How do artists and songwriters get paid?

Mar 2, 2023

Spotify doesn’t pay artists or songwriters directly. 

Spotify primarily makes money for music from two sources — Spotify Premium subscribers and advertisers on Spotify’s Free tier. Approximately two-thirds of this money is paid out to music rights holders to what we call the “royalty pool.”

Spotify allocates that royalty pool based on each rights holder’s streamshare on Spotify. This money is not divvied up based on a fixed amount per stream because Premium subscribers do not pay per stream; they pay a subscription fee for access. 

From here, we encourage you to check out the following videos: How the Money Flows, and How the Money Flows (Publishing Edition).