The $5/day music marketing budget (exactly how I would do it)
Discover a smart $5/day Meta ads strategy to boost your music catalog by driving targeted listeners to a curated playlist that sparks meaningful algorithmic growth.
Watch video26 resources
Royalties
Royalty analysis, streaming payouts, revenue reporting, and catalog performance.
12 Guides3 Videos9 Newsletter2 Tools
Spotify Executive Explains How Spotify ACTUALLY Works feat. Sam Duboff
Discover how Spotify’s royalty system truly works, debunking common myths and revealing the evolving opportunities for artists in today’s streaming landscape.
Watch video
This Company Has Paid Out $35 Million to Artists
Discover how Armada revolutionizes artist merchandise by expertly managing fulfillment, creative vision, and logistics to maximize artists’ focus on their craft and earnings.
Watch video
DistroKid Royalty Analyzer
Use our free tool to process your DistroKid royalty statement and understand your royalties. See a graph of monthly royalties over time, breakdown by DSP, and average payment per stream by country for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Your data is processed locally, and is not uploaded to our servers. DistroKid Royalty Analyzer DSP...
Use tool
Analyzing Your Royalty Statements
Understanding your royalty statements can reveal how much you earn per stream across platforms and countries. Using tools like the free DistroKid royalty analyzer helps visualize payments over time without manual spreadsheets.
Read article
Spotify Loud & Clear 2026
Spotify’s 2026 Loud & Clear report reveals a growing streaming revenue pool, with indie artists receiving about half of the $11 billion paid out in 2025. The music landscape is more accessible, with more artists earning significant income than ever before.
Read articleSpotify per stream payments are going up
Spotify’s new 1,000 stream per year rule demonetizes 60% of songs, redistributing payouts to higher-performing tracks. Combined with recent price increases, this should raise the average payment per stream by about 6-7%.
Read articleFind the right resource
Showing 26 resources
Best guides
Start with these resources
DistroKid Royalty Analyzer
Use our free tool to process your DistroKid royalty statement and understand your royalties. See a graph of monthly royalties over time, breakdown by DSP, and average payment per stream by country for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Your data is processed locally, and is not uploaded to our servers. DistroKid Royalty Analyzer DSP...
Use toolSpotify Loud & Clear 2026
Spotify’s 2026 Loud & Clear report reveals a growing streaming revenue pool, with indie artists receiving about half of the $11 billion paid out in 2025. The music landscape is more accessible, with more artists earning significant income than ever before.
Read article
Should artists remove their music from Spotify?
Despite concerns over AI music, low payouts, and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s defense investments, removing your music from Spotify is generally not advisable for professional artists seeking broad exposure and revenue.
Read articleLatest posts
All royalties resources
Showing 1-24 of 26
Spotify Royalty Calculator
Estimate Spotify royalties by streams, country, platform, currency, and your share of the master recording.
Use toolThis Company Has Paid Out $35 Million to Artists
Discover how Armada revolutionizes artist merchandise by expertly managing fulfillment, creative vision, and logistics to maximize artists’ focus on their craft and earnings.
Watch videoThe $5/day music marketing budget (exactly how I would do it)
Discover a smart $5/day Meta ads strategy to boost your music catalog by driving targeted listeners to a curated playlist that sparks meaningful algorithmic growth.
Watch videoSpotify Executive Explains How Spotify ACTUALLY Works feat. Sam Duboff
Discover how Spotify’s royalty system truly works, debunking common myths and revealing the evolving opportunities for artists in today’s streaming landscape.
Watch videoSpotify Loud & Clear 2026
Spotify’s 2026 Loud & Clear report reveals a growing streaming revenue pool, with indie artists receiving about half of the $11 billion paid out in 2025. The music landscape is more accessible, with more artists earning significant income than ever before.
Read articleShould artists remove their music from Spotify?
Despite concerns over AI music, low payouts, and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s defense investments, removing your music from Spotify is generally not advisable for professional artists seeking broad exposure and revenue.
Read articleAnalyzing Your Royalty Statements
Understanding your royalty statements can reveal how much you earn per stream across platforms and countries. Using tools like the free DistroKid royalty analyzer helps visualize payments over time without manual spreadsheets.
Read article
The Truth About YouTube Content ID for Indie Musicians
Content ID allows you to claim royalties when your music is used in YouTube videos, either your own or other people's videos. But is Content ID worth it for indie music artists, does it help or does it hurt? Let's talk about it. First, I ran a poll on my YouTube channel and found that...
Read articleDistroKid Royalty Analyzer
Use our free tool to process your DistroKid royalty statement and understand your royalties. See a graph of monthly royalties over time, breakdown by DSP, and average payment per stream by country for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Your data is processed locally, and is not uploaded to our servers. DistroKid Royalty Analyzer DSP...
