Streaming royalty calculator — estimate your earnings

Freecords
3 min readSep 23, 2022

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TL;DR Check out our music streaming royalty calculator here. Updated with the most recent statistics

As a starting musician, it’s only natural that you’re wondering about the earning capacity of your music. Either for setting goals for yourself or if you already have an audience and wonder what your payout will be.

Of course, when estimating streaming earnings, the main question is from which country the plays come. Because at the end of the day, that will determine your pay per stream and overall earnings.

The highest paying country is undoubtedly the United States, followed by Germany, the United Kingdom, and France.

Usually, the average payout per 1,000 streams in the US will be between $5–10, which isn’t so bad.

In Germany and the UK, this number is between $5–7. Some other countries with higher purchasing power also come in this range, but these are approximately the highest paying ones.

The South African Republic is among the highest paying countries for Spotify streaming in Africa, with around $0.5 per 1,000 streams.
All other African countries fall behind that.

These numbers of course vary by a lot depending on the platform, and can also vary depending on the month.

What’s important to note is that Apple Music pays more than Spotify in almost every country and especially in the African market.

Bare in mind that the payout does not depend on the location of the artist, but strictly on the location of the listeners, the users who are paying to listen to music. Of course, the payout also depends on whether your music is listened to by users on a Free or paid plan. This goes for Spotify as well as YouTube and YouTube Music.

Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are the worst paying services, but this is only natural since their core business model isn’t music. Meta has recently announced that they will be paying out 20% of their advertising revenue to musicians, but we are yet to see what their payouts will be,

Right now, even with millions of plays around the world, artists can barely make $1–2 per every million plays on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Since at Freecords we provide music distribution, we have enough statistics to make a streaming royalty calculator for anyone who is interested to see how much they will make from their music.

On this link, you can access our calculator, which we try to update regularly so that it contains all the latest data.

If you are interested in Free Music Distribution, feel free to check out The Club, where you will be able to distribute unlimited releases, both singles, and albums, for Free.

In conclusion, the tool can serve as a good goal setter. So that you can aim not only for a financial objective but also for audience metrics.
In the end, all that matters is to not give up on your dreams, whatever they might be. If making a career as a musician is yours, stay persistent, work on yourself, and success will come. The only people who fail are the ones who give up.
As with everything, remember when the hardships come, as they are an essential part of everyday and professional life.

Published on: 23rd of September, 2022.

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Freecords
Freecords

Written by Freecords

Freecords is a streaming platform focused on music discovery and the showcasing of new and emerging artists.

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