This is far too outdated. OP should be ashamed. I wish Google play music still existed. Way better than YouTube.
ok, this is pretty outdated. I looked up around 15 different sites from the last 12 months, and is looks the common ground regarding payouts is like this:
- Bandcamp $0.85-$1.00 (via sales)
- Qobuz $0.0136-$0.022
- Tidal $0.012-$0.015
- Apple Music $0.007-$0.01
- Deezer $0.006-$0.009
- Amazon Music $0.004-$0.007
- Spotify $0.003-$0.005
- SoundCloud $0.0025-$0.004
- YouTube Music $0.005-$0.008
- Patreon (hybrid) $5-$50+ per subscriber
But there are some quirks with that list. Deezer for example, landing in the middle of the pack in general, has some rules since 2023 that are very pro-artist:
- Artists with at least 1,000 monthly streams from 500 listeners get double weight in the royalty pool.
- Streams earn more when a listener searches for your song than when an algorithm queues it up.
- White noise, rain sounds, and other non-music content came out of the pool entirely, so those royalties now go to actual songs.
- They are based in France, so the BuyEuropean crowd is also satisfied.
Spotify pays shit for single streams, but if you hit it big, you will also receive a lot more cash, making them more attractive for artist with an already existing fanbase.
Soundcloud on the other hand works pretty well to build up an fan base in the first place, during the time where you realistically can’t expect to be living from royalities anyways.
Bandcamp is actually great if you are known enough to get album sales, but not known enough to hit big streaming numbers. (also known as “the bands that are probably worth listening to, while not being mainstream”)
Patreon gives a steady income, but it also means more of an youtuber-style of life than an classic Musician - it puts you under pressure to put out content on a regular basis, and that is not every artists strength.
I like this, thank you for the effort you put into making it.
A neat separate study would be of user experiences. I tried desperately to use Tidal but everything about it was inferior (for me) to Spotify. Bandcamp is at the top of the list, but my word they’re even worse for finding, searching, and organizing playlists.
Yeah, Bandcamp is great if you already have a following, but discoverability is subpar.
I like Tidal, but as you said, user experience is also subpar to other platforms.I am using Deezer - Discoverability is good, User experience is as expected, they pay the artists that drive their income more than the basic rates while cutting out shit that tries to grab money, and with deemix-gui i can grab whole discographies for download to make sure the stuff i like doesn’t disappear into the void. When on the road i use Deezers app so i can discover new artists, while sorting it out at home and finally downloading whatever really hits my taste.
Why is the list not sorted?
sorry, i switched up tidal and qobuz. fixed now. Youtube is below because it is a music video platform, meaning that the amount of work you have to put in is quite a bit larger.
Ah okay, makes sense I suppose. Thanks for explaining.
Yeah, it is not directly comparable in the case of Youtube. You might get by providing some static background or a loop for the video part, but let’s be honest, if you are subscribing to Youtube for music, you expect full blown music videos, and it will hurt your numbers if you don’t provide that.
Makes sense 👌
We are single handily putting cocomelon’s wheels on the bus people’s kids through college from streams in my house.
Bandcamp (on which you can stream music): 100%
At bandcamp.com you buy the track or album and the artist gets about 85% of the money
I thought bandcamp got bought out or changed some policy that everyone said bandcamp is going downhill?
Isn’t there still Bandcamp Fridays where 100% goes to the artist?
There is. I don’t think it’s every Friday, but it’s announced well in advance. A nice carrot to go grab everything you’ve been meaning to…
Yep. Currently it’s the first Friday of roughly 8 months in the year. Next one is the 7thof August.
One time.com, at bandcamp.com
If you’re old enough to get this joke, your back hurts
Hey! Some of us watched that movie when we were four
There are also services like Mirlo, Subvert or Jam Co-op that provide a similar service but are cooperatively owned and haven’t just fired half their staff.
Do you know if they receive anything from non-purchased streams on bandcamp? I’m just curious
they do not, but most artists still encourage listeners to listen on bandcamp since so few artists on streaming services are getting all that many repeat listens, and if you repeat an album enough bandcamp will encourage you to purchase. once you get to that point, and buy maybe 1 album a month (about the same price as spotify premium) you will end up getting more money into the hands of artists, and especially the small artists who are around you in your city, than you ever would have paying for Tidal
Works for me despite knowing I can just clear the cookies. But then again I have over 600 purchases on bandcamp as music seems to be the only medium where I can buy digitally and the money actually reaches the creator.
Stopped streaming around 2014 and went back to a local library + jellyfin. I never liked or used Spotify due to their UI and very unfair way of distributing the money (I can listen to my favorite artist all month and my money still goes to Taylor Swift). And even back then other streaming services I used like Rdio and Google Music constantly got worse for some reason.
They pay this to the actual musician or to the publishers that will then give even less to the real artist?
I suspect that depends on whether you’re self-published or have a record deal somewhere.
This info is outdated, Napster does not do music anymore. I spent five years using it, but last year more and more tracks started disappearing from the database, to the point the service was unusable, and when I went on their website to unsubscribe I saw they were no mention of music strraming, just their AI agents productivity stuff.
Ive been out of the loop for a long time, but Napster pays more than “reputable” services?
What a timeline
Napster switched from music to AI agents earlier this year
You should see how much money artists make from the sale of a physical album - may as well be nothing. It all goes to publishers, distributors, execs, producers, marketers, and everyone apart from the artist. Decades ago when albums were AUD$30, about $3 of that made its way to the actual artist if they were lucky.
Artists haven’t made money from their music sales since long before streaming was a thing. They’ve always made almost all of their money from concert ticket sales and merchandise sold at shows.
