800 artists receive 20% of the total revenue

​As of the status quo, it’s 0.7% of artists who rake in 90% of the revenues. At their “Stream On” event in 2020, Spotify announced that they paid out more than $5 billion. 4.5 billion therefore went to only 57,000 artists (or rather, their labels), which on average equals $79,000 per artist. But even among this this 0.7% elite there are massive differences: 800 artists received $1 million or more and 7,500 artists made over $100,000. So, even in the top elite there are around 49,000 artists who made less than $100,000 per year, while only 0.1% of all artists made six figures. At the same time, a total of 800 artists received around 20% of the total payout. The numbers emphasize why more and more artists are demanding a change in the way revenues are distributed. What such a system change can look like will be regularly covered in our iGroove magazine.