How to Make Money on Spotify: 6 Actionable Ways

Spotify is a well-renowned audio streaming platform cherished by musicians and listeners. With its 182 million users, it is currently the most famous music platform in the world. However, despite all its popularity, many artists are still clueless about how to make money on Spotify.

We understand that it’s hard for independent artists to keep their passion alive without enough funding and appreciation. But remember that it’s your right to get paid for the man-hours you spend making music.

That’s the only way you will be able to outrun the financial fear and keep your craft alive. So, in order to help you out, we will share six ways of making money on Spotify today.

Can You Make Money on Spotify?

Yes! You can make money on Spotify if your music is spectacular enough to attract listeners. Of course, like any other music streaming platform, Spotify has policies that allow artists to generate revenue from their tracks. For instance, there’s a pay-per-stream policy in which artists get paid every time someone plays their track.

However, all the payment policies on Spotify lead up to Royalties. The platform pays royalties to all the relevant stakeholders that own, record, and upload a track.

Only in 2021, Spotify paid over $7 billion against royalties to several record labels and rising artists. Now, there are dozens of other ways of making money on Spotify besides royalties. So, let’s explore those methods and move on to the next section.

6 Different Ways to Make Money on Spotify

The following are official and a couple of non-official ways of making money on Spotify. If executed correctly, any one of them can get you excellent results and tons of profit. Therefore, stay attentive and see which one of these methods you can implement perfectly.

Spotify’s preferred way of paying artists is via royalties because they cover all stakeholders that took part in creating a track. That’s right! There are three different types of royalties for various stakeholders. Spotify doesn’t just pay the artist but also the writer who wrote the lyrics and the music distribution company.

Here are the different types of royalties that Spotify offers:

Artist Royalty

Artist royalty, most commonly known as “Master use Royalty,” is the amount that Spotify pays directly to the artist. If you’re an independent artist distributing his music through a platform, Spotify will pay you against every stream. Simply put, every time someone plays your track, money flows into your account.

Currently, Spotify is paying about $0.003 to $0.005 per stream on average. This payout is relatively low compared to other streaming services, and many artists have protested against it. However, this amount hasn’t increased despite all the condemnation. Who knows, maybe that’s why artists always look for other ways to make money on Spotify.

Mechanical Royalties

Mechanical royalties are paid to the songwriters for writing the lyrics of a song published on Spotify. Now, unlike most streaming services, Spotify doesn’t pay this royalty directly to independent songwriters. Instead, they keep sending it to a collection society, and the writer’s publishing administrators are supposed to collect the money.

Performance Royalties

These royalties are paid to the artists who write lyrics and publish their tracks on their own. You can say that it’s the combination of artist and mechanical royalties. That is because, in this scenario, both royalties go to the same party.

2. Spotify Playlists

Who says that you can only make money by uploading tracks on Spotify? You can also become a curator, create a hit playlist and use it to make money.

For this tactic to work, you need to work in three steps:

First, compile a playlist that is perfect in every aspect. Ensure that it contains all the trending tracks the audience wants to listen to in one go.
Second, start promoting it across platforms to make it a huge hit.
Third, make more playlists and secure as many fans as possible to become a successful curator.

Once you earn a reputation as a curator, you can take money from artists to promote their music. Or you can charge them for adding their tracks to one of your playlists.

3. Spotify Podcast

Not so long ago, Spotify came up with a podcast subscription program. It allows podcasters to earn money by charging their listeners for access to exclusive content. So, if you’re good at public speaking, speak your heart out in a podcast and make money through it.

To get started, you need to upload your podcast onto the platform. It’s important to recognize that starting and hosting a Spotify podcast is no joke. It requires consistent hard work to draw listeners and build enough followers to generate revenue. That’s why you should plan out your every move before starting a podcast.

4. Make Good Money by Getting More Music Streams

The best way of earning money through your tracks is to gain more Spotify streams on them. Simply promote your tracks on different platforms, share them with friends, and try to get more plays. As your number of streams increase, so will your Artist royalty and thus more money for you.

However, this method requires you to put in a lot of effort in marketing. Utilize your social media channels for this job and ask your fans to promote your track.

5. Sell Merch on Spotify

Spotify allows its artists to connect their profile with a merchandise store through a third-party app called “Merch Bar.” This way, you can sell your t-shirts, caps, bandanas, etc., to the fans.

Here’s how you can directly connect your Shopify store to an artist profile:

Step 1: “Log In” to your artist account from artists.spotify.com.

Step 2: Go to your profile page and click on “Merch.”

Step 3: Now, click on “Login to Shopify.”

Step 4: Once logged in, enter your Shopify store’s URL and click on “Link Shop.”

Of course, you’ll also have to adjust the settings on your online store to allow Spotify to access the merchandise. But it’s not that difficult at all. You can simply contact the platform’s help team and ask them about it.

6. Promote Your Concert on Spotify

If you have a significant fan following on Spotify, put it to good use and promote your concert there. Tell your fans about the concert and invite them to come. You can also distribute a couple of free tickets to create hype around the event.

Once you’ve created enough hype, tell the audience they can purchase tickets online and add the link to your profile. Through this tactic, you will increase the number of attendees to your concert and make money by selling tickets.

Conclusion

That concludes today’s article! We hope that you liked this post and noted down all the tactics. Check out our blog for more informative articles about social media or music streaming platforms.

If you have any questions regarding this post or want to add something to it, let us know in the comments section. You can also share your valuable suggestions on our social media channels.