“Spotify doesn’t pay artists” is one of the most repeated lines in music, and also one of the hardest to check. Spotify publishes one dataset that makes it checkable: how many artists’ catalogs generated at least a set amount in royalties each year, from $1,000 up to $10 million, going back to 2017. It’s on Spotify’s Loud & Clear payouts page, and the 2026 edition covers royalty year 2025.
We transcribed the full nine-year table, split it into earnings bands, and measured how fast each band has grown. One caveat comes first because everything depends on it: these are royalties paid to rights holders for an artist’s catalog, not the artist’s take-home pay. More on that below.
The short version
- Spotify paid out more than $11 billion in 2025 and nearly $70 billion lifetime, per Spotify. Payouts grew more than 10% year over year.
- 303,200 artists generated at least $1,000. 81,100 generated at least $10,000. 13,800 generated at least $100,000. 1,540 generated $1 million, and 80 generated $10 million.
- Most of the curve grew at the same pace. From 2017 to 2025, every level from $1,000 to $2 million grew between 3.2 and 3.5 times. The top did better: the $5 million level grew 4.6 times and the $10 million level 8 times (our calculation).
- Only about 4.5% of artists earning $1,000 or more reach $100,000 (13,800 of 303,200). That share has barely moved since 2017, when it was 4.7%.
The full table: artists at each royalty level, 2017–2025
| Generated at least | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 91,200 | 114,300 | 139,200 | 186,800 | 204,100 | 239,000 | 259,700 | 274,000 | 303,200 |
| $5,000 | 36,400 | 45,500 | 53,700 | 67,800 | 81,700 | 93,000 | 103,400 | 110,500 | 127,100 |
| $10,000 | 23,400 | 29,300 | 34,900 | 42,500 | 52,700 | 57,900 | 66,000 | 71,200 | 81,100 |
| $50,000 | 7,400 | 9,400 | 11,400 | 13,500 | 16,500 | 18,000 | 20,500 | 22,100 | 24,700 |
| $100,000 | 4,300 | 5,600 | 6,700 | 7,800 | 9,500 | 10,100 | 11,600 | 12,500 | 13,800 |
| $500,000 | 960 | 1,220 | 1,530 | 1,810 | 2,170 | 2,250 | 2,620 | 2,940 | 3,240 |
| $1 million | 460 | 590 | 720 | 860 | 1,040 | 1,070 | 1,250 | 1,450 | 1,540 |
| $2 million | 210 | 260 | 330 | 360 | 450 | 470 | 570 | 670 | 740 |
| $5 million | 50 | 70 | 90 | 100 | 130 | 130 | 170 | 210 | 230 |
| $10 million | 10 | 15 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 40 | 60 | 70 | 80 |
Source: Spotify, Loud & Clear payouts. Spotify notes the data is “accurate as of March 11, 2026,” that counts are rounded (to the nearest 5 at the $10 million level, and to the nearest 10 at the $2 million and $5 million levels), and that figures can change with retroactive adjustments. Each count is the number of recording artists whose catalogs generated at least that amount in recording and publishing royalties on Spotify that year.
Splitting the curve into bands
The published numbers are cumulative: the 81,100 artists above $10,000 include the 13,800 above $100,000. Subtracting each level from the one below gives the number of artists in each earnings band:
| Band (royalties generated on Spotify in the year) | Artists, 2017 | Artists, 2025 | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 – $4,999 | 54,800 | 176,100 | 3.2× |
| $5,000 – $9,999 | 13,000 | 46,000 | 3.5× |
| $10,000 – $49,999 | 16,000 | 56,400 | 3.5× |
| $50,000 – $99,999 | 3,100 | 10,900 | 3.5× |
| $100,000 – $499,999 | 3,340 | 10,560 | 3.2× |
| $500,000 – $999,999 | 500 | 1,700 | 3.4× |
| $1 million – $1.99 million | 250 | 800 | 3.2× |
| $2 million – $4.99 million | 160 | 510 | 3.2× |
| $5 million – $9.99 million | 40 | 150 | 3.8× |
| $10 million or more | 10 | 80 | 8.0× |
Our calculation from Spotify’s published counts. Because Spotify rounds each count, the smallest bands are approximate.
The band table shows two things.
First, the middle is real and growing. In 2025, 56,400 artists’ catalogs generated between $10,000 and $50,000 on Spotify, and another 10,900 between $50,000 and $100,000. These are the career artists Spotify’s report is built around. By Spotify’s own estimate, an artist at a given Spotify level likely generated about three times that across all streaming services, and more across all recorded music.
Second, the shape of the curve hasn’t changed. Every band from $1,000 to $5 million grew by roughly the same multiple. Streaming money did not move down the curve to smaller artists, and it did not pile up in the middle. It grew across the board, and most of that growth simply tracks Spotify paying out more money overall. The fastest-growing group is the very top: 10 artists generated $10 million in 2017 and 80 did in 2025.
