Fair play - How much do different streaming services pay?

Since launching our streaming service in 2023, we’ve been stating that the combination of paying rightsholders per second (rather than ‘per play’) AND focussing purely on classical and jazz repertoire means that we’re often paying out up to 10x more than other major streaming services. 

Eighteen months on we feel it is time to start illustrating this with data from specific albums. We've picked a few prominent recent releases to demonstrate this here. As payments from services to labels are not based on specific 'per play' rates (but instead calculated according to total streams and total revenue each month) there is limited data as to exactly 'who pays what' in the public domain. After extensive research through articles and statistics published online over the last few years, and with the help of some supportive UK-based classical record labels, we have calculated an average ‘per play’ rate per service and from those have created the subsequent charts found below.  (All sources listed at the bottom of this article)

All of these music services offer multiple streaming plans, some include ad-funded options, most have student and family plans, and all charge different prices in different countries, so the ‘average’ here is exactly that. However, we were reassured by the remarkable consistency across the various sources we found, so whilst the only number which is 100% accurate is our own, we have very high confidence in the broad accuracy of these graphs. 

The other thing to bear in mind when interpreting this data is to remember who is being paid here. This represents payments from streaming services to record labels. How much of that money then gets passed on to artists will depend on the agreements between artists and labels, and will often vary on a case by case basis, depending on factors such as who paid for the original recording. Composers are paid separately, and classical ones typically suffer from similar deeply unsatisfactory payment models - a cause which has not escaped our attention and one which we will be focussing on in the future!

We've created these charts to illustrate how well a single album listen on Presto Music pays compared to other services, to thank our existing streaming customers on behalf of ourselves (and the wider classical recording industry), and to encourage the ‘streaming curious’ or ‘Presto curious’ to give us a try. This data also makes plain just how unfair the ‘pay per play’ model is when it comes to a big chunk of classical repertoire - especially orchestral music (which is also typically expensive to record). To ensure the future viability of our industry it needs to pay fairly. We’re doing that and hope that in time others will start doing so as well.  

Start your 30-day FREE trial today.

Sources:

https://www.lalal.ai/blog/how-much-streaming-services-pay-artists-in-2024/
https://virpp.com/hello/music-streaming-payouts-comparison-a-guide-for-musicians/
https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians
https://www.headphonesty.com/2021/11/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream/
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/which-streaming-platform-pays-musicians-most/
https://artists.apple.com/support/1124-apple-music-insights-royalty-rate 

Plus some friendly UK based classical record labels.

Note: We would love to continually improve this data, so if anyone reading this is aware of any other reliable sources, or is willing to share any data with us, then please do get in contact.