So this graphic isn't proof that one service is better for artists than another, in that sense. Beats may pay more per-stream than Spotify, but that's because it has relatively few users.Īrtists will be making a lot more money in aggregate from Spotify, and if Beats' user numbers grow, its per-stream payouts will come down. less so.Īveraging that out is also the reason why the figures here may not match those announced by the streaming services.įor example, Spotify says that its average payout for a stream to labels and publishers is between $0.006 and $0.0084 but Information Is Beautiful suggests that the average payment to an artist from the label portion of that is $0.001128 – this being what a signed artist receives after the label's share.įinally, the per-play figures for streaming service can be misleading, as they depend on how many (or few) users the service has. Plus, the most important factor in how much an artist signed to a label earns is the terms of their contract: some have good, fair deals. Some important caveats: these numbers apply to performing musicians, but they do not include publishing royalties for the songwriting. Now McCandless has created a new version of the infographic, updated for 2015.Īs before, it digs in to stats from various digital music companies, from the likes of Bandcamp, iTunes and Amazon that sell music, to streaming services: Spotify, Deezer, Apple's Beats Music, Rhapsody, YouTube and Tidal.īesides calculations for how much an artist can expect to earn from a single sale or stream, the infographic shows how many of those sales or streams they'd need to earn the US monthly minimum wage of $1,260.

Does spotify for artists cost money