In 2024, the artists who generated at least $1 million on Spotify recorded music in 17 different languages, according to Spotify’s Loud & Clear report.
That’s up more than double from 2017. The artists who generated at least $100K in royalties have recorded music in over 50 languages — also more than double the number of languages at that threshold in 2017.
In 2024, for the first time ever, an artist who received one in every million streams on Spotify generated over $10,000 on average. That’s 10x what the same streamshare would have generated a decade ago.
Major streaming services all calculate payouts the same way: based on streamshare (if an artist’s catalog accounts for 1% of total streams, it would earn 1% of total royalties). Still, misconceptions about “per-stream rates” remain widespread.
Streaming services don’t pay out based on a fixed per-stream rate — just like listeners don’t pay per song they listen to. Across services, each subscriber contributes roughly the same amount to the royalty pool. So, a higher “per-stream rate” just means that users are streaming less.
Think about it: If a service had a “per-stream rate” of $1, that would mean each subscriber, on average, only streams about 10 times per month. Clearly, a service like that isn’t providing much value, making it unlikely that users would keep paying for it. Artists earn more on Spotify for the same level of popularity. In 2024, 0.0001% of total streams generated over $10,000 on average.
Streaming’s Rising Tide
In the decade from 2014 to 2024, Spotify’s yearly payouts to the music industry increased 10x from $1 billion to over $10 billion.
In 2014, the music industry hit a low point when global recorded music revenues were only $13 billion. Spotify’s annual contribution was around $1 billion at the time, with around 15 million paying subscribers.
Since the low point, global recorded revenue has more than doubled to over $28 billion in 2023 (IFPI). Today, there are well over 500 million paying listeners across all music streaming services.
This shift in economics is directly tied to the overall growth of streaming, which has revitalized the music industry as a whole.
Artist Earnings and Upload Volume
The number of artists generating royalties at every threshold on this site — from $1,000 to $10 million per year — has at least tripled since 2017. Ten years ago, the top artist on Spotify generated just over $5 million. Today, there are over 200 artists who have passed that threshold.
Today, the number of uploaders to Spotify is nearly 12 million. Looking back to the peak of the CD era, only a few thousand artists had their music on the shelves of record stores.
The paradox? Streaming has allowed millions to easily share their music globally — that’s an amazing thing. But the sheer volume of uploaders means the fraction who find success appears smaller over time. The fact remains: Thanks to streaming, more artists than ever before are generating royalties at every career stage. More than at any time in music history. And we think that’s what really matters.
This resurgence in the industry is translating into tangible benefits for artists, though the sheer volume of music now available presents a unique challenge.
The 100,000th Artist, Thousands in Royalties (Mid-Tier Earnings)
Over the past decade, the 100,000th-ranked artist on Spotify has seen their generated royalties multiply by over 10x – increasing from well under $600 in 2014 to almost $6,000 in 2024.
During that same time period, the 10,000th-ranked artist on Spotify has seen their royalties increase almost 4x – from $34K to $131K.
As a point of comparison, at the peak of the CD era, Tower Records carried only 50,000 CDs from thousands of artists in total (source). Today, however, over 100,000 artists are generating thousands in royalties on Spotify alone.
To illustrate this benefit further, let’s examine the financial impact on mid-tier artists, highlighting the increasing viability of a career in music through streaming.
Publishing Payouts
Spotify paid out nearly $4.5 billion to publishing rights holders – who represent songwriters – over the last two years. Its music-publishing payout hit a new peak in 2024, seeing double-digit-percentage growth compared to 2023.
The financial success of streaming extends beyond performing artists, significantly impacting songwriters and publishing rights holders as well.
The Export Factor
Most professional and emerging artists see more money come from abroad than from their home markets: Of the artists who generated $1K+ in royalties on Spotify in 2024, more than half saw most of their royalties come from listeners outside of their home countries.
In fact, almost one-third of them generated more than 75% of their royalties from listeners outside their home countries.
Meanwhile, over half of all artists generating $1K+ have collaborated with at least one artist from another country. And more than 80% of all artists generating $100K+ have collaborated with at least one artist from abroad.