greatest musicians in the world are rarely in it for the money. However, tour vans and studio time do not come free, so it certainly pays to be able to monetize music in some way or another.
Today, the majority of a modern musician’s income is made from paid performances, selling merchandise, and earning streaming royalties. Whereas CD’s, tapes, and vinyl are a thing of the past (except for the collectors out there), in 2022, most people listen to their music through a handful of online audio streaming platforms.
As many streaming services are low-priced and even free, this leaves many music lovers wondering how much the artists they listen to actually earn whenever one of their songs is streamed.
We’ve compiled a chart, which contains everything you need to know about music streaming royalties and payouts as of 2022.
Music Streaming Royalty Rates 2022
In 2021, Statista reported that the number of streaming service users reached 487 million, marking a huge increase from 7.9 million in 2014.
Music streaming worldwide accounted for $13.4bn, with the country with the highest share of music subscriptions being Mexico.
In the United States alone, revenue generated by streaming services totalled $4.6bn in 2021 with 82.1 million Americans subscribing to a music streaming platform.
The most streamed genre was reported to be R&B/Hip Hop.
If your favorite artist’s next hit song reaches 10,000 plays on Spotify, they will receive roughly $40 in streaming royalties. Although this number is fairly accurate, calculating the exact payout from various platforms can be very difficult.
While music listening habits have dramatically changed over the past ten years, the platforms and methods used to accommodate the internet age is an ever-changing landscape. After many illegal software programs paid nothing at all to artists, today’s top music streaming platforms are finding ways to pay artists through musical royalties.
Although a fraction of a penny may not seem like much, popular artists are still able to make passive income from music royalties while their recordings are played across many different platforms. As royalty collections are now one of the largest financial streams in the music business, artists and consumers continue to utilize and test different streaming services pay models so that everyone involved is fairly compensated.
