Sam Duboff
8.3K posts
@duboff
global head of marketing & policy, music business, @spotify
hey ryan! totally fair points. it's true — more artists are succeeding than ever before in music history, but barriers to entry to releasing music are lower than ever, so there are more artists trying to make it than ever before, too. it's the best time to be an artist, and also the hardest time to be an artist. in terms of the numbers of artists/rightsholders participating in the royalty pool, we're the only streaming service that shares transparent data on this front. i wish the other services would share too. click any revenue level here and you can see exactly how many artists generated that amount of $$ each of the last several years. (this is money paid to the artists' and songwriters' selected rightsholders ... we don't know what their deals are.) loudandclear.byspotify.com/payouts/ the story of our payouts are clear — more and more artists are succeeding every year. more artists generated $100k+ in 2025 than generated $50k+ in 2020. and more artists generated $100k+ in 2025 on spotify alone than even could be stocked on the shelves on the largest record store in the world at the peak of the CD era — for even a chance at making a sale. at the same time, you're absolutely right that more artists are releasing music than ever before, as barriers to entry lower. there's nothing we can do about that. the best we can do is continue to grow the royalty pool, pay more than any other service, and make sure emerging and professional artists (like our new Verified by Spotify pool) are succeeding.
i don't think there's any creative field (or athletic one) where the majority of the people who try to make a living doing it make a living. not sure that that's the bar. there are always going to be more people who want a career in music (or film, or youtubing, or photography, or anything else) than are able to have one, unfortunately. as a company, spotify certainly wants more and more artists making a living off their art. not just b/c it's nice, but b/c it's in our interest — more artists able to live full-time off music means they keep making music for our platform and others. the fact that more artists are making real money from music on spotify than any other single retailer or platform in history feels like a pretty solid achievement. 14k+ artists generated at least $100k on spotify last year. at the peak of the CD era, there weren't even 14k artists with a CD stocked on the shelves of the world's largest record store, with the chance to make a single sale. in 2025, 50% of spotify royalties went to indies. in 2000, ~15% of CD sales went to indies. it's a stronger, more diverse, more global music industry today. and it's also true that more artists are releasing music than ever before, thanks to the internet. both things can be true.
hey ryan! totally fair points. it's true — more artists are succeeding than ever before in music history, but barriers to entry to releasing music are lower than ever, so there are more artists trying to make it than ever before, too. it's the best time to be an artist, and also the hardest time to be an artist. in terms of the numbers of artists/rightsholders participating in the royalty pool, we're the only streaming service that shares transparent data on this front. i wish the other services would share too. click any revenue level here and you can see exactly how many artists generated that amount of $$ each of the last several years. (this is money paid to the artists' and songwriters' selected rightsholders ... we don't know what their deals are.) loudandclear.byspotify.com/payouts/ the story of our payouts are clear — more and more artists are succeeding every year. more artists generated $100k+ in 2025 than generated $50k+ in 2020. and more artists generated $100k+ in 2025 on spotify alone than even could be stocked on the shelves on the largest record store in the world at the peak of the CD era — for even a chance at making a sale. at the same time, you're absolutely right that more artists are releasing music than ever before, as barriers to entry lower. there's nothing we can do about that. the best we can do is continue to grow the royalty pool, pay more than any other service, and make sure emerging and professional artists (like our new Verified by Spotify pool) are succeeding.
Spotify & UMG announce licensing agreement that allows fans to create AI covers and remixes of songs from participating artists and songwriters. The new feature will be a paid add-on for Premium users which will “open up additional revenue streams” for artists and songwriters.
hi from spotify! that may have been true at the industry's low point, but today spotify is by far the biggest paycheck in music. we pay roughly two-thirds of all our music revenue back to the royalty pool, over $11B in 2025. and for the average indie artist, we represent more than 50% of their streaming revenue. it's also true that there are more artists than ever trying to make it, and not all of them will find the success they're hoping for. but it's a fact that more are making real money on spotify today than ever before. we're excited about add-ons like this that create net new revenue for the music industry on top of a growing royalty pool. you can learn more about how the number of artists making money grows every year: loudandclear.byspotify.com