Use toolDid Snoop Dogg Only Get Paid $45k For 1 Billion Streams?
Snoop Dogg claims he only get paid $45,000 for 1 billion streams, but is this true? The answer is maybe, but that's because of his record label and not Spotify. 1 billion streams is typically worth about $3 Million. Watch this video to learn more. Automatic Transcript (may have errors):00:00 So I came across this...
Read article
Spotify Royalty Study: Premium vs Free User Pay Per Stream
Spotify has premium plans and free ad-supported plans. Did you know that the amount of money you get paid per stream on Spotify varies depending on if the user listening is a premium user vs a free user? That's right, not only does the exact value of a stream vary each month, and by country,...
Read articleSpotify per stream payments are going up
Spotify’s new 1,000 stream per year rule demonetizes 60% of songs, redistributing payouts to higher-performing tracks. Combined with recent price increases, this should raise the average payment per stream by about 6-7%.
Read articleUMG vs TikTok - who wins?
Universal Music Group has pulled its entire catalog from TikTok, blocking artists from posting their music, citing low payments and AI concerns. TikTok argues it offers valuable exposure, but the dispute leaves artists caught in the middle with limited options.
Read article50% of artists never hit 100 lifetime streams on Spotify
In 2023, indie artists and labels earned $4.5B on Spotify, representing half of the platform’s total payouts. Despite 10 million artists uploading music, 50% have fewer than 100 lifetime streams, highlighting the vast competition and challenges for visibility.
Read article
How To Make It In Music feat. Ben Patterson
In this episode Ben Patterson, president of Downtown Artist & Label Services, and I talk about music marketing, the industry, Spotify's changes and more! Listen on your favorite Podcast platform Important Points: Andrew and Ben talk about Spotify's Discovery Mode which provides additional visibility for artists, but can reduce royalties. That’s why Downtown Music aggressively...
Read articleHow ROI works for Spotify and music streaming
Streaming platforms like Spotify pay low per-stream rates, making short-term promotion costly. However, investing in streaming can yield returns over months or years through algorithmic boosts, audience growth, and ongoing royalties.
Read articleSpotify is drastically changing their royalty model
Spotify’s 2024 royalty changes introduce a 1,000-stream minimum per song, fines for fraudulent streams, and stricter rules on non-music content, aiming to add $1 billion to the royalty pool over five years and increase payouts for serious artists.
Read articleSpotify Will Stop Paying Royalties on 67% of Tracks in 2024
Spotify is drastically changing their payment model in 2024, taking a harder (albeit still weak) stance against bots and limiting non-music noise content on the platform. Spotify estimates these 3 changes will add $1 Billion to the royalty pool over the near 5 years. This averages to $200 Million per year in additional royalties. As...
Read article
Six Figure Music Income & Sync Licensing feat. Eric Copeland (Make Music Income)
In this post I discuss making a six figure income with music, sync licensing, micro licensing and royalty collection with Eric Copeland of Make Music Income and Hello Composers. Listen on your favorite Podcast platform Important Points: Eric and Andrew both agree that it’s important to have a multiple income streams. Focusing on one initiative like Spotify will...
Read articleHow Music Streaming Should Change
Music streaming transformed the industry by ending piracy but also lowered music’s value for artists. New models like Deezer’s artist-centric royalties and YouTube Premium’s listen-time payments offer practical ways to improve fairness and increase artist revenue.
Read articleHow Spotify saved the music industry
Spotify was created not to pay artists well, but to end rampant music piracy by offering a convenient, affordable alternative. Over two decades, streaming has reversed the decline in recorded music revenue and is projected to grow significantly through 2030.
Read articleHow to actually make money with your music
Building a loyal fanbase and making money from music requires owning your audience beyond streaming and social media platforms. Control your platform and diversify income through products, merch, experiences, and subscription clubs to reduce risk and increase revenue.
Read article
DistroKid Launched a Mobile App
DistroKid launched an app for iPhone that lets you distribute your music, see streaming data and check royalties right from your phone! DistroKid App Highlights DistroKid, a DIY distributor, has launched a new mobile app that allows artists signed up to the service to upload new releases, access streaming stats, edit metadata and more from...
Read article
How Much Did Spotify Pay Me For 1,556,335 Streams
My song Chains has generated 1,556,335 streams, but how much money did this actually generate? In this post i'll walk you through where these streams came from, what countries and calculate the average payment per stream. Background & Streaming Services We released Chains around September of 2020 and ran an initial marketing budget of $600...
Read article