We all know it’s tough to make money on Spotify. 

Streaming royalties are notoriously low across the board, and Spotify doesn’t even claim the top spot on that list. 

But despite the low payouts, earning money from streaming is still a goal worth pursuing (not the only goal, mind you, but a goal nonetheless), so let’s examine three scenarios to find out what it takes to achieve financial success on Spotify. 

Time for some math. 🤓

Scenario #1: Breaking even

Before we dig in, let’s make two assumptions: 

Firstly, we are going to assume we are using Facebook ads to consistently market our music, spending $10 per day, every day. 

And secondly, we’re going to assume we are only advertising in the United States and getting streams from within the US as well. Spotify’s payout per stream (PPS) varies from country to country, so this will be a lot simpler if we stick to one country. 

For this first scenario, we are going to assume the only goal we have is to make back what we spend. We aren’t concerned with actually making money just yet—we just don’t want to lose it. 

Now, the math:

If we are spending $10 per day on ads, that means we are spending $3,650 per year ($10 x 365 = $3,650), so we need to make $3,650 directly from Spotify royalties to cover our efforts. 

According to this article, Spotify pays out $3,974.47 per million streams in the United States or $0.003974468826 per stream. 

This means we need just under one million streams per year to break even on our advertising—918,362 streams to be exact. 

This breaks down to 76,530 streams per month, 17,661 streams per week, or 2,516 streams per day. 

Achievable. 

Scenario #2: Turning a profit

Now that we know how much it takes to avoid losing money on our marketing, let’s have a look at what it would take to actually make money from our efforts. 

At this stage, we’re not concerned with covering all of our expenses just yet—we just want to earn a little extra from doing what we love. 

So let’s say we want to make an additional $500 per month from our music. 

This is enough to pad our bank account and even potentially increase our ad spend if we want to grow faster. 

Again, assuming we are spending $10 per day on ads in the United States, this means we first need to cover our $3,650 worth of marketing expenses plus earning an additional $6,000 per year on top of that ($500 x 12 = $6,000).

That brings us to a total of $9,650 in revenue per year. Just shy of $10,000. 

Not bad. 

With Spotify’s payout per stream in the United States of $3,974.47 per million streams, this means we’ll need exactly 2,427,997 streams to meet our goal. 

That’s 202,333 streams per month, 46,692 streams per week, or 6,652 streams per day. 

A slightly bigger goal, but not unrealistic. 

Scenario #3: Earning a living

Let’s say we’re no longer interested in breaking even or even just putting a little extra cash in our pocket. 

We’ve decided we want to go full-time. 

A full-time income looks different for everyone—we all have different expenses, different wants, and different needs, so let’s again make some assumptions:

For this exercise, let’s assume $50,000 per year is enough to constitute a full-time income. It could be tight or it could be more than enough depending on our circumstances. Regardless, let’s assume this will allow us to quit everything else and focus solely on our craft. 

If we want to earn $50,000 per year from Spotify royalties (this includes our $10 per day ad spend), we will need to amass 12,580,297 streams within one calendar year in the United States. 

This comes out to 1,048,358 streams per month, 241,928 streams per week, or 34,467 per day. 

Depending on where we are in our journey, this may feel like a bit of a mountain to climb, but at least now we know where we’re headed. 

With each of these three scenarios, our goals become a bit loftier, but never unattainable. 

Releasing music can often feel like shouting into the abyss with no one paying attention, but I know I personally thrive when I have a clear set of metrics to pursue—having quantifiable objectives gives me something tangible to shoot for. 

I hope it does the same for you.