Spotify says it paid out $7 billion in royalties to artists in 2021

Streaming music platform Spotify says it paid $7 billion USD (roughly $8.7 billion CAD) in royalties to rights holders last year, according to the company’s latest transparency report on its ‘Loud & Clear‘ website.

This follows several reports that the music streaming giant continues to pay artists minuscule royalty amounts.

Here are a few notable facts from the report:

Spotify’s royalty payments went up $2 billion USD (about $2.5 billion CAD). This is an increase from $5 billion (about $6.2 billion CAD) last year.

The streaming service says that it pays rights holders like record labels and distributors, who then in turn, pay artists.

Spotify says that over 1,000 artists made more than $1 million USD (roughly $1.2 million CAD) through royalties on its platform

The streaming platform says that 28 percent (52,600) of artists that self-distribute on its platform and that do not have a record deal, earned over $10,000 (approximately $12,500 CAD). Further, 16,500 artists earned $50,000 (about $62,000 CAD) in royalties in 2021.

Like last year’s report, Spotify has also released a calculator where artists and fans can input a monthly listener count to compare their song streams to the rest of the platform.

Unsurprisingly, the entire report is extremely positive and neglects to mention the thousands of artists that aren’t pulling in a ton of cash every month. It’s also worth mentioning that these figures don’t include the final amount of money an artist receives after labels and publishers take their cuts.

Source: Spotify