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Streaming music is a huge thing nowadays and everyone likes listening to their favorite songs and discovering new talented artists online. But did you know that you can also earn money through streaming music? And we are talking about a lot of money here.
Music streaming companies usually use advertisements, partnerships, and subscriptions to get their platforms visited by more people. If you want to stream music on these platforms, you can earn revenue from your streams. We are going to talk about the ways you can earn money through letting your music be heard.
There are several music streaming platforms that you can easily get started on. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Google Music, etc. In this article, we will cover three of the best and most popular platforms for streaming music. Next, we will talk about how you can earn money by listening to music or creating playlists of songs.
Everyone knows Spotify. You probably already listen to music on Spotify. It’s a platform that charges you a very small fee every month and allows you to virtually listen to any song that you want from all over the planet.
For artists and music streamers, Spotify differs between premium and free members who listen to your songs. It also matters which country your music is being played for. Spotify pays something in the range of $0.003 to $0.005 per stream. You need to stream your music for a lot of people in order to earn a considerable amount of money. If the people who play your music are premium members, you tend to earn more from their streams.
Before you start streaming, you need to get your music on Spotify through a distributor. There are several artist distributors to choose from. According to Spotify, DistroKid, CD Baby, Vydia, EmuBands, iGroove, and Record Union are some of the best artist distributors, which Spotify recommends. Out of these, DistroKid is the most popular one. You can easily sign up and use their service with a small annual fee of $19.99 to upload as many tracks as you want.
After you are done uploading your tracks through the distributor, you can stream your music on Spotify. You will also get an artist profile as soon as you come to an agreement with your distributor. The payment range mentioned before depends on this agreement.
SoundCloud is as popular as Spotify when it comes to listening to music online. Uploading your music on a streaming platform has never been easier with Soundcloud. This platform allows you to directly upload your track without having to use a distributor. It offers you a free plan and some paid packages for your artistic career.
Using this service offered by Soundcloud itself, you can achieve higher revenue rates and faster pays. Plus, you get to upload your files immediately. If you join Soundcloud premier, you can easily monetize your streams and earn money.
Usually, on these platforms, your revenue depends on your contract with your distributor. Sometimes the distributor gets a higher percentage of the revenue and sometimes less. That’s why your payment on Soundcloud may vary from $2 to $4 per thousand views.
Your payment also depends on what countries are listening to your music streams. There is a list of countries that Soundcloud offers payouts for streaming. In addition, if the user who listens to your streams is a paid member on Soundcloud, you earn more revenue, compared to free users. You can easily use PayPal on Soundcloud to get paid around 45 days after monetization.
Apple Music is not as famous as Soundcloud and Spotify among users, but it has its own audience, which comprises a very large population. You can use Apple Music to reach out to the rest of the people in their community.
In order to put your music on Apple Music, you need to use a distributor. Apple Music names some distributors preferred by them in this article. CD Baby and The Orchard are two of these distributors on the top of their list.
Apple Music has one of the highest rates of payment among these streaming platforms. They pay $0.01 on average per stream. Meaning that you can earn $10 from every thousand streams. This is higher than what other platforms pay but you have to keep in mind that maybe getting to a high number of streams might be a little harder.
Apple Music pays you within 30 days of each month. In order to get paid, you have to provide all banking and tax information and also exceed the minimum required amount of at least $10 to $150 based on the country you live in. They explain all the payment conditions on their official website.
If you decide to stream your music only on one platform, your revenue and income might not seem that high. However, if you set up your artist profile on all of the mentioned platforms, you can earn a considerably high amount of money. Imagine if you had 10,000 streams on each of these platforms per month, you would have a passive income of $170. With a simple calculation, you get $30 from Spotify, $30 from SoundCloud, and $100 from Apple Music. And this is just the beginning.
If you do not plan to release your own music, there is still a chance for you to earn money. So, you like listening to music, right? You can add your favorite songs that match in melody and style to a playlist on Spotify. People will listen to your playlist and even get to know less heard artists. This is important for an artist because it helps them gain recognition. They might want to contact you to put their songs in your playlist. For that purpose, you can include your contact information.
There is also a website called PlaylistPush. Using PlaylistPush, you can list your playlist on Spotify and artists will find you through browsing the list. If the style of the songs that you have in your playlist matches their style, they will choose you. You can also get paid for reviewing their songs, meaning you can earn $12 for every song you review. This is a great way to help indie artists grow as well.
Conclusion
Now you know all the things necessary to build up your own music streaming career on Spotify, SoundCloud, and Apple Music. You can also earn money by just creating your own playlists of music. The pays might not seem that high in the beginning, but gradually, your audience circle expands. If your music is catchy and people like it, you might as well be the next big talent in the music industry or the next big curator to help artists grow.
