How much do Apple Music, TIDAL, YouTube Music and Amazon pay per stream?

What to do, in order

1. 1

   Look at your own statement first

   Your distributor's earnings report is the only real number. Divide what a service paid by its streams, then multiply by 1,000.

2. 2

   Check what your distributor keeps

   Some keep nothing on streaming, while others keep a share on certain services. TuneCore, for example, says you keep 80% on YouTube Music.

3. 3

   Compare months, not single numbers

   Your rate moves with where your listeners live and which plans they're on, so one month can look odd. Look at the trend over several months.

4. 4

   Don't release around the rate

   You can't choose which service your fans use. Release everywhere, and pay more attention to how many streams you get than to the rate.

What each service says

Here's what the companies themselves say about how they pay. None of these is a rate an artist can count on.

How Spotify's royalties work

Outside estimates per 1,000 streams

These two sources are different kinds of estimate, so they don't line up, and that's worth seeing. Duetti is a company that works with independent artists' catalogs, and its figures come from its own report on 2024 independent streaming, which doesn't publish its full method. Spotify called that report's numbers unattributed guesses. The isrc.com roundup calls its figures consensus estimates and doesn't show the data behind them.

Estimates, not rates published by the services. Your own figure depends on your listeners and your deal.

What that could look like in dollars

This table multiplies the estimates above, so it's only as good as they are. TIDAL uses the roundup figure, and the rest use Duetti's. It's before any share your distributor or label keeps.

Spotify also has a 1,000-stream yearly minimum before a track earns recording royalties.

Why the rate is different on each service

Your rate isn't a fixed price per play. It depends on where the money comes from and how it's shared.

• Paid plans or ads: Duetti links Apple Music's rate to having no ad-supported tier and to higher-priced markets, and it links Spotify's rate partly to its ad-supported plans.
• Bundling: Duetti links Amazon's high figure to its services being bundled with Prime.
• Country: Amazon says royalties are paid by country, so a stream in one market can pay differently from a stream in another.
• Plan type: Amazon also separates usage by subscription tier, such as Individual, Family and HD.
• Your distributor: DistroKid says you keep 100% of earnings on its plans, while TuneCore says you keep 80% on YouTube Music.

Which streaming service pays artists the most?

By rate, these sources point to TIDAL or Amazon Music, depending on which one you read. By total money, the answer can flip. Spotify says it paid the music industry more than $11 billion in 2025, and in response to Duetti's report it said it leads in total payouts.

So a high rate on a service with few of your listeners may earn less than a low rate on one with many. It's useful to know, but it isn't a reason to leave a service out.

Songwriter royalties are separate

All of these numbers are about the recording. If you also wrote the song, publishing royalties are paid separately. Amazon, for example, says they go to publishers, collecting societies or performing rights organizations, and it points songwriters to The MLC in the US. Your distributor generally won't collect those for you.

Every way musicians get paid

How Traxure helps

Traxure doesn't track your royalties. It helps with what comes before them: making sure the song is there to be streamed. It checks your Spotify profile every 12 hours and your full catalog on 12 platforms every day. If a release goes missing on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, TIDAL, SoundCloud or Pandora, it emails you the before, the after and a note to your distributor ready to send. It works with any distributor, and monitoring starts with a seven-day free trial.

Each service's own statements were checked on its pages on 2 November 2026, except Apple's letter, as reported by Engadget. The per-stream figures are outside estimates.

See how release monitoring works

Questions artists ask

Sources

• Engadget: Apple Music's 2021 letter on per-stream pay
• TIDAL: artist resources
• YouTube Music: music aggregators
• Amazon Music for Artists: FAQs
• Spotify: royalties
• Spotify: Loud & Clear 2026 highlights
• Duetti: 2024 Music Economics Report release
• Digital Music News: Duetti's 2024 per-stream report
• isrc.com: 2026 per-play roundup
• DistroKid: pricing
• TuneCore: fees on monetizing your audio