How to Earn from Streaming Platforms like Spotify, Gaana & iTunes?

There are passionate artists and career-oriented musicians in this industry. The passionate artists may or may not intend to convert their art into money, while some make music to monetize it and earn their living.

Earlier, playback singing was the only career path for musicians to earn money. But with the internet being revolutionized, musicians and independent artists have a good scope of earning through online music streaming.

If you are new to the industry, you need to learn a bit about how the music streaming platforms work and how you can monetize your creations. The global music streaming revenue has crossed the mark of $18.9 billion as of 2020, whereas $10.1 billion is generated just from the US market.

Hence, this explains the demand and potential of music streaming services to pay the artists for what they have produced and uploaded over their platforms.

This article intends to drive your focus towards earning potential for musicians over Spotify, iTunes, and Gaana. Following that, you will also get knowledge on the revolution in the music streaming industry.

The Era of Streaming Music Online

With the launch of Spotify in the year 2008, everything changed. The way people address music and access it has changed since then. Back then, in 2008, music streaming was just a dream for many music consumers, which Spotify fulfilled and accounted for just 1% of all music sales.

By the year 2013, Spotify got over 30 million users, out of which 8 million users were premium subscribers. It offered both online and offline modes for users to access the uploaded media over the platform.

The digital music industry soon gained pace, and many online music streaming platforms went live. Some of the top names apart from Spotify are Gaana.com and Apple iTunes. The industry earned a big fortune and continues to grow with impeccable demand and sales rates.

Not just the music listeners but the creators also benefitted from this rapid boom in the digital music industry. Soon, the companies started facilitating independent music creators to upload and rank their music over dedicated streaming platforms.

Platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Gaana.com, and others have offered a chance to independent artists to monetize their songs or arts over their platform. There is a specific process that is different for all the platforms. You will know about it from the later sections in this article!

Earning from Spotify

Spotify offers you two pathways to earn with your music over the platform. You can either earn royalty from your master rights or earn revenue from the performance rights.

The royalties you earn from the master rights come to you from the streams you do over the internet. When you are an independent musician or label artist and are self-releasing the songs, the money will be transferred directly to you or the label you work with.

Independent musicians are their labels and their songwriters. Therefore, you get all the monetary and song credits. But if you are in a band, then definitely you need to decide on the split-ups before releasing the song over Spotify.

But, if your music is copyrighted by a record label, they have the master rights to it. They will be receiving the royalties of Spotify, and you will be paid as per the contract you signed with them. It might be a share from the royalty or a one-time payment.  

The revenue on performance rights is a different mode of earning for musicians, as it is paid to the composer, publisher, and lyricist of every song that is uploaded. The payment is made by the collection societies or the performing rights organization.

Some big names of such organizations are ASCAP, PRS, GEMA, SACEM, SUISA, SGAE, and others. They collect the entire revenue from Spotify and then decide the percentage that needs to be given to the individual creators or contributors based on their performance.

Here is an example to give you a clear understanding of how this process works:

Suppose you are an independent music creator or someone working under a label. In that case, when the song gets streamed, you or the digital music distributor will get the royalties. But, if you are just the lyricist of the song, then you will get the performance royalty from the publisher, as Spotify will pay the collection society and not you directly.

The payments are processed to the respective parties only after 3 to 4 months of completion of streams. You will be able to see the royalties or revenue over the distributor dashboard and it will be transferred directly to the account you have linked to the platform.

One stream over Spotify is counted only when the track has been heard by a user for 30 seconds or more. If the streaming time for users is less than 30 seconds, it is not counted as payable. As per the updates by Spotify, it pays $0.00437 for every counted stream.

So, as per the latest pricing, a musician will need 336,842 streams to earn $1472 of revenue. You don’t have to earn big right from the start. Over time, with more streams, you will be earning good fortune out of Spotify. At the same time, you can stream your music over other platforms as well.

Earning from Apple iTunes

Apple iTunes or Apple Music pays more than that of Spotify, for which the earnings multiply exponentially for the creators. iTunes store was launched in 2003 and has helped many artists to make a living out of selling their independent or labelled music.

iTunes was always a paid application for Apple users, for which it didn’t have many audiences in select countries across the world. But when the digital music industry started to take a boom, people leaned toward listening to quality music, and Apple iTunes witnessed increased sales in their subscription models.

There is an evident discussion about the streaming royaltiesand how musicians can earn from different music streaming platforms. Every creator listed under iTunes is liable for getting the same price without the need to pay the cost of featuring their songs.

