One Thousand

Spotify's track monetization eligibility page says "As of April 2024, these policies are in effect for all artists." The rule: "tracks must have reached a threshold of at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months to be included in the recorded music royalty pool calculation." Then the second gate: "There's also a minimum number of unique listeners required for a track to become eligible", and "We don't share this number publicly to prevent further manipulation by bad actors." So the published threshold is one of two, and the other is not published.

Spotify's own example: a new track, streamed 750 times in its first calendar month and 500 in its second1,250 streams

Month one, below the threshold: streams that earn0

Month two, threshold crossed: streams that earn500

Streams that never earn750

Share of the track's streams paid nothing60%

750 + 500 = 1,250, and 750 ÷ 1,250 = 60%. The page's words: "that track would generate royalties for all 500 streams in that second month", because "a track generates royalties for all streams in the first month it reaches eligibility" and not for any month before. Averaged over the rolling 12 months, the threshold is 1,000 ÷ 12 = 83.33 streams a month. The page counts the 12-month total, not any single month, so a track can clear it on one strong month and eleven quiet ones.

What a track at the threshold earns

Spotify publishes no per-stream rate: its royalties page says "Spotify does not pay artist royalties according to a per-play or per-stream rate". The nearest independent figure comes from the UK Competition and Markets Authority. Its press release on the music streaming study says "an artist could expect to earn around £12,000 from 12 million streams in the UK in 2021", and the executive summary carries the same pair of numbers without the country or the year: "12 million streams a year could earn an artist around £12,000". The UK and 2021 scope comes from the press release alone. Neither page says how the figure was built.

One track at exactly the threshold, at the CMA's 2021 UK figures1,000 streams

£12,000 ÷ 12,000,000 streams, our division of the CMA's two numbers£0.001 a stream

1,000 × £0.001£1.00 a year

Minimum amount to withdraw, as Spotify describes distributors' terms"usually $2-$50"

Withdrawable, for an artist whose whole catalogue is this tracknothing yet

The pound figure is the CMA's model of an artist's earnings in one country in one year, not a rights holder's gross and not Spotify's rate. The dollar range is Spotify's description of other companies' terms; the distributors' own pages did not load for us. We do not convert between the two.

Spotify's case, in its own numbers

The support page says "Tracks with between 1 and 1,000 annual streams generate $0.03 per month on average and only represent 0.5% of total streams". The announcement on Spotify for Artists puts the same figures the other way up: "99.5% of all streams are of tracks that have at least 1,000 annual streams", and 100 − 99.5 = 0.5, so the two documents agree. It says "Today, Spotify hosts well over 100 million tracks", that "Tens of millions of them have been streamed between 1 and 1,000 times over the past year", and that "these small disregarded payments have added up to $40 million per year". At $0.03 a month, a sub-threshold track's year is $0.03 × 12 = $0.36.

Both pages say the pool does not shrink: "The size of the royalty pool remains unchanged — roughly two-thirds of every dollar Spotify earns from music", and "Spotify will not make additional money under this model." The announcement then says where the withheld money goes: "we will simply use the tens of millions of dollars annually to increase the payments to all eligible tracks, rather than spreading it out into $0.03 payments." That is Spotify's central claim, and the counter-case for an artist above the threshold: the same pool, divided among fewer tracks. How much any eligible track gains from it is not published. On who charges the banking fee, the two pages differ. The support page says "music distributors typically charge artists a banking fee to withdraw earnings (usually $1-$20 per withdrawal)". The announcement says "banks charge a fee for the transaction (usually $1-$20 per withdrawal)". Same range, different party.

What it leaves out

Publishing. The support page: "There will be no changes to how publishing royalties are calculated for now", and "This eligibility calculation only applies to recording royalties." In the US the mechanical side of the songwriting royalty runs on a statutory formula; performance royalties are set outside this regulation and are not covered here. Under 37 CFR 385.21, the all-in royalty is "the greater of" two amounts, the first being "The applicable percent of Service Provider Revenue, as set forth in Table 1 to this paragraph (b)(1)", which for 2026 is 15.3%. That is a pool-level rate, not a per-track one, and it reaches a self-releasing writer only through a publisher or the Mechanical Licensing Collective. A track under the threshold still counts there.

Coming back. "A track can go from eligible to ineligible to eligible again as popularity changes over time." The count is global: "all tracks that have been streamed at least 1,000 times globally in the previous 12 months will be included in streamshare calculations".

Per recording. "Each unique sound recording has to separately qualify to generate royalties." A live version and a studio version are two tracks with two counts.

The base. The pool is a share of net revenue: "To calculate net revenue, we subtract the money we collect but don't get to keep", which "includes payments for things like taxes, credit card processing fees, and billing, along with some other things like sales commissions." The size of those deductions is not published. Spotify's own advice on what a track earned: "Please continue to refer to your royalty reports from your label or distributor as the best source of truth."

