Spotify plays

[Drew Stephenson]

Spotify payments are not a fixed amount per stream, but an overall amount that is divided by the total number of streams. If all the tracks that get less than 1000 streams per year are ignored the amount per stream goes up for those that have reached the threshold. I am hoping that the small amount we lose for those tracks that haven't managed to get 1000 streams will be slightly more than off-set by the increased amount we get for those that do.

I wondered if that was it. But if you're taking out a huge number of songs with a small number of streams, and shifting that into a pot that gets allocated by proportion, then the bulk of that reallocation is going to go to the really high performing tracks no? I would think the steady-streamers (if you don't mind the term!) will see very little difference in their per-stream take.

[MarkOne]

Yes, the thing is, the long tail is actually very, very long. Spotify has over 100 million songs on its platform. An average of 120,000 new tracks are added each day (based on 2023 data)

86% of the entire Spotify catalog get less than 1000 plays a year. The sum total of stream revenue this enormous number of songs generates, obviously gets shared pro rata between the more successful artists. (Which basically means more or less split equally between Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Bad Bunny and Post Malone)

[BigRedX]

My band is hardly up there with Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Bad Bunny and Post Malone, but we have tracks that will easily get 1000 streams this year. IME with a bit of promotion, achieving this for at least some of their catalogue should be within the reach of every artist. IME of producing some very "uncommercial" music in the past that has still managed to find its niche, when you have a potential global audience it is big enough to support just about anything. The trick is to find them.

Thanks to getting on a couple of very active playlists our most popular song gets in excess of 1000 streams each month. Our most recent single has already got more than 3000 streams in less than 3 weeks off the back of doing some research and targeting the right playlists etc.

[Drew Stephenson]

Yeah, this is what I need to work on for sure.

[BigRedX]

However, having said all that, my quick and dirty calculations reveal that we will have made far more money selling T-shirts and CDs at gigs in 2024 than all of our on-line streams and downloads for all sites put together.

[Drew Stephenson]

Yeah, if you have a live act this is definitely the way to go. Especially if they're an audience who still value a physical product.

[Aled Hughes]

My band is hardly up there with Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Bad Bunny and Post Malone, but we have tracks that will easily get 1000 streams this year. IME with a bit of promotion, achieving this for at least some of their catalogue should be within the reach of every artist. IME of producing some very "uncommercial" music in the past that has still managed to find its niche, when you have a potential global audience it is big enough to support just about anything. The trick is to find them.

Thanks to getting on a couple of very active playlists our most popular song gets in excess of 1000 streams each month. Our most recent single has already got more than 3000 streams in less than 3 weeks off the back of doing some research and targeting the right playlists etc.

We seem to be constantly hovering around the 1000 plays a day mark for our entire catalogue on Spotify, with significant spikes when we release something new. Our most popular song's been there over 10 years now, and has around 340,000 total streams, though most of those have been in the past few years. The handful of most popular songs seem to get 2k-5k streams per month.

Playlists do make a difference I think - I know a couple of bands around here who got placed on some big Spotify editorial playlists, and their tracks passed 1m streams in a short time. But those kind of numbers make it hard to gauge the actual, genuine interest in your music and the real extent of your fanbase I think (if that matters).

We released a new album in march, and checking just now, it has had 190,000 track plays since then. Some of them got placed on some small playlists, though I didn't use anything other than Spotify's own promotional tools (I did briefly try SubmitHub, but just found the whole thing weird)

It's enough for the money to be useful, to pay for recording and merch and stuff, but it's nothing that gets anywhere near paying any kind of wage. As you mention, the t-shirt, CD and vinyl sales when we do shows are much more significant.

[James Perrett]

Playlists do make a difference I think - I know a couple of bands around here who got placed on some big Spotify editorial playlists, and their tracks passed 1m streams in a short time. But those kind of numbers make it hard to gauge the actual, genuine interest in your music and the real extent of your fanbase I think (if that matters).

Being part of a "scene" or knowing who you appeal to is really important in my opinion. It is much easier to break into a market if you are already buying that style of music because you know where your target market look for their music.

[Aled Hughes]

Playlists do make a difference I think - I know a couple of bands around here who got placed on some big Spotify editorial playlists, and their tracks passed 1m streams in a short time. But those kind of numbers make it hard to gauge the actual, genuine interest in your music and the real extent of your fanbase I think (if that matters).

Being part of a "scene" or knowing who you appeal to is really important in my opinion. It is much easier to break into a market if you are already buying that style of music because you know where your target market look for their music.

Yes, and that's where we're lucky really - there's a strong Welsh language scene, so the most popular bands can get some quite impressive figures (and crowds).
A lot of those bands do cross over into other markets, but it's healthy enough to stand alone (and there's a fair amount of TV and radio coverage that follows in its wake too). I know one band quite well who easily get over 100k streams monthly, and that's with absolutely no attempt to work on their "streaming presence" and playing the Spotify game etc - it's just through sheer popularity and gigging a lot, exclusively in the Welsh language, and almost exclusively within Wales.

Without that scene, our figures would be nowhere near what it is, and I am aware that most bands don't have anything comparable. It's quite far-reaching - that's where most of my paid studio work comes from, for example (as well as Welsh language TV and radio work). But it's a 'real' thing that exists because the market and the fanbase is there - not something that money's pumped into with no-one to listen to the results, which it so easily could have been in another reality!

