But only 52,600 artists generated more than $10,000 on the platform.
Spotify’s annual “Loud and Clear” has been released (24 March 2022) and highlights some important numbers about Spotify and the streaming industry as a whole.
The full “Loud and Clear” Spotify report states that more than $7 billion has been paid out to rights holders — including artists, labels, and distributors — which is up by $5 billion from last year.
Spotify says that this is the largest sum paid by one retailer to the music industry in one year in history. This includes any single retailer at the height of the CD era.
The report also mentioned:
- Over 1,000 artists generated $1 million on Spotify.
- 450 artists generated more than $2 million
- 130 artists generated over $5 million
However, Spotify pays the rights holders directly – they do not pay artists or songwriters directly — so a large percentage of this money actually goes to the labels and publishers, who then take a cut according to the artist or songwriter’s contract.
This video explains in detail how the money flows:
The three major record labels, Universal, Warner, and Sony, earned $12.5 billion from streaming recorded revenue alone, with Spotify payments making around a third of that streaming total.
However, on the less impressive side of things, 52,600 artists generated more than $10,000 from Spotify in 2021. But you must take into consideration that Spotify has over 8 million artists on its platform