52% of the headline rate is accountable for all the labels that hold master rights to the published songs. It is the same for all labels, irrespective of their name or reputation in the industry. Whether you sign as an independent artist or through a label, Apple believes in valuing all music and all creators.

The songwriters also get the same headline rate, without them, the recording isn’t possible at all. Apple has spent millions just optimizing its publishing and payment systems to clear the dues of songwriters as soon as possible.

The average per play rate with Apple iTunes is $0.01. The other music streaming platforms, such as Spotify, calculates the payout of musicians and contributing performers based on a stream-share basis. But, Apple considers every single play over their application.

The average per play value might vary depending upon the region or country. It is the same for the publisher and label royalties.

There are no such service facilities for music artists to get lower royalty rates in exchange for featuring their songs. Apple iTunes or Apple Music operates with an algorithm for recommending songs to the users. Therefore, no featuring service facility is offered to the musicians.

Due to this commitment Apple completed paying royalties to over 5 million artists in 2020. The count was 4 million in 2019. There are catalogs of artists who have earned royalties of over $1 million per year recently, which is 120% higher than what artists earned back in 2017.

Earning from Gaana.com

Gaana.com operates similarly to that all the other music streaming platforms. The labels, independent artists, or publishing authorities upload music over their platform and get the royalties depending upon the average per-stream rate.

Gaana is offering an even lower price than that of Spotify, which is ideal for beginners, but not for the creators who believe their music is of more worth. As per the recent news specified by Gaana, they are paying an average per-stream price of $0.0013 to $0.002.

The monthly active users of Gaana increased by 150 million in 2019, which was more than half of the global monthly user count of Spotify in 2019. Spotify had around 271 million monthly users back in 2019.

What is the Process for Musicians to Earn Money from any Music Streaming Platform?

Now that you know how much you can expect to earn from the three top music streaming platforms, you need to learn how to approach a high-paying opportunity over them.

Irrespective of whether you stream your music over Gaana, Apple iTunes, or Spotify, the initial steps will be the same to be eligible for royalties. The steps are as follows:

1. Work on your Online Presence

There are many artists that stream their music online through dedicated platforms but do not get the desired or deserving response. The evident reason behind this is the lack of online presence.

The independent artists or the labels need to promote or market their songs to their followers and audiences through different platforms. You need to make an effort to direct your fans, followers, and friends to listen to your songs and review them. The more it streams, the better will be your pay scale.

So, work on improving your online presence. Talk to some experts on how you can market your songs and help get them more streams or plays. Here are some of the major things that you can do for the same:

• Add blog posts and make sure to add Call-To-Actions in them to prompt readers to follow you on Spotify, Gaana, or Apple iTunes.
• Add CTAs to the email campaigns as well by letting your fans know that you have dropped new music for them to stream.
• If you are active on YouTube, which you should be, tell them about your new song over the music streaming platform at the end while asking them to subscribe to your channel.
• Add your Apple iTunes, Spotify, or Gaana profile over your business cards, promotional posters, and other print materials. People will not just get the hint of listening to your songs but will also follow you over the platforms.

2. Keep releasing more of your Songs

There are artists who are adamant on holding onto their unreleased tracks, thinking too much about their perfection. They often have their live performances recorded and alternative mixed songs, but they often live in denial to publish or release them.

Even though some songs might not get you good earnings, they will still give you some earnings. It is at least better than nothing! In addition, the audience will have a mix of options for you to listen to and enjoy.

You need to be an entrepreneur for yourself and promote your songs and music profile to the audience at every possible chance. Go to café shops and sing your song to get the audience’s attention. Go for these small gigs and force your audience to go home and listen to the track again by streaming it over your given platform.

When you are out for such gigs, make sure you share posters or have a flex banner with your streaming platform logo for people to search it there.

Final Words

So, this is how you can earn good money by streaming your music over dedicated digital platforms. Make sure you read the terms and conditions of the platform you choose to ensure that you don’t violate any of them.

Apple iTunes offers you the best pay in terms of average per play rate. But, the audience count is high on Spotify and Gaana, which gives you the possibility of getting more streams.

The platform you choose depends upon your confidence in the song you created. You can also list your song over all three platforms to get collective pay-outs for good earnings. So, make sure you follow the mentioned steps and take note of the earning potential from each of the music streaming platforms to finally decide on one.

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