It’s known that Apple Music pays artists way more than Spotify. The problem is that Spotify usually gets more listeners than Apple’s offering. To show a real-life comparison, music producer L.Dre compared how much he earned on both platforms when comparing 4 million streams and the pros and cons of each streaming service.
The music producer posted an 8-minute-long video on his YouTube channel showing how much he earned from each music streaming service for quite the same number of stream counts.
With 4.7 million streams on Apple Music, he got $24,200 in revenue, while 4.5 million streams on Spotify accounted for $11,683.96 in revenue. With more than double the amount of revenue, it’s important to remember how little Spotify pays per stream compared to Apple Music.
For example, to get $1,000 in revenue, an Apple Music artist needs 100,000 streams as it pays $0,01 per stream. While this looks like a lot, a Spotify artist needs 303,030 streams to get the same amount, as the service pays $0,0033.
As noted by L.Dre, Tidal is the music streaming service that pays the most, $0,013 per stream, while Pandora is the one that pays less, $0,0013 per stream.
The music producer explained why one of his songs exploded on Apple Music
“This song on Apple Music is doing great. Shoutout to the Apple Music playlist gods. I got lucky, and this song was put into one of the biggest hip-hop instrumental playlists on Apple Music, I didn’t pitch it or anythimg, it just got in there.”
While playlists made by Apple help artists, it’s also important to note that the platform isn’t the best for them. L.Dre says that Spotify offers better features, such as Shopify integration for merch, better linking tools, and also more ways users can engage within the platform.
For example, almost every month Spotify offers AI playlists that combine artists or matches users’ interest. If you are on dating apps, you can only integrate your Spotify listening experience, not other streaming services. On the desktop app, you can see what your friends are listening to.
Last but not least, the producer finishes his video by saying that independent producers and artists should boost every music streaming service and use social media a lot. If he was able to get four million streams on Tidal, he would have gotten $50,000.
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