ok, this is pretty outdated.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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.