These artists are Spotify’s top earners: Here’s how much they’ve made on the streaming service
Spotify’s music library is loaded with songs from millions of artists that are streamed in the billions every day for which royalties need to be paid.
Spotify revolutionized the digital music landscape by allowing people to stream the songs without having to pay for individual songs or albums and download them to a device. Ten years ago, streaming revenue overtook that of digital downloads. Last year it was valued at nearly $37 billion globally and is forecast to grow more than $40 billion by 2030.
The undisputed king of music streaming platforms is Spotify with nearly a third of market share. It has over 761 million active users, nearly 40% are paying subscribers, who can access a plethora of songs from millions of artists. However, only a fraction of those artists has any real following that can generate cold, hard cash from their material being played on the platform.
Spotify says that around two-thirds of music revenue from both subscribers and non-paying users, whose listening habit is supported by ads, goes to recording and publishing royalties. This money is paid to rightsholders who pay the money to artists and songwriters, and their amount depends on their individual agreements.
In order for a song to generate revenue, it must be streamed (for more than 30 seconds) at least 1,000 times over a 12-month period. While it is reported that artists and rights holders are paid on average between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream, this is a little deceptive as the company doesn’t pay “per stream” but instead based on streamshare in each market explains Spotify.
Pennies add up for Spotify’s top earners
Spotify says that it has paid out $70 billion so far in royalty payments, $11 billion of that last year alone. In 2025, over 1,500 artists earned over $1 million in royalties and the top 80 raked in over $10 million.
Based on a theoretical $0.004 average payout per stream, The Street calculated what the royalty amounts would be for the top earners on the platform. The following are the top five:
1. Taylor Swift: $476 million
2. Bad Bunny: $414 million
3. Drake: $395 million
4. The Weeknd: $327 million
5. Ariana Grande: $245 million
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