Spotify payouts

[BJG145]

OMG.

It’s a good job we’re not in it for the money.

(BTW Drew, I think your stuff is pure class.)

[Drew Stephenson]

I've just signed up for Landr distribution so it will be interesting to see how their reporting compares to what I'm used to from the other distributor that I deal with who give an almost fully itemised report.

I'm gradually shifting over to LANDR so it will be interesting to see what's similar and what's different.
I think my main frustration is that by having an non-public threshold it makes it impossible to audit my numbers.

[Drew Stephenson]

(BTW Drew, I think your stuff is pure class.)

Thank you! Your fiver is in the post.

Well £3.08 in this case...

[BigRedX]

My opinion is that the ease and lack of cost of making your recorded music available to the public has massively increased many artist's aspirations and expectations, while at the same time the sheer amount of new music that is uploaded every day means that getting heard is harder than ever.

IME you need to be actively promoting your music on a regular basis whether that be through social media, performing live or using a paid-for promotion service, because simply uploading your music and hoping for the best is extremely unlikely to work.

I've seen this at work first hand. One project that I put on-line simply so I could see how the process worked has yet to make back its aggregator fee even after 14 years. Another that was doing well while the band was gigging and using social media to promote our activities now makes less than $10 a year from streaming and downloads. My current band is doing very well at the moment, but I'm under no illusions that the minute we stop playing live and promoting our activities, our on-line income will take a nose-dive. If we are lucky the tracks that we have managed to get onto popular playlists will continue to attract the same number of streams a month as they do now, but as the number of songs on each of these playlist grows the amount of streams we get gets slightly less.

I suggested on another thread that since most of us do our own recording/mixing/mastering and if we are only releasing the music on-line and we want to reach more than just our close friends and family plus a couple of randoms, we should put aside that money we would have spent in the studio or producing CDs or vinyl and use it for some proper effective promotion instead.

[amanise]

Or just make up weird merch. There's more in that. I totally agree with everything you said up there BRX. It's the sheer volume of stuff. If I stop and think about it objectively, I can see that it could only have worked out this way once the floodgates were opened fully. But, none of us here are in it for the money- or by now we'd have found something else to do. Personally, I'm just leaving stuff on line for the curious to discover in time. And, like Drew, I've consented for it to be used in the training of AI tools. Because they asked nicely, and I think that's realistically as much influence on the future as I'm going to be able to have. That and teaching a few interested kids some guitar, like my neighbours kid. So that brings at least some point to my noodlings, but income? Not.

[Drew Stephenson]

Concur entirely with you both. The only thing I would say is that over the last twelve months I've managed to go from fewer than 20 monthly listeners to consistently in the 300-600 range almost exclusively via the mechanism of swearing at people on Threads.
So it's very much about working out what works for you.

[amanise]

...swearing at people on Threads.
So it's very much about working out what works for you.

Definitely not for me. I have to bear my own mental health in mind and protect that at all costs. Might be willing to risk it for a few million streams a month, but not less, and that ain't happening coz I ain't paying for it.

But it is useful to think about what works with respect to your goals though. I'm completely off BBC Introducing now since that route would only get national plays from a London, Manchester, maybe Birmingham post code. I've no ambition to get on air via Radio Leicester. I'm never living in a City again unless it's in a home. I also notice that some of the new music arising on BBC 6 Music is awful - random Spotify plays are better entertainment. Never thought I'd say something like that! Hey Ho.

[FrankF]

Probably a crass question, but has anyone thought about or tried setting up a music streamer / downloader for their own music, i.e., a server you leave on 24/7?
I've just started reading up on it, and it seems you can buy software to do all the streaming for you.
I have no idea about the money side of it, but I imagine
there's s/w for that as well (link to Paypal?).
If half a dozen of you got together you could probably take turns with server duties, and call yourselves "the minstrel collective" or summat, thus cultivating a more "cottage industry" feel.
It seems to me, as several of you have already said, that if you're on Spotify, you're almost invisible, and the returns are risible (I thank you), but if you're promoting yourselves and a small "label", a sort of online Rough Trade, if you like, then at least you're getting some return for your efforts.

