PER-STREAM PAYOUTS AND THE STREAMING-REVENUE PIE

A report from The Trichordist blog finds that Spotify’s per-stream payout has declined 16% since 2014, from $0.00521 to $0.00437. At the same time, however, Spotify’s volume has exploded since then, with paid streams taking off and the Swedish DSP now accounting for almost 70% of the majors’ streaming revenue.

Of course, that figure comes from averaging subscription and ad-supported rates, so take it with whatever-sized grain of salt you deem appropriate.

Apple Music, meanwhile, while accounting for a small percentage of overall streams, pays a considerably handsomer per-stream rate of $0.00735. The top six streaming businesses—the aforementioned plus Google, YouTube, Deezer and Rhapsody—make up 96.8% of total streaming revenue.

YouTube makes up 21.7% of streams but only 3.8% of streaming revenue, as its subscription business has not yet gained any traction and those streams are ad-supported. Thus 876 plays on YouTube are calculated by the blog to equal a traditional sale, more than 10 times the streams required on Apple Music.