Five days ago, Spotify disputed a report that Apple Music pays artists more than double compared to Spotify’s average rates. In completely unrelated news, Spotify has published a blog post announcing record payouts to the music industry in 2024.
Maybe it’s a coincidence, and it took four weeks to crunch the numbers! Anyway, Spotify says it paid out $10 billion to the music industry last year, nearly matching global recorded music revenue from a decade ago:
In 2014, the music industry reached a low point when global recorded music revenues hit $13 billion. Spotify’s annual contribution at the time was around $1 billion, with around 15 million paying subscribers.
In 2024, Spotify alone paid out a record $10 billion to the music industry — totaling nearly $60 billion since our founding.
For a lot of people, those numbers might go in one ear and out the other. And they’d perhaps ask why Spotify keeps shouting about it.
The rest of the blog post, written by Spotify Music Business VP David Kaefer, explains how Spotify generates revenue that funds the music industry.
The three legs of the stool include making Spotify a stickier service, converting ad-supported listeners to paid subscribers, and monetizing new markets with compelling local prices.
Another positive data point for Spotify? Providing a living for smaller artists:
Case in point, we estimate that, in 2014, around 10,000 artists generated at least $10,000 per year on Spotify. Today, well over 10,000 artists generate over $100,000 per year from Spotify alone. That’s a beautiful thing.
My takeaway is this: greater transparency in how artists—not just the music industry as a whole—are paid is welcome. Still, it’s clear that Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services are responsible for creating great products that make paying more convenient than pirating.
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