[Drew Stephenson]

Probably a crass question, but has anyone thought about or tried setting up a music streamer / downloader for their own music, i.e., a server you leave on 24/7?
I've just started reading up on it, and it seems you can buy software to do all the streaming for you.
I have no idea about the money side of it, but I imagine
there's s/w for that as well (link to Paypal?).
If half a dozen of you got together you could probably take turns with server duties, and call yourselves "the minstrel collective" or summat, thus cultivating a more "cottage industry" feel.
It seems to me, as several of you have already said, that if you're on Spotify, you're almost invisible, and the returns are risible (I thank you), but if you're promoting yourselves and a small "label", a sort of online Rough Trade, if you like, then at least you're getting some return for your efforts.

I do know a few people who are looking at various collective or community-owned options (I have 5 browser tabs open that I'm supposed to be researching properly) however my skim reading to date suggests that they will all fail, or fail to scale, for the same reason.
Fundamentally they're trying to address a creators' problem when all the power lies with the consumer. And most of these new platforms make things worse for the end consumer either because they lack the functionality, the catalogue or the integration of Spotify / Apple / Youtube.

As mentioned further up (and in several similar threads), most folks just aren't that bothered about music. You can see this by the relative popularity of bandcamp (for musos) vs Spotify (for normal folks).

If we're still struggling to shift people to Bandcamp (that's been established for years and has a good catalogue (about 10% of Spotify's)) then trying to get people to move to yet-another-platform is only going to be for the dedicated few. Who are probably already supporting via bandcamp anyway.

The challenge, as I see and experience it, remains one of marketing and reach.

[merlyn]

Do you think you might have backed the wrong horse, Drew?

[Drew Stephenson]

Do you think you might have backed the wrong horse, Drew?

If I was trying to make a career out of my music, then without a doubt.
But I think I knew that when the label I was signed to went bust back in 2011.
I don't subscribe to the view that you only get one shot at these things, but the life of a performing musician gets much harder as you get older and your responsibilities shift.

My current plan, such as it is, is to work on my mixing and production skills and look to increase that side of things as I wind down my day job over the next 20 years to retirement.

My current vexation with Spotify in particular (rather than streaming in general) is the way they're arbitrarily introducing new limits and restrictions that a) make it practically impossible to work out what's happening, and b) don't actually match the rhetoric around them. Claiming to be targeting bots and AI but actually introducing policies that are easy for a bot to work around but are a real challenge for a small artist.

So yes, I'm glad this is a hobby not a career but I'm still a bit p'd off about aspects of it.

[amanise]

Drew, I find the best thing (having now spent a lifetime banging my head on these closed doors) is to - at every turn - try and minimise the negative aspects of the things we all have to do to pursue this thing. One of those things is self auditing your numbers. It wouldn't matter if you were streaming in the hundreds a month, or the thousands - they're pretty much empty figures. Given the ridiculous monetary values tied to it. If you compare it to an actual job, where you have to think in thousands of pounds a month income - you'd have to be streaming in millions for anything to be meaningful. Anything less than that is just driving yourself mad for nothing. There are enough things in this life to be losing your mind over. This said in the spirit of friendship and comradery, of course. Hope it comes across as such.

[Albatross]

Couldn't agree more and our time is likely better spent in the beautiful meditative state known as playing.

[Drew Stephenson]

Taken as intended Amanise.

[amanise]

Taken as intended Amanise.

[Drew Stephenson]

Minor update, my Ditto dashboard has updated again today and apparently my numbers are now up to 5,253 qualifying streams for a heady £8.23 - payout rate per stream remains about the same.

It will be interesting to see if things are a bit more consistent under LANDR.

[merlyn]

I think it's good that you're sharing this as other people can see the (lack of) return from Spotify. What is a bit surprising is that after all this you're still using business language like "marketing and reach" when so far that has done you absolutely no good at all. We have to recognise the inevitable logic of the market when swearing on Threads is a good return on capital expended. Go market!

