Spotify breaks record with largest annual payout reaching €9.5bn

Report also reveals more artists are making more money on the platform than ever before, with figures showing artists who have generated royalties from $1,000 to more than $10m per year has tripled since 2017

Taylor Swift was named Spotify’s 2024 global top artist, with more than 26.6 billion streams globally.

Spotify has broken the record for the highest annual payment to the music industry from any single retailer with a $10bn (€9.5bn) payout, new figures show.

The 2024 figure was revealed in the streaming provider’s 2025 Loud And Clear report after 2023 saw the streaming provider pay out more than $9bn (€8.6bn) to the music industry.

The report reveals it brings the total lifetime payout to rights-holders for the work of artists and songwriters to nearly $60bn (€57.1bn).

A spokesperson for Spotify said: “Music fans streaming their favourite artists are directly fuelling their success and they are reshaping the industry.

"Thanks to streaming, more artists than ever before are generating royalties at every career stage, more than at any time in music history.”

The report also reveals more artists are making more money on the platform than ever before, with figures showing artists who have generated royalties from $1,000 to more than $10m (€9.5m) per year has tripled since 2017.

It comes after pop star Taylor Swift was named Spotify’s 2024 global top artist, with more than 26.6 billion streams globally along with ranking number one on the platform for her album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.

It follows the singer’s Eras world tour, which broke the touring revenue record with more than $2bn (€1.9bn) in ticket sales.

Music streaming has been criticised by artists and musicians around the world, including Swift, who have claimed they make little money from it.

The American pop star boycotted Spotify and other music streaming platforms in 2014, pulling her music catalogue for three years before rejoining in 2017 after selling 10 million copies of her 1989 album worldwide.

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke also pulled his music in 2013, claiming unfair payment practices, but has since rejoined.

The music streaming provider says it does not have “visibility” on where the money goes, claiming it pays the record labels or publishers, which then pay artists and groups based on their individual contracts.

A spokesperson for Spotify said: “Spotify does not pay artists or songwriters directly. We pay rights-holders, these are typically record labels, music publishers, collection societies.

“These rights-holders then pay artists and songwriters based on their individual agreements.

“Just like every other streaming service, roughly two-thirds of all of our music revenue go straight to the recording and publishing rights-holders, and just like every other streaming service Spotify does not pay on a per-stream basis.

“Instead, if you have, say, 1% of all streams, your rights-holders will receive 1% of all the money we paid out. From there, the rightsholders divide up the money based on their individual contracts with the artists and songwriters who they represent.

“Once that money is paid out from Spotify, we do not have visibility into where it goes.”

PA