That second point qualifies one of Spotify’s own headlines. Spotify says the 100,000th-ranked artist’s royalties grew more than three times faster than the 10th-ranked artist’s over the past five years. That can be true for those two positions while the count of $10 million artists is also growing fastest. Ten artists becoming 80 means new superstars joined the top level, not that each superstar’s income grew. The cumulative counts can’t settle which effect dominates. They do show that the top is not shrinking.
What these numbers are not
Treat every number above as gross royalties to rights holders, which is how Spotify itself describes them:
- They include labels’ and publishers’ shares. Spotify pays labels, distributors, publishers and collecting societies. A signed artist then receives a royalty set by their contract, after the label’s share. A self-releasing artist on a flat-fee distributor keeps nearly all of it. The same $100,000 can mean very different take-home pay.
- They count catalogs, not people. A band counts as one “artist” however many members it has.
- They are Spotify only. Spotify says it is about 30% of global recorded-music revenue, up from under 15% in 2017. It estimates that artists at the $100,000 level likely generated about three times that across all streaming services.
- There is no per-stream rate. Spotify pays rights holders a share of revenue in each market based on their share of streams. Any “per-stream” figure is an average that varies by country and subscription tier.
For where streaming fits among the other income streams (touring, publishing, merch, sync), see how artists actually get paid in 2026. For what a streaming subscription is worth to the US industry as a whole, see our breakdown of the RIAA revenue numbers: about $55 per premium account per year at wholesale.
Other 2025 figures from Spotify’s report
All from Spotify’s Loud & Clear 2026 takeaways:
- Independents: “roughly half of royalties were generated by independent artists and labels.”
- DIY: more than a third of artists generating $10,000 or more were DIY or started their careers as DIY.
- The 100,000th artist generated more than $7,300 in 2025, against about $350 in 2015.
- Global reach: 85% of the artists who crossed $100,000 for the first time in 2025 are based outside the US. Artists generating over $500,000 came from 75 countries, up from 66 a year earlier.
- Fastest-growing genres among those generating over $50 million: Brazilian funk (+36%), K-pop (+31%), trap latino (+29%), urban latino (+27%) and reggaeton (+24%).
- The biggest songs: for the individual tracks at the very top of Spotify, see the most-streamed songs on Spotify, led by “Blinding Lights” at 5.65 billion streams.
- Songwriters: Spotify says 2025 was its largest-ever publishing payout. It paid about $5 billion to publishers and songwriter organizations over the past two years.
Method
- Data. The nine-year counts were transcribed from the interactive chart on Spotify’s Loud & Clear payouts page, which shows each royalty level from 2017 to 2025.
- Our calculations. The band counts (each level minus the next level up), growth multiples (2025 ÷ 2017), year-over-year changes and shares are our own arithmetic on Spotify’s rounded counts. The $10 million and $5 million levels are small and heavily rounded, so read their multiples as approximate.
- Not independently audited. These are Spotify’s own figures, published by Spotify to make its case to artists.
Last updated: October 28, 2026. Spotify publishes the next edition, covering 2026, in early 2027.
Frequently asked questions
How many artists make $100,000 a year on Spotify? About 13,800 artists generated at least $100,000 in royalties on Spotify in 2025, according to Spotify’s Loud & Clear data. That is up from 12,500 in 2024 and 4,300 in 2017. The figure is royalties paid to rights holders for each artist’s catalog, across recording and publishing, before the artist’s label, distributor or publisher takes its share.
How many artists make $1 million on Spotify? 1,540 artists generated at least $1 million in Spotify royalties in 2025, up from 1,450 in 2024 and 460 in 2017. Eighty generated at least $10 million.
How much did Spotify pay artists in 2025? Spotify says it paid the music industry more than $11 billion in 2025, its largest annual payout, bringing its lifetime total to nearly $70 billion. That money goes to rights holders (labels, distributors, publishers and collecting societies), who then pay artists and songwriters under their own contracts.
Does Spotify pay per stream? No. Spotify does not pay a fixed rate per stream. It pays rights holders a share of its revenue in each market based on their share of streams. Dividing payouts by streams gives an average, but that average varies by country, by subscription tier and by the artist’s deal.
How much does an artist making $100,000 on Spotify earn in total? Spotify estimates that artists at the $100,000 level likely generated roughly three times that across all streaming services, and more again across all recorded-music sources. It also says Spotify is about 30% of global recorded music revenue. How much reaches the artist depends on their deal, which can range from nearly all of it for a self-releasing artist using a flat-fee distributor to a contractual royalty share on a traditional label deal.