My question would be what was your goal? You write, perform, record, mix, master, upload, promote and market (whew) your music. What did you expect to happen?

[FrankF]

Forgive my blunt intrusion here, but if someone doesn't like the way spotify pay out (or don't pay out, as it were), then why use it at all?
Most people seem to agree that Bandcamp has the fairest payouts (is that still the case, by the way? I may just try and earn thruppence ha'penny with some of my own musical drivel), so shouldn't we all stick with the good guys?

[FrankF]

Keerist, this is depressing: I just watched a Bad Bunny video, and now I need therapy.

"However, in February 2024, Taylor Swift claimed the title of Spotify’s most-streamed artist of all time. Her meteoric rise has been nothing short of extraordinary: from 11.9 billion streams in 2020 to over 90 billion by late 2024, and over 100 billion by March 16, 2025. Notably, she was still trailing Ariana Grande among female artists as recently as a few years ago.

Today’s top three is rounded out by Bad Bunny, the leader among Latin artists, whose dominance reflects the global reach of reggaeton and Latin music. Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny have also consistently alternated as the platform’s most popular daily artists for several years."

[BigRedX]

Forgive my blunt intrusion here, but if someone doesn't like the way spotify pay out (or don't pay out, as it were), then why use it at all?
Most people seem to agree that Bandcamp has the fairest payouts (is that still the case, by the way? I may just try and earn thruppence ha'penny with some of my own musical drivel), so shouldn't we all stick with the good guys?

The thing is recorded music is no longer the main product for most artists. For my band Spotify and all the other streaming services are little more than advertising that also happens to pay us a small amount of money as opposed to us having to pay for it. If we weren't on Spotify some of our potential audience would have no easy way of listening to us to decide if it was worth coming to one of our gigs. IME Bandcamp is only good for selling to other musicians, and while we'd be stupid not to be on there, the audience we really want to reach just doesn't use it.

Actual gig fees and T-shirt sales at gigs make far more money, followed by CD and vinyl sales at gigs. Anything done on-line whether it be streams downloads or sales of physical product comes a long way behind that. Also with the UK's withdrawal from the EU and the US tariff situation sending CDs or vinyl to destinations outside of the UK is very variable. I've had to stop selling copies of my previous band's back catalogue to places outside the UK because since 2021 not a single one has reached its destination and those that were returned as undelivered were so badly damaged that they could not be resold. My current band has made a conscious decision that our audience can only by physical copies of our recorded music by coming to one of our gigs.

[James Perrett]

Spotify has the inertia currently. If I want our music to be promoted locally then I need to get it onto certain playlists which are Spotify only. Those playlists are where many of the local listeners who would like our current style of music are going to be listening.

What would be great is some kind of universal playlist tool that could create playlists to work with any platform.

I've been somewhat heartened to find that some shows on 6 Music will play music that is only available on Bandcamp - but when people think of streaming, Spotify still has the most recognition.

[merlyn]

... If I want our music to be promoted locally then I need to get it onto certain playlists which are Spotify only. ...

When you say "promote" do you mean for money? Or for recognition? Plays for plays sake, which is fine, but less of a priority than paid work.

[James Perrett]

When you say "promote" do you mean for money? Or for recognition? Plays for plays sake, which is fine, but less of a priority than paid work.

In my case, recognition often results in paid work. So, while the recording itself may not make much money, there's a good chance that someone hearing it could be impressed enough to use my services. Or maybe book us to do a gig (though anything more than small impromptu gigs or open mics is unlikely for us at the moment).

[merlyn]

If we call music 'work' (it's actually called playing music) then there is paid work and speculative work. With paid work there is a fee negotiated beforehand. With speculative work it might pay, or it might not. All speculative work and no pay makes Jack's income streams shrink to zero. (Rounded to the nearest tenner).

For a tenner a month it really is not worth spending any time on.

A person could make more busking.

[FrankF]

What about Youtube Music?
I seeem to recall a few people like Chords of Orion (ambient guitar) saying it worked quite well for them.