David McCandless from InformationIsBeautiful.net has done some amazing research putting together how much money artists can expect to make from streaming royalties. It isn’t much.

I put together a calculator using this data.

I’ve seen a few different ways these numbers are calculated and this seems the most accurate. I’m sure things have shifted a bit since 2018, so when I see a new data set available, I will update the calculator.

How it works

I calculate the expected number from streams from the other services based on the ratios from McCandless’s spreadsheet. Then, behind the scenes, I calculate how much you’ll get from all the services(also based on the same sheet) and add it all up for the total.

I’ve seen a lot of similar calculators and they all want you to know the numbers of streams you’ll get from all the services and that doesn’t seem realistic to me. Most people know their expected number of Spotify steams.

This also let’s you put in hypothetical numbers to see how much you’d earn with them. If you get lucky and get a few songs on some successful playlists, you might make a little cash.

Using this information

Steve Benjamins outlines his experience making $800/month on his blog. It is worth reading his advice if earning some side cash is your goal. It isn’t a lot and you can’t live off it, but it is a nice bit of passive income. This is not really good news for career musicians, unfortunately. ?

Photo for article by Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash