How much do I earn per stream on Apple Music?

After we recently analyzed how much you earn per stream on Spotify, we’ve now looked at its biggest competitor: Apple Music.

Once again, we have collected a large amount of data based on the streaming numbers of the iGroove customers. Similar to Spotify there’s not a single amount per stream but various. The difference between the different countries are big although the gap is not as wide as on Spotify.

What causes the fluctuations in streaming payouts?

A big difference between the two giants is certainly that Apple Music doesn’t offer a free service. Exceptions are free trial months and special offers. With these, the PPS (Pay Per Stream) is much lower than with regular subscriptions and sometimes there’s no payout to the artists at all. If these trial months and offers were excluded, the PPS at Apple Music would be even higher.

At Apple Music, the differences are mainly due to the cost of the subscription. While in Turkey you can listen to Apple Music for the equivalent of 1.90 USD for one month, in Denmark you pay almost 16 USD.

In addition, the PPS differs enormously among the various subscription types. Streams from a normal subscription in Germany generate 9,780 USD per million streams. With a family subscription it’s only 5,025 USD. As mentioned, the payments are even lower in the test months or for special promotions.

Since fewer factors influence the PPS at Apple Music, the differences between countries are not quite as massive. The front-runner Norway surpasses the other countries by a maximum of six times, with the exceptions of Nigeria, Kazakhstan, India and Russia.

Let’s compare the 20 most important music markets according to IFPI (South Korea, Brazil and Argentina are missing on the list). You can already see the massive differences between the countries. While in India you get 2,303 USD for one million streams, in Norway, Denmark and Sweden it’s more than 12,000 USD. In the 17 most important music markets, one receives an average of 8,924 USD for one million streams.

How much does Apple Music pay per stream?

Like Spotify, Apple Music keeps 30% of the revenues for itself and pays out a share of the remaining 70% to the authors. The remaining amount goes to the rights holders via label or distribution.

Apple Music pays the artists according to a so-called pro-rata system. This means that all generated revenues are put into one pot (or into many pots depending on the country and subscription model) and then divided on a percentage basis according to the streams generated. If Apple Music has made 100 million in one month and you have generated 1% of all streams, you will get 1 million.

Assuming that one would have the same number of streams in each of the 50 countries evaluated, one would receive 6,872 USD for one million streams. This is just a little less of the amount Apple Music pays for streams from Germany (7,002 USD). As with Spotify, there are significant differences between the English-speaking countries: In the UK you get over 11,500 USD for one million streams, in New Zealand 9,239, in Australia 8,259, in Canada 5,438 and in the USA 7,640. Which means that you get 1,5 times as much in the UK than in the US.

In terms of PPS and population size the most interesting markets are the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Australia and the USA. Unlike Spotify, Italy, Portugal and Spain are also very interesting. One should also not despise the Benelux countries, Switzerland, Austria and especially the Scandinavian countries, which top the list.

Apple Music vs. Spotify

It is no secret that Apple Music pays significantly more per stream than its Swedish competitor. Thanks to our evaluation you can now see how big the difference really is.

Calculated on average for all countries, Apple Music pays 2.88 times as much per stream as Spotify. While the factor in the home market USA is 2.16, it’s almost 5 in southern European countries such as Greece. In Portugal even at an incredible 5.77.

In the list below you can see how much you get for one million streams in 50 different countries. You can also compare the numbers from Apple Music directly with those from Spotify. The factor shows how much more you get per stream at Apple Music. Finally, you can see how much the subscription costs for the two stores in the respective country.

Legend: For streams from Germany you get 7,002 USD for one million streams at Apple Music and 3,367 USD at Spotify. Per stream you get 2,08 times as much at Apple Music. If an artist generates practically only streams from Germany, he needs about 1.18 million Spotify streams to earn 4,000 USD per month, while 571,000 streams are already sufficient for Apple Music. 

For the consumer it hardly matters which service he chooses, as the subscription prices are roughly identical. As a musician, however, you benefit much more from Apple Music.