Under our royalty policy, tracks need at least 1,000 streams in the past year to generate recording royalties. This doesn’t change the total royalty pool or increase Spotify’s profit; it redirects money to professional artists.
99.5% of all streams are of tracks that have at least 1,000 annual streams, and each of those tracks earn more under this policy.
In 2025, 3.5 million artists had at least one qualifying song. Average recording royalties earned per monetized song has more than tripled from 2023 to 2025.
Here’s how it breaks down: Tens of millions of tracks would only earn only $0.02 per month on average. Together, these sub-1,000-stream tracks represent about 0.5% of streams (and would therefore earn 0.5% of the royalty pool without our policy). With an $11B+ annual pool, 0.5% is real money, tens of millions of dollars per year.
Here’s the thing: Payments under $2 often don’t even reach artists. Labels and distributors have minimum withdrawal amounts ($2-$50), and banks charge transaction fees ($1-$20). So these tiny payments frequently get stuck in the system rather than reaching anyone’s pocket.
So, we redirect that money to where it can make a real difference: to artists who are actually building careers on streaming.