Spotify has revealed its numbers for the year 2024 through its annual “Loud & Clear” report. The report had some staggering numbers; it reveals that the streaming service paid the music industry over $10 billion during the year. This brings total lifetime payouts to over $60 billion.
The $10 billion payout is also the largest in music history, according to the report.
Spotify claims that their payout has increased tenfold over ten years, and that there are more artists making money on Spotify than ever before.
The report also claims that 1,500 artists generated over $1 million in royalties and independent artists and labels generated more than $5 billion. Around $4.5 billion was paid out to publishing rights holders – who represent songwriters – over the last two years.
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Another interesting revelation is the popularity of music from around the world, and in different languages. Music in eight different languages each earned over $100 million in royalties, a clear step up from 2017, when only music in English and Spanish crossed that threshold. Last year also saw a rise of independent artists, with them generating more than $5 billion from Spotify.
However, music artists may not be the ones benefiting from these numbers. Spotify, like most streaming services, pays rights-holders — usually a label and music publisher — which then distribute the money to artists and songwriters after taking their percentage cut and distributing compensation to other parties such as producers, music distributors, and other contributors. So, the notion that 1500 artists are directly pocketing over $1 million is wildly inaccurate. Songwriters, in particular, remain in the bottom of the streaming economy.
According to reports from January, Spotify’s per-stream royalty rate lagged behind its competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music. While Amazon music had the highest royalties paid out per 1,000 streams ($8.80), followed by Apple Music ($6.20), YouTube ($4.80), and then Spotify ($3.00), the report shows.