While getting virtually nothing for all the times their music is streamed might seem bad, it isn’t looking at the whole picture. More streams = more fans = more concert ticket and merch sales. Streaming services are a net positive for artists overall.
Your examplewould be #1 on OPs list by an order of magnitude
Sure, but it would be way, way less overall revenue for the band than the streaming services.
Qobuz is missing and would be no. 1
#2 at US$0.01873 but yeah. Definitely not mad that’s where I’m spending my streaming money.
Qobuz ftw… no money to the US (besides artist or record label i suppose), good quality. Don’t feel like I’m sacrificing at all
Been thinking about Qobuz. I cancelled Spotify a couple years ago now and have just been relying on physical media and bandcamp, but I have been considering giving this a try. Any good?
Good selection, but their algorithm wasn’t great. Ex. I would be listening to a metal song, and it would pull up Rolling Stones next. Yes those are both things I enjoy listening to, but if I’m blasting Korpiklaani, I’m probably not in the mood for Beast of Burden.
Not too much of an issue, since I usually listen to albums, but still annoying. I’ve had much better luck with Tidal’s algorithm.
Good selection, but their algorithm wasn’t great. Ex. I would be listening to a metal song, and it would pull up Rolling Stones next.
That’s exactly what YouTube Music always did for me. In fact, it would do that after just one or two songs. I tell it to play an artist or a specific album and the 2nd or 3rd song would be completely unrelated, along with everything after it. It was like it never even considered any sort of continuity unless I was playing a specific playlist made ahead of time.
Just started trying Qobuz a few days ago, so it can’t possibly be any worse than what I was already dealing with there.
They changed it a while back so that you can’t download an album you buy as a whole unless you get their app, you have to do individual tracks. Just a small pain point that makes me annoyed at them. But, I sill end up going there because of the surprisingly high amount of music that I have only found for purchase there, and nowhere else
Oh, it isn’t a steaming service like Spotify? That is what I would be getting it for.
Oh no, it’s a regular streaming service, just a little clunky eg, they want you to use their app on your phone and a webpage on your computer.
I switched awhile ago and some minor hassles but it’s also been pretty fun. They try a lot of neat themed curated playlists, so today I was listening to a playlist El Sonido New Yorkquino, which was a blast.
Got it. Thanks!
They have a streaming service as well as a store page! I can’t speak to it though, I’ve never tried it
Google play is there and hasn’t existed for years, list might be outdated
Google Play Music hasn’t been a thing since 2020. I doubt these numbers are accurate anymore.
I was thinking the exact same. YouTube music just isn’t the same and they can’t stop messing with the UI.
I still prefer YT Music over Spotify, there is simply more niche stuff that absolutely slaps and is not available on Spotify
Not to mention you can block ads more easily
Which is probably why its pay is ass, because half of us just listens for free without ads
Half of us maybe but we are only 40k, it’s a drop in a sea of non-tech users. Don’t worry Google is going to be fine
Agree. Discovering new artists on YouTube music has been super easy.
Has anyone seen how AI-pilled Napster is now? Their home page makes me wanna throw up.
Napster still exists?
No it doesn’t, but someone bought the name and started a completely new music thing with that name
They are paying those AIs really well though!
I should have studied AI instead of music and arts
Unironically, durh 😜 Two notoriously difficult fields in which to find stable work vs. studying to become one of few humans who will ever understand a burgeoning industry in its infancy?
I am in a similar boat though (aren’t we all). Maybe AI can teach me enough about itself for me to become useful to it…
How do you stream music from Google Play? I know that you can stream music with YouTube, but Google Play?
This is referencing Google Play Music from back before it was shutdown in favor of YouTube Music. In that case, this is from around 10 years ago give or take
I wonder if the numbers are that old, too? There’s a source organization listed, but not a link to the specific data. If it’s old, I’d like to know that. If it’s new, I’d like to check it for the Qobuz payout (which I’ve heard is slightly better than Tidal.)
Probably
I still miss that music app. It was the best. Deep catalog, and because Google is creepy like that, a very good understanding of what I consider local - it would recommend shows to me for bands I’d not heard of but were playing near me (literally nearby, not just in my state, or like Spotify did, “in my country”, but within 5 miles or so) and that it, in the wisdom of its algorithm knew I would like.
Why does everything get worse?
I’m not a fan of Google, especially in the last handful of years…but Google play music was great. I miss it.
Wait… Napster still exists?
They’re very AI centric these days, but their streaming service isn’t bad.
well that’s an utterly horrifying page
3 of 5 of their “AI Agents” depicted in that frontpage clip don’t contribute anything. How fitting.
The site confused me on what Napster is trying to be.
For reals. I have no idea what their company is.
as far as I can tell, it’s only ai generated music available on their platform.
They deserve to be destroyed.
Lars, is that you?
Why? Honestly curious.
Any company largely depending on AI does. Any CEO of such company doesn’t deserve freedom ever again.
limewire still exists.
If I hear bearshare still exists I’ll be convinced it’s 2005
also surprising its #1 too. being a legacy has its advantages.
And ironically pays
That’s why the payout per stream is number 1.
I mean, on the off chance someone even uses Napster.
I heard MySpace tried to convert to a music streaming site, do they exist too?
Overly complicated industry presented as overly simplistic graphic gets tons of votes from uneducated denizens. More at 11.
To name one thing: each of these uses a different definition for what a stream constitutes.
At least for Spotify you can’t really set a price per stream as they use a fixed money pool all artist take from. The most probable reason behind that is so Spotify can commission their own music (or nowadays just generate it) which they then push to the front page so they can pay themselves and do not have to pay as much to real artists.
They were accused of doing just that in multiple occasions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_on_Spotify
I assume the amount of streams doesn’t vary that much from month to month, which would make it quite predictable at least
