How Much Do Artists Actually Make Off Of Spotify?

Since its inception in 2008, Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) has revolutionized the music industry, making artists' reliance on CD sales, radio airplay, and charts to garner listeners (and money) a thing of the past. Currently, there are over 100 million tracks available on the audio streaming platform, allowing users to experience everything from Top 40 names like Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter to the basement-recorded single of a small-town punk band trying to make a name for itself.

Thanks to Spotify, more artists than ever can have their music heard ... and in the process, make money from their craft (though some artists, like Toby Keith, amassed a fortune from other ventures besides music). Streams equal royalties, with Spotify paying artists a total $9 billion in 2023 alone, and $48 billion since its founding. Given the fact that the average user listens to several hundred artists in one year, hefty payouts aren't limited to the top handful. According to Spotify's Loud & Clear report for 2023, "If you were to list out all of the artists on Spotify, in order of how much money they generated, even the 50,000th in rank generated at minimum $16,500 from Spotify alone."

However, making money from Spotify isn't as easy as uploading a song and generating a few streams. There are minimum requirements to meet if an artist wants to enjoy a passive income from the platform.

In spring 2024, Spotify rolled out a new policy that limits which artists can receive royalties. To be eligible under these new guidelines, a track must be streamed at least 1,000 times over the span of 12 months. Anything less than this would garner only about 3 cents a month, with these earnings often forgotten about or eaten up by bank transaction fees. Spotify said in a statement in November 2023 (and updated in April 2024), "... these small disregarded payments have added up to $40 million per year, which could instead increase the payments to artists who are most dependent on streaming revenue."

For those who do meet the 1,000-stream requirement, they have the potential to earn royalties that range from modest to massive. In 2023, 103,400 artists earned $5,000; 20,500 earned $50,000 while 11,600 earned $100,000; 170 earned $5 million; and 60 earned an impressive $10 million. According to Spotify, "Artists can start approaching $1 million per year with around 4-5 million monthly listeners or 20-25 million monthly streams."

Given the fact that Spotify earnings have the tendency to increase over the years (many artists who generated $10,000 in 2017 brought in over $50,000 in 2023), achieving millionaire status isn't out of the realm of possibility, including for those who aren't necessarily big names in the industry. In fact, more than 1,000 artists who earned over $1 million from Spotify in 2023 didn't have a song reach the platform's Global Top 50 — a feat unheard of in the days of CD sales, airplay, and charts.

For three consecutive years, the "King of Latin Trap" Bad Bunny held the honor of being the top Spotify artist, garnering 18.5 billion, 9.1 billion, and 8.3 billion streams in 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively. However, in 2023, another artist who rose to unprecedented levels of global popularity took the crown: Taylor Swift. In addition to breaking records with her Eras Tour, which raked in $1 billion and is hailed as the highest-grossing concert tour to date, Swift shattered Bad Bunny's Spotify record with 26.1 billion streams over a 12-month span. From 2023 Spotify royalties alone, Swift earned over $101 million.

Upon being named Spotify's Global Top Artist, Swift expressed her excitement and gratitude on social platform X: "Um ok this is unreal?? I just wanted to say to anyone who listened to my music this year, anywhere in the world, thank you. Getting named Spotify's Global Top Artist in 2023 is truly the best birthday/holiday gift you could've given me. We've seriously had THE MOST fun this year out there on tour and now this. Are you serious ..."

At the time of this writing, almost 30 Swift albums are available for streaming on Spotify, including deluxe and live editions, as well as "Taylor's Version" releases of "Fearless," "Red," "Speak Now," and "1989" that she re-recorded after Scooter Braun (a record exec with whom she had a falling out) took ownership of Big Machine Records and, thus, the master recordings of her early albums.