Time to get educated on music streaming. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the royalties you’ll receive per stream from the Top 3 streaming music services: Spotify, YouTube & Apple Music.
Payout Per Stream
- YouTube = $0.00069
- Spotify = $0.00437
- Apple Music = $0.00735
- Tidal = $0.01250
- Amazon Music = $0.00402
What 1 Million Streams Pays
- YouTube = $690
- Spotify = $4,370
- Apple Music = $7,350
- Tidal = $12,500
- Amazon Music = $4,020
Streams vs. Traditional Sales
For context, 150 streams equal one song download, roughly a $0.99–$1.29 value. And 1,500 streams equal one album sale, about ten tracks or a $9.99 value.
What It Takes to Go Platinum
RIAA Gold takes 75 million streams, the equivalent of 500,000 singles sold. RIAA Platinum for a single takes 150 million streams, equal to 1 million singles sold. And RIAA Platinum for an album takes 1.5 billion streams, equal to 1 million albums sold.
So if you go RIAA Platinum, here’s what each platform would pay you. YouTube pays out $103,500. Spotify pays out $655,550. Apple Music pays out $1,102,500.
For a deeper dive into the numbers, check out this Streaming Royalty Calculator.