This Is How Much Money Bands Are Making From Fans Streaming Their Music

In 2017, many creative fields are under attack and opportunities for money are slim. While this is an issue in the entire scene (writers, photographers, labels, etc), of course bands suffer just as much, if not more than the rest of us.

​In a recent study by Digital Music News, they’ve been able to determine what bands do actually earn in 2017 and what is needed streaming wise for the band to make minimum wage. Digital Music News’ research is quite extensive and includes factors such as analyzed artist revenue per play, total users per platform, plays needed to earn a minimum monthly wage, and many more.

For this matter, we’ll be focussing on the two biggest streaming platforms: Spotify and Apple Music who each have millions of millions of paid subscribers.
Spotify currently has 50+ million paid subscribers, Apple Music has 27+ million.

For a musician to get the minimum wage of  $1,400 a month, he/she would need to rake in 230.000 streams per month via Apple Music. For Spotify, this number is way higher: 380.000. Of course, this $1,400 a month would be for one musician, so when you’re looking at bands, this $1,400 needs to be split between band members. 

It’s common knowledge that bands nowadays need the support from their fans to purchase the physical CD’s, merch and come to their shows etcetera. Let these numbers be a wake-up call that this is indeed needed for your favourite artists to survive out there!