[Sam Spoons]

There seems to be a better live music scene in North Wales than in Manchester, I have several friends there who gig regularly. I'll be meeting up with them next in March for a Gypsy Jazz Jam Weekend at the Royal Welsh Yacht Club in Caernarfon.

[BigRedX]

We seem to be constantly hovering around the 1000 plays a day mark for our entire catalogue on Spotify, with significant spikes when we release something new. Our most popular song's been there over 10 years now, and has around 340,000 total streams, though most of those have been in the past few years. The handful of most popular songs seem to get 2k-5k streams per month.

Playlists do make a difference I think - I know a couple of bands around here who got placed on some big Spotify editorial playlists, and their tracks passed 1m streams in a short time. But those kind of numbers make it hard to gauge the actual, genuine interest in your music and the real extent of your fanbase I think (if that matters).

We released a new album in march, and checking just now, it has had 190,000 track plays since then. Some of them got placed on some small playlists, though I didn't use anything other than Spotify's own promotional tools (I did briefly try SubmitHub, but just found the whole thing weird)

It's enough for the money to be useful, to pay for recording and merch and stuff, but it's nothing that gets anywhere near paying any kind of wage. As you mention, the t-shirt, CD and vinyl sales when we do shows are much more significant.

That's great! We're currently hovering around the 300 mark per day for our complete catalogue (10 songs). Our latest single which has been out for a month today has had just over 4000 streams. Our most popular song which has been out for almost 5 years recently passed the 20,000 stream mark although over half of those were in the last 12 months due to being on a couple of popular playlists, which just goes to show how effective being on the right playlist can be. I had a look and we're alongside some of the biggest names in the Goth scene, which certainly helps.

We haven't made it on to any of the editorial playlists yet, but we are on a few algorithmic playlists which seem to be bringing in a steady stream of new listeners. I believe the effectiveness of these is measured in how many new saves and playlist adds you get which in our case appears to be just under 20%.

We're expecting to realise our debut album early next year, and we'll see if having a actual album out makes any difference.

[Drew Stephenson]

My plays have flattened out at around 250 a day but they're very evenly distributed, so despite 28,000 plays this year, none of them have gone over 1000 on Spotify.

And as you can see, that is the only platform that people are really using for my music at the moment. I used to get quite a few plays on Boomplay but that's dropped off this year.

[Philbo King]

I get 1 or 2 plays per month, which will likely accumulate to 1 dollar by the time Andromeda merges with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years. Yay!

[OneWorld]

In the words of the immortal Max Bialistock "When you got it - flaunt it Baby, flaunt it!"

" Max Bialistock" ? what was he flaunting? never heard of him

[amanise]

In the words of the immortal Max Bialistock "When you got it - flaunt it Baby, flaunt it!"

" Max Bialistock" ? what was he flaunting? never heard of him

In the immortal words of my grandmother "Oh my giddy Aunt!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Producers_(1967_film)

[OneWorld]

In the words of the immortal Max Bialistock "When you got it - flaunt it Baby, flaunt it!"

" Max Bialistock" ? what was he flaunting? never heard of him

In the immortal words of my grandmother "Oh my giddy Aunt!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Producers_(1967_film)

The Producers never impressed me much. Myself and some friends went to watch it but we got up and walked out after about 15 minutes and went to the pub, from that era films lie the The Odd Couple was more to my liking

[amanise]

In the words of the immortal Max Bialistock "When you got it - flaunt it Baby, flaunt it!"

" Max Bialistock" ? what was he flaunting? never heard of him

In the immortal words of my grandmother "Oh my giddy Aunt!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Producers_(1967_film)

The Producers never impressed me much. Myself and some friends went to watch it but we got up and walked out after about 15 minutes and went to the pub, from that era films lie the The Odd Couple was more to my liking

Mel Brooks was/is a bit like Marmite. Odd Couple was also good but didn't age as well I felt.

[soundesigner]

Interesting, the discussion is still going on.

Something might have changed since I have not received any payments from PRS in the December distribution...

On a positive note I have just landed a sync deal with a film production company, wish me luck!

[Drew Stephenson]

On a positive note I have just landed a sync deal with a film production company, wish me luck!

Good work!

[soundesigner]

Thank you !

[BigRedX]

Unless it has changed recently, the PRS distributions throughout the year are for different usages and/or territories, so if your works don't fall into the correct usages for a given distribution you won't get any money from them. I didn't get anything from the most recent distribution despite doing pretty well from the last one.

I've just check my statements, and since I started getting my payment details on-line (rather than by post) nearly all of them have been in October, with a few in April and December.

[Drew Stephenson]

Just resurrecting this thread with this video from Benn Jordan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVXfcIb3OKo

If you've been wondering which streaming service pays the highest rates, and a couple of other shenanigans updates, here are your answers.

[Martin Walker]

Quite by chance I've just fininshed watching that video (I'm a subscriber), and it does contain lot of fascinating data.

Well done Benn Jordan!

[Forum Admin]

I saw this on a LinkedIn user's account and saved this screenshot at the time. The table is a depressing summary but his call to arms rally encapsulates what may be needed to create a better, fairer future for musicians/artists.

How Little Musicians Earn From STREAMING SERVICES

* Apologies to the originator of this LinkedIn post, as I did not make note of your name *

[BigRedX]

This information seems to have been taken from the YouTube video posted earlier in the thread.

Also bear in mind that most musicians earn even less than this either because their record label takes the majority of the streaming royalties, or because they are paying 10-15% to their aggregator.