Confidence

1,000 streams in 12 months; unique-listener gate, number withheld; the 750/500 example; first-month rule; re-eligibility; global count; per-recording rule; publishing unaffected; $0.03 and 0.5%; distributor fee and minimum ranges; pool unchanged, roughly two-thirds; in effect April 2024 —Spotify for Artists support, primary No per-stream rate; net revenue and its deductions —Spotify, royalties page, primary 99.5%; $40 million a year; over 100 million tracks; tens of millions below the threshold; no additional money for Spotify; withheld payments redirected to eligible tracks; live from April 1 2024 —Spotify for Artists announcement, 21 Nov 2023, primary £12,000 from 12 million streams, UK, 2021 —CMA press release, primary; the same two numbers, unscoped —executive summary, primary; basis of the figure not stated on either page 15.3% of service provider revenue for 2026, greater-of formula, mechanical royalties only —37 CFR 385.21, Cornell LII copy, primary text, secondary host Every ledger figure — our arithmetic, from the numbers above The unique-listener minimum — withheld by Spotify; no credible data Distributors' actual minimums and fees — reported by Spotify, not published by a page we could fetch Spotify's per-stream payout, any year, any country — not published The $0.03, $40 million and tens-of-millions figures — Spotify's own statistics about its catalogue; quoted as its case, not verifiable

Didn't survive

"£0.001 a stream is the CMA's figure" Cut — our own error, misattributed — The CMA printed two numbers, £12,000 and 12 million streams. The division is ours, and neither fetched page says what deal, label share or territory mix the pair rests on. The ledger now labels it as our arithmetic on the CMA's numbers.

"A songwriter gets 15.3%" Cut — our own error, wrong unit — As first drafted the statutory rate read like a per-writer share. It is a percentage of a service's revenue for the whole pool, and only one prong of a greater-of formula. The paragraph now says so.

"In the US the songwriting side runs on a statutory formula" Softened — our own error, too wide — 37 CFR 385.21 sets the mechanical rate for interactive streaming. Performance royalties are set outside that regulation, and the section's own formula subtracts them. The sentence now says "the mechanical side".

"83.33 streams a month, every month, for a year" Softened — our own error, wrong rule — The arithmetic was right and the gloss was wrong. Spotify's rule is a rolling 12-month total, not a monthly minimum. The caption now says so.

"The executive summary repeats it" Softened — our own error, scope not on the page — The executive summary's sentence carries neither "UK" nor "2021". Both scope words are in the press release only. The prose and the confidence chip now cite the two pages for what each one says.

The deductions quotation, cut short Restored — our own truncation — As first drafted the quote ended at "and billing". The live sentence continues "along with some other things like sales commissions", a named deduction the cut dropped. The full sentence is now quoted.

Spotify's case, without its central claim Restored — our omission — The first draft said the pool was unchanged and stopped. The announcement's next sentence says the withheld money is used to increase payments to all eligible tracks. A section titled "Spotify's case" that leaves that out is not Spotify's case. It is now quoted, with the note that the gain to any eligible track is not published.

Distributors' minimum payouts, from their own help pages Cut — pages not fetchable — We tried two distributors' help centres to test Spotify's "usually $2-$50". Both returned a forbidden response to our fetcher. Figures we saw only in search snippets are not used. Spotify's range stands as Spotify's description.

A per-stream rate for Spotify, in fractions of a penny Cut — secondary only — Trade press carries estimates. Spotify's own page says there is no per-stream rate, and no primary source prints one.

The share of Spotify's catalogue below the threshold, and what the rule has cost independents Cut — weak — A union percentage, a count of qualifying tracks and an advocacy site's dollar estimate were each sourced to one party with a position. None traces to a fetched primary page.

The Premium price times "roughly two-thirds" Cut — wrong base — The two-thirds is of net revenue after deductions Spotify does not quantify, not of the sticker price. The multiplication would have printed a number nobody can check.

eCFR as the citation for the statutory rate Replaced — page not fetchable — The government's own eCFR page redirected our fetcher to a blocking page. We cite Cornell's Legal Information Institute copy of the same section instead, and grade the host accordingly.

Spotify's five-year payout projection and its running total of money paid to the industry Excluded — Both appear in the announcement. A company's forecasts and totals about its own payouts are advertising under this publication's rules, so they are left out rather than caveated.

Twitch's subscription split, the first choice for this short Abandoned — source unreadable to the checker — Twitch's help centre renders its articles through script. The pages returned no text to our fetcher, and a rate nobody can fetch is a rate nobody can check.

How this was checked

Drafted, then verified by an independent pass that re-derived every figure from primary sources rather than reviewing the draft's reasoning. No human read this before publication. Corrections run at the top of the next issue.