The music marketing trinity-streaming, merch, and live shows

[@tomdupreeiii]

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[@BottleneckMoses]

Spotify currently pays $0.04 per 10 streams, so even though there are a super small minority of people who will make a fortune from streaming, the honest truth is that most people won’t even come close to recovering their ad spend to generate streams. Just keeping it real. Do some gigs and sell some merch if you want to be able to buy more than a can of beans from your musical output. Everything in this video is completely valid, but the realistic outlook for not losing money pursuing a career in music is highly unlikely. I managed to make a decent living from music for 10 years playing very large gigs and constant touring, but it was a hard slog with many personal sacrifices. Bottom line - make music for the love of it without preconceived expectations.

[@toa5tytunes]

The Spotify rate paid out per stream does largely depend on listener location. Plus the payout amount you're referring to is probably the mechanical side and doesn't include publishing. Spotify royalties are more nebulas than one flat rate. I think music is like any other business pursuit. Not every endeavor is money making. However, if we don't take the financial risk we never learn how to make our business profitable.

[@BottleneckMoses]

Yes, I agree with you, but they’re still appalling across the board. The whole point of my rant wasn’t meant to be a dream killer - more of a realistic look at the difficulty of feeding yourself (or your family, god forbid) via music consumption in 2024.

[@uselesschris6951]

0.04 per 10 streams is already really good, I recently (kinda) blew up Indonesia and that country paid me $0.9 for 20,000 streams, can't even live for a day in Indonesia with that number lol

[@BottleneckMoses]

@@uselesschris6951 That’s what I was trying to make people aware of in my first reply to this video. I think content creators should be very upfront when talking about streaming services that it’s extremely unlikely that people will make any real money from it. Maybe a couple of dozen out of millions of streamers? Don’t quote me on that guesstimate 🙂. I was talking to a Nashville sideman (guitarist) about lives rates, who gets $200 to $500 per show for stadium gigs with huge contemporary artists - usually on the lower end of that if it’s for an extensive tour. Just do it for love and not for money 🎼