You may have seen the graph showing how much streams/sales an artist needs to earn US monthly minimum wage? The one with the big pink bubbles? The information is rather outdated, but people keep referring to it. Spotify pays more per stream now. I have asked Information Is Beautiful to update the graph. No response so far, so I took the liberty of updating it myself. Time to let some air out.
I decided to focus on the revenues for Indie Artists because I honestly don’t know what percentage labels pass on to their artists. Here is the result:
So Rhapsody offers a better deal? Maybe. But take in mind that Rhapsody has about 1 million users. Spotify has over 10 million active users, so chances of earning a minimum wage from Spotify streams are ten times as high I guess.
I will try to keep the graph updated, so stay tuned.
Some things that should be included:
* Tunecore should be included and that Tunecore does charge annual renewal fees.
* CD Baby does charge submission fees for singles and albums but NOT renewal fees.
DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION (which really is “digital delivery”):
The chance (likelihood) of an indie artist making all those sales whatever it is on whatever platform with whatever medium should also be included. For example, the number of indie artists on Tunecore or on CD Baby and the actual music SOLD.
A major task….and I think it would be a very depressing result.
My mission is to give accurate information on the much discussed Spotify pay outs. A comparison of terms and conditions of aggregators is not what I am after. Sorry.