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Music Business

How Much Does Apple Music Pay Per Stream?

Photograph of the blog post author, Ella Clarke

Ella Clarke

20.6.2022

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Today, the world of music is undergoing dramatic changes. Music streaming services and the Coronavirus pandemic have changed the way artists make money.

Streaming platforms have become the main source of income for musicians over the past few years, and their number is growing exponentially.

Globally, analysts estimate there are almost one thousand streaming services. Some of them are known only in certain countries or regions of the world, while others are known all over the world.

Apple Music

There is no doubt that Apple Music is among the leaders in the music industry, ranking second only to the Swedish giant Spotify in terms of market share and user numbers. Streaming fees for Apple Music artists have been revealed as a gesture of goodwill. 

For each play, distribution rights holders receive one dollar penny from Apple Music. Though it might not seem like much, it’s about twice what Spotify pays to artists.

Apple Music’s average pay per stream rate is between $0.007 and $0.01. Royalties are calculated based on a stream share, and vary by subscription plan and country; however, Apple claims their average pay per stream rate is $0.01. 

How Much Does Apple Music Pay Per 1000 Streams?

For every 1,000 streams, Apple Music pays artists about $6 to $10. 

As mentioned above, your number will fluctuate based on how many streams you receive and who listens to your music. 

Your music will earn more money per stream if more of your listeners live in wealthier countries and use paid subscription plans. 

How Much Does Apple Music Pay Per Million Streams?

Artists receive about $7,000 to $10,000 per million streams on Apple Music. 

That’s a decent chunk of change, in my opinion. 

With Apple Music alone, you could easily be making $84,000 to $120,000 a year if you were able to generate a million streams per month. 

Having a music catalog of 100 songs will only require you to generate 10,000 streams each month, or 333 streams per song a day, to reach one million streams. 

What is the likelihood of this happening? 

The growth of your streams on Apple Music is much harder to influence than on a platform like Spotify. 

With Spotify, it’s very easy to reach out to playlists and get your music added so you can start growing your streams. 

This isn’t the case with Apple Music. 

Furthermore, Apple Music has a far smaller user base than Spotify, so getting this amount of volume is a challenge. 

Summary

The number of paying members on Spotify still outnumbers those on Apple Music. Spotify reported 155 million premium users in the last quarter of 2021, bringing its total to over 400 million.

Compared to Apple Music and Tidal, Spotify users stream more music on average.

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