As an indipendent artist, novelist, musician i have a lot of experience and data related to self publishing platforms and services collected and analyzed.

Regarding Streaming Music platforms, such as AppleMusic, Soundcloud, Spotify, Tidal, etc.. i have collected, analyzed and summerized this report about the royalties an artist can expect from them.

After an entire year of real data reports i have calculated this chart (in $) about “pay per stream” for each of the big players of the streaming music market:

#platformpay per 1 streampay per 1000 streamsrank
1Soundcloud HighTier0.01111.00😁
2Napster0.00919.10😄
3AppleMusic0.00404.00😐
4Tidal0.00363.60😐
5AmazonMusic0.00323.20😐
6YoutubeMusic0.00292.90😐
7Soundcloud FreeTier0.00121.20🙁
8Spotify0.00111.10☹️
9Deezer0.00111.10☹️

As you can see, the best player for Artists and winner for 2021 is Soundcloud HighTier.

At the second place we encounter Napster, higher conversion/rate but few streamings due to the fact that the platform has not so much subscribers.

At the third place, maybe the best conversion/rate and number of streaming pair, is still AppleMusic.

Tidal has fallen a lot of positions, loosing a 60% in conversion rate without being a very interesting platform (in terms of listeners) for artists.

AmazonMusic does not offer a big audience, nor big numbers in streaming and a low conversion rate per streaming. Also the catalogue is unstable, many artists experience discography problems with Amazon, and the artist support is simply absent.

The Soundcloud free tier has increased the conversion rate, a very good new, coming together with a great audience and potential.

Spotify is a delusion, together with Deezer, the french similar concurrent. At the lower place in terms of conversion, they still offer a free tier with a huge (spotify) and quite good (deezer) listener base.

Spotify has the best artists’ program, comparable with the AppleMusic one. Anyway, a must have to spread the word more than earn money.

The Google platforms, Youtube and YoutubeMusic are simply unmeasurable. The lowest conversion rate (0,000..), so near ZERO earnings. Clearly the two platforms are experiencing a strong crisis.

I have completely abandoned Facebook, Instagram and TikTok music monetization programs because they treat artists unfairly by paying too low royalties or any. I have stopped to publish there any update, investing my time in other, decentralized, artists friendly platforms.

A last word about Bandcamp. I have experienced a fall of plays and sells on this amazing platform. Maybe the economic crisis, maybe other factors, don’t know. Anyway i will continue to publish and invest a bit in this beautiful platform made for us, the artists.

Conclusions

Personally i am investing 90% of my energies in developing the platforms:

  • Soundcloud
  • Bandcamp

Because i get more listeners or more money from them. Other platforms are more or less a waste of time for indie artists, unfortunately.

Sincerely Yours,
Dino Olivieri.

Support me by my music at:

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/onyrix
BANDCAMP: https://onyrix.bandcamp.com/