Streaming payouts 2026: what stores really pay per stream.

No industry estimate, no extrapolation: these numbers come from the actual royalty statements that stores paid out for music by independent artists distributed through OGRECORDS^™. We publish rates, shares and ranges only — and we show exactly how we got them.

Seven sentences you are free to quote.

1. $0.0074

   Apple Music paid a median of $0.0074 per stream (P10–P90: $0.0066–$0.0080) — slightly more than twice as much as Spotify.

2. $0.0036

   Spotify paid a median of $0.0036 per stream (P10–P90: $0.0021–$0.0042). One US dollar took about 280 Spotify streams, compared with about 134 on Apple Music.

3. 82%

   Spotify generated 82% of revenue while accounting for only 53% of all reported uses.

4. 16%

   Apple Music delivered 16% of revenue from just under 5% of uses — the most valuable stream in the dataset.

5. 0.1%

   TikTok accounted for 28% of all reported uses but only 0.1% of revenue: about $0.000007 per use, or roughly 140,000 uses for one dollar.

6. 3.6×

   Location matters: a Spotify stream from Switzerland paid $0.0052, one from Brazil $0.0014 — the Swiss stream was worth 3.6 times as much.

7. ±2%

   Apple Music paid almost the same in Germany, France and the US (no more than 2% from its average); on Spotify, countries ranged from 0.4 to 1.6 times the average.

The full table.

Rates in US dollars per reported use, master side, before distribution fee. “Range” is the 10th to 90th percentile of individual release rates: eight out of ten releases fell within it.

* Indicative: at least five releases, but too few with 100+ uses each for a robust median. The figure shown is the pooled average (total amount ÷ total uses).

Spotify and Apple Music by country

The largest countries in the dataset, each with at least five releases and 1,000 streams. The index compares the country's rate with the average of that store.

What the data says about paid and free tiers — and what it doesn't.

Spotify reports a single, already blended line per country and month: premium and free streams are not separated in the statements. A clean “premium vs. ad-supported” rate cannot be calculated from them, and we won't invent one.

There is still a solid indication. Apple Music has no free tier; every stream comes from a paid subscription. Apple paid slightly more than twice Spotify's median, and its rates barely varied between countries. On Spotify, where free listeners count too, countries were far apart. Both fit the expectation that ad-supported streams pull the average rate down. It is not proof in the strict sense.

What this means for artists.

Our realised Spotify rate is close to the industry averages we use for the calculator on How much does Spotify pay per stream?. On video platforms, however, the actual payout per use is well below the usual rules of thumb: TikTok and Instagram are mainly a route to listeners who then stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

Because Apple Music pays about twice as much per stream, and a stream from Switzerland earns several times as much as one from Brazil, the raw stream count says little about income. Getting your music into every store through a music distribution service means you don't give away any of these markets.

How the numbers were produced.

• Source: statement lines that stores reported to OGRECORDS™ through our distribution partner — usage months April to July 2026, settled July to September 2026.
• Amount: the gross amount in US dollars the store paid for the recording (master side), before any distribution fee. Publishing and collecting-society royalties (e.g. GEMA, PRS, ASCAP) are not included and come on top.
• Rate per release: total amount ÷ total uses of one release on one store over the whole period — only if it had at least 100 uses there, so that rounding to fractions of a cent does not distort the result.
• Median and range: median plus 10th and 90th percentile across these release rates. A store only appears if at least five releases reach this threshold; otherwise as a pooled indicative rate (at least five releases, 1,000 uses) or not at all.
• Countries: weighted rate per country, only countries with at least five releases and 1,000 streams on the store in question.
• Excluded: purchased downloads (not streams), months in which a store reported uses but had not yet valued them (Amazon Music and TikTok, July 2026), and the label’s own test releases.
• “Use” is the unit the store reports. On Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and Deezer that is a stream; on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook it is a use or view in videos, paid from licensing pools — not a stream in the classic sense.
• Limitations: the catalogue consists of independent artists, mostly hip-hop, pop and electronic music, with a focus on Germany. Rates depend heavily on the country mix; the figures describe this catalogue in this period and are not a statement about the whole market.
• Confidentiality: we do not publish absolute revenue or stream counts, nor names of artists, songs or releases. Every cell is based on at least five releases; the data basis is only given as a band.
• Reproducible: the analysis runs as a read-only script against the same database that calculates payouts to our artists. The aggregated figures are available below as a CSV download.

Free to quote — with a link.

Source: OGRECORDS™ Streaming Report 2026, based on real store royalty statements (usage months April–July 2026), og-records.com/en/streaming-report-2026

<blockquote cite="https://www.og-records.com/en/streaming-report-2026">
  <p>Apple Music pays slightly more than twice as much per stream as Spotify (median $0.0074 vs. $0.0036)</p>
  <footer>— <a href="https://www.og-records.com/en/streaming-report-2026">OGRECORDS™ Streaming Report 2026</a></footer>
</blockquote>

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